Kaiju: Deadfall, page 4
“That one’s real wet.” Kevin jerked his head around at Meyers’ comment, chuckling when he saw Meyers pointing to a damp case of soda with his ink pen. He thought Meyers was talking about the blonde. Get your mind out of the gutter, Kevin. “Take it back.”
Kevin shrugged. “I can get another one from the truck to replace it. Just take a sec.”
“Okay,” Meyers said.
Then Meyer’s low jaw went slack and a look of puzzled fear spread across his face. The room grew brighter until Meyers stood in Kevin’s shadow.
“What the hell?” Kevin asked, as he spun toward the door. A second sun appeared a few degrees above the one he knew so well, growing so bright it hurt his eyes. The new sun was quickly growing larger as well. The women playing golf also noticed the strange phenomenon. They stopped their game and watched the sky. Their bodies seemed to draw in their shadows, shortening as the object approached overhead. Meyers remained rooted to the spot, but Kevin’s curiosity was aroused. He walked outside, shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked up at the frighteningly beautiful object.
As the fireball loomed larger, his knees grew weak. He knew that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. His skin began to tingle and his face grew warm. The object passed overhead less than two thousand feet above the clubhouse. The shockwave of its passing struck him a few seconds later with the roar of a thousand jet engines slamming his ears. A hot wind followed the object from the east, bending the trees and sending the women tumbling head-over-heel across the putting green. He couldn’t hear their screams, though he knew they must be screaming. He knew he was.
He clung to a tree to keep from being blown away and followed the object with his frightened gaze. The fireball struck downtown Logansport, near Market Street and South Third Street. A blinding flash of light, brighter than a hundred suns, illuminated the city for one brief second. Then, the entire city disappeared beneath a mushroom cloud of dirt and smoke. Seconds later, the ground bucked wildly beneath his feet, knocking him to his knees. The tremor was the weak, outer edges of the 6.9 magnitude earthquake shaking the still standing outskirts of Logansport to pieces. Cases of soda cascaded from his truck and burst open, spilling their contents across the parking lot. He watched in horror, as a cloud of dust and debris rushed toward him, flinging people aside and upending golf cars carts. The blistering wind picked him up from the ground and slammed him into the tree beside him. He fell dazed and in agony amid the azaleas planted at its base. When he tried to move, he knew his ribs were broken.
Less than a minute later, chunks of ejecta, large rocks superheated by the blast, rained down on the golf course, creating washtub-sized divots in the manicured fairways. The chaotic scene reminded him of an artillery barrage. Through pain-glazed eyes, he watched one rock grow larger as it fell toward him. His last conscious thought was that his soda deliveries were going to be late.
* * * *
Ted Millhouse also saw from his automobile, the fiery object descending toward the city on I-35, as he headed southeast toward the city of Walton, Indiana. As a regional sales rep for a tri-state farm-implement company, the area around Walton was fertile sales territory. He grew up on a farm, and his connection to the land allowed him to build a rapport with his clients. He knew immediately that he was witnessing something phenomenal, something he could use to break the ice with potential customers.
He slowed, as he watched the blinding light crossing the sky toward the west through his driver’s side mirror. When the roar of what he assumed to be a meteor began to shake his car, his hot coffee spilled into his lap. As he slammed on the brakes, the car skidded off the road and into the grass median, almost clipping a minivan in the left lane. The car slid to a stop facing northwest toward the meteor. He leapt from the car to brush the scalding hot coffee from his lap with his hand. As he looked up, the object struck. A brilliant flash of light turned morning into the brightest noon he had ever witnessed. His shadow became an ebony paint smear on his automobile. The intense glare almost blinded him. He closed his eyes, but the intense light penetrated the flesh of his eyelids. He had seen nuclear mushroom clouds in movies and on the Discovery Channel, and this reminded him of one. Was the country at war? Was he already doomed by radiation?
“My God,” he whispered to himself, as the ground began shaking. He fell back against his car and watched the tsunami of dust and debris rush toward him. The wind swept over him in an instant, flinging him over his car, down an embankment, and into a concrete culvert. The pain as the bones in his right leg shattered hit him seconds before his head slammed into the concrete, knocking him senseless.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, but the rumbling was over and the air was still when he regained his senses. He looked down and saw the shattered bones of his right leg protruding through his pants. Panicking, he tried to move his leg. The pain that shot up his leg was excruciating, threatening to make him pass out again. The severity of his situation gripped him like an icy fist. He might be dying, and any emergency services that might have survived the explosion would be directed towards Logansport. He was on his own. He struggled to crawl from the culvert, using his one good leg and his arms to propel himself up the steep slope. He clenched his teeth tightly and ignored the pain. After an agonizing eternity, he reached the level of the road and wept at what he saw.
The horizon to the northwest, where Logansport had been, was a dark mass of roiling clouds, punctuated by flashes of lightning and flame. Clouds formed concentric rings above the devastated city, slowly tattered by the prevailing westerly winds. Whatever had happened, meteor or nuclear bomb, it had wrought destruction on a massive scale.
His mind fought a losing battle to maintain its grasp on reality, as the pain threatened to shut down his body. He could expect no help from others. He didn’t know the scope of the destruction, but doubted anyone would worry about an individual on a highway when tens of thousands were dead and many more injured.
Ted rolled over on his back and stared up at the sky. It was at that moment that he saw a second fireball streaking westward high above. A single tear rolled down his cheek. “It’s the end of the world,” he whispered.
6
Thursday, August 9 3:22 a.m. (CDT) Lunar One, Near Moon orbit –
The leak inside the service module proved a minor one and easily patched, but a piece of metal dislodged by the collision had pierced one of the reserve oxygen tanks, bleeding its precious contents into space. The collision jostled the object they had hit from its position and sent it streaking toward the moon’s surface. Its impact on the moon’s far side left a light-colored scar in the dark gray dust where it struck.
The Orion spacecraft had fared a little better. They had managed to restore partial power, but not communications. Houston didn’t know if they were dead or alive. Presenting a bigger problem was the amount of fuel remaining. He had burned too much of it in a futile attempt to avoid the object. The remainder was insufficient to insert them into a safe Earth orbit. At their present trajectory, they would miss Earth by approximately six thousand miles. Langston could see only two possible solutions, neither of them optimum. He was mission commander, but he would leave the decision up to his crew.
“As I see it,” he began, “we have two choices.” The others stared at him with attentive dread, knowing that either choice would be severe but eager for any good news. “One,” he continued, “We can maintain our course toward Earth and hope they can intercept us in time. Judging by Ishom’s impact, I think they’re going to be somewhat busy with Girra. I don’t know how that might interfere with a launch, but I suspect the chance of a successful rendezvous will be small.” He waited as they digested the information. “Our second choice is more risky. We can assume a lunar orbit and wait for rescue. Then, I’ll take the lander to the surface, and investigate that alien artifact.”
He was met with stony silence, as his three comrades pondered his choices. Crenshaw was the first to speak.
“I vote for the moon. Earth needs any information we can provide.”
“We have no way of communicating with Earth,” Mahall rightly pointed out.
“What about the lander?” Ingersall suggested. “It has a radio.”
“It doesn’t have the range to reach Earth,” she replied. “It was designed to route communications through the service module.”
“Can you repair the radio?” Ingersall asked.
She hesitated before answering. Langston knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t sugar coat her reply. “I don’t know. The outboard antenna was damaged by the collision, and the power surge blew a lot of relays. We might replace the antenna, but it would require an EVA. I’ve never made one.”
“I have,” Langston said. “As commander, it’s my job anyway.”
“If we had a pump …” Ingersall began.
“We don’t,” Langston reminded him. “We can’t transfer fuel from the lander, but we can use it. If we decide on the moon, I’m going down to the surface.” He looked at each of them slowly. “I need one of you to go with me.”
Crenshaw volunteered without hesitation. ““I’ll go. I want to see that thing up close.”
Ingersall cast a forlorn look at the three of them. “I guess the safety of Earth is more important. We’re expendable. I vote for the moon.”
“I’m not expendable,” Mahall protested. “I have a daughter. I want to live.”
Langston ignored her outburst. “You and Ingersall will remain on the Lunar One. If help arrives in time, you’ll leave Crenshaw and me behind if necessary. I intend this to be a two-way trip, but the lander wasn’t intended for use on this mission. I don’t know if it’s flight ready. It was just along for the ride, but we have it, and I’m going to use it. If I die out here, I’m going to die on the lunar surface. We have to make a decision quickly. Every minute we continue toward Earth makes it more difficult to achieve lunar orbit.”
“Okay,” Mahall said, nodding briskly as if to convince herself. “We try for a lunar insertion.”
“Then it’s decided. We’ll fire the engines in two minutes. Everyone strap into their seats. It’s going to be a rough ride.”
Langston held his breath, as he fired the engine for the last time. His hasty calculations called for a twenty-two second burn to achieve a stable orbit, using the moon’s gravity to pull them in. The engine roared to life, pressing him into his seat. To his dismay, it sputtered and died less than twenty seconds later. They had no more fuel. He fought the controls to keep the unstable craft steady, as he watched the numbers on the navigation computer. It was going to be close. He hoped he hadn’t doomed them all to a slow, lingering death.
He sighed with relief as Crenshaw reported half an hour later, “High lunar orbit established at nineteen point six kilometers above the surface. It’s not optimum, but it will hold for …” She paused to double check her figures, and then frowned. “Sixty-one hours.”
“No one can reach us in sixty-one hours,” Ingersall moaned. “There’s no ship on the pad. We’ll crash.”
Crenshaw chuckled. “Don’t worry, Todd. We’ll probably all suffocate before then.”
“That’s over two and a half days, Ingersall,” Langston pointed out. “A lot can happen in two and a half days. Don’t forget, Pegasus is at the ISS.” He unbuckled his harness and floated from his seat. “I’m going below to prep the lander.”
He thanked the NASA engineers for loading the lander as it if were a real mission instead of using a mock up to simulate the payload. With full oxygen reserves, he and Crenshaw could remain on the surface more than forty-eight hours, but he didn’t want to rob the Orion of any of its already depleted oxygen supply. He would take enough for only forty hours. If they hadn’t learned anything useful by then, they would return to Lunar One.
The lightweight lunar lander stored in the service module looked nothing like the massive Apollo landers of the 1970’s. While they were squat and ungainly, the Armstrong more closely resembled a spherical deep-sea diving bell perched atop a cylinder. The cylinder’s living quarters supported a forty-eight hour lunar mission, while the two-passenger return sphere contained nothing but a rocket and two seats. The Armstrong’s new design had been rigorously tested in the NASA labs, but Langston understood the dangers. An engine failure either during landing or on takeoff would spell disaster.
As he labored at removing the securing braces, his mind wandered to what was happening back on Earth. Had Girra struck? If so, how many people had died? Was Crenshaw correct in her alien attack assessment? It seemed farfetched, but he could furnish no more viable explanation. If an examination of the alien object that struck the lunar surface could yield any useful information, he was willing to take whatever risk necessary to secure it. The possibility of restoring communications and reporting to Houston was much higher than that of a successful rescue.
Four hours later, he completed his task. He was tired and sore from the unaccustomed exercise, but the time alone had allowed him to collect his scattered thoughts. He was older and supposedly wiser than his crew, but damned if he felt wiser. Dropping to the surface in an untested craft was a damned fool way of playing the hero. Did he suggest the landing in hopes of learning something, or was it simply a last-ditch effort to reach the moon? He made a second exterior survey of the Armstrong’s surface for damage from the collision, but found nothing. He had one last task to perform – the exterior antenna.
He took a short twenty-minute rest break before donning his spacesuit with Crenshaw’s help. After placing her face against his faceplate and smiling, she sealed the service module hatch behind him and depressurized the compartment. Removing the Simplified Aid for EVA Rescue, or SAFER, from its cabinet, he attached the unit to the back of his suit. The twin controls extended around his sides, allowing him to fire any of the twenty-four fixed-position nitrogen jet thrusters for free maneuverability. He opened the cargo bay door.
“Exiting the ship,” he said into his microphone.
“Roger, Commander,” Mahall answered.
His first step out into space brought on an intense feeling of vertigo. The moon swept below him so closely that he could almost reach down, and scoop up a handful of lunar dust. It seemed to draw him down to its surface, which, given time, it would. He waited a moment or two for the vertigo to pass, and then he fired the thrusters. When he saw the damaged solar panel, he marveled that the entire ship hadn’t been destroyed. Deep gouges along the hull, if just a few inches deeper, would have instantly vented the ship’s atmosphere into space in an explosive decompression. They had been lucky.
He spotted the stump of the sheared-away communications array. “The antenna is gone,” he reported. “I’ll attempt to install the secondary system.”
The backup antenna had limited capacity, allowing only audio communications, but it would suffice. First, he removed the broken mast by loosening the four bolts securing it to the hull. He worked slowly and carefully. Working in zero gravity was tricky, requiring coordinated movements and patience. Any mistakes in space could be fatal. His crew depended on him. The first thee bolts came away easily, but the fourth had cold-welded to the frame assembly. After an hour, his patience was wearing thin. Like a shade tree mechanic, he resorted to kicking it with the toe of his boot until it loosened. He pushed the broken mast and watched it float away. Then, he opened the outside storage compartment and retrieved the new antenna. He was sweating in spite of the suit’s air conditioning, and the moisture was fogging his visor. He forced himself to take a few minutes to calm down. Finally, the replacement antenna was in place.
“Finished,” he reported. “Any luck?”
“I’ll be another couple of hours restoring fused circuit boards,” Mahall responded, “but I think it will work.”
“Keep at it.”
He took a few minutes to gaze at the moon’s surface. Soon, he would set foot on the surface. Would he leave it? Only time would tell.
7
Thursday, August 10, 11:30 a.m. Bagdad, Iraq –
Captain Aiden Walker watched two men enter the house on Abu Nawas Street near the Arbataash 4th Tarmuz Bridge directly across the Tigris River from the U.S. Embassy. Both were known agents of ISIS, who had effectively cobbled an independent Muslim state from parts of Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Only a thin strip along the Tigris River from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf remained in Iraqi control, and that was slipping away quickly. The men wore Western business suits and carried briefcases, but he knew the two were not discussing a business deal. They were on his watch list and were the reason for his presence.
He turned to his rooftop companion. “How many does that make?”
His friend, Sergeant Bill Costas, glanced over at him. Costas, like Walker, had slept less than five hours during the past forty-eight hours. Both men were exhausted. He blinked his eyes rapidly after staring through the binoculars. “That’s seven.”
Walker stood and adjusted the plain wooden egal headband holding the black ghatra over his head. The white linen dishdasha and black abaya he wore made him hot and uncomfortable in the noonday sun, but his native attire, his dark complexion, and his passable knowledge of Arabic allowed him to move freely about the city which was rapidly becoming unfriendly to Westerners. A loudspeaker in the minaret of a nearby mosque announced the muezzin’s midday call to prayer, the Zuhr. He fought the urge to respond. As an African-American born in Dearborn, Michigan, he understood the perspective of the nations of the Middle East from a minority’s viewpoint, but he could not condone the violence associated with radical Islam. Islam was a religion of peace and understanding usurped by zealots. His own conversion to Islam had been through research and reading the Koran. To him, Islam was the religion that eased his troubled mind. But not today.
The muezzin’s words haunted him. “Allah u Akbar.” Allah is great. “Ash-hadu an-la ilaha illa Allah.” I bear witness that Mohammed is Allah’s prophet.
