Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 (Nick Walker, U.F. Marshal Book 6)

by John Bowers

  The starboard engine, already burning, exploded. Flame and fragments boiled through the front of the ship, adding to the confusion, but the lander shifted under the blast, and the starboard ramp suddenly popped open. Men saw daylight and, moving in an undulating wave, boiled out the rear of the ship, tumbling to the ground the best way they could. Rico hit the ground and rolled, catching a lungful of relatively fresh air. Above him, the Lincoln lander was almost completely engulfed in flame, though Star Marines were still pouring out like pills spilled from a bottle.

  “Goddamn thing’s gonna blow again!” someone shouted. “Those fuel tanks–we gotta move!”

  Rico looked around, his heart pounding in his ears. Ships still dropped out of the sky in the face of heavy ASC fire, other ships burned on the runways; every which way he looked he saw bodies. Bullets chewed the tarplast all around him, snapping like a Colorado hailstorm. Directly in front of him, at least ninety yards away, were the hangars and repair shops. The wrecked lander blocked his view of the terminal and parking lots, where the heaviest fire seemed to be coming from.

  The portside engine exploded, washing him with choking heat. He glanced around and saw the lander shuddering backward, now pushed only by the nose nacelles, which were still firing reverse thrust. Over a hundred men hugged the ground, stunned into inaction, and Rico realized most of them would be barbecued when the fuel tanks cooked off.

  “Delta Company!” he shouted, “Follow me!”

  The Sword of Sophia

  Brandon Marlow was seated at his desk on the twenty-fifth floor, facing the window. It was dark outside, after normal working hours. Another weather front had moved in, obscuring the sky with heavy cloud, and a bitter wind whined around the building, causing the windows to thump each time a particularly heavy gust hit them. At least it wasn’t snowing yet; Brandon was getting weary of the constant cold—seasons on Vega lasted seven full months, which was nice in spring, summer, and fall, but dreary as hell in winter. He missed home. As bad as it was, Sirian Summer was a lot more tolerable than this prolonged deep-freeze. Sirian Summer only lasted a few weeks and the rest of the year was fairly pleasant.

  Brandon’s office was dim, only the night lights burning. Outside the windows the city blazed with light, all the more spectacular because of the darkened sky. He was reviewing Constabulary reports on the serial killer—he was certain that’s what they were dealing with—when, in one blinding instant, his office glared bright as day.

  “Shit!” He jerked his head away as the white light flared briefly, then died as quickly as it came. Brandon dropped to the floor in near panic, spots dancing before his eyes. Had someone set off a nuke in the city?

  But there was no blast wave, no scorching heat. After six or seven seconds he realized it was something else, and got clumsily to his feet. Staring out the window, blinking to restore his focus, he saw a fire raging in the distance, less than a mile away. A ghostly roil of flame still climbed skyward, a tiny mushroom, but it was dissipating fast, and was gone almost before he identified it. He’d seen that kind of mushroom before, on the battlefield.

  Plasma.

  *

  Fire units were arriving even as Brandon set his hovercar down half a block from the scene and jumped out. He stared in dismay at towering flames that leaped up the side of a department store; so far that was the only building involved, but if the firemen didn’t move quickly the fire would spread. Two hover choppers were already in the air, surveying the scene. Brandon walked forward, pushing through a growing crowd of civilians who had come out to see the spectacle.

  A single constable was there, looking helpless as he watched the action.

  “What happened here?” Brandon asked him quietly.

  The constable gave a start as he recognized the ebony uniform, but started talking quickly.

  “Not exactly sure, sir. Looks like the military checkpoint was taken out, but aside from the fire that seems to be the only damage.” He pointed. “Except for those trees in the park.” Two tall pines were also shooting flames skyward, but were almost consumed. The trees were spaced widely enough that the fire didn’t look likely to spread.

  Brandon walked toward the smoldering remains of the guard shack. This was one of dozens of checkpoints that ringed the downtown area; anyone who wished to enter the financial district had to pass through them, but this one had been obliterated. Brandon saw two corpses lying prone, almost consumed by the heat.

  “Any other casualties?” he asked the constable, who had followed him.

  “No, sir, not yet. Fortunate it happened when it did—just an hour ago this street was crowded with people.”

  “Yeah, fortunate.” Or planned. The stink of roasted flesh almost made him gag.

  Brandon walked the perimeter of the blast. The perimeter was easy to identify because the sidewalk had melted from the heat, and beyond that the grass in the park had turned to ash. He stayed out of the blast area itself because he didn’t want to disturb any evidence—let the experts deal with that.

  “I assume your disaster people are coming?” he asked the constable.

  “Yes, sir. I called them first thing. They should be here any minute.”

  “Good. I want everything collected. Everything. Did you see anything?”

  “No, sir, I was two blocks over. What do you think caused it, sir?”

  Brandon turned to reply. Before he could open his mouth another flash lit the sky, this one to the north; an instant later a third flash, a good mile south of the second. Simultaneous detonations, almost certainly, he thought, triggered by remote control. For just a moment the dark clouds reflected bluish-white, then the glows faded. Brandon stared as the little mushrooms ascended and burned themselves out. His heart began to race; he stood with his mouth open, his face numb. He waited for a fourth explosion, but it didn’t come.

  “If you repeat this,” he said quietly, “I’ll have you shot. But to answer your question…”

  He looked into the constable’s eyes.

  “We have ourselves a terrorist.”

  About the Author

  Born in the Arkansas Ozarks, John Bowers came to California at the age of two. His parents had no job prospects, but as lifelong farmers, they found work as migrant labor in the San Joaquin Valley (in the 1950s, most of California’s migrant labor was done by “Arkies” and “Okies”, many of whom had come West during the Great Depression). Some of his earliest memories include sitting on a pallet under a grape vine playing with toy trucks while his parents harvested grapes or picked cotton.

  By the time Bowers started school, his dad had found work on a turkey ranch, and continued to work in turkeys for the next 15 years, moving from one job to another almost every year. From first grade until his senior year in high school, Bowers attended ten different schools, including three high schools. “We were constantly moving,” he recalls, “usually in the dead of winter” (when agriculture was dormant). As a result, Bowers remembers lots of people, but few of them remember him: “I simply wasn’t there long enough to be remembered.”

  When he was four years old, Bowers’ mother began studying with what later proved to be a religious cult. She didn’t actually join the group for several years, but Bowers lived under its influence from an early age. By the time they started attending “church”, Bowers was also convinced it was the true religion. “My mom said she had proved it,” he says today. “Mom was the smartest person I knew, so I believed her.”

  Forty years later, when Bowers saw evidence of corruption in the ministry, his eyes were opened and he made his escape. “Unfortunately, I had subjected my own kids to several years of cult indoctrination, but I think we got out early enough for them to have a somewhat normal life.” Today, neither Bowers nor his children are involved in religion. “I spent forty years in the wilderness,” he says. “I think I’ve paid my dues.”

  Bowers discovered a love for writing in 7th grade. In high school his English teachers considered him a prodigy, expecting h
im to become a great success as a novelist. But the “church” had other ideas, and went to great lengths to squelch his talent. “They called it vanity,” he says. “I defied them for a while, but you can’t fight against ‘God’ forever, and I finally stuck a pin in it.”

  But he never gave up the dream, and at age 44, when he finally seized his freedom, he started writing again. Manhunt on Tau Ceti 4 is his 16th novel on Amazon, and in spite of the wasted years, he swears he is only getting started.

  Bowers still lives in Central California (and hasn’t moved for 26 years). As for his cult experience, he has this to say (with apologies to the United States Marines who served on Guadalcanal):

  “And when he gets to Heaven,

  “To St. Peter he will tell:

  “‘Another cult member reporting, sir…

  “I’ve served my time in Hell.’”

  Visit John: at his web site, Facebook, Twitter.