Ed Sutter's 3-Book Box Set, page 33
Zack’s voice said, “Alec, what did you think you were doing? You yelled something, and then flew right into the midst of the enemy ships. Did you go crazy?”
I hadn’t thought to look to see if anybody had followed me. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” sounded a little lame, even to me.
Then I noticed that there were only seven of us.
“Two of our suits are missing. Who’s not here?”
Marina and Jeremy were not with us. I said bad words.
“Horus, can you find the two missing suits? Maybe they just got separated in the fight.”
“Yes, Master. I can find them as long as they have any emanations at all.”
To me, that meant alive or dead. If the suits weren’t using any energy, their life support systems would also be defunct. Not good.
Horus came back: “I have a fix on the suits.”
“Great! Let’s go!”
We went.
We found the two suits fairly close to each other. I remembered seeing a suit being blown out of formation during the first attack of the large Destroyer formation. Had that been Marina? Could I have helped her? I didn’t know, but I beat myself up about it anyway.
Both suits’ holograms were nonfunctional, but once we were close enough, I could recognize the symbols that adorned the different suits.
I asked Martin, “Okay, any ideas what to do now? I don’t think they can do reentry on their own, and we sure don’t want to leave them here.”
Ed replied, “I don’t know. This is a new one on me. I’m really not the space pilot type.” He paused and said, “What about you, Alec? You have more time in these suits than any of us. Do you have any ideas?”
Boy, talk about being put on the hot seat. What I decided could mean Marina living or dying. No pressure here.
“Okay, I have an idea. Horus, all the suits have energy shields, right?”
“That is correct, Master,” he replied.
“If we all joined together, and held the two non-functioning suits, could we overlap our shields and protect us, Marina, and Jeremy?”
Horus paused a moment and then replied. If he weren’t a computer, I would have thought he was hesitant. Machines aren’t hesitant, are they? “Master, this has never been tried. Theoretically, it would seem feasible, but it may not work.”
I looked around. “Anybody got any better ideas?”
Nobody did. Damn!
“Okay,” I said, “let’s do this thing.”
We began our descent in a long curve, moving opposite to the Earth’s rotation, so we’d meet Phoenix as it spun in our direction.
We all joined hands. I had one hand on Marina, and one held by Megan. We linked up like that in a circle. I thought of the circle of friends sculpture my mom had on the coffee table in the living room. If she could only see this one. On second thought, maybe it was better that she didn’t.
Things began to get hot. Literally. The lower we got, the hotter the external temperature became. I saw that we appeared to be encased in a glowing ball. The outside of that ball glowed brighter and brighter. We were descending really fast. All we had to do was outlast the heat and hope the inertial compensators were working on all the suits. All we had to do. Right.
Since I’m telling this story, you know we made it. By the time we landed at the same airfield south of Phoenix, we must have looked like a monster comet or a fiery wheel, straight out of Ezekiel.
The moment we were down, I opened up Horus and jumped and fell out on the flight line. I rushed over to Marina’s suit, and, holding my amulet, I said, “Defender, Hecate, please open up so I can get Marina out.”
The suit clamshelled open normally, and Marina flopped over the side. I caught her before she did a nosedive onto the pavement and lowered her gently to the concrete.
O’Donnel, who must have been a Boy Scout at one time, had a pack from which he pulled two bottles of water. He tossed one to Moira, who was tending to Jeremy, and one to me. The water wasn’t too cold. Even nighttime in the Arizona summer isn’t very cool. But it was wet, and Marina was soaking wet with sweat. I splashed some on her face and dribbled some between her lips.
She coughe, and then coughed again. Her eyes opened, and I started to breathe again.
She looked up at me with bleary eyes. “Alec, where are we? What happened?”
I smiled. “You’re fine. We opened a whole can of whoop-ass on the Destroyers, and what’s left of them are heading for the hills or the stars or whatever. We’re back on Earth.” I looked over and saw Jeremy sitting up, with Heather supporting him. I looked back at Marina. “We’re all fine.”
FALLOUT
Ed Martin said, “All the Defenders have to go back into hiding.”
I knew I sounded like a spoiled four-year old when I said, “Why?”
He gave me a small smile. “I think you had an ample demonstration of how far ahead of current technology that even the older models are. The Defenders were built purely for planetary defense. Do you really want them to become weapons in the hands of some of the nastier rulers on this planet? Look what’s happened with nuclear weapons. Once the genie is out of the bottle, you can’t put him back in; not for long.”
Zack said, “I really hate to admit it, but I think he’s right, Alec. They have to go back into hiding.”
Megan asked, “But where?”
O’Donnel said, “I’ve been thinking about that. I think the best place is Aedan.”
I raised my eyebrows and said, “You mean Antarctica? But there’s nothing there!”
O’Donnel nodded. “Exactly. Some of the Defenders came from there, anyway. They must have a place to return to.”
I wasn’t going to give up yet. Horus had become something of a friend. “But won’t they go completely inert way out in the middle of nowhere like that?”
Horus’ audio voice sounded from behind me. “Although we were all designed to use broadcast power, there is enough radiation on all bands in these times that we can maintain a constant trickle charge to all important components. We will be in something like suspended animation, but we will constantly monitor worldwide transmissions to keep up on any new threats. We will be ready for action should we ever be needed again.”
“Oh, okay, I guess,” I said and moped. It’d been nice having super powers or the next best thing for a while.
Horus went on. “And Alec can contact me at any time should an emergency arise suitable for the Defenders to return.”
I fingered my amulet and brightened. “Yeah. Yeah, I can. That’s cool.”
Ed said to them. “Go, Defenders. Go to your place in ancient Aedan. Call on your brethren to join you there. You have done the job you were meant to do, and you did it very well.” He paused and looked around at the dark suits. “Farewell.”
“For now,” I added.
Horus’ voice almost sounded amused. “For now.”
Then they lifted silently into the sky and were gone.
Zack looked around at all of us. “You know, for such a motley crew, you guys didn’t do too badly.”
He paused for a moment, and then added, “You are the Defenders.”
* * * *
For the next week, the newspapers were full of reports of lights in the sky over Phoenix.
“There was this circle of lights that went right over my house,” said Jose Flores of Glendale. “They traveled from northwest to southeast in perfect formation. I never believed in UFOs before, but now I have to believe!”
Reverend Elijah Johnson told Channel Three news, “It was just like the fiery wheel of Ezekiel. The Lord has come to save us!”
The Air Force refused to comment at first, but then released a statement that the lights had been a group of weather balloons.
* * * *
A large chunk of a Destroyer battleship crashed down in Gregory Hull’s backyard in Cleveland. Men in black suits quickly showed up and commandeered it. They told him it was part of a classified satellite. “No, sir, those aren’t gun turrets. They’re antenna.”
* * * *
The controversial statue had disappeared from a lab at ASU. Professor Cox tried to blame Megan, but she had an airtight alibi. She had been with us the whole time. The only one in the building when the statue was apparently stolen was Cox himself. The university president and the trustees were considering relieving him, but no one could explain the eight- foot, man-shaped hole in the wall of the lab. Cox stayed on, but his career chances were now viewed as very limited.
* * * *
For herself, Megan was planning a return visit to both the cave under Malta and to the cave where we found Horus. That underground chamber really had her curious. Zack and John Stormwalker were going to accompany her. There was no way she was going to make that find public until she investigated it fully. I was almost afraid to see what else she found.
* * * *
I saw in the paper that the astronomer, Kelly Wells, who first spotted the incoming Destroyers, excuse me, meteors, had just graduated and promptly married her teacher, Anton Lepescu. Romance in the telescope room? Hey, believe me, stranger things can happen.
* * * *
My dad seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth. I guess when giant Ancient Egyptian gods tell you to get out of town and don’t come back, you get out of town. I know he was my dad and all, but I kind of hope he didn’t ever come back. My family and I had enough on our plate as it was.
* * * *
Marina and I were back on track. No blonde cheerleaders have molested me in the Chandler Library lately, which I guess is good. Marina and I, as well as Jeremy and Heather, were going to ASU next year, but we had our senior year at Chandler High coming up in the next few weeks.
It should be an adventure.
HISTORICAL/SCIENTIFIC/MAGICAL NOTES
The story line for The Defenders is based on a number of historical and scientific facts and theories. For those of you that do not have my totally weird reading tastes, here’s where they came from.
The immersion models that I have mentioned in regards to sunken ruins are based largely on the computer models developed by Dr. Glenn Milne of Durham University. I also used material from the book, Underworld by Graham Hancock.
Per current theories, at the end of the last Ice Age, as the world warmed up, great lakes, almost seas, formed on top of the glaciers from melting ice. At some point, an edge of these great bowls of ice water broke, and millions of gallons of water came flooding out. This had several effects. It would of course generate a massive flood in whatever basin was handy. This would be particularly true of river basins, such as the Mississippi, Ganges, and Tigris-Euphrates river basins. These floods would also cause a rise in water levels worldwide, so they would flood many coastal communities. This latter flooding could take the form of significant tsunamis, depending on how much water was released from the glaciers.
As far as meteor/comet/asteroid impacts are concerned, the Earth has experienced many of them. The most famous was the big one that wiped out the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago, but there have been many others. Meteors that hit in mid-ocean are usually not visible to scientists, except by their effects. They can result in earthquakes, tsunamis, and some level of global cooling due to materials blown into the atmosphere from the impact and any subsequent volcanic activity.
Exoskeletons have actually existed for some time, but considerable research has been done to develop suits for use by the U.S. military. I was peripherally involved with the development of the helmet for the Twenty-First Century Landwarrior Program, which may ultimately include an exoskeleton suit for individual soldiers, with heads up displays (HUDs) showing on the faceplate.
So is there some sort of real magical energy in the world? The priests of Ancient Egypt in particular certainly had something going on. Some of their engineering feats would be difficult to duplicate today, with all our modern technology. They had considerable knowledge of the heavens and astronomical movements, as well as the mathematics to make sense of them. The Egyptians used the term “heka” to describe the energy they used in magical spells, some of which have been chronicled in the Bible, others in various surviving texts from Egypt and their neighbors. Magic, or heka if you like, is an all-pervasive energy undefined by modern science. Dark energy, postulated by modern physics, is a type of energy that is believed to comprise seventy-five percent of all energy in the universe. Dark energy is currently undefined. Sounds kind of similar, don’t you think?
I drew much of the information about space from the excellent book, Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane.
Anyway, I put all these elements into the big blender, and The Defenders was the result. Hope you enjoy it!
ANCIENT MAGIKS:
THE ALEC GAVINS CHRONICLES
BOOK 3:
THE AMULET AND THE STAFF
by
Ed Sutter
WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
www.whiskeycreekpress.com
Published by
WHISKEY CREEK PRESS
www.whiskeycreekpress.com
Copyright © 2012, 2015 by Edward B. Sutter
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-1-61160-236-4
Credits
Cover Artist: Nancy Donahue
Editor: Dave Field
Printed in the United States of America
To Carolyn, who has always believed in me, for reasons I’ll never understand.
Prologue
The final pick blow opened the side of the ancient tomb, and the archaeologists got their first glimpse of what they’d found. The American archaeological team had found the new tomb almost completely by accident. They’d been excavating the tomb of a Middle Kingdom Pharaoh, when the older, more experienced man on the team noticed a crack in the plaster on one wall. Almost masked by the stone sarcophagus of the owner of the tomb; the crack proved to be an entrance to another tomb on the other side of the wall. This wasn’t really all that novel, since the landscape of the Saqqara Plain was full of the tombs of kings and other nobility. Unfortunately, the primary tomb had been very thoroughly looted. The hope was that the inner tomb may have escaped the attentions of tomb robbers.
The younger of the two Americans, a young man doing his internship on this dig, looked around him and was a bit disappointed.
“It’s just an empty room,” he said.
The senior archaeologist shook his head. “Correction. It’s an anteroom.” He pointed across the room to a false portal with a carved and painted frieze across its top. “That’s most likely the actual entryway to the tomb proper. Let’s take a look.”
The two men moved forward and looked up at the picture story above the lintel of the false door. Hieroglyphs accompanied the pictures, and the two men read them avidly.
The older man, Doctor Conrad Burris, had been in this business for twenty years, and he read the characters much more quickly than his apprentice.
The young man, Dennis Carlisle from Yale, read eagerly. Then, a disappointment. “This was no Pharaoh. He was just some kind of bureaucrat.”
Burris barely glanced at him. “Read on. He was no minor functionary in the Old Kingdom. He was…” He stopped for a moment, stunned, and then pointed to a string of hieroglyphs. “Oh my God! Look at this inscription. It says, ‘Welcome, seekers of knowledge. Welcome, followers of Thoth. Enemies of Egypt and the true gods, beware! For I am watching.’ And look. There’s his personal cartouche. This is the tomb of Imhotep!”
Carlisle shook his head. “Who’s Imhotep? You mean the guy in the Mummy movies?”
Burris looked at him with sad shock. “Jesus, what do they teach you kids in college now? This is the tomb of one of the most amazing men in Egyptian history. Come on. Let’s take a break, get some lunch, and I’ll tell you about Imhotep, a true Child of Thoth.”
The Best Laid Plans
Phoenix, Arizona, Present Day
I’d gotten a short break from customers and other chores at the Magic Shop, and I was working on my little computer behind the cash register, trying to register for some classes at Mesa Community College for the Fall semester. I’d really wanted to go to ASU, but finances being what they were, I was going to have to start at the community college at least for the first year, maybe two. Even for in-state students like myself, tuition and books at a big school like Arizona State can get kind of pricey.
A number of people had suggested that I should get all the general studies things out of the way as soon as possible; stuff like English, Humanities, Math, and general sciences are all common to just about any degree. Apparently, every other student in the universe had gotten the same advice because I was having a heck of a time finding classes available to sign up for. That would be unless I wanted to take one class at eight in the morning and the next at seven in the evening. How I was supposed to schedule my life around that sort of thing had so far evaded me.
The bells over the door chimed, indicating that someone had come in. I was both annoyed and relieved. Annoyed because I was trying to get this whole class thing sorted out, and relieved because I wasn’t having a lot of luck, and I was getting frustrated.
I stood up and turned around and then froze. Holy mackerel! Somebody had come in all right and it was a female. And then some. I tried not to stare or at least to not be caught staring as she walked around the store, looking at the displays, sometimes picking something up, occasionally chuckling to herself.
