After dispatching search parties to locate the four cargo landers, they decided to make camp surrounding Beagle, which, although still fully operational, sat as a silent monument to all that happened on that day two weeks past. In time, they could use the ship to scout for other habitable places—and possibly other people—as long as she had fuel in her tanks. For now, that was in the future.
Right now, they were living for the day.
Hunter saw the flyer overhead on more than one occasion, as there were no high-flying contrails from any other aircraft. Whether or not it was working remained to be seen, but none of the sentries he posted had reported any sign of the Riy. So far.
Maybe they would take Beagle south one day, a suborbital hop, just to make sure the things were dead.
Litsa’s people, not all from the Dak, were proving to be incredibly resourceful. Huts were already raised, built from the available timber, and many people were already forming themselves into job-specific groups. Land was being cleared nearby, where in the spring seeds brought down in the landers would be planted. There were hunters, who scoured the surrounding forests for food, and cooks, who could take a rabbit and turn it into a delicacy over an open fire. Jarrod and Litsa instituted an archery training program, where they taught anyone who was interested how to craft the perfect bow, and how to place an arrow dead center.
It was going to be a struggle, but it was a challenge Hunter relished. After seeing the depravity of the Phoenix Complex, he knew that the real future for humanity was out here, in the forests, on the plains, and in the caves. Humanity was getting a do-over, and he prayed they would get it right, this time. Just like Sif wanted.
He glanced to the north and saw the smoke rising from the crater that was once the Phoenix Complex. “We’re going to give it our best shot, Sif,” he whispered.
“Hunter!” Jarrod yelled. “Come quickly. Lucas calls you.”
“Great,” Hunter said. “He probably found another poisonous plant he needs to warn me about.” With his interest in botany, Lucas was surprisingly helpful spotting those plants to stay away from and finding those most beneficial. “Where is he?” Hunter asked as he walked up to Jarrod.
“He is in the Beagle ship. He is very excited.”
Hunter jogged over to Beagle and poked his head inside the hatch. “What’s the crisis, Lucas?”
“It’s a beacon, Hunter. I picked up a locator beacon.”
Hunter scrambled up the ladder. “Where?”
“It was faint, but I know it was from Orion. Thirty miles south, bearing one-seven-five degrees.”
Orion. The escape capsule. Hunter wanted to believe it was true. “Is there any way it could have been released during reentry, and the beacon triggered by the crash?”
“It’s not automatic, Hunter. It has to be activated manually.”
Hunter grabbed one of their charts and drew a straight line from their current position to the locator beacon. Lucas watched him, smiling.
“Are you ready to go flying, Lucas? Take a short hop or two?” Hunter said, tossing him the chart. Although Beagle was designed to make it to orbit and back, she was also capable of short, endo-atmospheric flights.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Lucas said, smiling broadly.
“Good,” Hunter replied. “Let’s go get her.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my wife (and frontline editor), Nessa, who likes nothing more than to curl up with her Kindle, read a book in peace, and not be interrupted by a husband with an annoying habit of sending her every chapter as soon as it’s written, I say thank you. I have no idea how you put up with me, but boy am I glad you do.
If one wants to know what it feels like to do a pop-up delivery in a strike fighter, one should ask someone who’s done it . . . So, I did. To my old friend Colonel Paul “Sly” Lyman, your help and expertise is much appreciated. If I got anything wrong, Sly, the fault is all mine.
To my underground (literally) “first readers,” Frank and Caveman. Your initial feedback and suggestions are always spot-on and valued more than you know. Almost as much as our sanity-saving caption contests.
To Scott Barrie of Cyanotype Book Architects . . . Dude, you did it again. The cover you designed is like a bacon-wrapped jalapeño popper—absolute perfection.
To Jason Kirk and the rest of the 47North team, you have my gratitude for allowing a fat, bald guy the opportunity to tell a story to more people than he ever thought possible. Thank you for your encouragement and guidance, and most of all, thank you for your confidence.
Lastly, I’d like to thank you, my reader, for spending a few hours of your life within the front and back covers of The Phoenix Descent. If I was able to capture your interest and take you away to another place for a while, then I did my job, and I truly hope you enjoyed the journey.
You bring the popcorn, and I’ll bring the pages.
Chuck Grossart
Bellevue, Nebraska
2016
AN EXCERPT FROM CHUCK GROSSART’S
THE GEMINI EFFECT
THE FIRST NIGHT
The extermination of the human race began in a salvage yard.
Under the left rear fender of what remained of a 1962 Chevrolet Nova, to be exact. A rusted shell of what was once called a Chevy II—a “Deuce” to those who loved them—built at the old Kansas City GM Leeds assembly plant during the last week of November 1961. Wagon Train was America’s favorite TV show in the winter of ’61. On the radio, Jimmy Dean’s “Big Bad John” replaced Dion’s “Runaround Sue” at the top of the Hit Parade. Roger Maris, Mickey Mantle, and the rest of the New York Yankees had won their nineteenth World Series by beating the Cincinnati Reds 13–5 in game five.
The world turned, counting down.
In the weeks and months before Chevy’s newest grocery getter rolled off the assembly line, the world witnessed Berlin split in two by concrete barricades and concertina wire, and heard news of a 58-megaton Soviet nuclear device—Царь-бомба, the Tsar Bomb—detonated over the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Eleven months later, grainy reconnaissance photos of Soviet missile sites in Cuba would take the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.
Dallas crowds stood dumbstruck less than two years after the Deuce left the showroom floor, as American innocence slipped away in the back of a ’61 Lincoln Continental. A big-eared Texas politician, standing next to a woman in a bloodstained pink Chanel suit, put his hand on a Bible, took the helm of history in his well-washed hands, and slithered full speed ahead toward Southeast Asia to keep all the dominoes from falling.
The Nova was built in a time of war—a cold war. The fear was real then, under the skin, every moment of every day. Like two bullies on the block vying for dominance, a brawl between the opposing forces was a foregone conclusion; it would happen, eventually. Maybe tomorrow. Or even today.
It was an era of calculated risks and strategic brinkmanship by two great powers, each holding a uranium-edged blade to the other’s throat. Missiles sat at the ready in buried coffins and silos, armed bombers lined the ramps, and alert crews awaited the Klaxon’s scream.
MAD was the acronym of the times: mutually assured destruction, the ultimate catch-22 of the twentieth century. They kill us, we kill them. When the missiles launched and the bombers flew, even the most steadfast warriors on either side knew there’d be no victory parades.
Scientists designed the city-killing bombs, but they’d also built smaller weapons, engineered to be just as deadly, and in some ways, even more destructive. Virulence and infectivity supplanted blast and radiation in the killing lexicon. Careful planning and controlled employment of these tiny weapons would render the MAD game obsolete. There’d be a winner, and a loser.
The research had been promising—and productive—until it escaped from a clean room.
In a ’62 Deuce.
Chuck Grossart’s The Gemini Effect is available from 47North.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phot
o © 2013 Ashley Crawford
Chuck Grossart lives in Bellevue, Nebraska, with his wife, kids, and usually too many dogs.
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