Chapter 14
brOKEN LEGS he’d just turned off his emotions.
It was rare to see on someone like Tommy, who was a therapist's walking dream.
Phin looked up. “Huh?”
Victoria finished for him. “Radiation is rampant in space. Their ship would have to be shielded against it. If the impact of a nuclear bomb didn’t hurt it, the radiation wouldn’t. The radiation would only destroy any biological life in the vicinity.”
“They poisoned their own city,” Tommy whispered, like the Russians could hear them.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “They did what they thought they had to. It didn’t work. We need to figure out what will.”
Judd raised his eyebrows. “We?”
“We’re inside the barrier. The only ones who have an idea of what we’re dealing with.”
“Seriously?” Judd asked in disbelief. “There’s seven of us. Two civilians, two injured, and our guns don’t do shit against those things.”
Blake couldn’t disagree with his arguments, and he could see the same thoughts on Gabriel’s face. But they were thinking too big picture.
“We don’t have to destroy the aliens,” Blake said quietly, staring at the whiteboard. “We just have to remove the barrier, right?”
Gabriel turned to him. “What are you thinking?”
Blake blinked, shaking his head. He looked over to Victoria. “The barrier pulses?”
The pilot nodded. “Not in any discernible pattern.”
“How did it work?”
“It was solid, just like a wall—”
“No, I mean when things crashed against it.” Blake winced at the words. His brain was going so fast, he wasn’t considering that they were people, Victoria’s people, were the things.
Scott stiffened, eyes sharp. The bleeding wound on his head had slowed, but the bandage was beginning to soak through.
If Victoria was offended, she didn’t show it. Her face was stern. “When the planes hit, it was like…ripples went out across the surface. Almost as if—”
“The surface hardened specifically where the plane hit?” Blake finished for her, leaning forward.
Victoria nodded. “All the energy was drawn to the spot it needed to shield against most.”
Blake began popping his fingers. “I think I know why it pulses.” He said, a little woodenly.
“The rail guns the aliens use rely on kinetic and electromagnetic energy. Which tells us they’re—at the very least—comfortable with the technology.
When I heard the shield was pulsing, I wondered about it, but this confirms it.
I think the barrier is capable of redirecting kinetic energy. ”
Judd made to interrupt, but Blake waved him off.
Just give me a minute.
“The barrier is constant, but when it’s hit with pressure, it pushes back proportional to the energy it was hit with. The harder you hit it, the harder it hits back. Which explains why high-powered machines like planes, helicopters, and tanks would be destroyed at the moment of impact.”
Gabriel rocked back on his heels. “Like they’re crashing into themselves?”
“Kind of,” Blake shrugged. “I’m guessing here. But I think that means the aliens have an extensive energy source. Not only for the rail guns, but also for the shield.”
Which tracked. Of course, the aliens with superior technology had mastered energy. They were probably using something insane like nuclear fusion. Or fission. Or whatever the fuck it was that Iron Man created in the arc reactor.
“But I think it’s broken.”
That drew their attention.
“What do you mean?” Gabriel asked, brows furrowing.
“Ok, so…think of it like an Xbox controller with dying batteries. You turn it on, it works for a while, then dies. You turn it back on, and it works again, but inevitably dies. You keep on pressing the on button, hoping it’ll last another round, but the times are getting incrementally shorter as the batteries are drained. ”
Gabriel stared at him in awe. “It’s pulsing because the batteries are dying.”
“Or there’s a bad connection.”
Gabriel caught on; he looked around the room quickly. “You think we could exploit this weakness somehow? Disrupt the energy or—”
“Overheat it.”
Blake was thinking of his first car. A complete lemon, but he refused to give up on it. He pushed that engine until it finally overheated, destroying itself and the car. He wanted to run the shield batteries until they destroyed themselves.
Gabriel stared at Blake. “And you think this will work?”
“I don’t have any fucking idea.”
Phin huffed. “That’s better than anything we’ve gotten before. What do we do?”
Blake swallowed. “I don’t know. There’s got to be an energy source somewhere, right? Probably near the shield.”
Judd pulled out a map and smoothed it out on the floor in front of Victoria so she didn’t have to get up. “Where is the barrier?”
Victoria pointed to a triangular section that started between Baltimore and Washington, then followed the coast. Taking a sharp left at Norfolk, her finger rose up to Harrisonburg and then tracked back to DC.
Judd leaned over the map, studying it. “Did you see anything when you flew by? Any kind of battery or energy source?”
Victoria made a face. “I wasn’t exactly looking. Kind of busy threading the needle and avoiding shrapnel from my wingmen’s planes.”
“Put the claws away, Danger Tits, I was just asking.” Judd ignored the angry spluttering coming from the pilot. “Commander, I need to get eyes on the barrier.”
Gabriel’s face was blank, but it was obvious he was considering what Judd said.
“Sitting here with our thumbs up our asses ain’t doing shit. You brought me for recon, so let me recon. We need intel. If we’re going to get our boys back in the fight, they need to know what the hell is coming out of that ship.”
“Judd—”
“I know. It’s a dumb move to leave the safety of the station, but I’m a dumb motherfucker, so what you going do?” he flashed a grin without a hint of shame.
Victoria stood, resting her weight on her good leg. “I can take you to the shield. And before you say anything about my leg, I’m the only one who knows its exact location.”