Area 51: Excalibur-6 by Robert Doherty Page B
Authors: Robert Doherty
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Historical, Fantasy, Action & Adventure, Action, Political, Area 51 (Nev.)
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that it is only a myth now."
A strange look crossed Artad's face, what in a human might have been considered a smile. "Foolish." He crossed the chamber to a control panel. He waved his hands over it and a series of hexagons were backlit with runes written on them.
Artad tapped out a code on the hexagons.
MOUNT EVEREST
Near the top of the highest point on the planet three dead bodies lay on a narrow ledge in front of a frozen chamber that was little more than a four-foot-deep indentation at the top of an almost sheer cliff face. They were suddenly bathed in a red light as the sheath in which Excalibur's blade was encased powered up. The glow was refracted by the ice around the crystal and pulsed out into the atmosphere.
53
QIAN-LING
A red hexagon in the upper right-hand corner of the panel came alive. Artad nodded ever so slightly, then tapped in a new code. The wall in front of him shimmered and went white. A circular image appeared, coming into focus until it was obvious it was the planet as if seen from space. Artad tapped the red hexagon and the planet quickly rotated, then froze in position with a red flashing dot on the surface. He tapped the red hexagon again and the image grew larger. The location was on the border between Nepal and Tibet, in the midst of the Himalayas.
Artad nodded—it made sense they would hide it there. While Excalibur was in the sheath no mechanical transportation could come within several miles of it, a safeguard built into the system so that he—or anyone else—couldn't send a craft to swoop in and pick it up. The Watchers had placed it in the most inaccessible location on the face of the planet. There was only one way to retrieve the key.
Artad turned to Ts'ang Chieh. "Where are the Ones Who Wait?"
"They are outside, my lord."
"Bring them in."
Lexina led her companions Elek and Coridan into the guardian chamber, bowing low, fearing to look up and meet the red eyes of the one they had waited to serve for millennia.
"Is there a way to communicate with those who now rule this land?" Artad asked.
Lexina nodded, still keeping her head down. "Yes, my lord. We have radios. And their forces surround this area."
"Good. I have a message I wish to send them." His red eyes looked over the three Airlia-Human clones. "And I have a mission for you. Look up."
54
They raised their heads. Artad pointed at the screen. "That is where you must go." He reached to his side and drew out a sword. "And something like this is what you must recover. It is most important. I will prepare you as well as I can."
EASTER ISLAND
Aspasia's Shadow's right arm ended abruptly at the wrist. Raw flesh and white bone marked where Turcotte's shot had ripped the hand off. A tourniquet was tied around the middle of the forearm, cutting deep into the skin, but it had stopped the bleeding. His skin, pale to begin with, was ghostly white.
The bouncer he was aboard had just descended through the lake in the center of Rano Kao crater on Easter Island. The bouncer was a gold-colored disk about thirty feet in diameter. It moved through a tunnel at the bottom of the lake as easily as it passed through the air.
A half minute later it surfaced in a pool in a large cavern, went up into the air, and settled down on the dry rock, which made up the other half of the area.
A half dozen US Marines awaited Aspasia's Shadow. Their eyes were glazed over, as they were controlled by the guardian computer via a nanovirus coursing through their brains and blood. The nanovirus could send electrical impulses through the infected persons' brains, controlling their actions, essentially making them part of the Easter Island guardian network. The chilling thing about persons infected by the nanovirus was that while it controlled and directed their nervous systems, a part of their minds was aware of this and unable to change it.
Three of the Marines, part of Task Force Seventy-nine, which had been captured by Aspasia's Shadow's
A strange look crossed Artad's face, what in a human might have been considered a smile. "Foolish." He crossed the chamber to a control panel. He waved his hands over it and a series of hexagons were backlit with runes written on them.
Artad tapped out a code on the hexagons.
MOUNT EVEREST
Near the top of the highest point on the planet three dead bodies lay on a narrow ledge in front of a frozen chamber that was little more than a four-foot-deep indentation at the top of an almost sheer cliff face. They were suddenly bathed in a red light as the sheath in which Excalibur's blade was encased powered up. The glow was refracted by the ice around the crystal and pulsed out into the atmosphere.
53
QIAN-LING
A red hexagon in the upper right-hand corner of the panel came alive. Artad nodded ever so slightly, then tapped in a new code. The wall in front of him shimmered and went white. A circular image appeared, coming into focus until it was obvious it was the planet as if seen from space. Artad tapped the red hexagon and the planet quickly rotated, then froze in position with a red flashing dot on the surface. He tapped the red hexagon again and the image grew larger. The location was on the border between Nepal and Tibet, in the midst of the Himalayas.
Artad nodded—it made sense they would hide it there. While Excalibur was in the sheath no mechanical transportation could come within several miles of it, a safeguard built into the system so that he—or anyone else—couldn't send a craft to swoop in and pick it up. The Watchers had placed it in the most inaccessible location on the face of the planet. There was only one way to retrieve the key.
Artad turned to Ts'ang Chieh. "Where are the Ones Who Wait?"
"They are outside, my lord."
"Bring them in."
Lexina led her companions Elek and Coridan into the guardian chamber, bowing low, fearing to look up and meet the red eyes of the one they had waited to serve for millennia.
"Is there a way to communicate with those who now rule this land?" Artad asked.
Lexina nodded, still keeping her head down. "Yes, my lord. We have radios. And their forces surround this area."
"Good. I have a message I wish to send them." His red eyes looked over the three Airlia-Human clones. "And I have a mission for you. Look up."
54
They raised their heads. Artad pointed at the screen. "That is where you must go." He reached to his side and drew out a sword. "And something like this is what you must recover. It is most important. I will prepare you as well as I can."
EASTER ISLAND
Aspasia's Shadow's right arm ended abruptly at the wrist. Raw flesh and white bone marked where Turcotte's shot had ripped the hand off. A tourniquet was tied around the middle of the forearm, cutting deep into the skin, but it had stopped the bleeding. His skin, pale to begin with, was ghostly white.
The bouncer he was aboard had just descended through the lake in the center of Rano Kao crater on Easter Island. The bouncer was a gold-colored disk about thirty feet in diameter. It moved through a tunnel at the bottom of the lake as easily as it passed through the air.
A half minute later it surfaced in a pool in a large cavern, went up into the air, and settled down on the dry rock, which made up the other half of the area.
A half dozen US Marines awaited Aspasia's Shadow. Their eyes were glazed over, as they were controlled by the guardian computer via a nanovirus coursing through their brains and blood. The nanovirus could send electrical impulses through the infected persons' brains, controlling their actions, essentially making them part of the Easter Island guardian network. The chilling thing about persons infected by the nanovirus was that while it controlled and directed their nervous systems, a part of their minds was aware of this and unable to change it.
Three of the Marines, part of Task Force Seventy-nine, which had been captured by Aspasia's Shadow's
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