Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  Part VI

  Zebra

  For Immediate Broadcast M7 31 07

  Commemoration of Earth Victory Day

  The Mars Aerospace Authority (MAA) will mark the interplanetary observance of Earth Victory Day at noon SMT on Friday, February 18, with five minutes of silence, followed by a special broadcast program featuring technical staff from the Interplanetary Defense Coordination Committee (IDCC), as well as researchers from other projects working to identify and study near-Earth objects (NEOs).

  The IDCC was re-established by the United Interplanetary Force (UIF), with a renewed mission and responsibility for finding, tracking and characterizing potentially hazardous asteroids and comets coming near Mars and the inner planets, issuing warnings about possible impacts, and assisting plans and coordination of response to an actual impact threat.

  Earth Victory Day was proclaimed yesterday by the UIF, formerly the United Earth Force (UEF), at its new headquarters at Origin City on Mars. Earth Victory Day, or E-V Day, is expected to commemorate the valiant stand of Earth in the face of the impact of Comet C/21B9 M2 DEMOS, and was chosen to be coincident with the impact.

  Comet C/21B9 M2 DEMOS was discovered by researchers with the Deep Ecliptic Multi-Object Survey (DEMOS).

  The comet is expected to intersect Earth’s orbit with an estimated error of plus or minus less than approximately 0.25 million kilometers. The encounter is expected to result in an impact, the effects of which would be mitigated upon impact with water, such as the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. Since the surface are of the Earth is presented as 71% water, it is expected that the effects of an impact by Comet C/21B9 M2 DEMOS will be minimized in terms of severity, and will allow a measured response by authorities. The diameter of the comet’s primary mass has been estimated by DEMOS to measure approximately 40 kilometers across.

  Following the five minutes of silence, viewers who tune in to the special broadcast program will learn how researchers find, track and characterize NEOs—both asteroids and comets that come within the vicinity of the solar system orbit and could pose an impact hazard to Mars and the inner planets—and how the UIF and MAA are working hand-in-hand to respond to any future potential impact threats.

  "At IDCC we place a high value on the interplanetary collaboration that allows us to pursue our mission,” noted Interplanetary Defense Officer Chris Fitzgerald.

  He added: “I think I speak for all the inner colonies, our allies on the outer planets, and everyone, when I say we understand and sympathize with the deep tragedy that E-V Day will mark for the people of Earth. We pledge to commemorate this day in your remembrance.”

  The program will air on MAA Television and will be streamed on its website.

  21

  Roo

  The launch from Sao Tome and Principe went without a hitch, and without much fanfare.

  To everyone else around the world, and even among the few remaining staff at CIRCE and the Zoo, it was just another private launch by some unknown member of the elite.

  When the news picked it up, I watched as it streaked out of the atmosphere, a measure of hope. To me it represented an atonement for all that humanity had done to nature, to creatures like Amahle, to each other.

  I waited for a message from Chloe. Of course, Judith had never had the chance to tell her that I was the next one, to reach out to me and make contact when she was safe.

  I guessed that she would be in Valles Marineris now, her precious toy kangaroo in her pocket, re-establishing part of the Ark collection with another of Judith’s contacts. Once established, she’d take the time needed to divide the specimens again, and create another back-up collection. It’s what I would do.

  But couldn’t she guess that I would be up next? Wouldn’t she have tried to contact Judith? I had no ideas what her instructions were.

  Without Judith and Chloe, I became the acting director of CIRCE, and most probably its last. I kept it running as best as I could, but there was no real direction anymore, and the staff slowly drifted away. If the facility had not been purpose-built to stay operational without human intervention, it might have totally shut down.

  One day, I knew, I would be the only human left at the Zoo.

  I spent hours trying to figure out what Judith’s plans were. There were no clues in her computer. I contacted every Tom on her phone or emails. None of them had any aerospace connection, and half of them didn’t answer, or simply hung up on me.

  I called San Diego, and tried to pry out of them their contact at Artemis—assuming it was the same one Judith had—but they couldn’t help me. They’d gotten their berth another way, by a lottery hack that had been discovered and shut down in the aftermath of Artemis 1.

  The announcement came that the colony ships had experienced more delays, but that the Artemis 2 would be ready for launch in six months. For me, the countdown had already begun.

  22

  As the Crow Flies

  Meanwhile, I also updated all the documentation and research records needed to replicate what we’d done at CIRCE, downloading them regularly to a holo-drive, which I’d take with me along with the portable Ark.

  I began the process of transferring the specimen vials from their steel freezers to the portable Ark. It was a long process, a good month at a reasonable pace with just myself doing the work, so I made sure I had enough time.

  The last vials I loaded were for Amahle, and for Leia.

  Judith’s and the Weston Foundation’s endowment meant that the Zoo could continue forever—or at least until the Comet finally hit.

  In the peaceable kingdom that was the Zoo, life continued for a while longer.

  Later that year, the bombardment had begun. Not by the Comet, but by pieces of it, heralds of the greater entity, meteors that flew through the night sky like streamers, first occasionally, then with more frequency.

  Paul never messaged me anymore. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive, but as I watched Gabriel’s meteors shower the night sky, I remembered him and the times we watched the Perseid showers together.

  Early the next year, North and South Korea went to war.

  No one knows who fired the first shot; each one pointed to the other as the instigator. With the Comet just under a year away, the insanity had exploded to the highest levels.

  One by one, other countries began to be sucked into another war, this time on the Earth, China, Russia, the United States, the European Union, perhaps the most senseless one of all, in the face of the coming Apocalypse.

  The day I dreaded finally came.

  Gwynn and Pavarti were the last of the keepers. One early morning, before starting time, they came together to my office with tears in their eyes. I knew what they were going to say before they said it, that they were leaving, that they had to be with their families.

  I nodded and we all hugged, and I thanked them for coming to see me like the other keepers, and not just disappearing. I asked if they could spend an hour or so with me, to take me through everything.

  It might have been a total disaster if by then the Zoo hadn’t been highly automated. As it was, the two keepers had been able to keep up only because of it.

  I walked through the Zoo with them, going down the short list of human intervention that was still necessary. There wasn’t much—and I was thankful for that. It saved me from the kind of decisions I had to make when my mother decided to die.

  The two keepers were still crying when they left, and I understood.

  As much as they had homes, and they had families, the Zoo was also their home, and the animals were also family.

  For me, the Zoo—the animals around me, and in the Ark—were all I had left.

  There were further delays, until at last the announcement came for the launch of the Artemis 2. The launch was scheduled for four days before the Comet hit.

  People were asked to start moving to the Silos, as they had run out of time to build another colony ship. The Artemis 2 would be Earth’s last hope.

 
I remembered the huge crowds that had blocked the highways on the way to the Artemis launch site, the rioters at the gates, the violence at the lottery announcements.

  I figured that, when the time came, there was only one way for me to get to the launch site and find Tom—I would have to fly there.

  I needed something that could get me and the Ark where I needed to go, and the Brampton Flying Club was there, as it always had been, to help. Most of the planes were ready and on the ground, and there was not very much call for them.

  Four days before Comet impact.

  On the day before the Artemis 2 launch, I loaded the Ark onto my spinner, in a backpack along with all the CIRCE documentation.

  I went around the Zoo and said good-bye to the animals, one by one.

  My final stop was at the Grevy’s habitat. She was in the shelter; I called to her, and like always, she came. She was still going strong, despite what Chloe had feared. I caressed her cheek, and she brayed and nuzzled me.

  “Goodbye, Leia,” I said. “The Force be with you.”

  The Aerolite ASP-23 Narwhal was a totally different aircraft from the two-seat Dragonfly training craft or the four-seat Merlin aerospinner.

  The six-seat Narwhal was roomy, and didn’t require oxygen masks in its pressurized cabin. It had a ceiling of 6,600 meters—about 25,000 feet. Its onboard weather radar and anti-icing capabilities made it truly able to more effectively address adverse Canadian weather.

  The machine-assisted avionics suite for the Narwhal included flight envelope protection—a human machine interface extension preventing control commands that might force the craft to exceed the limits of its aerodynamic and structural framework—as well as augmented vision systems, and safety control overrides in case of hypoxia due to a shortage of oxygen in the cabin.

  As the technician at the BFC told me, with a range of 2500 nautical miles, about 4,630 kilometers, and a top cruise speed of 270 knots or about 500 kilometers per hour, the Narwhal could fly to Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut, non-stop in under five hours.

  To Grise Fiord, the northernmost community in Canada, it was seven-and-a-half hours, as the crow flies.

  In glide mode from its ceiling, the Narwhal could travel thousands of kilometers in nearly absolute silence. And with its spinner drive, it could hover almost as exquisitely as a hummingbird.

  On the day of the Artemis 2 launch, I lifted into the pure sunshine, the CIRCE backpack secured underneath a seat in the cabin behind me. I logged in the coordinates, south to Cape Canaveral in Florida, and the Narwhal sped towards its destination.

  It had been a long time since I had emerged from the Zoo into the outer world, so I flew low enough to take it in.

  Beneath me was devastation like I had never seen. Cities that I’d been a part of, once teeming and vibrant, lay empty. Skeletons of buildings showed where flames had raged and not been put out. For miles and miles there was nothing but ruin.

  I flew on, turned on the news, and moved to a station still broadcasting, providing updates on the imminent, final colony ship launch.

  I knew, I understood, that I was flying without real direction. I knew that there were risks in simply flying into the launch site. I knew that there was a real risk I would be shot down, that I would never find Judith’s contact, that it would all end with me pulled from the aerojet screaming, with no one listening.

  But it was the end. There were no other alternatives.

  A meteor passed through the horizon, and then another.

  Below me another ruined city came into view. A black wraith of smoke billowed up from the ground. A tower bridge was broken like a toothpick construction, its center bowed into the river.

  After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore, and tilted up until the landscape blended into swaths of gray or brown.

  Just over half an hour into the flight, the voice of the radio announcer took on a new timbre, of agitation, of panic.

  The people had found a way in, he said. Ladders and bucket trucks and fire engines had been placed against the walls, and people were streaming into the compound. In an instant, the main gates were being opened from the inside, and the crowd was flowing into the launch site.

  I tried to look for a video channel, and soon found it, the feed streaming from one of the cameras inside the launch site.

  By that time there were hundreds, thousands of people overrunning the site. And now they swarmed over the launch pad, climbing their way up and around and over the towers and gantries. There were people climbing the stairs, climbing access ladders, to the very top of the ship.

  I had no idea what they wanted to do, perhaps to get in the ship themselves, pry a hatch or window loose. It was insane. They must have known, they must have understood, that they were doing this without real direction, only because of the heat of the moment. They must know there was a real risk they would be shot, that they would be—

  But it was the end. There were no other alternatives.

  The hopelessness of both our situations shocked me, and for a moment I lost hope. I remembered my father’s last words to me, “You do what you have to do,” and I gunned the engines.

  Suddenly, on the video, one of the platforms began to bend, from the sheer weight of humanity on it. The announcer on the radio saw it as well, and started shouting as if he were there, for people to get off.

  Nothing we could do. In horror, we watched as the platform broke, and hundreds of people fell to their deaths or to the platform below.

  Just as unexpectedly, the next platform broke as well, and two of the massive pieces attached to the ship swung down and battered the rocket booster next to it. A rupture appeared on its side, and smoke began billowing out of the crack.

  Another platform broke, and another, and like the platforms above, swung like a titanic hammer into the booster. With people screaming, the gargantuan booster detached itself from the ship and fell into flames, engulfing the entire spacecraft.

  It was over. Four hours before launch, the Artemis 2 was finished. Earth’s last hope was no more.

  Part VII

  Narwhal

  For Immediate Broadcast M8 22 18

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  23

  Course of the Narwhal

  I took manual control of the Narwhal, and turned it around, back north.

  At the same time, I turned off the feed from the outside world, radio, video, everything. I was flying in clouds, with the occasional streak of a meteor illuminating the distance.

  Somewhere beyond our Moon, the Comet was coming. It was going to hit. And there was no way out.

  It was the end. There were no other alternatives.

  I thought of Chloe, I thought of how she made it, and that gave me comfort. Through her, and the work of CIRCE and the Zoo, half of the animal species in the Ark would survive. Perhaps that was enough.

  A great peace descended on me.

  I closed my eyes, and relaxed. The Narwhal tilted its nose down, ever so gently. I thought, if I just pushed down further, it would be over quickly, a death that I chose instead of a death that chose me.

  The Chinese say that the main attribute of a dragon is strength. They also say that strength without the ability to bend with fortune leads to destruction.

  Bend with fortune

  “Damn it!” I said out loud. “There must be another way!”

  Suddenly everyone who ever meant something to me came back to me—my father, my mother, Paul, Judith, Leia, Amahle, Parisa, Gwynn, Pavarti, all the keepers and staff and volunteers, and all the animals in the Zoo, and all the species in my Ark, my family of humans and animals, a chain of every living thing on this
Earth.

  That thought stuck with me. Every living thing.

  And then it hit me.

  Svalbard.

  24

  Only Human

  I shook myself, pulled out of the dive.

  I’d been to the Seed Vault at Svalbard before, during my work at the Gosling Institute for Biodiversity, helped install some of the integrity and automation measures that enhanced its viability as a stronghold for the world’s seeds.

  It was remote, tectonically stable, cold, and a global landmark.

  At around 1,300 kilometers from the North Pole, the surroundings are 60% covered in glaciers. The seed vault itself is cut 120 metres deep inside a sandstone mountain near Longyearbyen, the largest settlement on the island. Its location in the stone means the vault is kept at a natural -6°C, refrigerating the seeds to -18 °C.

  With a permafrost environment, and multiplied by the long winter of the Comet, the cryo-mechanism keeping the Ark interior at −196 °C would be able to operate 25-35% more efficiently, extending the time the specimens could remain viable.

  And if I could place the Ark there, I wouldn’t need a beacon or marker. Svalbard, the repository of genetics for plant life, would be the marker for our collection of for animal life.

  Someday—even if I was the only human left on Earth, even if it was long after I was dead—someone would come looking for Svalbard.

  They would find it, and they would find the Ark.

  Could I make it?

  Svalbard was just over 5,500 kilometers away, and I had already headed 250 kilometers in the other direction, and back.