Under Darkness (A Sci-Fi Thriller) (Scott Standalones Book 1)

by Jasper T. Scott

  “I don’t know...” Don said.

  More nuclear explosions peppered the sky with blinding pricks of light. Beth watched with a giant grin, heedless of the damage they might cause to her eyes. A few moments later, streaks of fire began erupting from all sides of the crashing spaceship, falling like meteors.

  “They’re evacuating,” Don said. “Speaking of which...”

  Beth couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sky. The nearest half of the alien ship was already a third of the way to the water and blazing brightly as it fell. The other half wasn’t far behind, heading for the other side of Kauai.

  “Shit, we’re in trouble,” Don said.

  “What?” Beth turned from the sky with wide, blinking eyes full of the dancing green spots like you get from staring at the sun.

  Don pointed to the crashing spaceship, but her eyes remained fixed on him. “That thing is the size of Texas, right?”

  Beth nodded slowly. “Yeah, and we shot it down!”

  “You don’t get it, kid! When it hits the water, the wave it kicks up is going to be like nothing this world has ever seen.”

  Beth’s eyes narrowed in sudden concern. She’d been dazed from the light show and riding high on their victory. “But we’re on an aircraft carrier,” Beth said, glancing quickly back to the crashing spaceship. It was halfway to the water now. Maybe another minute from impact. “We’ll just ride over the wave, right?”

  “Hell no. It’s going to rip this entire fleet apart and wash clear over the islands from one side to the other. The west coast isn’t going to have a much better time of it. The only chance we have is to get in the air, and fast.” Don nodded to the helicopters and fuel tanks where her dad had hidden. Not waiting for her to snap out of it, he grabbed her by her good arm and dragged her in that direction. “Let’s go!”

  “You can fly?” Beth asked.

  “I flew Blackhawks in Afghanistan.” Don pulled the back door open. “Get in!”

  “What about my dad? And Ashley?”

  Don hesitated, but before he could make up his mind, the door on the other side of the helicopter slid open, and Bill’s head popped in. His eyes widened when he saw them, and he pointed over their shoulders. “Look out!”

  Beth spun around just in time to see several squads of Chinese marines sprinting across the flight deck to reach them.

  “Get in!” Don yelled again, boosting Beth up from behind and then flying in after her. Bullets came clinking off the doors, while several more fractured the nearest window with cracks.

  “Keep your heads down!” Don said as he crawled into the front of the helicopter to get to the controls. Her dad and Ashley dived in from the other side. Beth curled up below the seats beside the opposite door and clapped her hands to her ears. “Shut the doors!” Don screamed.

  Bill pulled Beth’s door shut amidst a hail of clinking bullets.

  “Are you okay?” Beth asked, staring at him in shock.

  Her dad patted himself down, then nodded. “Yeah. Lucky me.”

  A whirring roar of rotors started up, and muffled voices came to their ears, shouting at them in Mandarin.

  Beth’s dad locked the door just as they began pounding on it.

  “Hang on!” Don said, and then the helicopter leapt off the deck and listed sharply to one side. Ashley screamed, sliding toward the open door on her side.

  “Ashley!” Beth cried, swatting blindly to reach Ashley’s hand as it flailed past her head.

  Bill twisted around, swiping for her other hand even as her legs went out the open door.

  His hand closed around her wrist, and Beth grabbed on with both hands before Ashley’s weight hit Bill, nearly dragging them out together.

  Ashley dangled from the open door. “Pull me in!” she screamed.

  Gritting his teeth and bracing with his legs on either side of the opening, Bill pulled her back in.

  The helicopter wobbled from side to side as if it were a dog trying to shake off fleas.

  “I thought you said you knew how to fly?” Beth screamed to be heard over the sound of the rotors, but she could barely make out her own voice. Her dad reached around and heaved the open door shut, then he passed dangling headsets to Beth and Ashley. He put on a third as he got up and climbed into the passenger’s seat beside Don.

  “Holy shit!” he screamed, his voice roaring through Beth’s headset. Heedless of the Chinese marines still shooting at them from the deck of the carrier, Beth jumped off the floor to get a look at whatever her dad had just seen. The first half of the crashing ship was just now hitting the ocean on the far side of the island, veiled and sheathed in a cloud-like spray of water that stretched a hundred miles into the sky. The monstrous ship stood up at an impressive angle, like the tallest, sheerest mountain in the world. The island of Kauai lay before it, but the massive shipwreck dwarfed it. Just then, a rushing wall of white water swept over the island, skipping over the mountains. The island vanished in seconds, entirely swallowed by the spray.

  “Fuck!” Don screamed.

  Chapter 68

  “Have you lost your mind?” Bill demanded. “Why are you flying so damn low?”

  Don gritted his teeth and shook his head as they skimmed low over the water, heading toward the wave that had just swallowed Kauai. “I have to time it!” he replied. “Can’t go too high or they’ll shoot us down!”

  “I think they’ve got bigger problems,” Bill replied.

  Don shot a wary glance at him, then back to the fore.

  “It’s me again, damn it.”

  “That’s what you said the last time, so you can understand my confusion.”

  Bill scowled. “The aliens have bigger problems, too. Whoever was controlling me is probably busy fleeing for its life.”

  Don didn’t reply. He was too focused on the task of piloting the helicopter. The wall of water and mist that had swallowed Kauai was spreading fast in all directions. It reached the farthest ship in the Chinese convoy—little more than a gray speck from this range—and Bill saw it fly up and tumble end over end.

  “Don!” Bill urged.

  “Almost...”

  Another ship flipped end over end, cracking in half as it did so.

  “Don!” Bill was just about to grab the stick away from him.

  “Now!” Don said and pulled up hard on a lever next to his chair, and they angled sharply up into the sky.

  Just as well Bill hadn’t grabbed the stick. Apparently, that lever controlled their altitude, not the stick.

  The ocean fell away at a dizzying rate, and Don gritted his teeth as they flew toward the rushing wall of mist, but then he turned them around and had them flying the other way, back toward the carrier they’d launched from. Bill peered through a window between his feet at the massive ship. It appeared no longer than his pinky finger now.

  “How high are we?” Bill asked.

  “One thousand feet and climbing!” Don said.

  Just then the leading edge of the wave hit the back of the carrier. It tipped up and flipped over from stern to bow, and then the mist surrounded them, pelting them with heavy raindrops and shaking the helicopter hard. It plunged, dropping for several seconds, and Bill heard his daughter scream. They were all weightless.

  “Don!”

  “I’ve got it!” he replied. A few seconds later they were free of the mist and watching massive ripples undulating across the open ocean at speeds they couldn’t hope to match.

  Bill let out a shaky sigh and slumped against his chair. “Shit!”

  Don nodded slowly but gave no comment. Bill shared a moment of silence with him as he realized that their survival was dwarfed by the millions who were going to perish when those waves came to shore all around the world. Tens of thousands of Chinese sailors had just died, along with the entire population of Kauai. And yet, Bill allowed himself a moment of selfish joy as he twisted around to look at Beth and Ashley. Both of them scrambled to buckle in, looking pale and terrified, but otherwise good. Their
lives might be a nit in the big picture, but they still mattered.

  “I can’t believe we made it,” Beth said in a shaky voice.

  “Me either,” Ashley replied.

  “Can it,” Don snapped.

  “What’s wrong?” Bill asked.

  “What isn’t wrong? You have any fucking clue how many people just died? My nana among them. Fuck! I should have taken her with us!”

  Bill swallowed thickly and nodded. “I’m sorry, Don. You couldn’t have known. Maybe she made it. Your place was in the mountains...”

  “And that wave swept right over them!”

  Bill winced. “She’s in a better place. They all are.”

  Don arched an eyebrow at him. “If they are, we’re on our way to meet them.”

  “What are you talking about?” Beth asked.

  Bill shook his head, not getting it either. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re in a helicopter in the middle of the Pacific. The only land in sight is the Hawaiian islands, but they’re all about to be washed clean as a baby’s backside. Not to mention, there are thousands of alien landers coming down all over them. We’re smack in the middle of a real invasion. Oh, and here’s the kicker, I don’t know what kind of range this thing has before we run out of fuel—or which way to fly to reach the nearest island. In short, we’re fucked, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Chapter 69

  “Land!” Bill screamed. “That’s land, isn’t it?”

  “Son of a gun,” Don said, letting out a shaky breath.

  “How much fuel do we have left?” Bill asked.

  Don’s eyes dipped to the gauges in front of him. “We’re on empty, that’s for sure.”

  “Are we going to make it?” Beth asked.

  “I don’t know! Shut up and let me concentrate!”

  Bill bit down on a rebuke. Now wasn’t the time to argue. Silence fell inside the helicopter but for the endless thumping of the rotors.

  Long minutes passed, and the island came into better focus as they drew near.

  “It’s big...” Bill said. “That has to be Hawaii.”

  “Sure as shit is,” Don replied. “We’re a bunch of lucky SOBs.” He pointed to the horizon. “Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are both over four kilometers high. No way the waves went up that far. And that means we’re not headed for desolate flood lands, after all.”

  “But is there anything up there?” Bill asked.

  “Yeah. The Gemini Observatory,” Don replied. “They’ll have supplies. Hopefully enough to last. Maybe even a helicopter of their own and spare fuel.”

  Beth and Ashley began whooping for joy.

  “Settle down!” Don said. “We still have to make it there and land this bucket in one piece. And you better just hope none of those aliens landed next to the observatory.”

  “They don’t have weapons,” Bill said.

  “Neither do we,” Don added.

  “What about Crawlers?” Ashley asked in a small voice.

  “They can’t come out in daylight,” Beth added.

  “They might wait,” Don said.

  “Stop scaring her,” Bill snapped.

  Don flicked a scowl at him. “After everything we’ve lived through, you’d rather we let down our guard and get ripped apart while we sleep?”

  Bill frowned. The island swept in beneath them—a scene of unimaginable destruction. The beaches were gone. The jungles, sugar plantations, and fields, likewise—and not a scrap of life remained. Everything was muddy, swampy ruins.

  “Maybe we should go down there and try to help...” Ashley said.

  “Help who?” Don asked. “They’re all fucking dead. We’ve still got a chance to save ourselves. Let’s not waste it.”

  It took another fifteen minutes to cross the island to the soaring peak of Mauna Kea. The top of the mountain was wrapped in clouds, and the ground, racing by close below was covered in brown grass and patches of snow—a good sign.

  “Why are you flying so low?” Bill asked.

  “Low?” Don quipped. “We’re almost four thousand meters up!”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “The air’s thin, and we’re low on fuel. I’m trying not to push it,” Don replied. “Hang on, we’re almost there.”

  The seconds dragged at an agonizing pace, and then a silvery dome appeared at the tip of the mountain.

  “Is that it?”

  “Better be,” Don said.

  They buzzed straight over the observatory, low enough that Bill could see a group of people standing around outside in colorful jackets—red, blue, and yellow. A few cars were even parked up there. As they flew overhead, those people twisted around and pointed up at them.

  “I don’t see a helipad,” Bill said.

  “Don’t need one,” Don replied, swooping back around and careening toward a two-lane road. The rotors hiccuped and then went on churning. “Hang on!” Don said as the ground came up fast beneath them. He hit the throttle for one last gasp, and they swooped up suddenly just before their skids touched down with a hard thunk.

  “Terra firma!” Don cried as he reached up and killed the engines. “Let’s go meet our roommates.”

  Chapter 70

  —Three Weeks Later—

  Beth stood outside the observatory in her borrowed jacket, watching as a pair of helicopters came thumping toward them, straining in the thin air to reach their location.

  Relief spread through her like melting ice—something she knew entirely too much about thanks to the frigid air at their altitude.

  “You ready to go?” Beth’s dad asked, walking up beside her.

  “Are you kidding?” she asked, furrowing her brow at him.

  He smiled tightly back and pulled her close. Don, Ashley, and the six scientists who’d been trapped at the observatory before they’d arrived stood off to one side, watching the helicopters fly in. By some miracle none of the aliens had found them up here, and there’d been enough food and water to keep them going until the USS Enterprise (of all things) could arrive and rescue them.

  While they’d waited, Ashley had made good use of the observatory’s independent electrical systems and satellite-based internet to make contact with her superiors in Atlanta. They were relieved to hear that there was a simple solution to the alien infection, and that it wasn’t dangerous—if you didn’t count the possible side effect of literally losing one’s mind—but the aliens had yet to try and take control of either Ashley or Bill again, and both Beth and Don had concluded that they’d lost the ability to do so with their ship.

  It had been surreal watching from a place of utter boredom as news reports on the Internet surfaced with images of the real aliens being captured all over the world—fiercely intelligent four-headed monsters with chalk-white skin, eight arms, eight eyes, two legs, and absolutely no weapons of any kind.

  Beth smirked and shook her head as the two helicopters touched down beside their stolen Chinese one. Two fire teams of fully-armed US Marines jumped out and came running toward them. They should have thought twice about invading us.

  But that triumphant thought was tinged with the terrible knowledge of just how many people had died when the Chinese had nuked the invaders out of their foolishly low orbit.

  Beth’s dad turned to her just before the Marines reached them. “You ready to go see mom?”

  Beth nodded quickly and flashed a quick smile. Her mom had lived, having found herself on the outskirts of LA when the evacuation alert came—but millions more had perished, including Beth’s stepdad and pretty much everyone she’d ever known in LA. Her mom had been devastated. Beth called her every day on Skype, but there was only so much cheering up she could do through a computer screen.

  The Marines arrived in a rush of boots and questions. They asked if she was injured or in need of aid, she shook her head and pointed to Ashley. They’d recovered fairly well over the past three weeks thanks to Don’s EMT training, but there was only so much he
could do, and a collapsed lung was a serious injury.

  Don was already helping a pair of Marines load Ashley onto a stretcher.

  “We’re okay, Sergeant,” Bill said. “Just get us out of here.”

  “Can do, sir. This way!”

  Beth hurried along behind them, running toward the helicopters with the others and wiping happy-sad tears from the corners of her eyes. Don held Ashley’s hand as he walked alongside her stretcher—something new and beautiful sewn together from the ashes and ruin. Don and Ashley had grown surprisingly close during their time together at the observatory. Beth couldn’t help feeling a twinge of hope from that, like maybe someday she’d break through the haze of nightmares and panic attacks that haunted her to find something new and beautiful of her own.

  Fresh tears streamed from Beth’s eyes as she climbed into the helicopter behind Don. He glanced curiously at her as they settled into adjacent seats and buckled up.

  “It’s bittersweet,” Beth explained, shouting to be heard over the roar of the rotors.

  “Tell you a secret, kid?” Don yelled back.

  “What?”

  “It always is.”

  The End.

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