Jansen ignored him. “Oyster shell.”
“No, more like coral,” Hopkins said.
Hopkins was right. The texture of the discs was remarkably like coral in a fantastic shade of royal blue. Jansen had no idea what that meant, or if it meant anything at all. As he floated there against the window with his mouth gaping open, he tried to find some frame of reference to gauge how big the discs were, but to no avail. He suddenly wished he’d paid more attention in his astronomy courses. Like Hopkins had. “What do you think? Five kilometers across?”
The line was dead for a moment. “Bigger. Ten, maybe twenty. It’s hard to tell.”
“You guys aren’t making any damn sense,” Marco said bitterly. “Would someone please tell me what’s going on? Use words and sentences.”
For a single pregnant moment, the discs sat there motionless, and Jansen had a feeling they were examining the Earth. They were considering their next move. Then they burst into motion, accelerating at a rate Jansen never would’ve believed if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. They scattered around the globe.
“Maybe they’re trying to make contact,” Hopkins said. The tone of his voice said he didn’t believe it either.
There was a burst of light in the distance. An explosion. The Sunyaev Observatory was out that way. Another light flashed, this time from the direction of the Brahe Array. A half dozen more explosions appeared in the following seconds. It was the first depressing fireworks show Jansen had ever seen.
“Marco,” Jansen finally said into an already dead communicator, “we’ve got company, and I don’t think they brought pie.”
Chapter 6:
The Earth Stands Still
The sky was dull grey, and rain was trying to fall in fits and starts. It wasn’t a storm yet, but the promise of something dreadful hid within the water fat clouds. Jack Hernandez wasn’t pleased. The last thing he wanted to see on returning from hurricane-ravaged Jacksonville was more rain. He’d been hip-deep in flood waters for so long he could scarcely remember what dry underwear felt like, and he spent the entire flight home dreaming about the warm San Jose sun. His plan was to do nothing but dry out for two straight days.
The sun, that cowardly bastard, was nowhere to be found.
Jack’s train ride was quiet and fast, followed by an energetic if mechanical march back from the station and a quick trot up to the door. The apartment unlocked itself as he approached, and he was already half-stripped when the door closed behind him. He tossed his backpack aside, unzipped his jumpsuit and let it hang limply from his waist, drew his tank-top over his head and threw it to the floor. Hopping, he yanked off one boot and then the other, stepped out of the jumpsuit and left it in a damp heap. In another moment, his sponge-like boxers and socks were gone, and he collapsed on the living room carpet naked.
The air in his apartment was cool and—to Jack’s great satisfaction—bone dry. Without the television on, the room was silent save for the sound of his breathing and the intermittent patter of rain on the patio. It didn’t quite measure up to his sun-soaked dreams, but it would do. He lost track of time lying there on the floor, staring at the ceiling and listening to a world momentarily at peace.
When his phone began to ring, he was adamant about not answering it. Just let it go, he told himself. It can’t be anything important. The answering machine will get it. The second ring came and went, the third followed close behind. By the fourth, he was starting to reconsider. Before the fifth ring came, he was on his feet and moving.
He plucked the handset from its cradle. “Hello?”
“Hey Jack,” a sultry sweet voice came back. “You were supposed to call when you landed, dopefish.”
“Sorry, Jess. I was so tired, I came straight home and passed out.” That was close enough to the truth.
“Good news, then. I’m on my way over with an armload of groceries. I’m cooking you dinner tonight.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“How about because I miss you, silly?”
Jack smiled, and for a second his thoughts wandered to the ring nestled in its delicate little box at the bottom of his sock drawer. “Good reason. How far away are you?”
“Five minutes,” she guessed.
“That doesn’t give me much time to get dressed.”
“Whatever you’re wearing is fine,” Jess said. “See you in a bit.” Then dial-tone.
Jack dropped the phone back into its cradle and saw the message light blinking. It couldn’t be good news. It was never good news, but he hit play anyway.
“Don’t suppose you recognize my voice, do you? It’s your mother. Maybe I should adopt the answering machine; at least it picks up the phone when I call. Anyway, just letting you know Charlie got promoted to Staff Sergeant. Isn’t that great? I know you don’t like what he does, but you should talk to him. He worked so hard, and… He’d never say it, but he still looks up to you. He only joined up with Carbon Corp because he wanted to help people like you do. He’s starting his third tour, Egypt this time, and I’d really appreciate if you at least gave him a call before he ships out. I guess that’s it. Hope you and Jess can join us for Thanksgiving. Love you, and call me sometime.”
It never ceased to amaze Jack how much guilt that woman could cram into a one minute recording. He also realized, with heavy heart, that she’d never understand the rift between her sons. When Jack joined the ERC, he dedicated himself to helping people any way he could, regardless of race, religion or politics. He risked life and limb for strangers every day, and it just wasn’t the kind of work a person could do without believing in the cause. He was a true believer, through and through.
Then Charlie made the most Charlie-like decision possible: he became a damned mercenary with Carbon Corporation. He wasn’t helping people; he was putting bleeding holes in them and blowing them to bits.
This was nothing new. Charlie always made messes that Jack had to clean up, and now their childhood was repeating itself, but inflated to a global scale. This was the culmination of a pattern, the last step in making sure everything Jack did was ultimately meaningless.
After a moment of reflection, Jack suspected that was a tad melodramatic.
They didn’t see one another much anymore, and whenever they did, Jack conveniently forgot he was a pacifist. There were black eyes, split lips and cracked ribs on both sides, and they finally decided that avoidance was the only sensible answer. It turned out to be a great policy, and they hadn’t spoken in two years. Two wondrous, blissful years.
As Jack stood by the phone, mulling over his little brother killing dissidents in Egypt, he heard the door open and all of the anger and frustration melted away.
In a few long strides, he crossed the floor and intercepted Jess in the open doorway. His arms encircled her, his hands pressed into the small of her back, his head craned down and he gently pressed his mouth to her soft lips. The bag of groceries between them dropped to the floor.
After a moment, he pulled away and looked into her brilliant blue eyes, but stayed so close he could feel her warm breath breaking against his upper lip. “I missed you, too,” he whispered.
“I noticed,” she said with a grin. “You’re naked.”
“You said whatever I’m wearing is fine. You, on the other hand, are way over-dressed.” He stole another kiss. “And so beautiful.”
Before Jess could reply, Jack’s arms cinched around her waist and lifted her up, then he spun her around. She filled the room with laughter, and he attacked her open mouth, hungrily kissing and nibbling at her lower lip.
He lowered her back to the floor with one arm and closed the door with the other.
“Dinner?” She asked.
He ducked his head under her chin and laid one kiss and another on the tender skin of her throat, all the while inhaling her sweet honeysuckle scent. “Dessert,” he suggested.
Then the moment was ruined. The datapad in his backpack blared out an alert, but Jack was adamant about not answering it. Just let it go,
he told himself. It can’t be anything important. He froze in place, savoring the feeling of her warm body against his. The second alert came and went, the third followed close behind. The fourth began, but he wouldn’t let himself reconsider. Before the fifth ring came, Jess made up his mind for him.
“You have to answer it,” she said.
He reached into the pack, retrieved his pad and looked grimly at the screen. “It’s Priority One,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“Well, I’ve been with the Corps for nine years, and I’ve never seen anything worse than Priority Two.”
He flashed back to orientation and heard his instructor’s voice listing Priority One scenarios. “Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact.”
Jack gestured at the TV and it came on, but the black screen said, “No Signal.”
“Damn storm.”
“You should go,” Jess said with two tons of regret in her voice.
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” his instructor droned on.
“I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I have to go.”
“I know. It’s why I love you, Corpsman Hernandez. You’re out to save the world, and someday, you’re going to.”
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” the old voice was now chanting.
“There’s something I need to ask you when I get back. You’ll be here?”
She smiled and kissed him, and there was a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll always be here waiting for you, until the stars rain down from the sky.”
And he knew she would.
On autopilot, Jack dressed in fresh clothes, checked his gear and flew out the door. He ran to the train station and caught the mag-lev down to Vandenberg, totally oblivious to everything around him. He didn’t notice everyone in the station fiddling with their malfunctioning phones, or gossiping about blank televisions. He missed the announcement that the train was being guided manually in the absence of the traffic network, and he didn’t even notice that his GPS was blank.
Jack didn’t notice because he was thinking about that question he would ask when he got back. During the trip, he didn’t once hear his instructor’s voice and the list of possible calamities. All he heard, over and over again, was Jess’ promise to wait for him, in that voice that was too sweet for words.
Chapter 7:
Broken Bird
The Vandenberg airfield was in a panic the likes of which Jack had never seen before. Preflight personnel were rushing everywhere, assembling equipment at a break-neck pace and prepping the massive tranzat carriers at all five gantries. Each spear-like tranzat was flanked by ten of the orange leviathan helicopters, lined up in rows with their blades folded, and waiting to be loaded. The helicopters looked like nothing so much as oversized Easter eggs painted by a strangely unimaginative kid.
The Priority One alert had gone out to everyone: primary squads, secondaries and reserves alike. That added up to about five thousand drop-ready corpsmen lined-up in rows on the tarmac, waiting to be briefed, loaded and launched.
Vandenberg was California’s primary launch site. More volunteers would be arriving at secondary sites by the thousands, and the same would be happening at ERC launch facilities all over the globe. The amount of manpower in motion was staggering to consider.
Jack found the SJ Bravos among the sea of orange jumpsuits without too much effort, and he fell into formation. “Hey Albright, any idea what’s up?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He scanned the group and took a mental picture. He’d never seen five thousand completely dumbfounded faces before, and he doubted he ever would again.
The regional director came out a few minutes later and cleared his throat over the PA. “Settle down, corpsmen,” he said, and the chatter died. “I know you’re all wondering what the hell’s going on, and you’re not alone. There seems to be a perfect shit storm coming down right now, and we’re working double time just to put the big picture together.
“First off, as you no doubt noticed, communication networks are down right now. All of them. This is due to some sort of broad spectrum interference that’s wreaking havoc with anything wireless. We haven’t identified the source yet, but we believe the effect to be global.
“It’s a small miracle that we managed to get the alert out at all. Of course, I know all you dedicated boys and girls would’ve followed regs and reported in during a communications black-out, anyway.”
There was stifled laughter in the crowd.
“But that’s not Priority One.” The director took a moment to clear his throat. “Shortly before communications were interrupted, two impacts were reported on the Asian subcontinent, one in India and the other in China. The events registered on our seismic equipment, and we’ve estimated the power of each to be in the five gigaton range.”
Jack and five thousand other corpsman cursed.
“We initially believed the impacts to be asteroids. However, the evidence we’ve pieced together points to the Helios and Hyperion solar arrays being the culprits. We have no idea why they fell out of orbit, but we can assume the destruction is… simply unimaginable.
“Both impacts occurred in high density population centers, in fact, the most densely populated regions in the world. Considering the coincident failure of communications networks, we must assume that this constitutes some form of attack. Terrorism cannot be ruled out, although it’s hard to imagine a terrorist organization with the resources and coordination necessary for this type of operation.
“Our job, as always, is to provide humanitarian aid. We’ll be double and triple loading laviathans, and cluster dropping at full speed from LEO in order to get as many feet on the ground as possible. Your primary jobs will be to collect refugees and organize temporary camps, then hold tight until we can begin airlifting them to wherever the hell we can. Expect to see local military, as well as Blade and Carbon forces in the area.”
The director took a moment to think back through the speech, making sure he didn’t leave anything out. Then he said, “You know the rest. Let’s get in the air.”
From there, it was a normal launch but with more bodies and none of the banter. The Bravos loaded into their leviathan accompanied by a reserve squad and two full pallets loaded with medical supplies, rations and light-weight collapsible shelters. Everything and everyone was locked down, and then the leviathan and nine identical replicas were lifted into the tranzat’s cradles and locked into place.
With the windows covered, the rest of the launch process always happened blind. There was the feeling of being moved in one direction and then another, the ratcheting of the launch gantry as the plane was angled upwards, and then a roar and immense pressure as the tranzat thrust itself into the sky. The roar subsided, and for the rest of the trip, they swayed and bobbed like an inflatable dolphin in a pool.
This time, Leonid Nikitin was wide awake and Lisa Albright’s earphones were nowhere to be found. Each of the passengers was wearing the same blank expression found in hospital waiting rooms, with eyes cast down and brows drawn together. Most were lipping something, and Jack assumed they were prayers. When he noticed his own lips were doing the same, he couldn’t recall what they’d been reciting.
The tranzat blasted through the upper atmosphere for an hour, and the corpsmen sat in silence waiting for the drop. Then they heard a strange howl and the cabin rocked hard to the side.
“Tell me that’s just turbulence, Jack,” Skip shouted across the isle.
Several more howls rushed past the hull, and another one struck. The cabin rattled and shook. Jack could only think of one possible answer: they were under attack. “Masks!” He cried out, and everyone reacted instantly, grabbing their oxygen masks from the packs above and pulling them over their heads.
Another howling thing struck the ship, and their leviathan lurc
hed free of its cradle, dropping into the thin air at the upper edge of the atmosphere. No warning light this time, just the sickly feeling of plummeting like a stone, tumbling end over end.
The portholes on either side of the cabin revealed the Earth, the dark sky, and the Earth again, chasing one after the other in rapid succession. The burning tranzat shrank into the distance, and the air was thick with strange shapes that Jack couldn’t make out.
Another series of howling rounds screamed past the hull, and one struck with a deafening crack. In response, the safety windows exploded in a rain of small pellets, and the air pressure inside the leviathan disappeared.
They were falling, unguided, uncontrolled. Jack had a hunch and he had to act quickly or it’d all be over. He tugged the climbing hook out from his harness, latched it to the U-shaped restraint, and slammed the seat’s emergency release. The metal bar jerked up and away from him, but before he could fly loose in the spinning cabin, he tensed and pushed himself hard toward the cockpit door.
He flew through the air while the cabin twisted around him, only to crash into his target a thump. His bones rattled and his body ached from head to toe, but he grappled at the guidebars and managed to grab hold. With a tap at his harness, the hook released and he retrieved the spring loaded arrestor cable, then latched up at his new position.
His gloved hands fumbled at the door handle then pried it open with a twist, revealing the shattered cockpit beyond. He clambered through and found precisely what he feared: a destroyed windshield and two dead pilots strapped into the seats.
The next few moments were a blur of motion. He released the pilot’s belt, pulled the limp body free and climbed in to replace him. It took him a second to focus, to blot out the spinning Earth and make sense of the instrument panel in front of him. Jack was rated a Class C leviathan pilot, and this was hardly second nature to him, but he wanted to live. He would focus and he would remember.
He closed his eyes, imagined the diagrams and tried to hear his flight instructor’s commands. Reaching out, unsure if he was grabbing the right lever, he pushed one all the way forward and the leviathan’s air-baffles extended. They increased drag at the top of the craft and righted it as it fell.
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