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“I have an idea,” Kurt said. He rigged up what remained of the C-4 and looked at Joe. “Get ready,” he shouted.
Joe nodded, switching the selector on his rifle to full auto.
Kurt flung the pack around the corner and into the room, squeezing the clacker one last time. A booming explosion shook the generator room, hopefully knocking the defenders off their feet.
“Go!” Kurt shouted.
Joe went to rush in, but Gregorovich pulled him aside and climbed over him. He charged into the room, wielding his two pistols and blazing away. From the middle of the room, he fired in all directions, twirling and shooting, even as Thero’s men fired back and hit him several times.
With Gregorovich drawing their fire, Joe and Kurt rushed in behind him. They each took a side and gunned down the last of Thero’s men in rapid sequence.
When the shooting stopped, only Kurt and Joe were standing. They rushed to Gregorovich, who was on the floor badly wounded.
FIFTY
Maxmillian Thero stood in the control room, bathed in the light of his great creation and oblivious to the gunfire outside. He gazed through the portal, mesmerized by the swirling galaxy-like pattern of the zero-point energy. It raced around the inside of the globelike structure, faster and faster, until finally disappearing in a blinding flash and heading toward Australia.
The first pulses probably hadn’t been felt except by a few kangaroos in the outback. This surge would rattle windows and shake doors. It would cause tremors up and down the rift and set the stage for what was to come, as each reverberation built upon the previous one.
He checked the monitor. The next oscillation was beginning to build.
Suddenly, the door burst open behind him. He turned in time to hear the crack of the gunshot from Kurt Austin’s weapon and see the flash of fire from the barrel. He fell backward, slammed into the viewing portal, collapsed, and slid down it, leaving a trail of blood on the thick Plexiglas.
As he slumped to the ground, he rolled toward Hayley. She was lying on the ground a few feet away.
“Thank… you,” he managed.
“George,” she whispered.
He nodded, and then his eyes closed.
Kurt rushed into the room and over to Hayley. “Are you all right?”
“I think so,” she said, beginning to move.
As he helped her up, the room began shaking violently.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Thero has engaged his weapon. You have to help me shut it off.”
Joe appeared in the door, supporting Gregorovich and lowering him to a seat, as Kurt led Hayley to the console. Kurt watched as she scanned everything, eyes going from one computer monitor to the next. A look of trepidation crept over her. “I can’t stop it,” she said.
“What?” Kurt asked. “Why?”
“Thero’s done something here. He’s distorted the pattern, stretching it like a rubber band. The next wave will take longer to arrive, but it will be monstrous when it hits.”
“Not if we shut this thing off,” Kurt said, getting ready to fire a spread of shells into the computer.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “It’s already off. What you’re seeing is a free-form chain reaction. The energy is coming from the imbalance in the zero-point field itself.”
Kurt glanced out into the generator room. She was right. The last charge of C-4 had knocked the generators off-line, they were winding down on their own.
“How do we stop it, then?”
“We can’t.
It’s like a car skidding out of control, overcorrecting back and forth. It will stop only when it finally crashes. When a large enough surge of energy overwhelms the wave and collapses it.”
