Black Sun

“In the sun, the lines get so tangled that they can snap like a rubber band stretched too tight. This is what causes solar flares and other events like the coronal mass ejections. Both events release incredible amounts of energy in a single instant.”

“How much energy are we talking about?” the president asked.

“Enough to fling a hundred billion tons of material into space at a single moment,” Moore said.

The president looked drawn. “How does this apply to us?”

“We keep acting as if the earth’s core is a single, uniformly rotating thing, and for the most part it is, but the i

“You said there were three.”

“Yes,” Moore said. “The third is created by the stones. It’s only been present for the last three thousand years. Sent here in an effort to stabilize that second field to stop it from doing what it’s about to do.”

“Which is?”

“Snap exactly like the loops on the sun.”

The president cleared his throat. “And what happens when this, um, rubber band snaps?”

Moore took a breath. “There won’t be any mushroom clouds, if that’s what you mean, but there may be some physical effects, possibly minor earthquakes or tremors, but mostly just a massive electromagnetic burst. I don’t have all the numbers, but you can expect something close to ten thousand times the energy of the burst we felt here.”

“Ten thousand times?” The president’s voice trailed off as if the concept were inconceivable to him.

“A tsunami wave of electromagnetic energy rampaging from the current pole across North America and downward, wiping out every electrical circuit in the Western Hemisphere. It will blind every satellite in near-earth orbit at the same moment, while a weaker shadow wave crosses Asia and central Russia and the northeastern corner of Europe. Unfortunately for us, the wave crossing Russia and China will be lighter, meaning they will be stung hard and blinded, but some of their hardened military equipment will survive, especially missiles in hardened silos. They will likely retain the capability to wage war, both on each other or on us, at a time in which we will be utterly defenseless against any foreign attack.”

“And the stones’ part in this?”

“Designed to counter it while they were hidden, to hold the wave back so the rubber band never stretches in the first place,” Moore said. “But something went wrong. When the Russian stone exploded that plan began to falter. But I think they have a fail-safe mode, and if we bring them up to a place where their signal is not blocked, they can find each other and they can vent this wave safely into space, cha

The president was quiet. The room was quiet. Finally, even Moore was quiet.

He did not know whether he had convinced the commander in chief, but he’d exhausted himself in the attempt.

“Clear the room,” the president said finally. “I will speak with the director of the NRI alone.”

Sitting next to Moore, Nathanial Ahiga grabbed his soda bottle. “You put on a good show,” he said somberly, sounding like he was talking to a valiant but defeated warrior.

As Ahiga stepped back into the lab section of the trailer and shut the door behind him, the other scientists picked up their notes and exited into the tu

CHAPTER 64

Pi

He saw twenty men fan out from the lead craft, while the second helicopter released what looked like a group of pack mules, moving in a precise and ominous fashion.

Through his binoculars he could see that these “pack mules” were some kind of mechanical walking machine, like four-legged donkeys with machine-gun turrets where their heads belonged.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he mumbled.

The men hung back, allowing the strange walking machines to take the lead. He watched their hydraulic legs propel them forward, their turreted heads swiveling from side to side. He counted six of them, and all he could be certain of was that he didn’t want to see them up close.

Wedging the assault rifle into a gap between the rocks, he sighted the lead machine and opened fire. Shells from the rifle ripped into the lead beast. Sparks flew and it stumbled. But somehow it regained its balance and continued on its course, climbing the slope toward him. He fired at another with the same result and then let the rifle whale away on full automatic.

One machine crashed to the ground, its front legs damaged, the rear legs still trying to push forward. The others turned toward him and opened fire.

The rock wall in front of Hawker exploded from a convergence of shells. He dove to the ground, crawled fifteen feet, and tried to steal a glance out the other side. But the machines seemed to be waiting for it. The instant he poked his head out, another burst tore into the boulders around him. Whatever type of sensors the machines were using to find him—heat sensors, motion detectors, shape recognition software, whatever it was—they’d locked on to him now.

As the barrage continued, Hawker took cover. He pressed himself into the largest of the boulders, listening to the strange sound of the machines marching closer.

Danielle sat in the gu

As Ivan piloted the craft, Danielle familiarized herself with the weapons systems. And as they approached the target zone, she was looking forward to wreaking havoc.

“How the hell did you get this thing in country?” she asked over the intercom.

“Officially it is part of a movie production,” Ivan said. “Not a bad cover, don’t you think?”

“Not bad at all,” she replied. “As long as it doesn’t fire blanks.”

Ivan laughed, a genuine belly laugh with a sense of warmth that could be felt even through the intercom. “I promise you, I didn’t come all this way to fire blanks.”

With that they rocketed over the third ridge and the helicopters on the radar scope came into visual.

One of the Skycranes was hanging back. Ivan was already angling toward it.

“Three seconds to range,” Ivan said.

The amber light on her targeting display lit up and an instant later it switched to green. Danielle pressed the fire switch and a heavy buzzing shook the craft as the rotary ca

The tracers laced into the hovering Skycrane, ten explosive shells in between each glowing marker. The hovering craft lit up with smoke and then exploded and fell toward the ground.

Euphoric, Danielle searched for the next target.

With the burrolike machines blasting at his stronghold, Hawker lay flat on the ground, slithering toward the back edge of the space. He was considering making a break for it when the sound of a thunderous explosion echoed across the landscape.