From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Brooks’ left hand, searching for the spike. A second later Brooks’ fingers closed round the blunt end and she drove it into Mia’s leg. A burst of pain rose in Mia’s throat as the stinging point sank into her thigh. She shrieked and used both hands to force it out. Kicking forward with her left knee, Mia used it to pin Brooks’ arm down as she forced the blade’s edge toward Brooks’ face. When it was nearly there, Mia closed her eyes and pushed her body forward, shoving it instead through Brooks’ neck. The Sentinel agent’s eyes went wide before slowly fading away.
Mia rolled off of her and struggled against the overwhelming urge to throw up. Close by, other individual battles were still underway. One Sentinel agent lay sprawled at Sven’s feet. The other was receiving copious blows to the midsection.
A few feet away, through the swirl of smoke, Jack and Captain Kelly were locked in their own deadly struggle. Like many of the others, their weapons had been the first to go. Now only fists and sheer willpower would prevail. If ever there was a time when the warrior gene might have come in handy, this was it. But Kelly wasn’t exactly rolling over and playing dead. In spite of the auditory distraction and partial blindness Anna was blaring into their helmets, he was still able to fend off Jack’s attacks. And it wasn’t long before Jack understood Kelly’s game plan. He didn’t need to beat them, he only needed to delay until it was too late.
Suddenly, the ground began to vibrate, followed by that low hum which always signaled a final blast wave was powering up. But once that happened, the rock shelf the ship was balanced on would surely give way, sliding them into a fiery abyss.
Kelly charged out of the haze, pinning Jack up against one of the pods. The captain’s forearm pressed against Jack’s throat, threatening to choke him out. Jack struggled for air, pounding uselessly against the side of Kelly’s helmet, the only area he could reach. The world began to swim away from him, his punches throwing less and less power with each passing second. The blood pooled in his head, engorging his features into a mask of fear. In a final desperate act, Jack swung his arm across, striking the faceplate on Kelly’s helmet. The sudden look of worry on his opponent’s face told him to do it again, this time with everything he had. Jack cocked his elbow and struck again, this time shattering Kelly’s visor. At once, Kelly released his grip and stumbled back against the wall. The brutal nature of the fight had tired both men. Kelly’s lungs drew in, searching frantically for breathable air, but finding instead only a cocktail of toxic gases. The Sentinel leader slumped to the floor, clutching at his throat.
Chapter 67
The humming sound had nearly reached its peak when Jack ran back to the pod room’s entrance. In a corner was Anna, trying to reattach one of her broken arms. Scattered around were the bodies of Sentinel agents, their glasses still lit with a blinding display. But they weren’t the only ones hurt. Mia emerged, shaking and covered in blood. A few paces away, Jack saw a large figure that looked a lot like Sven slumped over. He rushed over and pulled him back. Sven gazed up at him, his eyes filled with tears. Jack’s own eyes fell to the floor where he saw Tom, dead from two bullet wounds to the chest.
The humming ended and that was when the rumbling began.
“Pick him up,” Jack told Sven, nudging the big man’s shoulder when he didn’t respond. They needed to hurry for pod thirty-seven and hope that it was still working.
Anna and the others were already heading in that direction. When they got there, Jack ordered Anna to open the pod door.
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that, Dave.”
Biting back the rising panic, Jack paused as the reference sank in. “Yes, good one, Anna, save it for later, would you?”
“My apologies, Dr. Greer,” Anna said as she used her one good arm to activate the console and enter the command.
Mia and Sven exchanged looks of fear and confusion.
“She was quoting Hal 9000,” Jack explained as the glass door slid open.
They piled inside as Anna plugged in the final commands. The shaking was getting worse. In the distance, water sloshed onto their level, racing toward the pod room. Anna tried to roll forward, but the pod entrance was a foot off the ground. She wasn’t going to make it in. But worse, the rover they’d attached her to was too large to fit inside. With water now gushing around their feet, Sven set Tom’s body down and grasped Anna by the shoulders and twisted her torso off the rover’s base. When she was inside, the glass door slid shut. Then a violent burst of g-forces followed as the pod shot up the tube. Soon they were out of the ship, bubbles roiling past their eyes. But it was only when they burst forth from the ocean and spotted the sun shining down on them that they truly felt safe. For Jack, he had never been happier to fly in all his life.
Chapter 68
USS Grapple
Gulf of Mexico
Jack and Mia stood on the deck of the salvage ship, USS Grapple. Military blankets were draped over their shoulders, steaming mugs in their hands. He sipped at his coffee, peering over to see what she was drinking.
“Green tea,” she said, tilting the mug just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the light brown liquid.
He smiled and went back to the blaze of beautiful colors cast off by the setting sun.
Shortly after the pod had landed, a group of military men in hazmat suits had descended on them. Predictably, a battery of medical tests had followed. What lay ahead were the endless debriefings as the Navy sought to understand not only the full extent of what they had discovered on the ship, but also how things had gone so horribly wrong.
Mia didn’t pretend to have answers to all of those questions. Besides, there were several she was still grappling with herself. Unsettling as some of their discoveries had been, it was clear that much of what we understood of human beginnings on this planet would need to be rewritten. And yet far from bringing the world closer together, Sentinel’s campaign of disinformation had only driven it further apart.
But Sentinel hadn’t only sown dissent. They had taken the life of Tom, a man she hadn’t known for long. But what she knew of him, she had liked a great deal. At one time a member of Sentinel, Tom had had the strength to challenge his faith in that corrupt organization and lay down his life for a noble cause he believed in. She knew Jack had felt a similar respect for Commander Hart.
A hatch opened and out came Rajesh, Anna nestled in the crook of his arm. If someone didn’t know any better, they might mistake him for a ventriloquist.
“We owe you one,” Jack told her.
Anna’s face brightened as she reached out with her new arm. “We are even, Dr. Greer.”
“Even? How so?”
Her expression grew serious. “It was largely through our interactions that I began mapping alternate neural pathways, discovering areas of myself I did not know existed.”
“For better or for worse, I think we all left a bit of ourselves down there,” Mia said, distinctly aware of the weight she would carry for what she had done to Brooks, even if it had been in self-defense.
“It’s called growing up,” Jack told Anna, lifting his mug to her in a silent cheers.
Rajesh nodded his thanks as well. “The Navy has offered to help get Anna back on her feet, so to speak. No strings attached.”
“What does that mean?” Mia wondered.
He bobbed his head and grinned. “I’m not sure, but I suppose the two of us will soon find out.”
They turned and headed back inside, leaving Jack and Mia alone once again.
“There’s an old adage that for every answer you receive three more questions arise,” Jack said, feeling the sun’s warmth wash over him.
Mia laughed. “Story of my life. You starting to have regrets?”
He thought about it. “Right now, only one, although others are bound to follow.”
“Really? And what’s that?” She peered at him through narrowed eyes.
Jack leaned in slightly, tilting his head. And for a brief moment,
Mia wondered if he was about to kiss her.
Instead, he said, “I wanna know why. Why an advanced race would bother with all of this. The ship, wiping out an entire biosphere eons ago, only to repopulate the earth. I’ve been racking my brain and can’t come up with a single explanation that makes any sense. And for some reason I just know the answer was somewhere on that ship.” His gaze fell. “I guess we’ll never know.”
Mia’s eyes sparkled as a grin formed on her soft lips. “Maybe the answer hasn’t been lost.” She held her battered USB key before him. “Maybe the answer is right here.”
Chapter 69
The Pentagon
Washington, D.C.
The Emergency Conference Room inside the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center was unusually spacious. Rectangular and with thirty-foot ceilings, it seemed almost wasteful that the only furniture present was a long oak table—a remnant from the Truman era—along with a dozen or so leather chairs. The lighting here was dim, some of it pooling in the corners, the rest strung low over the men in uniform waiting patiently to begin the briefing. Hung on the walls were enormous display screens packed with maps of the United States and the world.
Secretary of Defense Ford Myers, only just recently back from his time in the Gulf of Mexico, sat at the head of the table, drumming the fingers of one hand, sipping an espresso with the other. When he was finished, Myers deposited the mug, dabbed the edges of his mouth and stared out at the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m ready.”
General James F. Dunham cleared his throat and began. “At zero eight hundred hours today, NASA satellites detected a small gamma ray burst emanating from the planet’s surface.”
“Yes, I’m aware,” Secretary Myers replied, pushing his mug off to the side, making sure the spoon stayed squarely on the saucer. “The USO was lost shortly after that. Fell into a chasm, I believe.”
Always the consummate professional, General Dunham squared his shoulders and carried on. “The burst I’m referring to came after that and was a localized event.”
Myers wasn’t annoyed anymore, he was confused. “Are you saying we’ve got another USO on our hands?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. Secretary,” Dunham replied. “This time we determined the blast wave’s area of effect was less than fifty miles. We believe it’s in the beginning stages.”
“Where’s it located?”
“Greenland,” General Dunham said. “So far satellite imagery hasn’t revealed an object. Our best guess is that it’s buried somewhere under the ice sheet.”
The Secretary swore and rubbed the palms of his hands up and down his forehead. “Do we have any more information on the individuals who gained access to the USO by impersonating Naval Intelligence officers?”
A crack appeared in Dunham’s steely composure. The other generals looked on, expressionless, although their deep embarrassment was on full display for anyone who knew how to spot such feelings on hardened men.
“We’re working on that,” Dunham said, clearly anticipating the response that was to come.
“Not good enough, General. A group of terrorists—because that’s what they were, terrorists—managed to enter a restricted, top-secret area and steal invaluable technology right from under our noses. You’re not going to tell me they didn’t have help on the inside. We need to know how they did it and we need to know now.”
Dunham clicked his teeth with annoyance. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, you have my word. But there’s something else you need to know, Mr. Secretary. Something more important than the infiltration.”
“I doubt that very much,” Myers said, his tone spelling out his suspicions clearly enough. If the generals thought they could distract him from their incompetence, they had another thing coming.
General Dunham produced a black and white photograph and passed it down along the chain of generals on his side of the table. When it arrived before Secretary Myers, he plucked the glasses from his inside jacket pocket, slid them on and peered down at the image. “What the hell am I looking at?”
“Voyager One, sir. Launched in 1977. It left our solar system sometime in 2012. She is now travelling through interstellar space and expected to reach the nearest star system sometime in the next forty thousand years. She does periodically peer back at earth, however, and send us a snapshot or two. The scientists’ idea of keeping us humble, I suppose. The image you’re looking at was taken twenty-four hours ago.”
Secretary Myers stared long and hard. Slowly, his eyes began to make sense of the smudges of light set against the dark interstellar background. And as that happened, his gaze was drawn to one particular part of the image. A blemish, larger than the others, closer. Then all at once, the realization struck him with sudden and overwhelming force, the shock so powerful it was enough to make the blood drain from his face. Even the caffeine-fueled anger once pumping through his veins dissipated like a fine mist.
Without needing to be told, Myers now understood the reason for the general’s deep concern. The object in the photograph was silver, shaped like a giant diamond, and headed straight for earth.
EXTINCTION COUNTDOWN
(BOOK 2)
Returning Characters from Book One:
Jack Greer: A geophysicist in his early forties, Jack is at times impulsive and irreverent, but dedicated to pursuing the truth, no matter where it might lead him. His main weaknesses include cigarettes, gambling and anything else that requires a modicum of willpower.
Mia Ward: A brilliant geneticist in her mid-thirties, Mia has struggled to get her life back on track. She is determined to do everything in her power to save her daughter from the ravages of Salzburg syndrome.
Anna: An android powered by artificial intelligence, Anna is the first of her kind. She is caring and highly competent and struggles to understand the irrationality of human behavior.
Gabby Bishop: A matronly figure and accomplished astrophysicist in her early fifties, Gabby is Jack’s closest friend and colleague. Her level head is often a strong counterpoint to his tendency to jump in with both feet.
Dag Gustavsson: A Swedish paleontologist in his late twenties, Dag is a deep thinker who is quick to hide his vulnerable side with humor.
Grant Holland: At fifty-nine, Grant is a British-born biologist who’s not afraid of exploring the vague boundaries between science and mysticism.
Rajesh Viswanathan: At thirty-two, Rajesh helped to pioneer Anna’s creation, a move that has made him one of MIT’s rising stars. To him, she is more than a machine. In a way, she is the daughter he never had.
Eugene Jarecki: A theoretical physicist in his early forties, Eugene masks his fears and insecurities with arrogance and bravado.
Admiral Stark: In his mid-fifties, Stark comes from a long line of Navy men. He may be a hard man to impress, but he’s exactly the kind of guy you want on your side.
Ollie Cooper: Rugged and some might even say handsome, Ollie is a fifty-year-old former Sentinel agent eager to right his past wrongs. His greatest strength is loyalty. It might also be his greatest weakness.
Chapter 1
The nineteen members of the Senate Intelligence Committee scowled down from the lofty heights of their oak bastions. Directly below them a line of photographers had taken up position, snapping hundreds, maybe even thousands of pictures as Jack Greer, Mia Ward and Admiral Stark struggled to hold firm under the incessant barrage of pointed questions.
“Then maybe you can explain to the members of this committee how agents of this group you call Sentinel were able to pose as naval intelligence and infiltrate a top-secret military operation?” Senator Al Johnson asked, his mouth less than an inch from the mic.
“We’ve been looking into that, Senator,” Admiral Stark replied, cutting a distinguished figure in his black Navy uniform. “Their credentials were spot-on. And at the time we believed the Atean ship was secure.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile at the admiral’s use of the now-popular social media moniker to describe Ea
rth’s only known cosmic neighbors. Pronounced ‘Ah-tea-in,’ the nickname had originally been coined by a blogger who had based it on the close resemblance the aliens bore to praying mantises.
Beside him, Admiral Stark continued doing his best to punch his way out of a cardboard box.
“In summary, we suspect they might have had help from someone on the inside.”
A buzz ran through the audience.
Committee chairman Hatfield crossed his arms and leaned forward. “Can you be more specific?”
Stark shook his head. “At this point I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Well, as a former Navy man myself,” Senator Johnson cut back in, “I can tell you I’ve never seen such gross incompetence.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Senator,” Stark replied, coolly. “Since the moment we detected the vulnerability in our security protocol, federal intelligence agencies across the board have made identifying and apprehending members of Sentinel our top priority. To date, authorities in over fifty countries have effected hundreds of arrests. I can assure you, whatever Sentinel might have once been, it’s now but a shadow of its former self.”
Senator Johnson pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and rubbed at his right eye. “That may be so, Admiral, but it still does not unwind the damage you people have already done. This body has been convened, at least in part, to determine which of you folks allowed a group of terrorists free rein within perhaps the most sensitive discovery of our time.”
Jack glanced over at Stark and watched as beads of sweat gathered on his brow. “With all due respect, Senator,” Jack interjected, “we were hundreds of meters beneath the Gulf of Mexico, facing about as chaotic a situation as you can imagine. I don’t think checking people’s IDs was first and foremost on anyone’s mind.”
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