partial interpretation. His reconstruction recounted a legend passed down for hundreds of generations about the tragedy of a ‘Great Golden City,’ which was swallowed in a terrible cataclysm that took place nearly 10,000 years before the writing of that codex.”
“Uh, and he said the Mayans knew about this place, did he? What happened to him?” Monica gave Matt a look that radiated a mixture of disbelief and mock gravitas.
“Not exactly. He called the country ‘Mu,’ but no one would support his work, and of course there was no cross-validating data. For his trouble he was discredited, but look, there is one thing that my studies have taught me and that’s extraordinary civilisations have come and gone, but eventually the earth gives them back to us.” Matt’s eyes burned with excitement.
“I don’t believe it. They discredited him just because he called it ‘Moo’?” Monica couldn’t help laughing and Matt jumped to his feet, pulling Monica up with him.
“Very funny, cavewoman. Come on, we’ve got to find more evidence, this could be huge.”
Eight
Alex stood on a small boulder and raised his voice so it would carry to all the team members. “Ladies and gentlemen, full team briefing in fifteen minutes. Enjoy your last hot coffee as we will not be taking it into the caves. Please check and pack any equipment you will need; we’re going to be very busy shortly.” He stepped down without any further interaction. This was not the time for questions and answers.
He turned back to his HAWCs just as Tank handed him a webbing backpack like the ones the others were already wearing. From it he removed a rectangular black box, which in his hands suddenly telescoped forwards and backwards into what looked like a very high-tech Armalite rifle. Alex and his team were ready. They banged their fists together and had just shouted a single “Go HAWC,” when Johnson spoke to Alex.
“Heads up, boss.” He nodded over Alex’s shoulder at Aimee who had her head down and was striding towards them with a look of stern displeasure on her face. But Alex didn’t need to be told Aimee was approaching; he had heard her first footsteps before Johnson had even spoken.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to be spraying bullets around in this cave, Captain? Forget about the danger from ricochet, but do you have any idea of how easy it is to ignite a natural gas leak this close to the surface?”
“No, Dr. Weir, I’m afraid I don’t.” Alex shouldered the rifle and then proceeded to aim at the tail section of the crashed plane and pull the trigger. There was a hiss and a sound like air being blown through a pipe and a small section of the tail fin of the broken plane magically wanged off into the darkness. “No ricochets, no loud noises, no gunpowder. The gas projectile M98 is a variation of the M16 except it’s probably closer to a paintball gun. It still uses a gas-powered rotating bolt, and will release up to 900 cyclic rounds per minute at 2,900 feet per second. However, Dr. Weir, the major difference is it doesn’t need to have a magazine reload. It simply fires an unlimited supply of super compressed balls of air. It can be calibrated to punch a ball bearing — sized hole through half-inch steel, or set to the size of a softball and knock a man flat from fifty feet. Extremely light and folds away to the size of a dinner plate; only weakness is its effective range is limited to around 250 feet. Shouldn’t be a problem in a cave I would think, Dr. Weir.”
Alex saw Aimee shake her head as if to clear away some fuzzy thinking. There’s that impulsiveness again, he thought. Her eyes softened; even in the darkened cave he could see an almost physical colour change in them as her anger dissipated.
“Sorry, I should have known better. I’m just a little on edge and nervous. Um, I was also probably out of line with that earlier jarheads crack as well.”
Alex smiled for the first time. “Dr. Weir, I have a boss who uses language that would make a drunken pirate blush; you don’t need to apologise.” He went to shake her hand, then drew back and removed his toughened black glove. Seeing him remove his, Aimee did the same before they shook hands.
“Captain, please call me Aimee.”
“It’d be a pleasure, Aimee. You can call me Alex.”
He kept hold of her hand and looked into her eyes and smiled again. She’s beautiful, he thought. He mentally shook his head; forget it, that’s not why I’m here, maybe next life. He let go of her hand and she returned to the group and the smell of brewing rehydrated coffee.
Alex turned around and caught his men smiling at him broadly. He gave them a look that made them freeze and drop their heads to continue checking and rechecking their equipment before calling to his Second Lieutenant.
“Takeda.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Inform HQ we’ve touched down and will be starting a first sweep at twenty-one hundred hours. Also request any final instructions. Once we enter the cave depths we may lose signal strength.”
With that he turned and looked around the cathedral-like vault. Though the all-clear had been given on gases, there was a strange smell he couldn’t place. Alex hadn’t felt anything like fear for a long time, but something down here was making him feel very unsettled.
“Johnson, take Benson and Tank and recon the crash site. Be back here in twenty minutes. Mike, with me at the science team. Takeda, join us when you’re finished with the communications. Everyone stay alert, something’s not right.”
Aimee handed Alex a small cup of steaming coffee. “A peace offering,” she said.
Alex accepted the hot drink and replied, “No need, we were never at war.”
“Dr. Silex and I will need to move farther away from the interference of the cave opening to get any meaningful readings from the stratigraphic scanners. It’s going to be hard enough being so close to the pole as the magnetic waves will create a lot of distortion; we’ve got to move a little deeper and at least shut out the ionospherics.”
Alex could see there was something else on her mind. He gave her time to work up the courage to ask.
“Um, I’ve been talking to your medivac team. It seems there’s one military medic, who is also an engineer, and the other has a biomedicine background — a strange selection for a rescue mission. What gives?”
Alex looked at her for a few seconds, weighing up whether he should lie, and then made a decision.
“Dr. Weir, Aimee, look around.” He paused as she briefly looked over both shoulders. “Over thirty people came into this hole over the last seven days. What do you see?”
Aimee looked around again and saw the crashed plane, rock debris and impenetrable darkness leading off to both the left and right of them. She looked back at Alex. “OK, so where are they all?”
“This is not a rescue mission. I don’t think there are any survivors to rescue. There are no bodies, no remains, nothing on the motion sensors or heat scanners. It’s just us down here. Primary mission objective is unchanged; we are to support your work and then evac in, now, twenty-three hours.” Alex paused a moment to let this sink in. “Secondary objective is determine location of initial party and the reason for communications breakdown. But there will be no remains or body retrieval, unless required as forensic samples for further investigation. I’m sorry.”
Alex could see the anger building in Aimee’s eyes. Here it comes, he thought.
“We are not leaving Tom or anyone else down here in this godforsaken cave. You said yourself, they could simply be trapped by a rockslide. This area is still geologically active, you know. If he or anyone else is alive that would be murder.”
As she turned to storm away, she bumped into Alex’s elbow and knocked the coffee cup up and out of her own hand. The cup fell to the ground, spilling a long stream of coffee as it descended. Alex’s reflexes overtook his commonsense; he just saw the girl about to fall or cover herself in hot liquid and acted. In a single smooth motion he picked the falling cup out of the air and scooped the stream of liquid back into it. With his other hand he caught her by the elbow and kept her on her feet.
Damn, he thought. He remembered the Hammer’s directive for being allowed back onto active HAWC duty: “No unnecessary displays of physical capabilities unless to avoid or deflect harm to himself or immediate team members.”
