Magnitude: A Military Science Fiction Thriller (Multiverse Space Book One) Page 2
Craig flinched. His eyes narrowed. “Bugger that!”
Flipping his weapon’s fire selector switch to Burst, he squeezed the trigger. A trio of depleted uranium darts burped from his M4 and burned into the head of the grinning machine. The thing withered and collapsed.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” Captain Laurent yelled. She shot one of the machines. The three-round burst stitched a line of grooves into the carapace of the mechanical monster, but the thing continued to advance. It lunged at her.
“Sacrebleu!” Laurent swore as she leaped back. Adjusting her aim, she fired into the head of the beast. Two of the rounds ricocheted, but the third penetrated, and the caterpillar-looking machine collapsed.
The entire squad opened fire. Not all of the rounds they shot inflicted damage. Some of them simply ricocheted off, leaving gouges in the metal bodies of the aggressors.
As the machines began to spread out, crawling over one another, Craig saw there were dozens of the massive robots. He wondered how the roof hadn’t collapsed the instant the big-assed bastards had landed on it. Where in the hell had these things come from anyway? He hadn’t heard any helicopters, and it would have taken a lot more than one to deposit these things up there.
Even as the questions raced through Craig’s mind, the remaining robots shifted in unison. They moved as one toward the shaft that led down to ATLAS.
“We have to stop them from getting to the collider!” shouted Captain Laurent. She pressed two fingers to her throat microphone. “CERN Ops, this is Overwatch! Shut it down! Kill the power, now!”
Nothing but static. It sounded as if someone was jamming the frequency.
Comprehension slammed home.
This was why the powers that be had stationed a quick reaction force here.
Someone had known these things might come.
But where in the hell had they come from? Who could have made them?
Was it the Russians?
No. That couldn’t be it. Yuri was a sergeant in the Russian Spetsnaz. Even now, the man was firing on the robots.
Craig yanked the muzzle of his M4 to the right. In rapid succession, he triggered a quartet of three-round bursts into the head of another of the surging machines. The metallic gourd split in half, rupturing under the fusillade. The thing finally dropped, collapsing to the white concrete floor.
Moving under fire, the churning mass of machines reached the top of the shaft and began to shred the steel grate that capped it.
Aiming at the nearest of the robots, Craig fired another trio of depleted uranium sabot rounds at its head.
Beside him, Baker shot at the articulated bot next to it.
He blinked and flinched as short, narrow beams of bright light flickered in the air around the machines and then nothing. Not even a scratch marred the skin of the robots they’d targeted.
Had the rounds vanished?
None of the darts he and Baker fired had found their mark.
Craig shot again with the same results. Light danced around the machine, and none of the DU sabot darts reached their target.
Baker fired once more, and Craig saw the source of the beams. The light was coming from a small glass dome under the head of each robot.
Shifting his aim, Craig fired, intending to shatter the glass. Again, the light flickered, and the rounds vanished, leaving not so much as a scratch on the apparent lens.
He saw Captain Laurent shaking her head. “These things are not supposed to have that capability!”
“Wait!” Baker said, confusion twisting his features. He leaned forward and looked across Craig, staring at the French officer. “You knew about these—?”
A wider beam of white light shot from the lens under the caterpillar-like machine’s chin. Narrowly missing Craig, the ray washed across Baker.
The man vanished mid-word.
Chapter 3
Everyone but the captain jumped back. “Keep shooting!” she shouted, waving them forward. “We must overwhelm their defenses.” Raising her Heckler & Koch HK416 again, she opened fire. The German-made variant of the M4 carbine jittered in her hands as it released a barrage of sabot darts.
The metal grate under the mass of machines began to squeal beneath the weight of the dozen remaining caterpillar bots. Then it collapsed, and all of them fell out of sight.
Craig looked at the point where Baker had stood a moment before. A pair of boot-shaped voids remained in the field of brass casings that littered the floor.
Dragging his eyes from the image, he ran up to the edge of the shaft and looked down.
The entire assembly had come to rest on the next floor, having fallen only three or four meters.
The robots were already chewing through that metal as well. Several of them began to scramble down the side of the shaft, their pincer-like claws digging into the metallic walls.
Each member of the squad aimed down and fired on the descending robots.
Hundreds of shots rang out.
Few, if any, of the rounds found their targets as hundreds of light beams flickered up the shaft.
Another team member vanished. Lieutenant Fay, a US Navy SEAL, disappeared as he leaned over to fire down on a descending robot.
“Hit ’em with a mix of sabot rounds and grenades!” Captain Laurent yelled. “We need to overwhelm their defenses!”
Craig moved his trigger finger to the grenade launcher. He gave the captain a sideways glance. “What about the collider and the scientists down there?”
“Screw the scientists. They’re part of the problem. They didn’t want to believe this could happen.”
She fired a grenade down the hole, but a flash of light swallowed the round before it could reach its target.
The French officer glanced at Craig. “If we are lucky, we will take out the collider, too.” She dipped her head, nodding down the shaft toward the descending robots. “That is what they are here for. If we let them take control of the collider, we will lose a lot more than a few scientists.”
As Craig struggled to comprehend what she was saying, he fired a grenade toward one of the caterpillar bots descending the far side of the shaft. The thing was already thirty meters below the second deck. After loosing the grenade, he immediately swapped to fully automatic and sent a ten-round burst of depleted uranium sabot rounds.
The grenade vanished in a flicker of light, but two or three of the hypervelocity darts ripped through the torso of the crawling machine. It broke into pieces and fell out of sight.
Before he could celebrate, a beam of light arced up from the back of another of the machines. It washed over a South African special operator, causing the woman to vanish. Then it swept toward Craig.
He ducked sideways just as the light flickered past where his head had been a moment before.
Scanning the walls of the shaft, Craig looked for a means to give chase. The bastards were getting away.
Shaking his head, he growled through clenched teeth. “Shit. There’s nothing. No way to follow them down. The robots took out the entire stairwell and grate.”
The squad had lengths of rope back at the base, but they now sat crushed beneath the roof’s collapsed section.
He looked around, searching for something they could use to lower themselves down the shaft.
Shit! Still nothing. There were plenty of wires strewn throughout the wrecked assemblies and equipment, but nothing long enough to get them anywhere close to the bottom of the long, vertical tunnel.
Captain Laurent shouted and waved for Craig and the remaining members of the quick reaction force to follow her. She ran toward a door on the left. “Head for the stairwell. We can’t let them get to ATLAS!”
She pressed a pair of fingers to her throat mic and activated her radio again. “CERN Ops, this is Overwatch! Why is the power still on?!”
As she reached the door and
threw it open, she shook her head. “No one is answering!”
Craig tapped his ear. “I didn’t hear you over the radio. I don’t think you transmitted.”
Holding the door open, Captain Laurent waved them through. She activated her radio again. “Operations, this is Overwatch! I say again, cut the power, now! Now, now, now!”
“Still cannae hear you. You’re no getting through.” Craig ran past her and headed down the stairs, shouting over his shoulder. “Sounds like someone is jamming the frequency.”
The captain cursed in French.
Craig heard her and the rest of the QRF squad hot on his heels as he sprinted down the stairs. He encountered a few scientists running in the other direction, coming up the stairwell while he and the rest of the troops careened down it. Amazingly, the lab coat-bedecked men and women no longer appeared offended by the presence of armed military personnel.
Several flights later, Craig finally reached the bottom of the stairwell. After a quick scan of the area beyond, he stormed through the doors, took up a defensive position, and then waved in the squad’s remaining five members.
They had entered a corridor that looked like something you’d see in a hospital. Immediately, he registered a loud hum that seemed to be rising in intensity.
Captain Laurent pulled up next to him and pointed toward one end of the corridor. “That way!”
Craig started running in the indicated direction. Using bounding overwatch maneuvers, he and the rest of the squad leapfrogged down the corridor.
Running beside him, her carbine at the ready, Laurent pointed ahead. “Take a left at the second corridor.”
Just as they reached the indicated passageway, a scientist in a white lab coat backed out of it. Sliding to a stop, Craig narrowly avoided bowling over the man.
The scientist turned wide eyes toward him. He spoke with a distinctly American accent. “They’re trying to do it … again.”
“Who is?” Craig asked. “What are they trying to do, Mister…?” Craig read the name tag on the man’s coat. “Sampson.”
The man blinked and then set his jaw. “D-Doctor Sampson.”
“I don’t give two rats’ asses about your title right now, Sampson. What are you talking about?” Craig paused and looked around. The rest of the group was standing around him. Captain Laurent looked ready to move on, but she obviously valued the intel this doctor might supply.
Sampson blinked and then slowly nodded. “It’s just like in the video they sent us, but the machines are different this time.”
Confused, Craig looked at Captain Laurent and saw her nodding.
Craig spun toward her. “What the hell have you been keeping from us, Captain?” He thrust a finger down the hallway. “And what the bloody hell are those things?”
“We call them Caterpillars. Command didn’t think the Necks would find us, so they locked the whole thing under a lid of secrecy.”
“Necks? What are you talking about?”
Holding up a hand, Laurent shook her head. “No time to explain.” She pointed to the ceiling. “Hear that growing hum? That is the collider ramping up, and it’s not us doing it. It’s the Caterpillars. We have to take out those robots before they can finish what they are doing. Otherwise … things are going to get much, much worse.” Pausing, she looked at Sampson. “Wait! Why did you not cut the power?”
“They were on top of us before we knew what was happening.”
The captain narrowed her eyes. “Surely you had enough time to hit the emergency kill switch.”
Craig realized she must be referring to the big red button he and Baker had spoken about earlier.
All the color drained from the American’s face. Apparently, the thought of pressing that button had scared him worse than the attacking robots.
Confirming Craig’s suspicions, the man said, “The last person that did that lost his career.”
Laurent’s eyes flared. “We all stand to lose a lot more than our careers, Doctor!” She paused and looked down the corridor. “Where are the Caterpillars now?”
“There’s at least one in the control room.” He raised an arm and pointed ahead. “The rest of the robots are on this side of the door, facing outward like they’re guarding the entrance. I barely made it out of there alive.” His eyes darkened. “I don’t think anyone else did.”
Captain Laurent held her hand out like a blade and pointed it down the corridor. “The control room is down the first hallway on your right. Move it!”
Staying low and keeping his weapon pointed ahead, Craig hurried in the indicated direction. He winced as his boots clanged on the hollow subfloor, momentarily eclipsing the noise of the building energies. The echoing clatter would make it impossible to sneak up on the robots.
He reached the adjoining corridor and stopped short. Glancing back, he saw Captain Laurent following with the American scientist in tow. The man looked none too happy to be coming with them.
Returning his attention ahead, Craig focused on the large, curved mirror hanging above the T-shaped intersection. In the fish-eyed, wide-angle image, he saw several of the large Caterpillars. They lined the wall at the far end of the corridor.
He looked back at Captain Laurent and shook his head. “It’s no good,” he whispered. “If their light beams can snatch a high-velocity sabot dart out of the air, we don’t stand a chance. The instant one of us shows ourselves, the Caterpillars will hit us with that light.”
The captain looked at the scientist. “Is there another way around?”
Sampson shook his head. “Only through the actual ATLAS detector facility, but if you go that way, you’ll be killed by the radiation.”
Craig looked up into the curved surface of the mirror again. The robots didn’t seem interested in pursuing them. If he could see them, they could surely see him, too, but they held their post.
In the wide-angle view, he saw sections of the floor buckling under the metallic legs of the Caterpillars. The sight reminded him of the hollow sound his boots made when he’d advanced to this position.
He turned and looked at the scientist. “What’s under these floors? Is there a passageway?”
“Yes. We pump cold air in there. It keeps the electronics and cabling from overheating.”
Captain Laurent nodded her understanding. “Sampson, is there sufficient room for a person to crawl around down there?”
“A couple of people could probably get through. And there’s nothing between here and the control room.”
She started to look away from the scientist. Then her gaze snapped back to his face. She regarded the man through narrowed lids. “Are you the Sampson that was there when it happened?”
The American scientist’s eyes drifted left and up. He started to shake his head but then nodded. His shoulders sagged. “Yes, I … I was there.”
Captain Laurent released a string of French curse words, finishing with “Idiot!”
Turning from the man, she pointed to the other members of the squad. “You four keep the enemy engaged. Stay here where they can see you.” She gestured at Craig and herself and then pointed a thumb over her shoulder, indicating the direction from which they had come. “We’ll fall back, get out of sight of this mirror, and then ingress via the crawl space.”
Everyone nodded their understanding. Craig led the way back down the corridor.
All the while, the collider’s hum continued to rise, setting his teeth on edge. Somehow, it seemed to have taken on an evil undertone, as if demons from Hell were intent on crossing into the facility’s subterranean depths.
The captain followed close on Craig’s heels, dragging the scientist by the now soot-smudged lapel of his white lab coat.
Reaching the next intersection, Craig checked and then darted around the corner. After verifying it remained clear, he waved the captain and her unwilling ward forward. They joined him in the main corridor.
Craig glanced back, ensuring they had passed out of the convex mirror’s field of view. The
n he dropped to a knee and extracted his Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife. Flipping it to point the blade down, he glimpsed his grandfather’s initials, GSD, carved into the handle. From fighting Germans in North Africa to battling alien robots beneath Geneva … If you could only talk, Craig thought. He wedged the F-S knife’s sharp point into the thin line between the panels and began to pry at the floor.
A grunt came from behind him.
Turning, Craig saw Laurent pinning a struggling Sampson to the wall. She patted her holstered sidearm threateningly and then whispered, “You, wait right here.” Not pausing for a reply, she dropped to a knee across from Craig and began to work on the panel as well. A moment later, they raised one side of it and slid it out of the frame. The space visible through the opening was a meter deep and dark.
The French captain stood and grabbed Sampson. She dragged the scientist toward the opening. “You’re coming with us.”
“What?” The man’s eyes flew wide, and his legs went rigid. “You don’t need my— Oof!”
Captain Laurent punched him in the gut and then stuffed the doubled-over man into the hole. She descended behind the scientist and shoved him aside. Then she waved Craig into the crawl space.
He checked both ends of the corridor and then followed her. Careful not to make any noise, he lowered himself through the opening.
The captain pointed over Craig’s shoulder and whispered, “It’s about twenty meters that way.” Then she glared at the scientist. “You stay behind us.”
He rubbed his abdomen, a plaintive look on his face. “Why am I coming?”
“Because, once we take out the robots, we are going to need you to help shut down the collider.”
“I-I …”
Still holding her carbine in one hand, she patted her holstered pistol with the other. “You’ll follow us, or so help me, I will shoot you myself.”
The man’s mouth clicked shut.
Chapter 4
Craig again verified a chambered round and then turned and crawled into the dark underbelly of the facility.
His eyes quickly adapted to the lowlight conditions. Red and green points of LED light stared from every direction, some unblinkingly, others flickering and strobing manically. It looked as if thousands of electrified bats had taken refuge in the meter-tall crawl space.