Saint John Read online

  The air felt thicker now. John’s usual sense of place and position returned.

  The suit’s comms crackled.

  “Please hold for further communications.”

  “You were hoping for someone else?”

  There was no reply.

  John laughed. He flexed his hands and noticed with satisfaction that the range of motion was limited only by the thick gloves, and no longer by being half-frozen.

  He waited for a while, not minding the absence of the incompetent voices below. Some moments were enjoyable simply because you were there to do the enjoying.

  The suit’s comms sputtered.

  “Mr. Cline, this is Mission Director Ulson. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know when I say we were hoping it was anyone else but you.”

  John grinned, and wondered if the helmet had an interior camera showing his mirth.

  “I’m glad you find that amusing,” Director Ulson said.

  It did.

  “Good to hear from you, Ken. That’s your name, right?”

  “Director Ulson is fine.”

  “Listen, Ken. Catch me up. Where is everybody?”

  “As far as we can tell, the rest of the crew are dead. We thought everyone was gone, but then started picking up signals from your suit.”

  “What a disappointment for you.”

  Houston didn’t reply.

  “I’ve got a question for you, Ken.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “When are you bringing me home?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Mr. Cline, we’ve been considering that and we’re inclined to leave you.”

  “What? Get my attorney. I got a life sentence, not a death sentence.”

  “Your attorney won’t be joining us.”

  John wanted to hang up on them, but he had no idea how to turn off the suit’s comms.

  “However, we have an offer. One already signed off on by the President.”

  John hated being the powerless one. The one begging for life. It wasn’t a position he was accustomed to. Swear words formed in his mind and dangled from his lips. He wanted to scream them. To spill them out in a fury.

  But he didn’t.

  Mama in heaven above would never forgive him for it.

  “Make your fahoochin’ offer!”

  He’d come up with quite a few alternatives over the years. Ones she wouldn’t mind, and yet still felt pretty good to say.

  “You’re aware that a large, unidentified spacecraft appeared above our planet?”

  “Yeah, ET decided to come for another visit. So what?”

  “ET was a film and despite Area Fifty-One rumors and the like, this is mankind’s first verifiable alien contact.”

  “Thanks for the history lesson. Will there be a test later?”

  “Here’s the offer. We want you to EVA and contact whatever is in the ship.”

  “Why me? Why don’t you call them? You’re talking to me. Surely you have a space phone to call them.”

  “We’ve tried. They apparently don’t take collect calls.”

  “Then wait for them to contact you.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because while the ship is orbiting the planet at around 15,000 miles per hour, it is also descending. Our current calculations place touch down in the Atlantic Ocean in less than twenty hours.”

  “I still don’t get why you need me to go say hello.”

  “It’s simple, Mr. Cline. That impact will cause a tsunami that wipes out the eastern seaboard an hour later. Other waves will decimate cities along the coasts in Europe and Africa. It will be an extinction-level event, Mr. Cline. Hence, we need to facilitate open lines of communication as quickly as possible.”

  John didn’t feel the same horror he assumed the director was feeling. Sure it would be bad, but only because there wouldn’t be anyone left for him to kill.

  A lion without a herd of antelope was king of nothing.

  John thought about it. To say he was in a novel position would’ve made a short story of the situation.

  “Let me get this straight. You want me, a convicted serial killer, to save humanity?”

  “You weren’t our first choice.”

  “Give me a minute while I savor the irony.”

  “We don’t have a minute to waste, Mr. Cline.”

  John chewed at the dead skin peeling off his lips. He could try, but what if he died? Was he going to die trying to help them? They who sent him up here to rot in the first place?

  No thanks.

  The director continued.

  “And if by some malignant stroke of genetics the survival of humanity doesn’t sway you to action, you might also like to know that your suit will run out of air in less than seven hours.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  John marveled at how light the crate of diagnostic equipment seemed to be. It was hard to get moving and to stop once moving. But nudging it along was easy, almost like guiding cattle into the chute.

  He’d had to do a tethered EVA to another section of the destroyed space station to retrieve the cargo. What would’ve taken a real astronaut less than an hour took him almost four. Half that time had been forced stops while he choked down the heaving contents of his stomach.

  Now tethered to a crumpled buttress outside, he stared across the long latticed beam, to the end wedged into the black skin of the alien space ship. He checked that the makeshift spear was securely strapped to his back.

  He consciously refused to look down.

  It wasn’t like in the movies. Like you weren’t supposed to look down because you’d be afraid of going splat at the bottom.

  No, this was a whole other thing. The land was really far down. And if you fell, you wouldn’t make it there anyway. You’d burn up in a small flare of atmospheric indifference.

  “The suit has three hours of air left, Mr. Cline. You need to get going.”

  “Get off my mother-scratching back, Ken!”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to elevate your stress response.”

  “You? Make me stressed? I think you have the dynamic on its head.”

  “Your biometrics are showing—“

  John tuned him out. The mission was simple, in theory. Find a way in. Drop off the diagnostics junk so Houston could get a read on the thing. Give them some chance of establishing communication. Then they’d give him the entry code to the sole remaining evacuation pod. He’d have to wait there a couple of weeks while they worked up a mission to get him home.

  And then a full pardon. Total freedom. Freedom to continue his life as before. The life he was born to live.

  A life that took lives.

  Excitement clawed at his belly. A racing euphoria that found its outlet in the dying moments of another.

  He didn’t believe them at first. What was to stop them from leaving him up there to die? Or throwing him in prison once he returned to the surface? Only after his attorney got involved and guaranteed the deal did he decide to go for it.

  After all, why not?

  It was a door number one and door number two situation.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  “Acknowledged.”

  He crawled across the beam with the diagnostics array on a tether floating behind, the thick gloves making every hold a precarious advance. He refused to consider what might happen if he missed just once. After a slow approach that seemed to take forever, his hand reached forward and contacted not metal, but the black exterior of the alien ship.

  It was spongy. He pushed in and his glove disappeared up to the elbow.

  Weird.

  He pulled back, and his arm didn’t budge.

  It kept going. Deeper. Up to the shoulder.

  He slammed his other hand forward to push back and succeeded only in burying it as well.

  The surface touched his glass dome helmet and it parted like the mouth of a leech.

  John sensed a gentle, undulating movement. Like he wa
s being born into a second life. A life with new possibilities and a new destiny.

  And yet, he was still the same old John.

  The void opened and he eased onto what appeared to be a floor of an immense tunnel. The helmet’s LED lights shone as he looked around. It was like no tunnel he’d ever seen. Not cut from stone or blown clear with dynamite.

  This was curved and flowing. Like the outside, the broad strokes of complexity cascaded into detail that seemed to always be one level finer than his eyes could discern.

  He shined the headlamps into the distance, to where a curve ended the view.

  A shadow moved.

  A spiny shadow.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John jumped and landed on his feet.

  And then realized that landing on his feet was the oddest thing he’d felt since jumping and not landing on them.

  There was gravity here. Not quite like Earth, but similar.

  He tried to move the diagnostics crate and it didn’t budge. It was way heavier than he’d realized. They must have had some serious equipment in there.

  Another shadow moved. Closer. Less than a hundred yards away this time. As John focused on it, the shape seemed to dissolve into the sides of the tunnel.

  He didn’t want to know.

  “Hey Ken! I did my part. The box of junk is here. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  He said the last part to himself as much as to them.

  “Give us a few minutes to confirm.”

  “Hurry the chuck up!”

  A shadow twice as tall as a man separated from the wall across from him, ten feet away. The thing seemed to be part of the wall and yet independent of it. A long spine of protruding spikes. Black appendages that sloped to the ground and melted back into the larger organism. Jaws filled with glistening black teeth slowly opened.

  John raised the spear and felt the most unusual sensation in his life. Stranger even than the first time he watched the light fade from a victim’s eyes.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. His palms tingled. He didn’t place it at first.

  And then he understood.

  He felt fear.

  And just as quickly, rage overcame it.

  He jabbed the sharp, jagged tip at the monster.

  “Stay away from me! I’ll kill you!”

  In total silence, the beast closed the distance between them. It crashed down as John drove the spear up with all his might.

  The jaws snapped and sheared his left arm off at the shoulder.

  The spear punctured the beast in the center and it hissed violently as it collapsed to the floor. In seconds, the ground swallowed it. John yanked the spear free before it too got sucked down.

  The pain of the amputated limb burned in his mind. Like the fuse to a pile of dynamite.

  More shadows appeared, all melting out of the walls. Surrounding him.

  “Mr. Cline, we have verified the delivery. Thank you for your service to mankind. We pray God may weigh your sacrifice against the crimes stained upon your soul.”

  “What?”

  The shadows closed in.

  “Noooooo!”

  John swung the spear in wide arcs, cutting through a couple of the monsters closer in.

  But there were too many.

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

  John turned and saw a red, digital counter on the diagnostics crate.

  3

  2

  The shadows swept over him.

  1

  A blinding light separated the atoms of his body. As it did the atoms of the aliens and their ship.

  The selfless sacrifice of Saint John would be remembered for a thousand years.

  He of most noble heart.

  He.

  The savior of mankind.

  THE END

  Turn the page for a preview of The Darwin Protocol, book 1 from The Last Peak series.

  THE

  DARWIN

  PROTOCOL

  — A Preview —

  William Oday

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  One Month Ago

  Washington, D.C.

  DR. ANTON RESHENKO realized they resembled nothing so much as monkeys, preening and picking at each other to ease tensions and confirm social status. He stood at the back of the small conference room, quietly waiting to be recognized. The most powerful men and women in the United States government packed the tight space in a conspicuous ordered hierarchy. The senior members each occupied a high-backed, black leather chair at the long rectangular table. The chair at the far end was symbolically empty, as the president was absent.

  Would that legally cover plausible deniability?

  Proximity to that vacant chair communicated power and position. Ongoing feuds and bitter rivalries occasionally shuffled the membership.

  Anton wasn’t foolish enough to think the news accounts ever got to the truth of those transitions.

  The next level removed were the subordinates and staff that stood along the walls behind the chairs of their respective superiors. They stood stiffly at attention, whether obviously military or otherwise, exuding the reflected glory of their seated leash-holders.

  And the furthest removed were those, like him, standing at the opposite end of the room, near the door. As if the exit behind served to remind them that they barely warranted inclusion. That their presence might end at any moment with the wave of a hand or a displeased nod.

  Unlike him, they were all insiders. Instinctually aware of the invisible web of power and procedure that governed their artificial realities.

  The cloying stink of over-used aftershave wrinkled Anton’s nose. The soft hum of quiet conversation buzzed in his ears. Several subordinates scribbled on notepads as their masters droned on about matters too inconsequential for them to personally perform.

  The incessant babbling made it hard to think.

  Anton’s hand slipped into his left pocket and found the familiar disc deposited there. Minted nearly a thousand years ago, the silver Dirham of Genghis Khan was an invaluable reminder of what one man might achieve.

  He rubbed it between thumb and pointer finger. The worn edges of the ancient script almost as familiar as the lines of his own palms. One side read “The Just. The Great.” Many might argue the former, but none could diminish the latter.

  Holding history in his fingertips focused his thoughts, his intentions. The small movement was a daily meditation during the development of MT-1.

  His mind now more tranquil, a grimace crept onto his face. With effort, he masked the disgust.

  The sycophants. The unimaginative fools. They believed they held the reins driving the country forward. He knew better. They were panicked horses, fleeing the stinging bite at their flanks. Institutional inertia, like heavy blinders, kept them looking forever in one direction, as if a solution could come from no other quarter.

  Their lack of vision was appalling considering the scope of the problem. They deserved scorn, not the power the ignorant masses bestowed.

  Anton’s shoulders held no stars. The front of his dark, rumpled suit coat displayed no ribbon rack, no medals. Nothing to proclaim a record of service to the world.

  That would change.

  One day, history would venerate him. Whereas these self-important, preening imbeciles wouldn’t merit so much as a footnote. They would be forgotten. In many ways, they were already relegated to oblivion.

  Anton looked around the room and caught the eyes of one man near the far end of the table, Senator Charles Rawlings, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The bespectacled elderly man held Anton’s gaze for a moment then turned away.

  The senator was the reason for the meeting. The reason for Anton’s attendance. Rawlings was twice as smart as the others and yet half as smart as he believed himself to be.

  None of them stood shoulder to shoulder with Anton.

  He was different, in ways both evident and not. The size of the sideburns that carpeted both sides of his fa
ce clearly stood out. And why shouldn’t they?

  He deserved attention, and soon he would have it.

  The fact that he had to wait made his belly burn. He suppressed a scowl. Such a display would be noticed. And their opinions still mattered. They made the rules, and it was their game, for now.

  A new game would begin. The knowledge kept his temper in check. Just.

  A white-haired man that made Senator Rawlings look like a baby-faced toddler approached the far end of the table. He hobbled along with the aid of a cane and a seemingly endless span of time to arrive at his destination. He finally made it and stood to the left of the empty seat at the head of the table.

  The Director of the Office of Net Assessment, the Department of Defense’s internal think tank. The old goat had held the position for over forty years, since the office’s inception under the Nixon administration. His title didn’t officially hold the weight of many of those seated around the table. But power often came from unexpected places.

  Anton himself was proof of that.

  The white-haired man clicked a remote and advanced the presentation to the final frame. It was astonishing how PowerPoint could dull even the most vital topics. He pointed at the enormous display on the wall behind him. He shuffled closer and touched the screen, leaving an oily mark. The smudge covered large red numbers.

  His voice came out brittle but confident, like a bible printed on antique parchment. Like a revelation.

  “We’ve run the sim with every variation we could think of. The result is the same. Under the most optimistic set of conditions, only one thing changes. The timing. And that by no more than a handful of months.”

  A dead silence descended on the room. Half the people in it turned to Senator Rawlings. The other half turned to yet another gray-haired man seated adjacent to the empty seat. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Four gold stars clung to each shoulder. An ostentatious proclamation of his achievements. The divided attention signaled a deeper rift. A reflection of the back-channel battles and infighting that inevitably resulted in little real progress.