Jack gestured at the TV and it came on, but the black screen said, “No Signal.”
“Damn storm.”
“You should go,” Jess said with two tons of regret in her voice.
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” his instructor droned on.
“I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I have to go.”
“I know. It’s why I love you, Corpsman Hernandez. You’re out to save the world, and someday, you’re going to.”
“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” the old voice was now chanting.
“There’s something I need to ask you when I get back. You’ll be here?”
She smiled and kissed him, and there was a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll always be here waiting for you, until the stars rain down from the sky.”
And he knew she would.
On autopilot, Jack dressed in fresh clothes, checked his gear and flew out the door. He ran to the train station and caught the mag-lev down to Vandenberg, totally oblivious to everything around him. He didn’t notice everyone in the station fiddling with their malfunctioning phones, or gossiping about blank televisions. He missed the announcement that the train was being guided manually in the absence of the traffic network, and he didn’t even notice that his GPS was blank.
Jack didn’t notice because he was thinking about that question he would ask when he got back. During the trip, he didn’t once hear his instructor’s voice and the list of possible calamities. All he heard, over and over again, was Jess’ promise to wait for him, in that voice that was too sweet for words.
Chapter 7:
Broken Bird
The Vandenberg airfield was in a panic the likes of which Jack had never seen before. Preflight personnel were rushing everywhere, assembling equipment at a break-neck pace and prepping the massive tranzat carriers at all five gantries. Each spear-like tranzat was flanked by ten of the orange leviathan helicopters, lined up in rows with their blades folded, and waiting to be loaded. The helicopters looked like nothing so much as oversized Easter eggs painted by a strangely unimaginative kid.
The Priority One alert had gone out to everyone: primary squads, secondaries and reserves alike. That added up to about five thousand drop-ready corpsmen lined-up in rows on the tarmac, waiting to be briefed, loaded and launched.
Vandenberg was California’s primary launch site. More volunteers would be arriving at secondary sites by the thousands, and the same would be happening at ERC launch facilities all over the globe. The amount of manpower in motion was staggering to consider.
Jack found the SJ Bravos among the sea of orange jumpsuits without too much effort, and he fell into formation. “Hey Albright, any idea what’s up?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He scanned the group and took a mental picture. He’d never seen five thousand completely dumbfounded faces before, and he doubted he ever would again.
The regional director came out a few minutes later and cleared his throat over the PA. “Settle down, corpsmen,” he said, and the chatter died. “I know you’re all wondering what the hell’s going on, and you’re not alone. There seems to be a perfect shit storm coming down right now, and we’re working double time just to put the big picture together.
“First off, as you no doubt noticed, communication networks are down right now. All of them. This is due to some sort of broad spectrum interference that’s wreaking havoc with anything wireless. We haven’t identified the source yet, but we believe the effect to be global.
“It’s a small miracle that we managed to get the alert out at all. Of course, I know all you dedicated boys and girls would’ve followed regs and reported in during a communications black-out, anyway.”
There was stifled laughter in the crowd.
“But that’s not Priority One.” The director took a moment to clear his throat. “Shortly before communications were interrupted, two impacts were reported on the Asian subcontinent, one in India and the other in China. The events registered on our seismic equipment, and we’ve estimated the power of each to be in the five gigaton range.”
Jack and five thousand other corpsman cursed.
“We initially believed the impacts to be asteroids. However, the evidence we’ve pieced together points to the Helios and Hyperion solar arrays being the culprits. We have no idea why they fell out of orbit, but we can assume the destruction is… simply unimaginable.
“Both impacts occurred in high density population centers, in fact, the most densely populated regions in the world. Considering the coincident failure of communications networks, we must assume that this constitutes some form of attack. Terrorism cannot be ruled out, although it’s hard to imagine a terrorist organization with the resources and coordination necessary for this type of operation.
“Our job, as always, is to provide humanitarian aid. We’ll be double and triple loading laviathans, and cluster dropping at full speed from LEO in order to get as many feet on the ground as possible. Your primary jobs will be to collect refugees and organize temporary camps, then hold tight until we can begin airlifting them to wherever the hell we can. Expect to see local military, as well as Blade and Carbon forces in the area.”
The director took a moment to think back through the speech, making sure he didn’t leave anything out. Then he said, “You know the rest. Let’s get in the air.”
From there, it was a normal launch but with more bodies and none of the banter. The Bravos loaded into their leviathan accompanied by a reserve squad and two full pallets loaded with medical supplies, rations and light-weight collapsible shelters. Everything and everyone was locked down, and then the leviathan and nine identical replicas were lifted into the tranzat’s cradles and locked into place.
With the windows covered, the rest of the launch process always happened blind. There was the feeling of being moved in one direction and then another, the ratcheting of the launch gantry as the plane was angled upwards, and then a roar and immense pressure as the tranzat thrust itself into the sky. The roar subsided, and for the rest of the trip, they swayed and bobbed like an inflatable dolphin in a pool.
This time, Leonid Nikitin was wide awake and Lisa Albright’s earphones were nowhere to be found. Each of the passengers was wearing the same blank expression found in hospital waiting rooms, with eyes cast down and brows drawn together. Most were lipping something, and Jack assumed they were prayers. When he noticed his own lips were doing the same, he couldn’t recall what they’d been reciting.
The tranzat blasted through the upper atmosphere for an hour, and the corpsmen sat in silence waiting for the drop. Then they heard a strange howl and the cabin rocked hard to the side.
“Tell me that’s just turbulence, Jack,” Skip shouted across the isle.
Several more howls rushed past the hull, and another one struck. The cabin rattled and shook. Jack could only think of one possible answer: they were under attack. “Masks!” He cried out, and everyone reacted instantly, grabbing their oxygen masks from the packs above and pulling them over their heads.
Another howling thing struck the ship, and their leviathan lurched free of its cradle, dropping into the thin air at the upper edge of the atmosphere. No warning light this time, just the sickly feeling of plummeting like a stone, tumbling end over end.
The portholes on either side of the cabin revealed the Earth, the dark sky, and the Earth again, chasing one after the other in rapid succession. The burning tranzat shrank into the distance, and the air was thick with strange shapes that Jack couldn’t make out.
Another series of howling rounds screamed past the hull, and one struck with a deafening crack. In response, the safety windows exploded in a rain of small pellets, and the air pressure inside the leviathan disappeared.
They were falling, unguided, uncontrolled. Jack had a hunch and he had to act quickly or it’d all be over. He tugged the climbing hook out from his harness, latched it to the U-shaped restraint, and slammed the seat’s emergency release. The metal bar jerked up and away from him, but before he could fly loose in the spinning cabin,
