And the pilot had died the next day, more of despair than of his wounds.

Dalton held on to the core of his being ever tighter. He had made a promise to himself then and he wasn’t about to give up now. He had promised that day that he would never let go of life like that.

He wasn’t certain he was alive, he realized. But he had feelings and that was enough.

“Are they alive?” Mentor asked, staring at the three bodies suspended in their isolation tubes. The machines continued to function, slowly sending breathing fluid to them.

“The bodies are,” Dr. Hammond said. “But we’ve lost contact with the psyches.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Sybyl recorded a surge on the virtual plane. What caused it is anyone’s guess.”

“Can you bring them back?”

“Not without a connection,” Hammond said. “They’re like the other bodies, the ones we rescued. Still alive but no one home.”

Mentor slapped his hand on the top of the computer. “Goddamn it!”

“I’ll keep trying,” Hammond said.

Linda McFairn had never liked enclosed spaces. The massive opening on the side of Cheyenne Mountain that led down to Space Command wouldn’t be considered small, but it was enclosed, especially as the car taking her passed by the huge steel door that would be closed if the site were ever attacked. She clutched her briefcase tighter as the car descended further into the mountain.

Ostensibly she was here on an unannounced inspection. Given that Space Command was one of the nerve centers for national defense, the Deputy Director of the NSA doing such a thing was not unprecedented.

A one-star general was waiting for her just outside the inner door where the car came to a halt. He opened the door before she had a chance to reach for it.

“Welcome to Space Command, Deputy Director McFairn. I’m General Mitchell.”

McFairn shook the offered hand. “General.”

He indicated they head through the large inner door. “What can I do for you?”

McFairn hesitated for just a second; whether her hesitation was from going into the complex or the task she had to perform, she wasn’t sure, and she quickly hustled after the general.

“Given all the flap over the loss of secrets from Los Alamos,” she said, “I’m making these inspections to check internal security of computer systems. I need access to one of the terminals that connects to your mainframe.”

“Certainly.”

Souris was peering out the side of the helicopter that Cesar had arranged to pick her up at the Colorado Springs airport, where the Lear had landed. They had flown around Cheyenne Mountain and were now hovering over the west side of the mountain. She was seated in the front right seat, the pilot in the front left. The aura transmitter took up the entire back of the helicopter along with the batteries to give it power.

She closed her eyes briefly, remembering the image she had been sent, then opened them. “There.” She pointed at a narrow gap between two rock spurs. “Closer,” she ordered the pilot.

As he edged in toward the mountain, she reached behind her and drew out the leads and began placing them on her head, the movements habit. The pilot glanced at her quizzically but said nothing. He had flown numerous flights initiated by a thick envelope of cash and knew better than to open his mouth.

“Hold here,” Souris finally said when they were about fifty meters from the opening.

She closed her eyes, then flipped on the transmitter.

Immediately she could sense the psychic shield inside the mountain guarding Space Command. But that wasn’t her objective. She passed out of her body, her mind floating down on the psychic plane.

McFairn flipped open her metal briefcase. She was in General Mitchell’s own office, the door locked shut. She always appreciated the military mindset where rank was all that mattered. As a GS-16 she technically outranked the general and he was quite aware of that.

It was impossible to hack into the computers in Cheyenne Mountain from the outside, but doing it from the inside was another matter. She connected leads from the computer inside the briefcase to the general’s terminal. Even with access to the mainframe, she didn’t have the code to enter the part of the master computer that stored National Command Authority codes. But because the NSA had devised the “lock” it also had a way to invent a key.

She knew the unlock code, like all other NCA codes, changed constantly on a rotating basis that was also part of the code. Thus, to break in, she would have to find both the base code and change code, and then combine them.

McFairn’s computer had a sniffer program and found the “door” and then began running through thousands of code combinations per second, looking for the right one. All she could do was sit back and wait.

Souris found Sybyl without much trouble, the computer giving off a strong signal on the virtual plane as Dr. Hammond searched to contact the lost team members. Since the Ranch wasn’t shielded, Souris was able to slide into it on the virtual plane and into Sybyl unnoticed. Since Sybyl had been hooked to the power line from Cheyenne Mountain, it was the one weak point in the virtual shield that surrounded the base.

Souris followed the power line into the complex and then into Space Command’s mainframe. The “door” blocking the way into the code section was easy to find, and she began to weave her way through the electronic logjam.

Then she noticed the program running through combinations also trying to get through.

It took six combinations to get through the door, and the computer had five. McFairn edged forward on the seat, waiting for the last one to be decoded.

Souris was in. It didn’t take her long to figure out the unlock code.

A second later the sniffer program broke through and had it also.

Souris had no idea who was running the program, but she reacted anyway. On the way out of Space Command’s computer, she triggered the emergency alert, putting the base on DefCon Four footing.

McFairn has just pulled out the disk with the unlock code when an alarm stridently sounded. For a second she thought she’d been caught, and then she realized what was happening. DefCon Four had been triggered. She ran to the door and down the corridor.

The massive blast door was swinging shut, locking her inside.

Souris had found manipulating the mainframe from inside exhilarating. As soon as the base was secure, she disabled the program to allow it to stand down from the alert footing. Then she disabled the secure communications trunk line on her way out, completely cutting off Space Command from the rest of the world.

The cool breeze on his cheek. Dalton focused on remembering that feeling from the moment he had scattered Marie’s ashes.

He felt it again. The gray gave way slightly with a tinge of red. Then it was gone.

Dalton concentrated. There was something, someone close by. He felt the breeze once more. He reached out to it.

“I’ve got something,” Hammond announced.

“What?” Mentor was hovering over her shoulder. “I’m boosting power,” Hammond said.

Dalton felt the connection, grabbed on to it like a drowning man to a lifeline. As he raced back toward the Ranch, there was a presence next to him, doing the same thing.

He couldn’t spare the energy to reach out to it, to find out who or what it was.

Then he was inside his frozen body, his mind still with access to the virtual plane. He felt the power come back into him from Sybyl.

“ Dalton and Jackson are back,” Hammond said. “I’m bringing them out.”