“Good question,” she said to Razi. “Let’s first see if we can hit the atmosphere flat enough to not tumble and burn. Then we’ll worry about where and if we can land.”
Razi nodded and glanced back at the dead instruments. They both knew that without computers, they were going to come in hard and fast and who knew where.
Razi unbuckled and floated back to get the passengers secure as Banks sat, wishing for a radio, wishing for controls, wishing to be just about anywhere than in the world’s heaviest glider trying to make a reentry into an atmosphere.
The aliens hadn’t killed them. But physics and the laws of nature soon just might.
November 10, 201
9:35 Universal Time
Second Harvest: First Day
Cicoi’s lower tentacles were wrapped around his command circle so hard that they were going numb. His first and second eyestalks ached, and he’d had to pocket them. The others had been pocketed when the large station in the third planet’s orbit had exploded, and yet he had still seen the white blast through the pockets’ membranes.
He had not been blinded but his Third had. His Third had had all eyestalks extended when the explosion hit, and the eyes were now milky white. Destroyed.
Cicoi suspected he had lost two of his own eyestalks, but he did not care to think of that. Not yet. He made his crew pocket their damaged eyestalks and pull out only the stalks that they needed. Then he commanded that the interior light be raised slightly so that his crew could operate with fewer eyestalks extended.
The use of energy was probably extravagant, but he needed to keep his staff focused on the task ahead.
Whatever that may be.
He had to focus on it as well, but he could barely get past the explosion.
Such a waste of energy.
And such power.
He suspected that the blast they had used on the station was similar to the ones they had used on Malmur.
The destruction had been terrible. He’d lost one entire ship and two others had been damaged with debris. The commanders believed they could get the ships back to Malmur, but it would take all of their energy and all of their effort.
The third planet dominated his viewscreen like a malevolent blue-and-white ball. Once its very brightness had seemed like salvation. Now it seemed sinister to him.
Not only had the creatures struck the first blow in this new exchange, they had also created another problem.
There were more explosives heading toward Malmur. And he could not be complacent. He knew that they were the same as before—explosives that would not detonate until impact.
They had to be blown out of space before they reached Malmur. There were over a hundred of them. Fifteen had damaged the surface badly. A hundred would destroy the entire planet.
His upper tentacles tightened around his torso. He could feel the dry flakes peeling off. The stress of all of this was destroying him, too. But he could not afford to concentrate on himself. Not while Malmur was in danger.
The creatures were brilliant. He had never thought of that before, but they were. They were trying to force him to return to Malmur without taking a harvest.
But he could not.
He dared not.
He did not have enough food and energy for the long darkness. His people would die either way.
Why had no one known how intelligent the third planet’s creatures were? Why had no one realized that they would develop into such powerful adversaries?
The Elder floated before him, a blackness against the viewscreen. Other members of the crew saw him and pocketed their eyestalks.
The Elder’s shadowy shape approached Cicoi’s command position.
So, the Elder spoke inside his head. They have surprised you again.
And you, Cicoi thought. You did not expect this.
I expected something.
Not here, not in space, Cicoi thought. You did not expect this or you would have warned me.
The Elder’s upper tentacles floated with irritation. You are angry with me.
I am angry, Cicoi thought. They have bested us again.
Not entirely. The Elder seemed calmer than Cicoi was. Cicoi hated that. The Elder should have been upset at all of the destruction. They'll only best us if they take us off our course.
We cannot let them attack Malmur.
That is Malmur s problem, the Elder said. They will have to solve this from the ground.
We left them nothing to solve it with. Cicoi’s own upper tentacles floated. He had never been this angry, not with an Elder. They have no ships, no leaders. They will not know until it is too late. Then what are we harvesting for?
The Elder studied him for a moment. Cicoi felt the Elder’s presence in his mind like a loud whisper. Moving and irritating at the same time.
You have experience fighting these creatures, Cicoi, the Elder said. Use it.
And then the Elder faded away as if he had never been. Cicoi could no longer feel him in his mind. But that didn’t stop Cicoi from attempting to speak to him.
What do you mean? Cicoi asked. What do you mean?
But there was no response. For a long moment, Cicoi stared at the explosives, heading toward his home, and felt his tentacles wilt. His two eyestalks were throbbing now, and he was seeing light through them even though they were pocketed. He had suffered some sort of damage. He simply didn’t have time to evaluate it.
“Contact home,” he said to his Second. “Tell them of the explosives headed toward them. Tell them to choose a leader from the remaining males and have that leader contact the Keepers of the Stored Memories. See what planetary defenses Malmur once used. They will have to use them again.”
“We have no systems for that,” the Second said.
Cicoi flicked a tentacle in irritation. “Of course not. But if we do not develop one, we will not have a home.”
The Second lowered himself as best he could. It was impossible to flatten the lower tentacles in this command center, but the Second did admirably well. Still, Cicoi did not forgive him for the question.
“Command Third,” Cicoi said, “contact the Commanders of the North and Center. Tell them to send one ship each in pursuit of those explosives. We will send one as well. All three ships must be fighters, and they must destroy those explosives before they get to Malmur.”
The Third lowered his eyestalks in acknowledgment.
The Second had risen, and he was moving his upper tentacles across his control board, preparing to contact home.
“Second,” Cicoi said, “there are several ships still at home that we were unable to finish repairing before this trip. Tell the lead male to finish them. There should be enough time. Those ships must be launched at these explosives. Not one explosive must get through. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” the Second said, lowering himself again.
Cicoi surveyed his crew. They all had one eyestalk partially out, watching him. They had all lowered themselves slightly, feeling his displeasure.
Beyond them, the blue-and-white ball loomed.
“These creatures will have many more surprises for us,” Cicoi said, “but we cannot allow them to defeat us. We shall prevail.”
He spread his upper tentacles. “Tell the Commanders of the North and Center to split their ships into their harvesting position. Remind them to use the energy shields. We must take as much energy from them as we can, and we must not let them harm us. If the Commanders have questions, send them to me.”
“I am honored to fulfill your request,” the Second said.
Cicoi felt the tip of his upper tentacles wave in surprise. No one had used formal language with him since he started his command. Even though he held the position, he had not had the practical experience. Apparently his crew thought he did now.
It was a small comfort, but it was a comfort nonetheless. He would get them through this. He would protect his ships and his home.
November 10, 2018
4:38 a.m. Eastern Stand
ard Time
Second Harvest: First Day
General Clarissa Maddox stood in the back of the war room, feet slightly apart. The exhaustion she had felt for the last few weeks had vanished. Nothing existed for her except those alien ships orbiting Earth.
She had destroyed one and injured others. She couldn’t tell how badly, but she knew, she knew, the aliens hadn’t expected Earth to take the offensive. She thought she sensed a hesitation in them. She knew they would be cautious in their approach.
Her team, most of them seated at desks, monitoring the information being sent from around the globe, had cheered when the ISS exploded, taking one alien vessel with it.
She hadn’t. She knew that was one small victory in what was going to be a long, ugly war.
At least she was ready for it.
She was in the bunker beneath the White House, a bunker that extended for miles. She had brought the Tenth Planet Project into one small corner for its last meeting—a calculated gamble, one designed to show the U.S. members that the military was not going to play around with anyone’s future. She had a hunch that Cross caught that, and no one else. Everyone else had seemed baffled by the fresh food and the high-tech equipment.
There was fresh food in this room as well. Maddox knew her staff wasn’t going to get any sleep, not with those alien bastards circling up above, so she made sure there was enough food for everyone. She would have ordered sleeping shifts as well—and if this fight lasted longer than Cross’s people predicted, she would—but right now, she wanted her best staff on alert and ready. A lot of caffeine would do it, caffeine and food whenever anyone got hungry.
So far, no one had gotten hungry, not since those damned aliens arrived.
To her left, muted vid commentators explained what was going on in Earth’s orbit. Every major channel and some minor ones were on. Some of her staff were monitoring the net as well, even though she had mostly mandated the Tenth Planet Project to do that. She hoped against hope that the aliens had learned a human language and were going to download some information somewhere.
She knew that was an impossible dream, but that didn’t stop her from having it.
Before her was an illuminated holographic map of the world. It accurately depicted how the Earth looked, all the way down to which parts were in darkness and which parts were in sunlight. It rotated much faster than Earth did, though. And her great programmers had somehow replicated the alien ships in orbit. As well as the satellites and other debris that Earth put up there.
Fortunately, for her and her staff, no one had depicted the shuttle. She had learned, not a half hour ago, that the Endeavor II was not responding to hails. All indications were that the aliens had sucked the energy out of the ship before their own craft had exploded.
She supposed Banks could dead-stick the shuttle in, but that meant a thousand things had to go right. And Maddox didn’t have time to believe that the universe would line up that way, not even for someone as competent as General Gail Banks.
To Maddox’s right were the available vid images from space. One of the screens was now fuzzy, a blur of nonreception. She hadn’t ordered her staff to shut it off yet. That screen had once showed the view from the ISS. That camera had been destroyed. She knew her staff was seeing that as a victory, so she wasn’t complaining about the waste of visuals.
She was trying to concentrate on the aliens’ next move.
“We got it,” said her chief of staff, Paul Ward. “They’re separating out.”
Maddox bent over her own screen, touching its cool surface so that she got the same readout he did. The alien fleet was splitting into three parts, just as it had before.
She felt her heart jump, then tried to calm herself. No sense getting excited, not yet. But she wanted to kiss Leo Cross. He had told her the aliens would be predictable, and they were proving it, first by how they entered orbit, and now by separating into three units, just like before.
She glanced up. The holographic simulation had caught it as well. The ships were splitting up, heading to different parts of the Earth. One unit stopped over a fertile area of Vietnam and Laos. Another stopped over the Amazon—again!—and a third over a heavily wooded area of British Columbia, Canada.
She felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten as she waited, waited to see if the ships moved on.
They did not.
She let out a small breath of air. No cities. The ships weren’t stopping over the cities.
Cross had been right. The aliens needed food more than revenge.
Food and survival.
Predictable.
Maddox resisted the urge to pump her fist into the air. They hadn’t won yet. They really hadn’t even started.
She took a deep breath. She was in charge of this attack, thanks to her success against the aliens last spring.
She would make this work.
“All right,” Maddox said to Ward. “Let’s get this coordinated. We need to notify all the jets and small planes in the areas where the ships are coming down that they’re going to have to implement Plan Alpha. Make sure we have enough ships patrolling those areas.”
She said that last as a precaution. She had ordered more planes into the unpopulated areas, but she wasn’t sure if some of the foreign countries had carried out that order. She hoped they had, because those planes had to be in the air already, patrolling.
They wouldn’t do anything until after the aliens had dropped the harvesters and were coming back to pick them up. Then the planes would drop the adhesive bombs on top of the ships and get out of the area. When the ships climbed to the proper altitude, a lever inside the bomb would trigger and explode.
Simple, neat, and efficient.
All that Maddox could ask for.
“We’re going to lose a lot of countryside,” Ward said. “I still think we should drop one unit of nanorescuers to see if they really do defeat the harvesters.”
“They’ve worked in test after test. And we’re not going to tip our hands. Not when they’re so close,” Maddox said. Then she turned to him. “I gave you an order, mister.”
He saluted smartly, his face coloring. He had clearly been caught up in the what-ifs, just like she had. He turned and headed toward the senior staff, relaying her orders.
She gazed at the holographic replicas of the ships, forming like black storm clouds over their selected regions.
“Think you can steal from us and get away with it, you bastards?” she muttered. “You wait. You just wait and see what we have in store for you.”
7
November 10, 2018
9:41 Universal Time
Second Harvest: First Day
One problem at a time, General Gail Banks reminded herself as her fingers shook over the controls. The controls were useless, but she wanted to keep movement in her fingers. If they froze up on her, she wouldn’t be able to use them when she needed them.
Her skin was red and it ached. She wished she had taken that extra few minutes to put on a space suit. She was in her uniform, but it wouldn’t provide enough protection against the cold.
How long could a human survive in deep cold? If she remembered her biology correctly, a person could survive for quite a while—but not awake.
She would fall asleep long before the cold killed her.
The problem was that she didn’t dare fall asleep.
She could see her breath and her copilot’s, Sofia Razi’s, too. Behind them, Michael Thorne was breathing loudly. Banks could hear the panic in every breath. She was glad she was at the helm of this shuttle. Something in Thorne’s demeanor told her he wouldn’t have made it this far.
One problem at a time.
She had to stop thinking about the cold. The cold would cease to be an issue the moment they entered the atmosphere. In fact, then they’d have to worry about burning to death. Nothing about space was easy. Everything was extremes. It was what she loved about it.
She wondered how the rest of her crew was doing in the
back. They were used to the extremes of space, as well. Most of them had been trained in hands-on flying—every astronaut still had to have flight training— but most of them hadn’t done it for a long time. And most of them hadn’t worked in conditions that required creativity, at least not since training school.
Banks didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she had had to improvise like this.
The Endeavor II shuddered as if it were hitting something hard. The frost on the windows instantly melted.
Banks felt her breath catch in her throat. They had just hit the very thin, upper edge of the atmosphere. And from the looks of the redness around them, they were going in.
Now it was time to face the next problem. Banks steadied herself. For the next few minutes she had to do the best flying of her life.
“Sure wish we had a way of knowing if the manual hydraulics were going to work,” Razi said.
Banks agreed. They would have to let the design of the shuttle carry them down and slow their momentum before the hydraulics would even work. Right now, the shuttle was like a falling meteor, hitting the atmosphere at a high rate of speed. At least it seemed as if they were coming in flat, which was helping.
The bright red and orange air smashing past the shuttle heated everything. The tiles on the underside of the shuttle were protecting them from the heat of the friction of reentry. But it wasn’t keeping the interior regulated in the normal way. The environmental controls were gone.
Banks felt sweat break out on her forehead, arms, and back. Pain shot through her numb fingers and toes, a sensation she hadn’t felt since her childhood when she had stayed outside too long in the cold, wet snow, and then plunged her feet into a hot bathtub. She kept moving her fingers, knowing she’d need them.
Razi’s face had grown red.
“We’re not going to make it through this,” Thorne said.
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