by H. J. Lawson
The Tide
The Multiverse Wave
Copyright © 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission, except for brief quotations to books and critical reviews. This story is a work of fiction. Characters, businesses, places, and events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Kindle Edition
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – TJ Ryan
Chapter 2 – R. Brady Frost
Chapter 3 – Michael Anderle
Chapter 4 – Emma Right
Chapter 5 – Adam Kayce
Chapter 6 – Sabrina Sable
Chapter 7 – Justin Sloan
Chapter 8 – Martha Carr
Chapter 9 – Sarah Dalton
Chapter 10 – J.L. Hendricks
Chapter 11 – Craig Martelle
Chapter 12 – Kat Lind
Chapter 13 – TS Paul
Chapter 14 – Katherine Hayton
Chapter 15 – RJ Crayton
Chapter 16 – E.E. Isherwood
Chapter 17 – Dale Furse
Chapter 18 – K. S. Brooks
Chapter 19 – Debbie Cassidy
Chapter 20 – James S. Aaron
Chapter 21 – H.J. Lawson
Bonus
About the authors
Chapter 1 – TJ Ryan
Kearyn
Bracing for impact, I stared down at the unmoving form that lay before me. The grotesque corpse was sprawled in the middle of the control room floor, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
The ship rocked and swayed, and I waited for the hit. It didn’t come this time, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Sephia nudged the corpse with the toe of her boot, and it squished slightly under her touch. She stared absently at it, unmoving and expressionless. Moving to stand next to her, I put my hand on her shoulder in a pathetic attempt to comfort her.
Suddenly the hit came and a loud crashing sound emanated from below us.
“Kearyn, what the hell was that?” Brody asked me from the far side of the room. I ignored him. After four days of sporadic impact, it no longer surprised me when we got hit.
Another loud crash and the ship dropped a foot, then steadied itself with a loud clang. I wasn’t prepared, and the quick freefalling sensation made me nauseous. I bit my lip, hoping not to be sick.
The lights went out and flickered back on a moment later. The red emergency light was flashing in the center of the room, but we had learned to ignore it. Not much we can do about it now, anyway.
The impact had knocked Finn to the ground, and he proceeded to crawl to the far wall, leaning against it for support. Brody raced to the control board, frantically pushing buttons in hopes that at least some combination would give us control of the ship.
“It would help if we knew where the bloody hell we were,” he muttered to himself as he continued to press the buttons to no avail.
My attention turned back to the immediate problem at hand.
"I think he's still alive," Riley said, uncertain. She bent down to examine the body more closely, careful not to get too close. The look on her face suggested she didn’t believe what she had just said.
"It," Sephia corrected.
I glanced up at Sephia, feeling sorry for the poor woman. The thing that lay on the floor is—was—her husband, Jacob.
We all stared down at what was once a human man. Whatever it was now, it didn't look human. And it certainly didn't seem alive. The corpse was mangled and barely recognizable. I’m unsure if what happened to him occurred before or after he died, but I prayed whatever it was happened after.
"He's dead," I said with certainty.
"It," Sephia repeated shallowly.
Her face was empty, her body as rigid as ice.
"Sephia, I…” I started. I didn't actually know what to say to her, so I trailed off without finishing the sentence.
A loud crash came from behind us, and the ship jolted aggressively, this time knocking more than a few of us off our feet.
“What’s out there?” Finn shouted, attempting to brace himself on the wall as he reached for his gun with his good hand.
Finn’s son, Walt, came racing out from the back of the ship to join us. Panting and nearly on his knees, he managed to say, “The left engine. We’ve lost it. It completely tore off the ship.” He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees to keep from collapsing from exhaustion. He had been back there for hours, hoping to find out what’s wrong with the engine system.
“And the right engine?” I asked, afraid to hear his answer.
Walt nodded, catching his breath. “It looks fine, for now. Same with the backup engine system. We should be okay if everything else holds up.”
I nodded and made my way over to the front viewing window of the command room. That was good news, at least. I gazed out the window, for all the good it did me.
It was black.
It was all black, just as it had been for the past four days. We had no visuals of outside, no communication with the base—or any other ships, for that matter. We didn’t even know if we were still in the Earth’s atmosphere, or traveling blindly through deep space. We were also unsure if the wiring connecting the camera capsules to the viewing windows was disconnected, or if the black we were seeing was actually the blackness of space.
All ships were equipped with a minimum of three weeks’ worth of autopilot control, which was lucky as we had no idea how to man the ship. Not one of us on board had pilot training, and there were so many different control systems and engine rooms that we hardly knew where to begin.
And we couldn’t ask anyone, because the communication network was down, and no one on the ship had any training in that sort of thing either. The only communication we’ve had with anyone was when two personal escape pods docked to our ship as a result of the automatic protocols installed in all of the new pod systems. The first arrived yesterday, bringing Sephia on board. Sephia was a therapist, and God knows we could use one of those right about now—not that she was in any state to offer comfort at the moment. The second arrived this morning, carrying Sephia’s husband. Or at least, what was left of him.
I assume he contracted whatever virus was making its way across the planet, causing the mass exodus that, last we witnessed, left humanity in a psychotic state of panic. The United States was only equipped with so many escape ships and stations, and all order was lost when word got around that scientists had given up on finding a cure, believing a full evacuation of Earth to be the only way to escape the plague. Once word spread, the race to the ships became a bloodbath. If the virus didn’t wipe out society, then society would certainly take care of that themselves. It would seem that people would rather risk dying for the chance to escape than wait for the virus to take them.
I shuddered at the memory, looking around at the small group of eight that made it onto this large craft designed to take at least forty. Well nine, if you count Jacob. The crowd had gotten so violent, pushing and fighting to get to the ladders, tearing each other down every time someone new made it halfway to the ship’s bridge. There was so much damage being done to the ship that we had to take off right away or else risk losing the ship altogether. I shook my head in an attempt to rid myself of the image. Those poor souls who lost their only chance at survival were stuck on Earth, likely dead or dying from the virus by now.
Looking down at Jacob’s misshapen body, though, it seemed to me that whatever it was that was spreading through the human race was far more than just a virus.
; “We need to get him off the ship. Now,” Grace said weakly, drawing attention to herself for the first time since Jacob arrived. Grace was Jacob’s niece and had been in her fourth year of medical school at Johns Hopkins. She hadn’t spoken since he arrived, retreating to the floor in the far corner of the room with her head buried in her knees.
“I’m not joking, we need to get him off,” she said adamantly, her calm, steady voice learned through her doctor’s training finally taking over.
“It,” Sephia repeated impatiently. “That thing is not my husband. Whatever it is, that’s not Jacob.”
Grace glared up at Sephia, and continued, “Viruses don’t just disappear when their host dies. If he’s contagious, then we’re all at risk. We need to get him out of here.”
A nervous murmur made its way through the group, and everyone stepped back from the strange-looking corpse.
“How?” I asked, returning from the window.
“We will have to use the escape pod,” Walt said confidently. “We put him back in the pod he came in, and hope to God that it doesn’t attach itself to another ship.”
“Or return to ours,” Riley finished.
I nodded. “Alright, let’s do it. Quickly.”
No one made any attempt to move toward the thing.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I said, exasperated. “We got him on this ship. We can bloody well get him off.” I removed my sweater and tossed it over the corpse, concealing at least some of the monstrosity. I reached down to grab hold of what was left of his clothing when Grace immediately jumped up and ran over to us.
“Don’t touch the skin,” she said to the room. “Avoid any skin-to-skin contact, and try not to breathe too close to him. We don’t know what it is that got him, so best to be as careful as we can.”
“Doesn’t look like he’s got any skin left, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” Walt remarked, looking down at the corpse with wide eyes. “Doesn’t look like he’s got much of anything human left.” Walt took a step back, apparently unsure what to make of the thing on the floor in front of him. He turned to look away, his face growing green.
“Just…grab part of his clothing, and we’ll all lift him back to the pod bay, okay?”
Everyone crowded around the corpse and grabbed hold of a piece of his clothing, many people opting to wrap their hands in loose pieces of their own attire.
“On one, two...” On three, we lifted the body and carried it to the opening that led to the pod. We had to swing it a bit to get it high enough to roll into the pod itself, but all in all, it wasn’t too big of an ordeal.
I searched the room for Sephia, who hadn’t offered to help with the carrying. “Would you like a minute alone before we send him away?” I asked.
Sephia shook her head. “That’s not my husband. Get that thing out of here.” Her face was alabaster white, and she looked like she was about ready to faint. Finn put his arm around her and led her to a bench on the other side of the room to sit down. She went without protest.
Those of us who came in contact with the corpse threw our contaminated clothing into the pod as well, and after everyone had cleared the area I reached toward the lever that closed the door.
“Holy shit!” I shouted, jumping back in shock. Something had reached out from within the pod and grabbed me by the wrist in an iron-tight grip. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” I repeatedly whispered to myself. The hand-like thing let go immediately and retreated back into the pod before anyone had a chance to turn and see what had happened.
My heart beat fast in my chest, and I immediately grabbed the lever and pulled it tight until the door was completely sealed, a loud clang signaling the closure of metal on metal. My breath had caught in my throat, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to regulate my breathing. My body shook uncontrollably.
Everyone stared back at me, and I shook my head. “Nothing, sorry,” I whispered quickly, hiding my hand in my back pocket. “Sorry, just a bit on edge.” A few nodded to me, and everyone quickly resumed their self-assigned posts.
I glanced over to Walt, who typed a code into the command center and gave me the nod. I slammed my free hand down on the eject button, relieved that the pod was finally disengaged from our ship.
The air felt lighter as if everyone had been holding in a breath and had just let it go. The mood remained somber, but everyone began chatting amongst themselves again, the tension having substantially subsided.
I felt a throbbing sensation in my wrist and stole a glance down toward my hand. Small red bumps in an unusual pattern were starting to appear where the thing had touched me, but I pulled my shirt sleeve down as far as it could go to conceal them.
“Shall we try and see if we can learn how to control this thing?” Walt asked, pushing random buttons and pulling levers on the command center experimentally. “I have a feeling we’ll be here a while. Might as well get to know it.”
“Sounds good to me,” I agreed, joining him next to the captain’s seat, patting the sleek metal surface of the control board with my left hand. My right hand remained hidden in my pocket. “Let’s see if we can get this bad boy under control.”
Chapter 2 – R. Brady Frost
Colonel Jones
Colonel Jones paced in front of the desk in her makeshift command post. It was a large, spacious suite, once occupied by a well-paid executive at the commandeered SpaceRx headquarters building. The civilian space tourism corporation had been a prime target for military control once the first signs of contagion had spread to uncontrollable levels. Much of the initial chaos that had erupted on the launch of the modified tourist-class vessels had dissipated, leaving security forces to mop up any stragglers still lingering within the compound. But she feared it was the calm before the storm that would inevitably descend upon them.
Every able-bodied citizen had been forcefully recruited to the support effort, and crews worked tirelessly to repair the breach, while she had set to work on the administrative aftermath. There was personnel to debrief, after-action reports to write, and commanders in Cheyenne Mountain and other strongholds who liked to bark orders and demand status updates which couldn’t possibly make a difference this late in the game.
Sightings of the creatures had been reported within fifty miles of their poorly fortified position, and she hadn’t yet received orders to pull out. With an operation of this size, all preliminary data suggested Command intended for her and those under her charge to remain, to keep the launch pads secure for some unknown reason. That or the radio silence on the matter indicated their role in all of this had played out. If that were the case, she’d be damned if she wouldn’t fight tooth and nail to defend the men and women counting on her to lead them through this mess. Still, she couldn’t help but think of the hunks of spacecraft that remained Earth-bound just acres away from where she was right now. So many lives lost. So many chances of survival grounded.
It had been four long days since the last vessel to leave the pads had breached Earth’s atmosphere. Seventy-nine of the one hundred and fifty ships had launched at capacity and without issue. These were marked in green on the command board that served as a visual status marker to indicate the successes and tragic failures of their mission.
She could see them now, orderly lines of smoke and fire that tore through the heavens, one by one, just as they had planned. Then some joker on the Delta-Five perimeter had lost control of their position, and all hell broke loose. Thousands of civilians, all hungry for a chance at hope, rushed the platforms. Shots were fired, but there wasn’t enough time or ammunition to quell the crowd.
Thirty-two vessels were marked in orange. These were the ones filled beyond capacity which had somehow managed to break free from the Earth’s gravitational pull but lacked the provisions and oxygen to last long enough to rendezvous with the greater fleet. Those desperate rats had overburdened their rafts and only the lucky would survive. There was nothing she could do for any of them from here.
Twenty-eight red markers represented the vessels filled far beyond capacity and too heavy to breach the atmosphere, or those which had suffered other mechanical failures. In theory, some of these ships might still be viable. The command and control technicians were going through the data to confirm each adverse prognosis in case something in the initial dataset had been wrong. Hope was a precious commodity, and many still clung to the thought that maybe some of the readings had been misleading.
A timid knock sounded on the other side of the large oak door that separated her from the pandemonium outside the suite as those under her command rushed to fulfill her instructions.
“Send him in,” she ordered.
A tall, muscular man entered the room. His hair was unkempt, and the glasses he wore were skewed to one side. She hoped her men hadn’t been too rough with him; she still needed answers.
“Mr.…” she began.
“Treavyn, ma’am. Treavyn Dennessee.”
“Mr. Dennessee, yes.” She walked back to the desk and picked up his file. “Have a seat.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Treavyn answered and then sat down in a plush leather swivel chair at a small conference table halfway between her and the door through which he entered.
“Do you see this board?” she asked, looking back over her shoulder at the colored markings.
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
“I put each of those markers up there myself,” she said, turning around and thumbing through the manila folder.
The photo in his personnel file showed a less haggard man, cool and confident. The one who sat before her had the same build, the same keen intellect in his eyes, but something was missing; an edge or spark. She’d seen the same beaten look in the eyes of some of the men and women who had served under her throughout her years, men and women who had looked into the face of war and death and had been forever changed by it.
“Sure, I could have had someone else do it,” she offered, “but I take great pride in what I do.”
Treavyn sat in silence, and after a moment she continued, “The green ones were easy. Those were before the wall was breached. The red, as unfortunate as it may be, those we can count as gone; too loaded with our greed and condemned by our collective desire to survive above all else.”