by Tom Abrahams
“No news is good news,” Marie had said. “Until we hear bad news, everything is good.”
Even Chris refused to believe anything was wrong in orbit. He’d insisted if they could survive the religious cult, thieving father and son truckers, and malevolent store clerks, his dad could climb into a capsule and fall to Earth. Jackie had agreed with them, but privately it was a difficult position to hold. Those stars, as bright as they were, seemed so far away.
Jackie took stock of where she stood. Her son was home. He was safe, despite the threats he’d faced on the road. He seemed unfazed. That was something positive, but she’d have to keep an eye on him. She knew Chris could bury his emotions.
Her home was fine, unlike the ones across the street. Even though she didn’t have a generator, the house was comfortable. Together they had plenty of food, water, and there was still hot water for showers.
She wasn’t sure what to think of the woman named Nikki or the other camper named Mumphrey. They were polite enough, but she couldn’t get a read on either of them.
Rick was Rick. She was grateful to him for getting Chris home so quickly, but she wasn’t thrilled to have him in the house at the same time she was sheltering Karen. The tension was thicker than thick. It would thankfully be short-lived. Rick, Nikki, and Mumphrey would be gone in the morning.
Karen and Kenny were staying. Jackie had insisted. Chris would need a distraction, which Kenny could provide, and she didn’t like the idea of Karen being home alone.
Reggie had gently and privately protested the idea of adding two more mouths to feed. He worried what that would do to their food and water supply.
“We’re talking about adding a twenty-five percent burden to our resources,” he’d reasoned. “From eight people—including Chris, who’s now home—to ten. That’s a sizable strain for an indefinite future.”
“I understand you contributed to those resources,” Jackie had said through her teeth. “But this is my house. What makes Karen and Kenny any more or less of a burden than you and Lana? Or Betty and Brian?”
Reggie’s face had flushed. He’d stuttered a nonsensical answer before relenting. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
Betty seemed to have calmed from the initial shock of losing her home. However, Brian was agitated at the irregularity of his schedule. While Jackie was hopeful he’d adjust to a new routine, she wasn’t optimistic.
Candace had proven to be a valuable asset in a short time. Despite her unspeakable loss only twenty-four hours earlier, she was levelheaded and smart.
Jackie was housing thirteen people including herself. Thirteen. Not a lucky number. She wasn’t prone to superstition, but she didn’t like it. She rationalized that there were twelve people staying with her. That was more reasonable. Her eyes scanned the sky and she took in a deep breath through her nostrils, blowing it out through puffed cheeks.
“One day at a time,” she said to the stars. “One hour at a time. One minute at a time. We’ll be okay, Clayton. But you have got to get home.”
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DESCENT
A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller
Part Two of The SpaceMan Chronicles
Tom Abrahams
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
—Vladimir Nabokov
CHAPTER 1
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 2020, 5:00 AM MST
BOULDER, COLORADO
Dr. Vihaan Chandra was out of breath and it wasn’t from the altitude.
He’d run from his office the moment he’d recalculated the numbers for the fifth time. Chandra wasn’t one for attention, but the printouts he carried under his sweating armpit were attention getters.
As one of the top aeronomists at the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, he was a space weather expert. For the last thirty-one hours, while most of the world was focusing on what had already happened, he was searching for what might still come. He’d found something.
He blinked the sweat from his eyes and huffed his way along the never-ending corridor toward his boss’s office. He was speed-walking past the stitch in his side that reminded him he hadn’t paid attention to the “Time To Stand” warning from his Apple watch. He winced and kept moving. His shoes squeaked, his thighs rubbed, his belly shook.
The David E. Skaggs Research Center, where Chandra worked, was an expansive facility in the Rocky Mountains. It was close to four hundred thousand square feet and housed seven hundred offices, along with one hundred separate laboratories. It was the headquarters for Chandra’s division and a half-dozen other weather-related government agencies. For someone not accustomed to exercise, it was a challenging environment in the midst of an emergency.
Finally, he reached his destination and shouldered his way through the door, not bothering to knock. His boss, Chip Treadgold, looked up from his desk. His furrowed brow told Chandra he wasn’t thrilled at the interruption. He was spinning a ring on his finger.
“Sir, “Chandra said, extending the stack of papers, “it’s bad.”
The irritation painted on Treadgold’s face melted as he took the documents. “What’s bad?”
Chandra bent over at his waist and planted his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “There’s more coming.”
“Sit down,” said Treadgold. “Tell me precisely what you mean.”
Chandra dropped into one of the empty chairs across from Treadgold’s desk. He wiped his forehead dry with his shoulder and licked his lips. “Another geomagnetic storm, bigger than a G5, is on its way.”
Treadgold sank back in his chair, the color draining from his face. “You’re certain?”
Chandra nodded.
Both men knew that the space weather scale rated geomagnetic storms from G1, minor, to G5, extreme. G5 storms were uncommon, though not rare. Like the Saffir-Simpson scale that categorized the strength of a hurricane, that ranking only said so much about the potential damage.
Treadgold spoke above a whisper, as if he didn’t want to know the answer to his question. “What’s the Kp index?”
Chandra swallowed hard. He rubbed his palms on his thighs. He looked away from his boss as he spoke. “Above a nine.”
“Holy mother…” said Treadgold. “A nine?”
“Well above a nine.”
The Kp index was another measurement for geomagnetic storms. Zero was minimal, nine was extreme. Above a nine was catastrophic. It was the hurricane equivalent of storm surge. This was like Katrina hitting New Orleans twice in less than a week.
Both men sat in silence for a moment. Treadgold cleared his throat. “You’ve run the numbers more than once.”
“Yes,” said Chandra. “We’ve got some very basic measurement capability after what happened on Friday. Much of our system was damaged from the last CME. This one will knock out the rest.”
“How long do we have?”
Chandra nodded at the papers in Treadgold’s hand. “It’s all in there.”
Treadgold looked Chandra squarely in the eyes. “Vihaan,” he said, “how long?”
“Two or three days.”
Treadgold’s eyes drifted from Chandra’s and he dropped the papers onto his desk. He gripped his ring and spun it around his finger. “Two or three days,” he whispered, “and the world is knocked back a millennium.”
Chandra took a deep breath. His heart still pounded against his chest and his fingers tingled. He wondered if he was having a heart attack.
“Who else knows?” asked Treadgold. “Am I the first?”
Chandra nodded. “I checked the numbers over and over,” he said. “Over and over. I looked at the readouts and had to assume they were anomalies. They aren’t. They’re real.”
“Who else knows?” Treadgold pressed.
Chandra shook his head. “Nobody,” he said. “I came straight to you.”
“Good,” said Treadgold.
“People will panic if they find out.”
Chandra pulled his fingers from his wrist and planted both hands on the edge of Treadgold’s desk. “If?”
“It’s not my call,” said Treadgold. “We leave it up to Washington to spread the news if they so choose. Right now we need to pass this up the chain.”
Chandra pushed himself to his feet. “People need to know that—”
Treadgold raised his hand. “Don’t. We can’t have this conversation right now. As I said, it’s not my call. Besides, how are we supposed to let people know about this when nearly no one has a way of communicating anyhow?”
“So we don’t try?”
“I hear what you’re saying. I really do. Again,” Treadgold said, “it’s not my call.”
Treadgold signaled for Chandra to sit down, which he did, and picked up his phone. “I need Washington,” he said into the handset, then cupped his hand over it and said to Chandra, “Thankfully we still have operational secure lines.”
Chandra nodded blankly and rubbed the back of his wedding ring with his thumb. He watched his boss scan the calculations on his printout while waiting for a connection.
“Sir,” said Treadgold, straightening, “this is Chip Treadgold with SWPC in Boulder. I’ve got some news.”
Treadgold looked up from the documents and forced a smile as he listened to whoever it was on the other end. Chandra assumed it was someone at NASA headquarters. He pressed his fingers to his neck, searching for his pulse, and smiled weakly at his boss.
Treadgold nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m looking at some troubling information one of our experts has gleaned from our surviving assets. It’s not good news. My recommendation is that you initiate the Descent Protocol immediately.”
Chandra mouthed, “The Descent Protocol?”
Treadgold held a finger up to his lips and spun around in his chair. “Yes, sir,” he said with his back to Chandra. “That’s affirmative. You have less than seventy-two hours.”
CHAPTER 2
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
73 DAYS, 05 HOURS, 12 MINUTES, 00 SECONDS
10,000 FEET ABOVE SEA LEVEL
The snarl woke Clayton Shepard from his uneasy sleep. It was angry and grew from a low growl into something louder, something hungry.
The astronaut was buried in his sleeping bag inside a tent and next to the fledgling fire he’d built hours earlier. The crackling flames and intermittent howling wind had masked the snarl until its owner was close enough for Clayton to hear it.
He fought the urge to pop his head out from the encasement and listened to the animal, trying to discern what it was. Clayton wasn’t sure of much since he’d landed in the middle of a blizzard some hours earlier. He didn’t know what time it was or even where he was. After spending time in the cramped capsule between two dead men, the snow had stopped long enough for Clayton to emerge from the Soyuz and build himself the beginnings of a camp.
After trying unsuccessfully to connect with someone on the HAM radio and devouring a ration of rassolnik, a Russian soup he’d hydrated with melted snow, he’d climbed into the sleeping bag. Reentry into Earth’s atmosphere after more than two months in microgravity had sapped him of energy. He hoped a short nap on a full stomach would give him the strength he needed to explore beyond the sightline of the crashed Soyuz.
Now, listening to the vicious, throaty warning of something feet away, he wished he’d chosen an alternative plan. Clayton squeezed his eyes shut. The animal snarled again. He could almost see the bared teeth of a carnivore, saliva dripping from its jaws.
Clayton lay still until a chorus of growling told him there was more than one of whatever it was stalking him. They sounded like dogs. Nasty, famished dogs.
It couldn’t be dogs, Clayton thought. I’m in the middle of nowhere.
Then it dawned on him.
Wolves.
He pulled his arms from inside his sleeping bag and lowered its mouth beneath his chin. There was a red-hued darkness inside the tent and beyond its sheer walls. To one side of the shelter, the threat was virtually invisible. On the other side, however, the dying flicker of the fire cast the shadows of animals. They were definitely wolves.
The growling mixed with whimpers and the crunch of paws in snow surrounded him. There were four or five wolves. They were casing him, looking for an opening.
He didn’t understand why they were after him. Wolves typically avoided humans. They were afraid of them. Yet it didn’t matter what conventional wisdom held. The wolves were at his doorstep.
A cold trickle of snot trailed from his nose and onto his lip as he lay there. Clayton instinctively sniffed and the growling stopped. It was quiet until one animal emitted a low growl and the others followed. Clayton cleared his throat. Silence.
At once, Clayton yanked himself free of the sleeping bag and made as much noise as he could. For more than a minute, he yelled, he clapped his hands, he stomped his feet on the thin floor of the tent. Then he listened.
Nothing.
His pulse thumped against his neck and invigorated the headache he’d had since reentry. He waited another minute and then unzipped the tent flap. Poking his head through the opening, he faced the fire he’d built and constantly stoked. Its dwindling warmth radiated across his face and he closed his eyes. It wasn’t easy keeping it lit in harsh conditions, but he’d managed. When he reopened his eyes, his gaze drifted from the intermittent flames. In the distance, he saw the hind ends of a pair of wolves shrinking into the red-hued darkness.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. “Crisis averted,” he mumbled. “How awesome would that be? I survive the apocalypse and an unguided reentry to end up eaten by wolves.”
He chuckled at the absurdity of it, adjusted the cap on his head, pulled his gloves on his wrists and fully opened the tent flap to step onto the snow. He sank into a newly-formed snow drift up to his calves and nearly lost his balance.
“I might as well be on Mars,” he said aloud, watching his breath puff. “A wolf-infested Mars.”
Looking skyward at the red aurora undulating along the horizon, he searched for the moon, hoping to gauge the time of day. Despite not knowing exactly where he was, Clayton knew enough about the Soyuz and its orbit to understand he’d had to have landed somewhere close to 51.6 degrees north. The maximum deviation from that latitude was roughly sixty-five kilometers. That far north, in January, there wasn’t going to be a lot of daylight. Eight hours. Perhaps nine. As soon as the sun rose, whenever that might be, he’d arm himself and take a hike. Without a functioning compass, he’d need to find true north so as to keep himself from getting lost.
Cold, dry air filled his lungs as he trudged to the Soyuz. He’d left all his remaining supplies inside the capsule and he’d tucked the radio inside the door. He held the radio with one hand and a pair of command sticks he’d used to punch control buttons with the other. He rummaged through one of the supply packs and found a roll of duct tape. Ripping off a piece with his teeth he wrapped it around the two command sticks joining them together to make one longer stick. End to end, they measured about three feet. Perfect.
He glanced at his friends, their faces frozen, the bodies stiff in their seats, and he closed the hatch. He whispered a prayer for both of them.
Clayton squatted near the fire and found a few embers from the previous night and tossed them into the smoldering remnants. From his pocket he plucked a handful of dry grass he’d found and held it against the embers. He leaned over and blew gently onto the embers until they caught the grass on fire. Within a few minutes, the fire was born anew and waves of heat washed across his cheeks. With that taken care of, he blinked back the cold and jammed the stick into the snow, building up a small mound to steady it vertically.
Without a compass, functional GPS, the sun, or a visible north star, he had to improvise. There was no vegetation as far as he could tell. A shadow stick would work as soon as the sun rose. He’d just have to wait.
Clayton pushed the power butto
n on the Yaesu radio. The single seven-volt lithium ion battery was still good, even though they’d probably drain faster in the cold weather. He pulled off a glove with his teeth and tried the 146.52 frequency. It was the most-often monitored simplex frequency and gave him the best chance of connecting with someone.
He pressed the radio close to his mouth. “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Calling any station anywhere,” he said. “This is Kilo Delta Five X-ray Mike X-ray. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday any station anywhere. Please reply, over.”
Nothing.
Clayton fought the chatter of his teeth and repeated the call. There was no response. He changed frequencies and repeated the protocol. Still nothing.
“This is KD5XMX,” he said. “Is anyone out there?”
The radio crackled and Clayton pulled it from his mouth in surprise. Wide-eyed, he studied the display. Another crackle. He drew the radio back to his mouth and pressed the button to speak, but before he could repeat his call, he heard a snarl. It was right behind him.
Clayton froze for a moment. The snarl rolled into a growl that was joined by a second animal grumbling for attention.
From the corner of his eye he caught the flash of a third wolf, its teeth bared. Its ears pricked forward and it inched closer, plodding through the snow with ease. Over his shoulder, Clay could hear the others alternately panting and snarling as they closed the circle.
Fighting his fear and the sudden heaviness in his chest, Clayton swung around and roared. He swung his arms wildly and widened his stance. His eyes met the wolves’ and they moved backward, giving themselves distance.
Clay roared again, his throat burning from the volume of his voice, and he pretended to lunge forward at the pair of wolves stalking him. They backed away, their tails arced and ears back.
His body trembling, he swung back around to face the others. As he turned, one of the animals was already on him. It snapped at his leg and a sharp pain shot from Clay’s calf to his foot. He swatted at the wolf as it tried to set its teeth in his leg and caught it across the snout. The wolf yelped and backed away, circling back at a distance.