A Time to Die (51 page)

“Something in the damned drive is preprogrammed,” they’d realized. So for two days they’d tried over and over to vary power connections and frequencies to get a different result. Considering they were out of food, almost out of water, low on power, and the CO2 scrubbers were becoming saturated, this might well be the last attempt. It was looking more and more like the test flight was beyond overly optimistic.

This time Alison had hit upon the idea of inverting power inputs. Since the drive worked in that sort of manner, perhaps they could use it to override the seemingly suicidal auto-pilot. Of course it could be trying to just take them to their leader.

“Everyone set?” Alex asked. He got a roger from the other two. “All right,” he said, visually verified they were pointed at Earth, and hit the button. The drive came alive and they all ‘fell’ into their seats with a whump. A few bags of waster dislodged with a  plop, Alison hoping none of the had ruptured. The ship started to move towards Earth. Then there was the telltale streak of light from the stars and they were going faster than light. And still in the right direction! “I think we got it!”

Everyone cheered and high fives were slapped around as the starlight streaked by. Then after the initial jubilation died down, Alex jerked as he realized something he’d completely forgotten in all the desperate attempts to turn them around.

“Quick,” he said, “start a clock!” The others were surprised out of their excitement but responded almost instantly. Lloyd snagged a small digital timer off its holder on the control console and thumbed it to life before looking at him quizzically. “We’re shooting at the Earth going more than 186,000 miles per second!”

“Oh shit!” Allison gasped, and she looked out the window as if she expected to see her home planet racing at them any second. Of course, Alex knew that at their speed even something the size of a planet would go from almost too small to see to in their faces in just seconds. Perhaps too quickly for human reaction speed. He’d also kept a pretty careful log of their outbound flight and knew they’d accumulated almost exactly four minutes, 52 seconds of FTL outbound from earth.

They all watched him and the timer as the seconds added up. Now they weren’t breathing harder because of the accumulation of CO2 in the air, or the naturally warm cockpit. Now they were all hoping his numbers were accurate so they didn’t plow into the planet of their birth like a nuclear missile. Lloyd had more than enough physics to know what their return would look like that if it came to pass.

As the timer reached four minutes, Alex eased up on the power control and the Azanti instantly dropped below light speed. He kept the drive powered partially though, to maintain gravity. For a moment they all stared at the darkness of space and felt fear grip at them. There was no earth in sight. If they’d missed somehow and just flew 4 light minutes in a random direction, they might never find their way home.

“There it is!” Lloyd called and pointed, roughly twenty degrees to their left, and up 90 degrees from their flight path. The bright blue/green marble of Earth, swirling white cloud patterns moving around. Never had they seen anything more beautiful. “Looks like we’re inside the orbit of the Moon, damned fine seat-of-the-pants navigating.” Alex nodded in thanks of the complement.

Now in closer range, he was able to coax a little more speed out of the drive and still keep them below the speed of light. “Kind of like driving and drag racer on a city street,” he joked, “you have to be real gentle on the throttle.”

“You do that,” Lloyd encouraged his fellow pilot. The earth was becoming huge in the window. “I think we’re probably in radio relay range. How about some music?”

They’d all neglected to bring even some basic entertainment, figuring it would be such a short flight. The thought of some music to welcome them back to earth sounded really good. Alison took the control of the radio and began searching, her face beaming at the thought of home and some food, but more of a shower and a toilet! Hoping this was their last trip FTL, she’d been holding it for a while.

After a few moments her smile began to fade. Then it turned into a frown. And slowly, a look of horror.

“What,” Lloyd asked, seeing the expression on her face, “you miss your soaps?”

“No,” she said, the humor going right over her head. “Listen.” She flipped a switch, removing the headset and the cabin was instantly filled with an obviously British radio announcer in mid story.

“-to stay clear of all major centers of population. Royal Marines around Canterbury have reported that the evacuation center has suffered a major outbreak. Leftenant Myers, in temporary command of the 2nd Royal Fusiliers around Westminster has reported that Her Majesty has been moved onto the carrier battle group Ark Royal as it is now determined that the mainland is all but lost. All civilians are advised to get to an evacuation center with all expediency…” she changed the channel, having already found another. This voice was American.

“Philadelphia is holding, I repeat Philadelphia is holding. Everyone who has a gun and ammo needs to get themselves to the perimeter as soon as possible! We are fighting, we can win!”

“What the fuck?” Alex asked aloud finally.

“It’s like this every channel I find,” Allison said, “and there aren’t many channels left.”

“Look,” Lloyd said and pointed out the cockpit. “Dear sweet Jesus help us.” Everyone looked. They’d continued to approach the earth, and the terminator moved below them, the planet half in light, half in dark. The dark part was almost all of Europe. From space, before they left, the whole of Europe had seemingly been an endless matrix of gossamer cities linked by strings of lights. Hundreds of millions of humans pushing back the night with their electric lights. Now, the continent was a patchwork of functioning illumination.

“What…” Alex tried to ask, but the words just failed him. As they watched, a full third of the remaining lights went dark in a wave going east to west. Alex had slowly been decreasing power as he watched without even realizing it, slowing their approach. The planet orbited, more and more of the dark side coming into view. Now they could see eastern Europe, the Indian subcontinent and lower China. China looked completely dark.

“I don’t understand,” Alex said. The others shook their heads in agreement. “Maybe a war?” Then, in the middle of that darkness which was China, a brilliant flashbulb. Everyone jerked in surprised, Alison letting out a little squeak. The bright flash dimmed to a dull red but grew in size, and began to climb into the sky. Even from a couple thousand miles up, the mushroom shape was unmistakable.

Below them, the Earth shuddered in its death throes as they slowly orbited above. None of them knew what to do, or say.

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Cast, in alphabetical order

-              Dr. Amstead – Biologist, University of New Mexico at Las Cruces.

-              Lloyd Behm – test pilot, OOE

-              Theodore Alphonse Bennitti III – Space Colonization director for NASA.

-              Dr. Lisha Breda –Biologist and project director at HAARP, Human Advancement and Adaptive Research Project.

-              Ann Benedict – Vance Cartright's longtime girlfriend.

-              Robert Boyer – Diesel mechanic, HAARP.

-              Erin Burr – Ranger, Big Bend National Park

-              Vance Cartwright – Prepper in San Antonio.

-              Kathy Clifford – Reporter with GNN

-              Joseph Capdepon – Warehouse stores manager, HAARP.

-              Vance Cartwright – San Antonio prepper.

-              Dr. David Cury – Chief Virologist, CDC

-              Chris Danzas – Fisherman.

-              Dr. Theodore Gallatin – Director of the CDC

-              Captain Christopher Gilchrist – Captain USS
Gerald R. Ford

-              Lt. JG Grange – USS
Boutwell
(WHEC 71), USCG Cutter

-              Alison McDill – electrical engineer, theoretical physicist, OOE.

-              Cmd. Martinez - Air Boss, USS
Carl Vinson

-              Cmd. Montgomery – Air Boss, USS
George Washington

-              Jeremiah Osborne – Entrepreneur and owner of Oceanic Orbital Enterprises,

OOE

-              Jon “Oz” Osborne – Computer engineer at HAARP.

-              Maj. Tobey Pendleton – US Army, Special Forces (retired).

-              Grant Porter – Researcher, HAARP.

-              Tim Price – Prepper.

-              Nicole Price – Prepper.

-              Harry Ross – Ex-marine

-              Belinda Ross – Trauma nurse.

-              Col. Richard “Tightend” Sommers – Air Wing CO in Riyadh Airbase, Saudi

Arabia

-              Lt. General Leon Rose – III Corps, Ft. Hood operations commander.

-              Lt. Andrew “Switchblade” Tobin – US Air Force F-35 Lightning pilot.

-              Chris Tucker – Former 3-gun champion.

-              Enrico Vetares – mechanic, El Fuego, Mexico.

-              Manuel Vetares – mechanic apprentice, El Fuego, Mexico.

-              Adam Viterri – French researcher on the HAARP project.

-              Wade Watts – Professional video gamer.

-              Alex West – test pilot, OOE.

-              Dr. Abraham White – Neurosurgeon

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