The Omega Device (The Ha-Shan Chronicles Book 1) (37 page)

The truck bounced, shook, the engine floored as they reached a small river bank. It rose fast. They caught air, flew to the opposite bank, narrowly avoided two trees on landing. The impact tossed them about the cab. Russell creamed sparse bushes and grasses, swerved to avoid larger ones, and plowed forward for the main ruins.

The ancient structures loomed at their right. Russell whipped them left, sped along a stone path as the aqueduct neared. It dipped down, curved toward the arch. A treeline ahead forced them into it.

“Hold on!”

He threw them over the small plateau. They landed with a bounce, regained traction to follow the aqueduct. The arch drew closer by the second. Weathered sandstone gleamed in upward-angled monument lights.

Russell clenched his jaw, slammed on the brakes to whip the truck sideways to a stop just outside the arch. They recovered quickly, piled out to look up at the unsuspecting monument. Reese fought to pull herself around the truck to Maggie's side.

They stood for a moment, staring in awe at the Arch of Septimius Severus that had weathered eons since his rule. Though most of its stone filigrees had cracked or worn away, along with the flutes of its plinth-supported columns, it held to the standard one would expect of a Roman-era ruler.

Four, massive piers formed the edges of archways that rose past crumbled, filigreed spandrels to its cube-like top.

“I guess the emperor's ego
was
a good cover,” Russell said, looking it over from top to bottom.

“Funny no one's found anything here,” Reese grunted, doubled over the truck's hood.

Maggie mused in reply, “If someone knew what was here, we'd
all
be dead.”

Thorne was cautious, “Let's just hope whatever is doesn't kill us.”

Russell agreed, directed him with hand on his shoulder, “Gear.”

Reese extended a hand, “Maggie?”

Maggie helped her up, her own wound a dull nuisance. They hobbled for the arch, stopped at stone steps that led to its center. Though it had remained largely intact, the coffer-ceiling's finer details had crumbled away. Paneled reliefs of past wars were only vaguely decipherable.

Maggie and Reese rubbernecked their way around the piers and the countless scenes there, examined one in the shadow of the monument's lights. Thorne approached with the gear as Russell produced his flash-light, headed for Reese and Maggie.

“How will we know what to look for?” Thorne asked.

Russell examined the piers at a distance, “It'll be low enough to access, out of place—something that doesn't quite fit with a theme or that shows…”

“Ha-Shan reverence,” Reese breathed.

Russell stepped around a pier. His light splayed over the depiction of a sacrificial bull atop an altar.

Thorne nodded to it, “Three guesses what it's for.”

Maggie understood his meaning, “A religious sacrifice for war.”

“It must be here somewhere, but—” Russell stopped at a stone relief.

His light bounced between a gray panel and the yellowed sandstone of a crumbled section of pier. He ran a hand across it, his mind working.

Maggie stepped beside him, “What is it?”

His mind was locked in a rapid analysis, “The stone's different here. Not as porous. More like clay.”

Maggie ran her hand over the two sections, “It must have been replaced by the Protectorate at some point.”

“Watch out.” Russell tossed his bag down, produced his rifle.

He raised its butt, heaved it against the stone. A portion cracked, fell away. He wound back, unleashed a series of blows to pulverize the false-relief, then laid his rifle aside.

“Knife?”

Reese passed hers over. He chipped and chiseled away small fragments of plaster, exposed the bare-pier beneath until only a small, unidentifiable rise remained where the plate had been. Thorne held the flash-light over it as Russell's fingers traced small lines and subtle ridges. He closed his eyes, forehead dripping with sweat, while an unmistakable symbol etched across his mind.

“It's inverted.”

“Reorient it,” Thorne instructed.

Russell attempted to twist the stone, failed. He banged the knife's hilt at the edges of the rise, hammered it sideways. His blows came faster, more frantic. It gave way, turned. He pounded the symbol's edge again to right it. It budged, slid into place, then sank backward.

Grinding stone emitted somewhere beyond the Humvee. The ground trembled beneath their feet. A section of pathway slid open far ahead, faintly exposed a set of stairs in the monument lights. They descended into darkness, and presumably, toward the Omega Device.

“Holy Christ,” Thorne breathed. “We actually found it.”

32.

The Omega Device

October 9
th
 

12:30 AM

Ha-Shan Vault beneath Leptis Magna

They hesitated at the top of the stairs, humbled. For better or worse, ahead lay the conclusion of a war thousands of years long. It was possible they were the first to enter this chamber in longer than that. The feeling was clearly mutual. It forced a deep pause over them.

Russell finally breathed and led the group downward cautiously. Darkness broke from his flash-light as the stairs leveled off twenty or more feet below the surface. A narrow, sandstone passage led forward until it opened on a large, high-chamber that swallowed Russell's beam without a hint of its definition.

He cast it nearer his feet, the light's edge billowing toward a silhouette ahead. As they approached it, the room flared with a low, blue-light.

Reese saw the distant walls and ceiling glow, “What the hell?”

“Christ, the size of it,” Russell said.

The chamber spanned not only tenfold the width of the arch, but also a hundred feet at either end. The arch's position was apparent from four, tall columns of black-stone rising to meet the piers' positions above. They were formed equidistant of the innermost sections of the piers, encircling a black, stone-slab atop a raised dais where the arch's center was above.

Through the onyx-stones ran thousands of white lines, giving it the appearance of marble, though something made them doubt any similarity.

Maggie judged the distance from the entrance to the center of the piers, mentally compared it to the ruins above. Though the columns were distinct beneath the ground, their height and apparent layout made it clear the Arch's piers above hid the upper-components of the weapon.

“The Arch's piers, they're some kind of cover for the columns. The Arch
is
part
of the weapon.”

Russell stared in disbelief, “Hidden in plain sight all this time.”

“Amazing,” Reese remarked with a pained breath.

“How's that even possible?” Maggie asked.

“The stone,” Thorne said, approaching the dais and slab. “It would be like a natural formation of marble. Then, when Severus built his arch, all he had to do was say he was getting rid of it, but actually covered it up. This
has
to be the control panel.”

“How could they have hidden it before that?” Reese asked, coughing. “This place is, massive…”

Thorne shrugged, stepped up the dais to examine the slab, careful not to touch anything. Atop it, a half-hundred, raised, cuneiform characters were arranged in groupings around four palm-sized ones. A sliding sounded, forced him back. His hands flattened outward in defense.

Before he could plead innocence, fluid misted the air, glowed the same blue as the walls and ceiling. An image flickered over it, projected above the slab. It formed the rough outline of a human, faced outward as a voice began to speak.

Maggie felt the sound in her mind as she might her own thoughts, rather than heard it around her. The voice echoed not through the room, but through their minds.

“
You have found the Ha-Shan's legacy.
”

“Is anyone else hearing this?” Thorne asked aloud, marveling at the whispering surf of harmonies. The others nodded absently. He hurried down to watch the projection.

The figure's outline focused. What looked down upon them, however humanoid, was clearly inhuman. A Ha-Shan stood before them with the countenance of an early-stage embryo, its webbed hands and feet on distended arms and legs.

Blue-gray, leathery skin sheathed thick, defensive, bone-plates across its torso and limbs. Vestigial tubes formed a mock hairline that broke on the sides for mere holes in place of ears.

The embryonic features were clear in its face and chin, and the silvery, elliptical eyes covered by a thin film that opened and closed slowly as if to blink. Its mouth, shut tight, was barely more than a slit between the jaws. Its presence seemed unneeded by the message that spanned the millennia.

It was naked, and judging by its anatomy, female; though her genitals were disproportionate to her groin. Her legs were thick, muscled beneath the bone-plates and her body hardened by an active way of life.

Her voice sprayed harmoniously as they stared on in awe,
“If you are here, then you know our history. What you must know is the true purpose of this device; total annihilation of our enemy. Forgive us, it was necessary.”
 

“Why?” Maggie asked beneath her breath.

The Ha-Shan continued without recourse,
“The weapon was constructed with knowledge of our enemy's internal structure, learned from our studies. The device contains a disease which we have engineered; a cruel, cunning creature, only capable of surviving within our enemy's body. It is easily spread, frightfully effective, and eviscerates our enemy from the inside.”
 

Thorne's eyes widened, “It
is
a virus!”

The Ha-Shan paid no mind to their suppositions, continued to deliver the message she had prepared eons ago.
“Though much of our history is lost, some fraction no doubt remains. With hope, it is enough to decipher what choice is left to you.”
It turned back to look down on the slab,
“Destroy it, or destroy yourselves.”

The image dissolved. The Ha-Shan's last words echoed through their minds. The slab lit up and the mist shifted to lines of cuneiform letters as clear as the most advanced image displays.

Maggie looked to the others; each one mirrored her innermost fears. The room was deathly silent, their minds still ringing from the voice.

Russell shook his head, “A bio-weapon meant for us.”

“With global dispersal,” Reese wheezed.

“Even with a lengthened incubation period it would only take a few months to completely wipe us out,” Thorne estimated. “Why do this? I thought they were peaceful?”

Russell shrugged, “It was the last hope for their world. We were their enemy, newly evolved. They sensed we'd destroy each other and everything in our path.”

“Yeah, but…” Thorne trailed off, sickened.

“
Genocide?
” Maggie said. She swallowed hard. “
That
was their legacy?”

“No.” Reese shook her head, “It was a contingency. An end-game weapon for a war they dreamed up. It's no wonder the Protectorate's kept it so close. Could you imagine if this weapon were used like a nuke? We can't even keep each other in check without having our own. This—”

Thorne finished the thought, “Would put anyone at an unrivaled advantage.”

“There would be endless wars,” Russell surmised. “
World
Wars, nuclear wars—anything and everything to keep this weapon out of one person's hands too long.”

“Unless Omega gets it,” Maggie said.

“And if they couldn't keep it, they'd take
everyone
out,” Reese assured.

Thorne agreed, “They have ties to every major industry sector and political affiliation. It wouldn't take much, working in secret, to put a stranglehold on the world. If they couldn't keep it, they'd take out whoever stood between it and them, or set off the weapon.”

Russell began, “Whatever risks it presents, it still begs the question—”

“Do we
really
have the right to do this,” Maggie said.

There was a moment of contemplative silence. Reese, Russell, and Maggie exchanged looks.

Thorne interjected, “Woah, wait a minute. We're not considering leaving this thing intact, right?”

“No, Thorne,” Reese said, her eyes locked with Maggie's. “It has to be destroyed.”

“Then why aren't we doing it?” He asked, stepping around to the console.

“Well?” Russell asked, they nodded to him in agreement.

Maggie sighed, defeated, “It's just a moral question; is it our place to judge?”

“Who else—”

Beams of light caught their attention from the corridor.

“Shit! West!” Reese hissed.

She hobbled for cover behind the far-side of the dais. Maggie and Russell followed. Thorne ducked behind the console. Russell threw his bag off his shoulder, readied his rifle.

West led a group inward that scanned with tac-lights mounted to their weapons. Russell took aim just as something heavy landed behind him. He fired in an angry burst. A flash-bang erupted.

The four were instantly blind and deaf. Effectively neutralized, they scrambled for cover, forced down by hands that grappled them. Limbs flailed. Maggie and Russell resisted. Reese, too pained, knelt without a fight.

Thorne cowered, shouted a swear-laden surrender. Maggie's captors knocked her unconscious with a heavy blow to the back of the head. Russell's arms and legs were restrained.

Reese knew it was futile to fight, “I won't fight, but don't you
fucking—
”

A single blow knocked her unconscious. Her body fell motionless beside Maggie's. West approached Thorne as his sight returned, raised his gun to Russell's head. Thorne cried out through a man's strangling grip on his throat.

“No! Stop! West… don't.”

West's upper-lip curled, he sneered, “You're not in any
fucking
position to tell me what to do, you little
prick!
”

Thorne struggled to breathe, their lives in his hands. He lied, “There… image told us… decipher it.”

“So?” West asked, shoving the gun against Russell's temple.