 PROLOGUE Stacy Zack sat in the freighter’s command chair, her arms and legs strapped down and her head lashed to the headrest. Her hands and feet had gone numb from the tightness of the restraints, and crusts of blood rimmed the straps at her wrists where she had wrenched at them. To her right, blurring at the edge of her vision, she could see legs with a dark pool extending around the boots. Behind her someone choked on wetness every few breaths. “David? Matt?” she said into the dark expanse of the bridge. As before, she heard only the resonant vibration from the heart of the ship. Looking over the control panel, she saw all the decades of the freighter’s service worn into the switches and bezels. A cracked display continued its countdown with only a few seconds remaining. She pulled at the straps again, and pain burned into her shoulders. “I can’t die here,” she said, “not now.” She looked above the console, out the bridge windows, to where the curved Earth filled the lower half of the long bank of glass. The sunlight glowing off the Pacific Ocean washed out the stars, leaving only blackness hanging above the planet. The blue ocean, laced with white storms, reminded her of the stained-glass windows of her father’s church. That’s where they’ll have my funeral. She envisioned her coffin sitting at the head of the sanctuary, blades of colored sunlight falling across the polished black lid and brass fittings. Her father, mother, and sister would sit in the front pew, beyond the sunlight. But there would be no body. She would be reduced to ash in the atmosphere above their heads. They would have no proof she had died, and might live for years with false hope. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her face. She did not sob, but allowed her grief out in silence. The numbers ran out on the display and retro rockets fired. The freighter thrummed and lurched. Her restraints pressed on her as the ship slowed. A feminine voice came through the bridge speakers: “Crash landing procedure initiated. Atmospheric contact is imminent. Please make your way to the nearest evacuation pod.” Stacy gripped the command chair’s armrests. The Earth tilted up in the windows and began to expand. Then, as the ship prepared to go belly in on the atmosphere, the rockets kicked the nose up. The Earth fell out of the windows, and Stacy had one final view of the stars. After a few moments, individual gas molecules began tinking and popping on the hull. These increased in frequency until they grew to a roar, and the windows burned in orange fire. CHAPTER 1 In the darkness before dawn, Jeffrey Holt walked across the tarmac of Las VegasInternational Airport carrying a cooler and a stainless steel coffee mug. His transport sat out on the tarmac, a gunmetal tadpole of a ship, heavy in the center with large windows, high stubby wings, and a long rear stabilizer. A breeze trailed in from the west, and the fading stars spanned the mountain ridges, uninterrupted. It all meant one thing to Jeffrey: a good morning to fly. Someone had propped a ladder up against the transport. As Jeffrey approached, he saw a maintenance tech on top of the transport, head first in the jet intake. The tech slid out of the intake, stood, and came down the ladder. He had his back to Jeffrey as he folded some tools into a pouch. “Working early this morning?” Jeffrey asked, bending over and setting his lunch cooler down. The tech’s arm jerked, and his eyes targeted Jeffrey. “Jeez old man, you scared the hell out of me.” Old man is it? Jeffrey stood up. At six foot six, his shoulders came even with the bridge of the tech’s nose. The tech dropped his eyes to Jeffrey’s chest and then back up. A peppering of gray in the tech’s hair and the lines around his eyes suggested experience, but his gaze flicked from one thing to the next like a sparrow searching for grubs. A good mechanic should have a hawkish stare. This one didn’t. Unfocused mechanics made stupid mistakes, such as leaving a loose screw in an intake or improperly securing a wiring harness. Jeffrey looked up to where the tech had been standing on his transport. “Who are you?” he asked the tech. “I’m with Huntington Aircraft.” “What are you doing?” “The guys in the office told me you leave pretty early, and I had some PM’s I didn’t want to leave for the weekend. Boss told me you’re gone pretty much all day, every day.” Jeffrey looked the tech over. His jumpsuit had creases across the arms, chest, and legs from the original packaging, the “Huntington Aircraft” shoulder patch, and a name badge, which read “Arlo”. “Just start with Huntington?” The tech looked at the creases in his jumpsuit and then back to Jeffrey. Had there been a flash of hostility in his eyes just then? “Yeah, just started, but I’ve got a lot of experience.” “Nothing personal, but I only want Javier Martinez working on my transport. I’ve made that clear to the folks in the office.” “They told me you might be upset,” Arlo said, “but I only greased some Zerks. I’m a good tech you know.” “I don’t know,” Jeffrey said. “I want my transport handled right.” “Pal,” Arlo said, picking up his tool pouch, “I’m good at my job. If you have a problem with something, tell the boss.” He tilted the ladder off the side of the transport and hefted it under his arm. Then he turned and walked away, saying, “Thing’s a pile of crap anyway.” Jeffrey picked up his lunch cooler and looked at the transport. Dents and scrapes marred its aluminum surface. A hairline crack ran down the side window. Below the window, worn lettering read: US D par me t of Orb tal Reclam tion. “It’s definitely a pile of crap, Arlo,” Jeffrey said to himself, “but it still gets me to work.” He pressed his thumb on a plate, and a green bar of light scanned it. The rear ramp popped open and lowered to the tarmac. He set his cooler and mug on the ramp and looked up to the top of the transport. Zerk greasing? He took his sat-phone out of his pocket, scrolled through the contacts, and tapped the number for Huntington Aircraft. The phone went to voicemail after several rings, and he said, “This is Jeffrey Holt. What’s the story on this ‘Arlo’ you’ve got working for you? I’ve said before, I only want Javier working on my transport. Call me.” He hung up the phone, pocketed it, and looked back up. I don’t have time for this. Picking up his cooler and mug, he walked up the ramp and bent to enter the cockpit. He toggled a switch on the bulkhead, and the ramp lifted and closed. Placing his cooler to the side, he settled into the pilot’s seat and pressed a button. The seat shifted forward, bringing him up to the controls and instruments. He balanced his coffee mug on the console, fired up the engines, and went through his preflight. Everything seems to be running well, so maybe Arlo’s okay. Jeffrey had his doubts though. He had known very few good mechanics. Pulling back on the controls, he lifted the transport off the tarmac and aimed it at the northern desert. He slid the throttle forward, and the transport accelerated, pushing him back into the seat. When he reached his cruising altitude, he looked over the panel of circular gauges. They all read within range, yet something felt wrong. He tapped on the air intake pressure gauge. It read a few ticks lower than usual, but everything else appeared to be normal. Just let it go. As he looked out on the morning sky, cold and blue over the mountains, he couldn’t let it go. He closed his eyes and listened to the transport. He tapped his finger with the rhythm of the twin engines. Then he realized what was bothering him. Somewhere above the rhythm ran a thin whine. Jeffrey turned, reached up, and smacked the roofline with the palm of his hand. The whine remained. He tilted his head aiming his ears at the sound. Looking out the windows, he considered what to do. Turn around and have it looked at, or just head on? To his left, the night’s last star—Jupiter—hung over the western horizon. To his right, the rising sun caught chips in the windshield causing them to sparkle a deep orange. He had already flown over halfway to the landing strip, and he had to be on-site this morning. He’d have the whine dealt with later. Careful not to bump the flight yoke, he shifted his weight, trying to relieve the ache in his lower back. He lifted his coffee mug from its balanced place on the console and watched steam rise from its vent. He sipped from the cup, trying to forget the whine, but it did seem to be getting louder. Was it? Or was he just reading into it too much? Damn Arlo and his Zerks. Jeffrey’s wife had often complained that he overanalyzed life. At times, during their thirty five years of marriage, she had half joked that she should leave him because he could not simply accept things as they were. She finally had left him the previous winter for the great hereafter. The memory welled up a sad burn in his chest, and he forced it back down where it seemed to exist permanently, in the center of his rib cage, tucked up under his heart. As he closed in on thirty miles to his destination, he set his mug aside and took hold of the steering yoke. The engines hummed along, and he reached out and switched off the autopilot. A bang like a gunshot overwhelmed the sound of the engines followed by a piercing shriek. Then the engines fell silent. Warning indicators lit up across the console, and Jeffrey felt the flipping sensation of weightlessness. The transport tipped down and fell toward a mountain ridge. His harness held his weightless body to the seat as he watched the mountain rise up at him. He froze. As a Marine he had served six years of heavy combat. During those years, even when he had to wipe his hand across the inside of his windscreen to clear it of blood and bits of bone and fly without a navigator, he had never frozen. Now he had. The void of his mind took in the ridge filling the windscreen and the feeling of weightlessness tickling his guts and throat. A pocket of air shook the ship, and his mug launched weightless off the console. It clipped a corner, popping the lid off, and hot coffee splattered across Jeffrey’s face and chest. Jeffrey’s body jolted with the heat of the coffee, and he came to life, reaching out and hitting a switch, which purged the fuel system. He pulled back on the stick, but without thrust the stubby wings wouldn’t generate lift. The transport stalled, and the nose dropped again. The mountains came at him faster now, and he could make out detail in the shadows of boulders. He waited for the light to indicate a primed fuel system. When it blinked green, he thumbed the ‘engine on’ toggle hard enough to crack the clear plastic stem. The mountainside filled the transport’s window now. He would pin in halfway down the slope. He jammed his finger on the firing button. The engine razzed hard and shuddered. He jammed his thumb on the firing button again, and the engine roared. The transport launched at full acceleration toward the mountain, shoving Jeffrey into his seat. He yanked the throttle back. Too close and too steep to pull up over the mountain, Jeffrey stamped on the foot pedals, slipping the transport onto its side. Then he wrenched the flight yoke back. The transport’s frame groaned. Jeffrey gritted his teeth and growled under the G force, but the transport pulled true and, with only a few hundred feet to spare, the mountain slid away. He leveled off and brought the transport down to fly slow and close to the desert floor. He wiped the coffee off his face with the palm of his hand. “What the hell,” he said, looking back up to the rear ceiling. The twin engine design used bulletproof turbines. Failures were unheard of. With two… having both shut off at once should be impossible. Jeffrey remembered that touch of hostility on Arlo’s face. He thought about landing at the base of the mountain and radioing for help. The transport sputtered, but seemed to want to keep going. He didn’t feel like spending eight hours in the desert waiting for help when in ten minutes he could be sitting at his desk. He still had work to do. Pushing the throttle forward, he brought the transport up over the mountain he had almost crashed into. The engine hesitated a moment and then accelerated. He continued on across the desert. He kept his attention focused on the transport now, ready to land if he sensed any trouble from the engines. He flew over another ridge of mountains, and the landing strip came into view: a one-time inland sea between two ranges of craggy mountains. The valley floor, a flat sheet of salt-encrusted dirt, ran east to west ten miles wide and roughly fifty miles long. The eastern side of the valley floor still lay in shadow. Beginning in the shadows and running out into the sunlight lay long, ripped craters made by the crash landings of hundreds of ships. Thanks to Jeffrey’s long hours of work, no wreckage remained. The transport, now showing no signs of trouble, crossed the width of the strip in minutes. When Jeffrey flew over the northern ridge of mountains and into the next steep valley, he turned hard right. On any other day he would have turned left, brought the transport down into the valley, and flown over the scrap yard surveying the cut pieces of wreckage set in stacks and rows. Today he flew straight toward the squat bunker on the eastern end of the valley. High, thin window slits broke the smooth surface of the bunker’s gray walls. He aimed the transport at the white landingpad next to the bunker. Smacking a toggle, he felt the landing skids thump into place. He stabilized the transport over the black X on the landing pad, jets firing down, and–without ceremony–dropped it to the ground. He reached up and yanked the yellow and black emergency stop handle. The engines went silent and all the lights on the console fluttered off. He exhaled and sat for a moment, feeling adrenaline still glowing in his arms and legs. “Not today, you pile,” he said. He had some trouble unbuckling his harness as his hands and arms felt weak and trembled slightly. Looking to his left, he saw coffee spattered across the cockpit glass. He took a rag from his pocket, wiped the window, and then the console between the instruments, then pocketed the rag and scowled at the smeared glass. He pressed a switch, and the seat pulled away from the controls. Stooping, he stepped around the seat and picked up his cooler. He found the coffee mug and its lid lying in the back corner. Opening the cooler, he put the mug in it. Then he flipped the manual ramp release and the ramp popped open, its weight pulling it to the tarmac. Turning his shoulders to fit through the doorway, he made his way down the ramp and into the desert’s warming morning. He looked up at the exhaust ports and saw white dust coating the carbon-stained metal. That’s not good. He reached up and held his hand near the metal. Heat radiated from it. He’d have to let it cool down and give it a look later, after the freighter crash. Stepping around the side of the transport, he set the cooler down and stuffed a hand and a foot into spring loaded panels and pulled himself up. He lay down on top of the transport, feeling the cold metal against his stomach and chest. He peered into a vent grid, but the sunlight glinting on the aluminum slats prevented him from seeing into the darkness. He took a penlight from a thigh pocket and shined it into the vent. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he could only make out a few dim shapes of wire bundles and pipes. He put the penlight back in his pocket and slid down to the hand holds. As he walked toward the bunker, dust lifted around his worn, steel-toed boots. He passed a weathered sign which read, “United States Government Orbital Reclamation Facility. No unauthorized personnel allowed.” Jeffrey made his way into the shade of the bunker, up the cement stairs, and into the cool doorway. He typed a code into the keypad, and the magnetic lock gave way with a thump. He pushed the door open. Stepping into the large one-room bunker, the door shut behind him, and he said, “How the hell did you get in here?” Continues... | 
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