Earthfall

by Knight, Stephen

  In the bed beside her, Kelly Jordello was recovering from her own injuries. Her broken femur had been set, and her leg was in traction for the rest of the week. After that, the base surgeon would decide whether or not to insert pins to assist in her recovery. The two of them joked that since both of them had only one working leg each, the only way they could make a run for it was if they taped themselves together. They had watched the memorial service on the base’s video network, and both were feeling more than a bit melancholy. Leona was staring up at the ceiling, lost in her own thoughts when Kelly suddenly said, “Well hello, Sergeant Major.”

  Leona looked up, and when she saw Mulligan standing between their beds, she felt as if her heart had jumped into her mouth. He was still in his Class As, and he held his green beret in one hand. Leona stared up at him, marveling at his attire. She couldn’t remember seeing him in anything other than his Army combat uniform.

  “Lieutenant Jordello, how are you coming along?” Mulligan asked, giving Leona a quick glance before looking down at Kelly.

  Kelly indicated the traction rig that held her leg suspended in the air. “Well, I’d try and get out of here, but I don’t think I’ll get very far on foot.”

  Mulligan grunted. “Better stay where you are then, ma’am.”

  “Sharp threads, Sarmajor. What brings you here? Bedpan patrol?”

  “No, ma’am. I flunked the candy striper test. Just as well, I hated the duty uniform. Excuse us, please.” Mulligan yanked the privacy curtain between the two beds closed, hiding Kelly from view as he turned toward Leona. She looked up at him, confused.

  “Sarmajor?”

  Mulligan scowled at her. Combined with the mass of bruises on his face, the expression made him look positively ferocious. “Stop gaping, girl. You look like you’ve gone feeble.” Before she could make a response, he stepped closer to the bed and held out the eagle medallion to her. Leona looked at it, watching as it swayed and twinkled in the room’s antiseptic light.

  “Uh, what—”

  “My wife made that for me, out of a coin,” Mulligan said, cutting her off. “An Eisenhower dollar, actually. It seemed to attract your attention out in the field, and I …” He paused for a moment, then sighed. “Well, I thought you might want to have it, is all.”

  “Why would you want to give it to me?”

  Mulligan considered that for a long moment, then shrugged. “My day to make amends, I guess. I treated you pretty badly out in the field, and you didn’t really deserve it. Sorry.”

  “Oh.” Leona looked from the medallion to Mulligan as he towered over the bed. “Well, look, Sergeant Major. I’m not going to report it or anything, because I pretty much stepped over the line …”

  “So you’re not interested, then?” Mulligan asked, his voice flat.

  Leona hesitated, uncertain of what to do. She couldn’t think of what to say, so she slowly raised her hand and took the medallion from him. She looked at it, turning it over in her hand. The details of the eagle were finely crafted, and even though she’d never seen such a creature before, she knew it was a symbol of strength and honor. It fit Mulligan perfectly.

  “This has got to mean a lot to you, Mulligan. I mean—I’m flattered that you’d think of giving it to me, but that won’t bring absolution, you know? Your family will still be dead.” She wondered if she was saying too much; after all, the privacy curtain wasn’t exactly soundproof, and she had no trouble imagining Kelly hanging on every word.

  “That’s not exactly what this is about,” Mulligan said, “but the offer stands, anyway.”

  Leona regarded the medallion again, then looked up at Mulligan. He seemed different to her, now. There was something akin to humor in his eyes, and while it seemed foreign to her, it also seemed right, as if she was glimpsing the real Scott Mulligan for the first time. Despite his cuts and bruises, he seemed more alert, as if he’d just awakened from a very long, refreshing sleep. Leona still didn’t know what he was up to with this impromptu visit and unexpected peace offering—she couldn’t quite get her mind around the possibility that he was giving her a gift—but she knew what she hoped for. If this was her shot at getting it, then she had to take it.

  “Thank you,” she said, hesitantly. “It’s very lovely.”

  “Well, it’s not a wedding proposal or anything, so don’t mess up the sheets, okay?”

  “What?” Leona suddenly laughed, in spite of herself. When Mulligan allowed a ghost of a smile to cross his lips, she knew he was teasing her. Humor from Scott Mulligan was something she’d have to get used to. “I wasn’t about to, Sergeant Major. But … just what does it mean?”

  Mulligan crossed his arms and considered her question for a long moment, his gaze locked on hers. “Well, Lieutenant, I guess it means that maybe we’ll sit down and have a talk sometime, once you get out of this overblown band-aid factory. If you can make the time, that is.”

  “Yeah, I think I can make the time,” Leona said automatically, and the sudden eagerness of her reply left her feeling foolish and embarrassed. She felt her face grow warm. Either her fever had returned, or she was blushing.

  “Cool,” Mulligan said, and he touched her arm briefly. His hand was warm and dry, his touch surprisingly gentle. “Catch you then, and get well soon.”

  With that, he swept aside the curtain. Kelly lay in her bed with her eyes closed, mouth open, so obviously pretending to be asleep that it was almost laughable. Mulligan looked down at her, shook his head with a sigh, then headed for the door.

  Leona called out to him before he could make a clean getaway. “But what’ll we talk about? Force protection in post-holocaust America? Diplomacy versus firepower? Mercury in retrograde?”

  Mulligan stopped at the doorway and turned back to her. He looked at her frankly, and he allowed himself a vague smile. “You’re a funny girl, Eklund. I like that. But I’ll leave the topic of conversation to you—I can’t lead all the time. See you around campus.”

  Then he was gone. Leona stared at the doorway for a moment, her mind whirling. Did Mulligan just—

  “Did Mulligan just ask you out on a date?” Kelly asked, very much awake.

  “I … I guess?”

  Kelly smiled and clasped her hands behind her head, looking up at the ceiling. “Well, in that case, I guess you’d better get well soon, Lee. I don’t know much about these things, but I’d say the big man still has a lot of rawr left in him, if you get what I mean.”

  Leona wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but then decided she didn’t need to know. She would find out herself. All in good time. Her gaze returned to the medallion. She studied it for a long moment, and she realized a soft smile had spread across her face.

  27

  Repairs had been underway for an entire month. Benchley paid attention to every detail, and ensured that Jeremy Andrews and his team of engineers had enough manpower available, not to just fix what had been broken in the earthquake, but to reinforce and strengthen the outpost’s power array. No one wanted to go through another event like the one they had just barely survived, and Benchley made it a priority for the engineers to move quickly and expeditiously. For weeks, everyone labored to put the base back together, and everyone had a hand in its restoration. Even Benchley had pulled on coveralls and spliced wire, welded piping, and serviced heavy equipment. No one was allowed any slack. Bit by bit, the station was patched up and made fully operational again.

  But while Harmony Base was healing, it would bear scars for the rest of its life.

  At night, in his quarters, he avoided sleep. Not because he feared his dreams—he had long since grown inured against them—but because Mike Andrews had finally delivered his mission log. And the things Benchley found in the report were shocking. Frightening. At times, even outrageous.

  And most surprising of all, the report contained hope.

  Unconfirmed reports of other survivors from the Northwest. Benchley found himself circling around that again and again. That there were surv
ivors eking out a bare existence beneath the desolate rot that had once been San Jose had been surprising enough. But the mention—the mere rumor—of other survivors in the Northwest, where all the models and simulations had suggested that nuclear fallout would be less than anywhere else in the nation, set his mind roaming. San Jose was their first target, of course. But after that, Benchley knew the Pacific Northwest was their next destination.

  There could be a society there. So why wait?

  The notion took him by surprise. He had been planning on concentrating all the base’s energies on contacting the survivors in San Jose, making peace with them, and even outright providing for them, if they would allow it. Harmony had tons of bounty in its stores, all manner of items that the remaining residents of San Jose would need. But they were likely a small group, smaller than Harmony’s population. They wouldn’t need much, comparatively speaking. It wouldn’t take long to get them squared away, living like human beings again, as opposed to cannibalistic savages.

  We can do both.

  Benchley thought about that for a long time. Life after the Sixty Minute War had served only to refine his normally conservative approach to issues like this. Determine the mission. Plan the mission. Launch the mission. Support the mission. Sustain the mission. Exit the mission. Repeat.

  But Benchley knew time was running short. Even though Harmony would survive, the next catastrophe that befell the post might be substantially worse. Mother Nature had already done what Mankind had not: wound the base, hurt it, send it a signal. There may not always be another tomorrow. And if the worst were to occur, the people of Harmony would need to find a place where they might be able to have a second chance.

  The Pacific Northwest.

  He nodded as he sat hunched over the log book and his tablet computer, his Spartan quarters illuminated only by the lamp on his desk. The Pacific Northwest. It was a veritable beacon flashing in the murky darkness as the sun slowly set across the decimated United States of America. He decided to make it the first order of business at tomorrow’s command staff meeting. While he had to let the command staff weigh in on it, he saw another mission departing from Harmony, one commanded by Mike Andrews. The kid was a star performer, and there was no one better suited to carry the torch.

  The world had ended.

  And Harmony’s mission had finally begun.

  AFTERWORD

  Earthfall had an odd conception. Originally, I’d written a bare-bones novella in very late 1982, which I used as a kind of outline for a screenplay in the summer of 1983. It didn’t take me long to write, as the adventure in the piece was so compelling that it kept me up at all hours, banging away on my shiny, new electric typewriter—personal computers were things of fancy back then—in between classes and dates and bottle after bottle of Pepsi. (It was sold in glass bottles back then, real glass bottles, not this tacky plastic we have today.) Back then, I was focused on writing a story that would combine the best of The Road Warrior with what little good there was to be found in the movie Damnation Alley…which basically amounted to some cool looking vehicles, and maybe a score by Jerry Goldsmith. I worked on that screenplay, off and on, for years.

  Hollywood remained uninterested.

  I put it away for at least twenty-plus years and forgot all about it, as one should when holding onto an unsalable property. Every now and then, I’d think back and reconsider it, but I always pushed it aside in favor of more contemporary projects, meatier projects that I could sink my teeth into. There are always new stories to be spun, and I try my best to look forward. After all, at my age, the road ahead is much shorter than the one in the rearview mirror, so I’d best keep my eyes up front. No telling what a guy might hit when blasting down the highway of life at 85 miles an hour.

  Curiously, it was one of these “meatier projects” that led me back to Earthfall. I was working feverishly on a novel called Tribes, a Chricton-esque adventure novel with a sprinkling of science fiction dusted over it. At the halfway mark, I began to lose steam, and the project started to wander. The story wasn’t as lifelike as I’d hoped, and the characters were approaching insipid. No, that’s not right. They were insipid. When a writer can recognize that in his own work, and can’t write his way of the box he’s written himself into, then it’s time to step back and reevaluate.

  Serendipitously, Earthfall came to mind again.

  I pulled out the script—the novella has long since disappeared, and is nowhere to be found—and reread. Parts of it made me grimace in embarrassment. To think I’d actually shown this around! No wonder I was never the next hot thing in Hollywood. My skills sucked! The dialog was horrible, some of the sequences absolutely juvenile. I mean, twenty years after the bombs dropped, and people are turning into pumpkin-headed mutants? (Though in my own defense, I didn’t have 50 foot scorpions leaping out the wasteland sand.)

  But still…there was a story there. A very rough one, but a story, nevertheless.

  So I put Tribes aside and resurrected Earthfall. And while it was trying at times, it was also fairly easy—I knew where I’d wanted it to go back in 1983, but I hadn’t the chops to steer a story back then. I’m still unsure if I do three decades later, but I decided to make a go of it. It’s not survivalist fare, and it still retains a patina of 1950s pulp science fiction about it, but I did try and toss in as much weight as the story could handle and still move like a cheetah with a Saturn V rocket shoved up its butt. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you agree. Or, at the very least, didn’t find it too overwhelmingly odious!

  Thanks are in order…

  From 1983: Big shouts out to Rick Sylander, Kevin Slater, Marc Schliesman, Tim MacNary, Jill Ferrari, Caryl Dailey, Doug Aho, Leah Creatura, Todd Webster, Carolyn Payne, Gordon Dailey, Ann Juliano, Leonard Scott, Jackie Soma, Hank Netherton, and Bill Mellott. You all read the scripts, and for some reason, neglected to tell me every draft sucked. I’ve lost contact with many of you, but I love you all, and your friendship, love, and support will never be forgotten.

  And now, in 2013: Joe LeBert, Fred Anderson, and the long-suffering Derek Paterson, for your reviews and views. Will Allen for your beta—your comments were significant. Bobby Cooper and Scott Campos, for the sanity checks. Craig DiLouie for the blurbs and kind words of encouragement. Jeroen ten Berge for some awesome cover stuff, and Nathan Carlisle for his depiction of the SCEVs. Editors Sean Fox and Lynn MacNamee at Red Adept for your editorial efforts, as well as Diana Cox at novelproofreading.com for the final burnishing. And a salute to former Navy officer Paul Salvette and his lovely wife for formatting the ebook release.

  Author disclaimer: despite the efforts of those above, the final result is all my doing. Mistakes and assorted grief are all mine. Accolades, if any are coming, are shared with all.

  And the biggest thanks to you, the reader. It’s been a ball corresponding with you all, via email, via Facebook and Twitter, and on my modest blog. You make a guy feel all right about himself, even when he steps in it.

  Which is often.

  Stephen Knight lives in the New York City area. You can find more of his fiction at:

  NOVELS

  City of the Damned

  City of the Damned: Expanded Edition

  The Gathering Dead Series

  The Gathering Dead

  Left With The Dead (A “Gathering Dead” Novella)

  The Rising Horde: Volume One

  The Rising Horde: Volume Two

  With Derek Paterson:

  White Tiger

  NOVELLAS

  Hackett’s War

  SHORT STORIES

  Ghosts

  Family Ties

  Stephen Knight on the web:

  http://knightslanding.wordpress.com/

  Facebook:

  http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Knight/100002176141614

  Twitter:

  @sknightwrites

  Did you like this novel? Did you hate it? Compliments and/or complaints should go to:

  sknightwrit
es@gmail.com

  And please…leave a review wherever you bought it!

  Cover Art Copyright © 2013 by Jeroen ten Berge

  http://jeroentenberge.com/

  Sample Chapter:

  THE CONVERT

  by Fred Anderson

  Available at Amazon

  1

  I wasn’t born a cripple. That’s something I did to myself two days shy of my sixteenth birthday. Drunk diving, I tell people when they ask, although technically speaking there was no real diving involved. Just a lot of drunk. I remember the day like it happened last week, even though it’s been twenty-one years.

  July in Mississippi is a godawful thing. The day starts heating up before seven in the morning, and by early afternoon the temperature is kissing-close to a hundred degrees. Humidity stays above eighty percent more often than not, and the still, hot air feels like a damp blanket draped over you. The pale blue sky is empty save the almost-white sun, glaring down like the eye of an angry god. The day I broke my back was one of those days.

  Just a couple of miles outside of Starkville, where I grew up, the Old South Quarry cuts into the red clay cotton fields like an old battle scar. During the Great Depression the quarry did a booming business, harvesting limestone out of the bedrock to be crushed into gravel and powder for the concrete used by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the construction of structures all across the south. My grandfather was a down-on-his-luck welder and part-time farmer in those days, and spent two years building bridges for the Corps. It seemed like every time I went to church with them on a summer Sunday morning as a child, riding high in the front seat between them in their old green and white farm truck but still barely able to see over the dash, he had a new story to share about someone losing a finger or toe, hand or foot, during the construction of whatever bridge we happened to be crossing. Once he told me about a man buried alive in cement who, as far as he knew, was still encased down there at the base of the pylon holding up the bridge. He would’ve told me more, I think, but my grandmother shushed him up.