The Battle For EarthCopyright © 2011, by Elbert Lewis, Jr. Part I"And blood in torrents pour, |
Chapter One
Time was his enemy. Time was the relentless, ravenous devourer of his life. Time was coldly unforgiving, immune to impetration and utterly without caring. Time was a merciless specter lurking in the infinite darkness of space, waiting to enfold him in the dark shroud of eternity. Time... was simply running out. Logan's weary gaze slowly, mournfully, swept a gloomy cockpit illuminated only by the weak light from the barely functioning instrument panel. Nothing had changed in the last few minutes or for several days and weeks for that matter. Access panels to various electrical and mechanical systems were left carelessly ajar, exposing the darker voids where banks of circuit boards and other devices were missing key components. Cable runs hung askew where he'd left them after scavenging their offerings. Other cables snaked to various access points and connections for which they were not originally designed. Empty ration containers, oxygen bottles and other scraps of debris he'd not bottered to collecte floated randomly about the cockpit in zero gravity. He decided not to try to jettison the refuse for fear of not being able to reestablish the air lock. Was this to be his final resting place—his tomb? Logan felt a profound sadness but at the same time he was oddly at peace with the universe and resigned to his death. He supposed it was a fitting end to his existence; a life begun as an unwanted and abandoned mixed-race infant left at the front door of an Appalachian hospital; a childhood spent unwanted and unloved in the dog-eat-dog environment of a 1950's poor county orphanage in rural West Virginia and an adult life spent as a professional soldiers, a killer of men. Logan's life had been a odesey that never failed to astound him. The circumstances of his birth were shrouded in the unknown. His mixed ancestry was as evident as his discordant facial features that spoke of his varied genetic influences; the battlefield acumen of Shaka Zulu, the indominalble spirit of William the Conqueror and the wild abandon of Ghangus Kahn. He was the distillation of thousands of years of cross-racial progenitors that could only have taken place in the great melting pot of humanity—the United States of America. He glanced up at the chronograph super-imposed on the visor of his crystal-steel HUD and then to the power level indicators. A second check of the time, his rate of deceleration and a swift mental calculation told him he had less than fifty hours until his battered spacecraft reached the outer fringes of earth's atmosphere. His attempts to contact earth had so far been in vain. He hadn't really expected a return signal from Jessica. Her bracelet's transmitter range was limited to earth's immediate gravitational field and he was still many hundreds of thousands of miles away but the thought of her brought a smile to his parched lips. He missed her strong willed brashness. The handheld gravity wave transceiver he'd left with Olson was a different matter. Logan had hoped to contact his old friend, if for nothing else than to hear another human voice one last time before he died. If it were operational, he was sure Olson would have acknowledged his transmissions. In his worse moments, in the depths of despair, he feared the device was destroyed and that Mark Olson was long dead as well as Jessica and more than likely, the rest of the human race. It was quite possible that the Hadarans had dispatched a follow-on naval force to Earth. If not destroyed outright, the planet could already be occupied with many of its cities and military bases charred to radioactive cinders and the people of earth forced into slavery for the greater glory of the Hadaran Empire. He banished those troubling thoughts from his mind as best he could. He had to hold on to the belief, the hope, that all of humanity had not perished. What other reason would he have for struggling to reach earth or to survive for another second? Logan looked slowly around the compartment again. The disarray was a testimony to his desperate scavenging of noncritical systems to save himself. All of the external components of his long-range sensors had been seared away during the escape from the Shaka, his destroyed scout-cruiser. He'd barely escaped in the Ground Assault Craft after sacrificing the Shaka in a nearly suicidal attack on the last ship of a formation of alien warships intent on establishing a forward operating base on earth. Logan had not yet recovered from the crushing blows his body endured from the titanic explosion caused by his simultaneous detonation of every onboard nuclear weapon and Shaka's intentionally overloaded fusion power plant. The AFS, his armored fighting suit, saved his life but could not completely shield him from the massive concussion. In the desperate plan to save mankind he had developed a strategy to simultaneously attack the alien beachhead on Australian soil and the alien naval formation in geostationary orbit over the continent. The President, having no real choice, reluctantly agreed to go along with the desperate ploy and convinced two other nuclear powers that earth's last hope lay in the success of Logan's plan. Nuclear submarines from the US, Great Britain and Russia launched a massive nuclear attack that destroyed the invasion force but also devastated the island continent. At the same time a separate coordinated attack of land based ICBMs from America and Russia were retargeted on the orbiting formation of alien starships. The initial strike by Logan resulted in the destruction of the destroyer escort minutes before the devastating ICBM barrage destroyed the Hadaran command ship. Unfortunately it was not a complete victory. The last alien ship, a survey-cruiser similar in design and capability to the Shaka escaped the trap. The commander of the vessel, now fully aware that he faced a far more formidable enemy then originally suspected, was within moments of launching a planet-busting doomsday weapon at earth. After arming all of the nuclear weapons on-board and overriding the safeguards on Shaka's fusion reactors, Logan projected an unbreakable tractor beam that locked the Shaka and the Hadaran cruiser in an ever tightening, unbreakable embrace of death. Logan barely escaped in the assault craft seconds before the collision and explosion. His near suicidal act of ramming the ship eliminated the immediate threat and hopefully gave earth a reprieve and time to muster an effective defense against any follow-on forces. Now he was flying nearly blind from the remote reaches of the solar system; the sun's intense gravitational signature his only navigational reference. Logan was certain that he had enough power to navigate his assault craft, turned lifeboat, back to earth. He was less sure of his ability to slow the craft enough to reduce the heat of reentry and avoid being scorched to a crisp. The fate of the crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia was a haunting specter barely kept at bay. He lacked sufficient power to place his craft in orbit and a controlled landing was out of the question. A crash landing in some body of water was his only viable option. The big unknown was energy. The craft's main gravity drive had been damaged beyond his ability to repair. The fusion engine, graviton generator and most of the main steering apparatus were fused and twisted wreckage in the ruined aft section of the craft. He'd been forced to jerry-rig a connection between the ship's electrical circuitry and his Armored Fighting Suit. He was using the suit's power cells to energize the boat's auxiliary steering drives which had been barely enough to reverse his headlong plunge out of the solar system and a prolonged death by suffocation when his air supply ran out. To conserve power he'd steered a long slow return trajectory to Earth. The primary power cell was long depleted and the backup was nearly exhausted. He'd sacrificed speed for the ability to maneuver and make small course corrections at crucial times. He had been left unconscious for days after the massive explosion hurled the assault craft out to the fringe of the solar system. After Logan recovered enough to function and do something about his predicament, he was well beyond the orbit of Neptune and almost two billion miles from Earth. His return stretched into a torturous three-month long ordeal. He'd run the environmental systems of the AFS intermittently and at the minimum life sustaining levels to conserve energy. The armored suit had saved his life; it protected him from the radiation and most of the concussion. Now it sustained him in a dark, airless wreck of a ship in a near hopeless attempt to reach earth. Logan wanted desperately to believe that the earth was safe and that his sacrifice-his death would not be in vain. The Hadaran cruiser managed to launch a warp capable communications drone to its home base minutes before Logan's kamikaze attack. Logan launched a missile to intercept and destroy it but was unable to confirm a kill. If his missile failed to overtake the drone before it transited into warp space, it was only a matter of time before the Hadaran Naval command responded and dispatched an even larger force to rectify the failed mission. During his frequent bouts of deep depression he believed they had done so already. The fierce feline creatures were relentless in their pursuit of empire and domination earth's spiral arm of the galaxy. Their five ship expeditionary force was almost more than the combined efforts of earth's nuclear powers and Logan's use of advanced alien technology could defeat. The chances of fending off or defeating an entire invasion fleet was practically zero. Logan sighed and put those thoughts aside, at least for the moment. His own survival was his immediate concern and it was very much in doubt. The meager food stores aboard the assault craft had lasted barely a month and were long gone. The armored suit's various reservoirs, high pressure tanks and storage compartments when fully stocked, held enough water, food nutrients and other essentials for an additional fifteen days at normal consumption. As near as he could determine it had been three months since the battle. He had been on less than half and then one third rations for some time before his food ran out. He'd had little water and nothing to eat for nearly three weeks. On top of that, to conserve as much energy as possible he,d run the suit's waste removal systems at minimum level the entire time and he was beginning to resent his own stink. Logan felt he would give anything for a few breaths of cool, clean mountain air... ...Logan jerked upright and banged his head against the inside of the suits helmet. He had drifted off again. He didn't know if his walk along an alpine ridge had been a mirage created by thirst or a hallucination created by a mind starved for sensory input. Logan was completely bored with the mental games he'd played and replayed to keep his mind active and depression at bay; he was desperate for human contact. Logan laughed out loud at the irony of his predicament. He wondered what the Scorpiins would think of their superman now. Logan was one of the last of many humans the Scorpiins abducted from earth, usually during wars, to continue their version of the GOD project. He was the first full genome adept taken and after extensive physical and mental conditioning, intense combat training with advanced war machines and endless indoctrination he was integrated into the Scorpiin armed services and slated for more combat with the Hadarans. Before that could take place the Scorpiins suffered a serious setback in the war and Logan used the disruption and confusion to stage his death; then he escaped with the Shaka and returned to earth. He spent the following thirty years searching out more genome adepts and making preparations for man's eventual confrontation with the Scorpiins, the Hadarans, or both. Failure was a crushing weight that burdened his soul. Logan cursed out loud and forced his mine away from that line of thought. For lack of something better to do, Logan ran through his flight checklist again but it only reminded him of how many systems were not functioning and how dismal his chance of survival really was. It was at times like these that he missed the Shaka the most. That marvel of advanced Reiign technology with its self-aware AI had been designed to function as an integrated weapons system that included Logan. He'd been able to merge his mind with the AI through the cybernetic implant embedded deep within his brain. At times the AI's personality seemed nearly human and he missed the interaction. When merged, with instantaneous access and control of every system and weapon in the Shaka's vast arsenal, he became more than a just a man with an advanced space ship. He became a MAN, a Mutation Accelerated Nemesis; the Scorpii-Reiign's prototype of the ultimate warrior. With endless time on his hands he often wondered if he had made the right decision to desert and flee from the Scorpiins. Perhaps he could have convinced them to form an alliance with mankind instead of continuing the practice of using Earth's human population as breeding stock for the creation of more MAN. But no, he was convinced that the Scorpiins saw humans as their creation and by definition inferior. In fact, modern man was the result of their ancestor's genetic experiments on Neanderthal specimens. Even though the Scorpiins were not pure Reiign, they were more advanced than man and would never have condescended to treat humans as equals. Now he was a refugee, a castaway in a doomed spacecraft with little chance of survival. Depression reared its ugly head again and threatened to overwhelm him. He forced himself to think about something else and Jessica's image flowed soothingly into his mind. Thoughts of her always gave him hope. His eidetic memory recalled in perfect detail her face; the tawny shin and almond shaped eyes, pouty lips and the riot of coarse reddish-brown hair. His thoughts strayed to her body, her long legs, narrow waist and firm, proud breasts. It wasn't long before the memories turned to their first sexual experience. Logan closed his eyes. His integrated mind with its enhanced neuroimaging capability relived with the same intensity, as the day it happened, every moment and every sensation of their lovemaking. Afterwards, he settled back with a tired sigh of release. The orgasm left him temporary distracted from his troubles but not completely satisfied. He wondered what Jessica would have thought of his lascivious thoughts of her; probably retaliate with crude sexual comments of her own. He laughed at the image of the two of them trading lewd verbal jabs. He couldn't stop laughing. The chuckles racked his body and continued until he sounded demented. His eyes, red and brimming with tears of laughter and self-pity, rolled to the side and he noticed the communications module was still broadcasting the signal to Jessica in a continuous loop. He decided it was an exercise in futility. Even if she were alive to receive his transmission, her bracelet's return signal could not reach much beyond the moon. Logan reached over to the instrument panel and terminated the signal; better to save even the minute amount of energy it consumed. * * * Jessica Lynn Davidson was keenly aware that what she planned to do could get her killed and it sent an arctic chill down her spine. Every step seemed to take an hour and each foot weighed a ton as if some internal alchemist had turned them to lead. Now she realized that she'd wallowed much too long in grief and despair after what she believed was Logan's heroic death. She should never have written him off him so easily-should have had more faith in him. She took a deep breath and steeled herself to continue her desperate course of action. The vapor cloud from her exhalation hung in the air for a brief moment then faded away in the cold morning breeze. There was a tang of snow in the air. The prolonged cold spell, what some were calling nuclear winter, showed no signs of relinquishing its icy grip on the world well into the latter days of May. The sky in the northern hemisphere was no longer streaked with the red, brown and black traces of Australian soil blasted into atmosphere; but it still lay like a sunless, lackluster slate-gray blanket that foretold worldwide crop failure and food shortages for many months or years to come. Jessica's heart pounded against her chest and her thoughts achieved the sharp clarity induced by mortal danger. Everything seemed abnormally intense in her adrenaline-induced state of fear and excitement. The feel of heavy winter clothing against her skin, the tug of her windswept hair and the sights and sounds of the busy vehicular entrance to the White House were all incredibly vivid and at the same time fragile to her heightened senses. Her mind was transfixed on the moment; savoring what could be her last seconds of life. She'd tried every avenue and maneuver she could think of to get through to Logan's friend Mark Olson or the President. She hadn't revealed the existence of the backup discs to anyone, not even her parents, as Logan's note instructed. It was common knowledge that the Movement had infiltrated the White House and paranoia ruled the day in Washington, so she had decided to wait until the dust settled to try again to contact Olson at his home but that avenue had been denied her. The situation was different now because she was convinced that Logan was alive and trying to contact her. She was desperate and willing to risk anything to speak to one of them. Jessica winced when a knot of tension clenched her gut. It was a biological side effect of the mental sensation the tingletshe felt when inimical intent was directed at her. She tried in vain to focus as Logan taught her but she could not determine the source of the threat. Now that she was nearing the final act in her plan, grave doubts assailed her mind. After the nine-eleven suicide attacks of 2001 and the subsequent war on terrorism, security around the White House became both extensive and multi-layered. After the failed assassination and attempted coup, the President's security was increased until it was nearly airtight. There had been three attempts to breach that wall of securitytall of them failed. One of them had refused to surrender his weapon and was shot dead by a uniformed security guard when he made a threatening gesture. The failed attempt by aliens to occupy Earth forced the government to totally rethink the notion of security. Efforts were under way to make the White House and the nation's capital as impregnable as humanly possible. A rooftop Secret Service sniper had Jessica in his cross hairs and had already alerted the White House grounds foot patrol. She had aroused suspicion by approaching a vehicular entrance on foot. He held his fire because she didn't appear to be armed or carrying anything that posed a serious threat. Although one could never be sure in an age of weaponized biological and chemical agents. A would-be terrorist could carry, in a coat pocket, enough lethal spores to decimate half of the capitol. Jessica was now fully aware of the cordon converging on the entrance. The hostility that radiated from the security personnel assailed her mind. When she glanced behind her a man in a suit and overcoat was closing in. He had an unmistakable military look that his civilian clothing could not disguise. The supposedly casual pedestrian was in reality one of several Secret Service agents that patrolled the streets adjacent to the White House around the clock. Jessica knew that it was now or never. She would be trapped outside of the gate if she hesitated any longer. She made her move. There were three cars lined-up waiting to be cleared through the security checkpoint. Jessica angled between the second and third cars and dashed around the automobile barrier. "Halt! Hold it right there lady... I said stop!" The uniformed guard yelled as his partner triggered a red alert that set into motion an extensive series of security measures that sealed all approaches to the White House grounds. Jessica ignored the warning and kept running, vaguely aware of the piercing siren. She was less than twenty yards beyond the gate when she was tackled from behind and brought down, hard. "Humph!" She hit the ground with a thud that pushed all of the air from her lungs. Somehow she found the strength to struggle free and rise to one knee before another body blow flattened her again. Her face plowed into the frost-covered grass. "Please!" Jessica gasped, while trying to blow ice crystals from her mouth and nose, "I... I have to speak to the President." Then she winced from the pain of someone's knee jammed into her back. "No don't!" Her protestation was cut short by the stabbing pain as her arms were jerked behind her back and the feel of cold steel as she was expertly handcuffed. "Listen to me, it's a matter of..." "Save it for the shrinks, lady!" A harsh and slightly winded voice cut her off. When Jessica blinked away the ice crystals she saw several pairs of shoes at ground level. She nearly panicked when she momentarily flashed back a brutal beating and attempted rape by a field unit of the racist Movement and a vicious attack by a gang of black hoodlums. Jessica tried to shake it off. "You don't understand!" She was frantic now, nearly screaming as she struggled to be heard. "Please listen! I'm Jessica Davidson. I'm trying to tell you it's about Logan; he's alive and needs our help! "Yeah, yeah, and Elvis is in concert at the Watergate tonight, too." The remark was followed by a bark of laugher. "Please, I have to speak to Mark Olson. He'll know what I'm saying is true. Aggggh, Stop! You're hurting me!" "Lady, you're lucky to still be breathing." A bull of a man growled as he hauled Jessica to her feet and two others began a rough but thorough body search. The man's cruel expression confirmed the cold truth of his words.
Mark Olson, National Security Advisor to the forty-fourth President of the United States felt utter and profound shock at what he'd just heard. Then a wave of hope washed over him. The words "She claims Logan is alive" rang and reverberated in his mind. He held the telephone receiver a foot from his face and just stared. The tiny voice of the Secret Service officer finally brought him back. "Sir... Mr. Olson. Are you still there? Mr. Olson!" "Yes, yes." Olson finally answered. "Are you sure she's who she claims to be?" "Yes, Sir. Her ID looks legit and I recognize her from TV and that magazine. She's Jessica Davidson all right and like I said, she claims Logan is still alive and needs help. She insisted you be notified, said you would know what needs to be done. How do I handle this, sir? She's under arrest for trying to enter the White House grounds illegally." "Officer....?" "Kendall, Sir." "Officer Kendall, please have Ms. Davidson escorted to my office immediately." "Well... technically that's against security procedures, sir. Without a preliminary background check she can't be-" "Officer Kendall.." Olson interrupted in a terse voice. He was getting a little annoyed with all of the security procedures of late, "on my authority you will have her in my office ten minutes ago. Bring her in cuffs with an armed escort if you have to, I'll call Higgins right now and clear it. Do you understand?" "Yes, Sir!" Kendall answered, obviously annoyed, and hung up abruptly. Olson frowned and called David Higgins, the head of the White House Secret Service detail. Higgins was not happy with the break in security procedures but he'd come to respect Olson's judgment since his timely intervention helped to foil an assassination attempt on the President. He promised to expedite the matter. Olson leaned back tiredly in his chair. Although physically fit for a man his age Olson was feeling the weight of his fifty-nine years. His sandy brown hair was losing the battle to the gray and his waistline had gained an inch or two since being tied down to a desk as the President's NSA. He still retained the strong chin and piercing blue-gray eyes of his youth. He was mentally exhausted, as was nearly everyone in government, from the endless eighteen-hour days since the defeat of the Hadaran invasion. It was a foregone conclusion that it was only a matter of time before the aliens mounted another attempt to conquer earthcor destroy it. The United States, under the President's martial law declaration was leading the world in a desperate effort to prepare for that dooms day scenario. Broad sweeping changes were underway within the defense department and nearly every branch, department and office of the government. Twenty minutes after he hung up, Mildred Helms, his secretary, knocked lightly and entered his office with a look of concern on her face. She closed the door in a conspiratorial manner and in her most disapproving tone, announced the arrival of Jessica Davidson. "Sir, there is a security officer here with a totally disheveled coloured girl to see you." Olson cringed at her use of the outdated term instead of black or African-American. But that was Mildred; a spinster who lived in her own worldlcirca 1959. She had been assigned to Olson by the President's Chief of Staff when he was first brought into the White House. At the time Olson thought it was to show him where he stood in the White House hierarchy. But she'd grown on him in the short time he served as special assistant to the President and he brought her along with him after being elevated into his new position. She was hopelessly old fashioned but supremely competent, so Olson was loath to have her replaced. He directed her to admit Jessica without the guard. Mildred flashed him a look that questioned his sanity but complied with his wishes. Olson was surprised when Jessica walked past Mildred and entered his office. He recognized her but was shocked by the hollow eyed scarecrow facing him now. He'd only met her once and recalled a strikingly attractive young woman. Her normally statuesque five-foot, ten inches were topped with coarse reddish brown hair that attested to her Irish ancestry. Her golden brown complexion and almond shaped eyes left no doubt about the African and Oriental influences in her genetic makeup. His memory of her was totally at odds with the subdued, wilted and desperate looking woman standing in the doorway. Olson knew that she'd undergone a TCI session and that she was poly-ethnic and a genome-adept. He'd wondered at one time if she might be a MAN also. Jessica wasted not a second. She rushed to his desk and launched into her appeal before the secretary closed the door. "Mr. Olson, Logan is alive!" Jessica said breathlessly. After that preamble, she told him the whole story... ... Jessica slumped into the soft leather comfort of her father's big chair in the basement family room. A nagging headache, from what the doctors diagnosed as a concussion, still persisted after two months but it was nothing compared to the emotional pain she felt. The overly solicitous care by her parents and familiar surroundings of her childhood home were little comfort. The widescreen HDTV with its surround-sound system had been her world since leaving the hospital. Her mother's warning that she was going to go blind from watching so much television, as she had so many times when Jessica was a child, failed to make her laugh as intended. Instead it made her cry and long to escape back into that age of innocence.
She had become mesmerized by the aftermath of the battle for Earth. Perhaps it was the reporter in her that was so drawn to the gruesome details. The multiple nuclear explosions had devastated the land and people of Australia. The massive amount of radioactive debris thrown up into the atmosphere had made much of the country unlivable. The blasts, the radiation and firestorms killed four million people outright, nearly a third of the population. The World Health Organization estimated another two million would die prematurely. The United Nations, acting on recommendation of the WHO, declared a worldwide emergency and commandeered every cruise ship, military vessel and empty cargo ship on earth to evacuate everyone from the continent. The United States, Great Britain, France and Canada agreed to accept the majority of the refugees. Russia and several eastern European nations also accepted lesser numbers.
There was growing concern about the effects of radiation worldwide and the scientific community was issuing dire warnings about the consequences of the massive hole that had been blown in the ozone layer. The electro-magnetic pulse from the nuclear detonations and what the experts called the 'Compton Effect' had a devastating affect on the Pacific Rim nations. All electrical and computer systems, from Midway Island to Madagascar and from northern Antarctica to Indochina, were destroyed by the massive EMP. Other experts were predicting a recovery and reconstruction timetable of up to five years for the region.
The full political repercussions of the attack were yet to be seen. The President, as well as the leaders of Russia and Great Britain were being roundly criticized by some and lionized by others. A few were touting the battle as one of the greatest military victories in the history of the human race and proof that mankind could now take its place on the galactic stage. The great debate had been settled and won resoundingly. Man was not alone in an infinite cosmos! Those on the winning side experienced little joy in their vindication. Instead of a great uncertainty they now found themselves marooned on a speck of dust in the middle of what they now realized was a hostile universe. The undercurrent of fear was something few people were immune to.
When the role Logan played in the defeat of the Hadarans was made public, he became an instant demigod. Jessica found some of the qualities being attributed to him amusing. To her, Logan had been a manWthe man she loved. She had a hard time imagining life without him. That line of thought always brought back the tears. Like most nights, she cried herself to sleep and dozed fitfully
The days passed slowly and agonizingly into weeks and then a package was forwarded from her job. When Jessica opened the box she found a stack of computer discs and there was a note from Logan.
Jess, If you're reading this, I'm probably dead and the human race is still in great peril. The information on advanced Reiign technology I gave to the administration will at least give them a fighting chance to prepare for what is coming. These discs contain a more complete and detailed translation of the Reiign-Scorpiin war fighting technology, strategy and machines. There is also a plan I've formulated to maximize mankind's chances of survival. I am hopeful that it will be enough. You must get them to Mark Olson or the President as soon as possible. Trust no one else.
On a personal note, I want you to know that you changed my life in more ways then you will ever know. I also want you to know that I did everything I possibly could to return to you.
Logan
Jessica found it nearly impossible to put her life back together after that. Another week passed before Albert Jennings, her boss and owner of the magazine for whom she worked, could convince her to work part-time from her parents' home. She found partial solace in the series of articles that chronicled the events leading up to the battle from her perspective. The vast storehouse of information she received from the TCI session Logan administered made writing effortless.
At first Jessica's parents thought the writing would provide the catharsis she badly needed but they were wrong. Her emotional state continued to deteriorate; she began ranting about having to see the President and saving the planet. Jessica seemed to care less and less for her own wellbeing. Her parents finally became worried enough to solicit Jennings' help in convincing their daughter to get psychiatric help, to no avail. Jessica flatly refused to cooperate. By the end of the third month Jessica was in the depths of a severe depression. She spent the majority of her time sleeping. On a cold Sunday evening after she'd toyed with her dinner Jessica secluded herself in the family room and as usual fell asleep after an hour of mindlessly watching television.
Jessica fought the urge to wake, to confront life. A part of her subconscious wanted to remain in a state of sleepy bliss, distant from all of the heartache and the pain. Then her eyes snapped open when she realized what had awakened her. Logan had given her a bracelet as a token of their friendship. It also served as a means of communication and protection. He possessed the only transmitter attuned to the gravity wave frequency of the micro-miniature electronic circuits embedded in the ornament. Jessica thought she'd been dreaming. She jerked the comforter down and raised her arm.
Her bracelet vibrated again!
In fact, it was vibrating in a distinct pattern. She touched it with her right hand and it was still vibrating. It wasn't a dream! Jessica bounded up the basement steps screaming for her parents... Retelling the events had restored the fire in her eyes that Olson remembered so well. "I tried to contact you many times," Jessica wailed, "and the President. They wouldn't even let me speak to you over the phone. I was going to wait until the martial law restriction on travel was lifted to try to find where you lived and contact you there... give the discs to you, but..." Her head dropped and she seemed to be contemplating her folded hands resting on her lap. "But what, Ms. Davidson?" "I... I just sort of lost track of time." Her voice cracked. "My injuries, I was mugged and I... couldn't think straight all the time." "I understand, Ms... May I call you Jessica?" Jessica looked up and gave him a sad smile. "If I can call you, Mark." "Of course." Olson replyed and returned her smile. "After the bracelet starting vibrating I tried again to call you. I ran into the same brick wall. I was getting desperate and decided to come here to contact you or the President. Please, Mark, you've got to believe me. I need your help... Logan needs your help!" Olson's first inclination was that she was understandably distraught and grief stricken after Logan's death. Seconds after first meeting her, it became obvious to him that she and Logan were romantically involved. Olson felt a profound sympathy for Jessica that was all but overshadowed by his own feelings of loss. His friendship with Logan had spanned more than thirty years. Logan had saved his life more times then he cared to think about. He and Logan had served in the same Marine Force Recon platoon in Viet Nam. Olson thought and believed for almost forty years that Logan had sacrificed his own life on a nameless patch of ground in North Viet Nam. Logan killed an NVA soldier who was seconds away from putting a bullet in Olson. Later that same day Logan stayed behind to provide covering fire so that Olson and another Marine, Andy Reinhart, could make it to a helicopter for extraction from a hot PZ. Wounded and unable to help, they watched Logan die in a mortar barrage as he sprinted towards the chopper. Olson had accepted Logan's dying to save them and lived with the burden on his soul for more than three decades. Then Logan had not only miraculously returned from the dead having aged very little in the intervening years but with super human abilities and in possession of advanced alien knowledge and technology. His return had become a fantastic boon to the human race and the herald of a momentous change in the future of mankind. No longer was there any doubt that man might be the only intelligent life in the universe. In fact, it was now painfully evident that man's level of technology was fairly primitive in comparison to at least two other species of intelligent life. The most mind numbing revelation of all was the fact that those two sentient species, as well as modern man-Homo sapiens, were the result of genetic tinkering by an advanced race of aliens bent on producing the ultimate warrior to fight in a proxy war against its arch enemy. That knowledge alone resulted in worldwide psychological distress, civil disruption and religious strife unparalleled in human history. The invasion of earth by one of those species, the Hadarans, and the subsequent destruction of Australia by nuclear weapons left the entire human race traumatized and fearful of the future. Olson found himself muttering automatic words of comfort. His attempt to console her fell on deaf ears. "No, please, you don't understand. There is only one way to energize the bracelet's receiver and Logan is the only person who has the transmitter. Don,t you see? He has to be alive!" Jessica,s hands flew to her head and grabbed tangled, unwashed hair. "Oh God!" She wailed, "I knew no one would believe me." After that brief venting of frustration she took a deep breath and seemed to regain her focus. She was perched on the edge of her seat. Her eyes drilled into Olson's. "Please, Mark. You are my last hope! You've had the TCI enhancement and you can understand. He's letting me know that he's alive and needs help. He told to me that he gave you a gravity band transceiver. That is the key. You can contact him with it. Please!You have to try to call Logan." Olson had agreed to undergo a TCI enhancement in order to better serve as the intermediary between Logan and the President. He indeed understood the implications. No one except Logan, the Hadarans and the Scorpiins had the ability to communicate over a gravity band. A spike of fear shot through his system at the thought of some Hadaran scouting mission using Jessica's transceiver has a homing beacon. "Is it still vibrating?" Olson asked with mounting concern. Jessica slumped back into her chair and nearly broke into tears. "No ... it... stopped two days ago. I do't know why and its killing me." Olson sighed. He thought that the last thing he needed was a grief-stricken, semi-hysterical woman on his hands; not with everything else crowding his plate and especially not with her his only link to the discs. His mind reeled over the possibilities of what they might contain. "Jessica, I understand your sense of loss, he was my friend too and-" "No, no. NO! Don't try to placate me, god damn it! I haven't lost my mind and I'm not hysterical or crazy. He was activating the bracelet in a distinct pattern, every two hours until two days ago. You've got to believe me!" Olson didn't really believe her but in the depths of his soul he wanted it to be true. His thoughts flashed back to Logan's first miraculous return from the dead. Logan had shown up in the midst of a racially charged hate crime investigation of the rape and murder of a young black girl by a gang of white racists calling themselves the Young Rebels. His appearance had thrown Olson's FBI investigation and his entire life into turmoil. The chain of events resulted in Olson being relieved of duty as the Agent in Charge of the Birmingham, Alabama field office, subsequently reinstated then appointed special assistant to the President and eventually interim National Security Advisor. He didn't want to think about the civil disorder, social upheaval, loss of human life, attempted assassination, failed coup d'etat and alien invasion that took place between those milestones in his career. Besides, a part of him wanted desperately to believe her. He looked into her eyes. Despite Jessica's unkempt appearance her eyes were clear and convincing. Olson thought it over for a long moment. It was obvious that the discs were a distant second on Jessica's agenda and the business of the transfer of possession of the discs would not be finalized until the Logan question was settled. His next course of action was obvious. Olson picked up the phone and instructed Mildred to get Dr. Hector Cruz on the line. Cruz was the head of the Defense Department's Nuclear Research program and the President's point man in the effort to integrate earth and Reiign technology. He asked Jessica to sit down and try to relax. He offered her coffee or tea but she refused with a curt shake of her heard. She sat pensively, absentmindedly stroking the bracelet while they waited for the connection to be made. It didn't take long. Olson picked up the phone after a single tone indicated the connection was completed. Jessica jumped up and hurried over to his desk. "Hello, Hector... yes, good to talk to you too. Listen, there has been an unexpected development and I need your help. There is a possibility that Logan survived the battle and is trying to make contact with us. I need the gravity band transceiver." Olson listened for a few seconds and frowned. "How long will it take to reassemble it?Okay, do it and call me back." After listening for a few seconds he glanced up at Jessica before answering. "I'd say the source is credible but time will tell. We need to get that gadget back in one piece, ASAP!" Olson hung up the phone and looked up at Jessica. "Our scientists have taken the instrument apart in order to reverse-engineer the components. Dr. Hector Cruz, the chief scientist, believes he can have it resembled and functional in an hour or two. I'm sorry; we don't have a choice but to wait." He watched Jessica walk back and slump into the chair. She seemed to lose whatever energy had propelled her to that point. "Two hours." her voice was low and subdued. "It's been more than a week since the signal first activated the bracelet and two days since it stopped. I just hope it's not too late." * * * Colonel Mitchell J. Townsend, Commander of the 9th. Marine Expeditionary Unit stood on the flight deck of the USS Tarawa watching the first wave of troops board the transport helicopters. Townsend was a tall broad shouldered son of a wheat farmer from Iowa. Until his enlistment in the Marine Corps, after graduating from high school, he'd never been more than a couple of hundred miles from home. As the eldest son, it was assumed he would one day continue in his father's footsteps and run the family farm. His first enlistment put an end to that. For reasons he didn't fully understand, he was just not a farmer at heart. He longed for the adventure of world travel and the excitement of military life. His superiors early-on recognized his quick intellect and talent for all things military. He was recommended for and accepted an appointment to Officer Candidate School after his first reenlistment. Now after twenty years of a brilliant career he was on top of a very short list for promotion to Brigadier General. Everyone who came to know him recognized the look of eagles in his eyes and knew that he was destined for greatness. But in his private moments he sometimes felt the golden wheat fields calling him home. The waters of the Indian Ocean, fifty miles off the west coast of Australia glowed a brilliant but unnatural phthalo blue from sunlight turned scarlet and purple by the tremendous amount of dust and debris blasted into the atmosphere by the nuclear barrage that destroyed the alien ground forces. His command had been ordered into an active support role backing up the Australian military units dispatched to mop up the last known remnants of the Hadaran invasion force. Ten miles off the starboard bow a line of ships of every description steamed away from the city of Perth with their cargos of refugees evacuated from the devastated island. Townsend turned back to the Tarawa's Executive officer and accepted his proffered hand. "Well, good luck and good hunting, Colonel." The naval officer said "Thank you, Commander. Unlike some of my more gung-ho Marines, I hope the Aussies deal with these aliens long before we're needed. My briefing confirmed that the aliens are armed with lasers." He punched his body armor clad chest. "These won't provide much protection." "I don't envy you this mission, Sir." The first officer's face formed a sympathetic frown. "These Hadarans, from eye-witness accounts, always fight to the death." "Yeah... well, we'll sure accommodate them in that respect." With that, Townsend snapped a return salute then turned away to board his waiting Kiowa command helicopter.
Sergeant Percy Donavan, of the Royal Australian Fusiliers, cowered behind a concrete retaining wall and prayed that no laser beam found him. Normally, hidden behind eight inches of reinforced concrete, he would be safe from anything less than a direct hit from a mortar round or an air burst artillery shell. With the aliens and their lasers, there was no such thing as adequate cover. He knew that he should be adding to the massed firepower of his platoon, but he'd witnessed too many of his men rear up to fire on the enemy then duck behind what they thought was good cover only to be seared by laser flashes that burned through concrete and steel like so much tissue paper. Zzzzzat! "Aggggggh!" Donavan's head snapped up at the now all too familiar air crackling sizzle of a laser flash and cry of anguish from some unlucky bastard. Ten meters to his left, one of his men was writhing on the ground while pressing a hand to his smoldering left shoulder. The platoon medic, hearing his screams of pain, stumbled over Donavan's out stretched legs while making his way to the wounded man before anyone yelled for him. Donavan's anger knew no bounds. His acrimony was directed at his commanding officers as well as the aliens. He felt the two were conspiring to end his life. The aliens with their hovercraft and lasers were probably the last survivors of the Hadaran invasion force. He cursed his lousy luck that they would show up in his unit's sector. He assumed they too had fled towards the west coast of Australia to escape the radioactive fallout. The "buggers" must have hidden out in the desert until their supplies ran out before suddenly appearing on the outskirts of Perth. The aliens had easily taken over the power station. High command assumed they needed the power for their hovercraft and energy weapons. When his platoon arrived on the scene the first thing they noticed was the bodies of the technicians, plant maintenance workers, local constables and the first army unit to respond, piled in a heap near the front entrance or laying where they fell. The city, and its port facilities, was a madhouse of activity with the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians. The governmental authorities were swamped with the humanitarian effort but their response had been swift-and futile. The aliens had so far resisted all efforts to evict them and army command was reluctant to bomb them out. There was a critical need for electrical power during the evacuation and so far the aliens had not interfered with the flow of electricity from the only functioning power plant within three hundred miles. Thanks to a maverick politician who twice successfully blocked a spending bill to upgrade the plant's control systems in favor of a new facility. The antiquated mechanical switching components were immune to the EMP so there was limited power for Perth and the evacuation. Donavan's unit was tasked with keeping the aliens contained until reinforcements arrived. The rumor was the U.S. was sending in troops to help out. Bloody Yanks have helped out quite enough if you ask me, destroyed the whole bleedin' country. His thoughts made Donavan glance to the east towards the sky over the devastated interior of his country. What used to be his country. It was hard to accept that Australia would cease to exist as a nation, perhaps for a hundred years. Up to thirty percent of its pre-invasion population were dead from alien attacks and the nuclear blasts or soon would be from the effects of radiation poisoning. Those who chose to leave would be resettled in America, Canada or Europe. Bloody hell! Welcome to the twenty first century, mates. Donavan snorted and adjusted his combat harness to a more comfortable position while craning his neck to see how the medic was coming along with the wounded man. There was one good thing about a laser wound. If no vital organs were destroyed, the wound was instantly cauterized and there was little or no bleeding. A sudden burst of automatic gunfire from his right flank caused Donavan to jump. He reared up to take a look. At the same time a torrent of laser bolts flashed into his men manning what was the platoon's last operational machine gun. Donavan screamed his outrage and like every survivor in the unit he opened fire on the alien hovercraft that were slowly advancing towards their defensive positions. * * * Logan had to blink several times before his eyes could focus on the energy level indicator displayed on his HUD. It was the latest I an increasing catalog of physical abnormalities he'd noticed lately. His body was breaking down, loosing it's ability to function at the extra-human level he'd become accustomed to for four decades. He doubted now if he was functioning on a par with normal humans. Even supermen needed food. The chronometer, his countdown to eternity, indicated less than twenty-four hours until he reached the outer fringes of earth's atmosphere. To divert a bit more power to the bow auxiliary ion engines he'd even shut down some of the systems he'd earlier deemed critical during his desperate struggle to survive. His life-support system was running at the bare minimum required to sustain life but the semi-transparent green bar indicator continued to creep towards the left end of the scale. Still the rate of deceleration wasn't where it needed to be. He sighed with resignation of the inevitable. It had taken every bit of Scorpii-Reiign engineering knowledge he possessed to jury-rig the AFS power supply to the ion steering pods of the assault craft. Now it seemed that his Rube Goldberg tinkering would not be enough. His calculations were conclusive; he had insufficient power to slow his vessel enough for a controlled landing. His only option was to reduce his velocity as much as possible then use the atmosphere to slow down a little more just as NASA had with the returning space capsules after the moon landings. Few people outside of the space exploration community understood that on the return leg of the trip from the moon landings, the astronauts had no retro rockets to decrease their velocity. They relied on a precise trajectory of reentry into the atmosphere and friction to slow the capsule down enough to deploy parachutes and safely splash down in the ocean. It was obvious that he would have very little choice as to the body of water for his splash down, the GAC had no parachutes and he didn't know to what extent he would be able to slow his craft. Therein lay his dilemma. He could use his remaining power to try to maneuver his craft to a splash down somewhere near the U.S. in order to increase his chances of a quick recovery, if the heat of reentry didn't kill him; or he could slow it as much as possible to lessen the heat of reentry and the force of the impact with little regard to location. The earth's surface was seventy-eight percent water so his odds were acceptable in that respect. But even if he, against all the odds, survived the reentry and the splash down, what were his chances of surviving an unknowable length of time in a cold, unforgiving ocean. That line of thinking did nothing to improve his hopes for a future. After three months of isolation, sensory deprivation, near starvation and uncertainty, his bouts of depression was starting to feel normal. With a violent shake of his head he admonished himself for wasting a single moment in self-pity and doubt. There were other pressing issues demanding his attention. His armored fighting suit had been sealed for weeks so that he wouldn't have to expend any of his dwindling power to maintain an atmosphere in the cockpit. He'd lost so much weight that the suit didn't fit any more, the bio-mechanical feedback systems didn't work right so his movements were becoming clumsy and the suit was starting to chafe in some very sensitive parts of his body. The air inside the AFS was stale from continuous recycling and his BO had worsened past stifling. At times he felt as if he were choking on his own stink. Logan longed for a breath of clean air and something to eat. He'd finished the last of the nutrients more than three weeks ago. Logan wondered at times why he struggled so hard to survive. Earth was probably destroyed and he had already decided he would not let the Hadarans take him alive. After his experience with the Scorpiins, he vowed to never be an experimental animal again. With no way to leave the solar system he had just two choices, death from asphyxiation after his oxygen ran out or a quick death by crashing into earth or perhaps the moon. At one point when his depression almost got the best of him, he'd considered steering a path into the sun and die a Viking death. Even if earth had not been attacked again, his home world was not out of danger. His thoughts kept straying to the message drone dispatched by the Hadaran scout cruiser. He had no information to indicate his missile overtook the drone before it cleared the planetary zone and transited into warp space. Therefore he had to proceed on the assumption that the drone survived and the fate of the expeditionary force was known to the Hadaran high command. It was a foregone conclusion that there would be a strong reaction and immediate follow-on forces dispatched, probably sooner than later. How long did mankind have to prepare? The answer eluded him and tortured his mind. In anticipation of his possible demise he'd left a set of optical discs with a delivery service with instructions to deliver the package to Jessica's office address in the event he did not contact them in thirty days. The discs were the English translations of the accumulated science and technological foundation of the Scorpii-Reiign military as well as a plan he'd developed to enable man to defend earth. It had taken him fifteen years to complete the project. If he didn't survive at least the rest of humanity would have a fighting chance. And then there was Haven, the colony of genome adepts he'd established on a planet nearly five hundred light-years from earth. They knew the score. Their entire existence was predicated on the fact that earth's reprieve would eventually end and the planet would be either destroyed or mankind defeated and forced into slavery. The arrival of the Hadaran expeditionary force had been the wakeup call. Even if the earth fell, it would be hundreds if not thousands of years before the Hadaran expansion reached Haven. For the next two hours Logan had little time for regrets as he made precise calculations for numerous minor course changes to his trajectory and the tedious switching of the steering pod orientations to prepare for the push against earth's gravity during final deceleration. Afterwards, he spent many long and tense minutes again calculating and recalculating his chances of survival. Then everything changed in an instant when a burst of static crackled in his ears. A quick glance at his HUD told him it came over the frequency attuned to Olson's transceiver. Logan's heart leaped and his hopes surged. * * * Olson had instructed Mildred to clear his calendar and not to accept phone calls from anyone except the President or Hector Cruz. He was trying to concentrate on a pile of threat assessments from the alphabet soup of intelligence agencies while they waited but he was distracted every few minutes by Jessica's moans and sighs. The remains of a half-eaten lunch lay ignored on a beautifully ornate, lacquered wood White House serving tray. Each second seemed like an hour and each hour was an eternity unto itself. She couldn't seem to get comfortable in the soft leather chair. Her mind continued to conjure up all sorts of dire situations Logan could be facing, alone. When some especially gruesome scenario filled her mind a small cry of anguish escaped her lips, prompting Olsen to respond with ineffective words of comfort. Almost three hours passed before the telephone rang and made both of them jump. Olson scooped it up before the second ring. "Thank you Mildred, put him through," Olson said and after a second, "Hector-" He fell silent and listened for several moments with mounting excitement. Olson's next comment was an astounded, "My, God!" After listening for a minute or so he said, "Okay... okay, keep me posted. I'll inform the President. He thanked Cruz profusely and hung up with a look of wonder on his face. He was momentarily speechless. "What! What did he say?" Jessica stood next to him, where she'd been since the conversation started. "Please tell me!" He looked at her as a smile slowly formed on his face. "Logan's alive!" "Thank God!" Jessica slowly closed her eyes and swayed as if she were about to faint. Olson jumped to his feet and reached for her but she regained her balance and tears of joy begin to flow. "I knew it, I just knew it! Where is he?" Concern flowed across Olson's face. "You'd better sit down, Jessica. The rest of the story is not good." With one arm around her shoulders and the other gently holding her elbow he guided her back to her chair. He pulled another chair closer and took her trembling hands in his. Olson was barely holding back tears of his own. "Seconds before Logan used the Shaka to ram the last Hadaran spaceship he somehow escaped in the Ground Assault Craft." Jessica breathed a sigh of relief and managed an uncertain smile. She had ridden in the GAC and knew it to be a robust machine. But Olsen's expression still worried her. "There's a problem. We don't have all the details but it sounds like the GAC was severely damaged and for a while was out of control. It was drifting out into interstellar space until Logan got its trajectory reversed and headed back towards earth but... he still doesn't have complete control. Also his power is about depleted and with that what little ability to maneuver the craft." Jessica's hands flew to her face and partially muffled the cry of alarm. Fresh tears began to flow from eyes gone wide with dread of what Olson would say next. "He's going to attempt a crash landing on water... somewhere on earth... in about twenty hours." Olson didn't know what else to say at that point. He sat for a long while with his arms around her quaking shoulders then excused himself to inform the President of the latest developments. When Olson returned to her side Jessica sat with her hands folded in her lap and staring off into space. She was totally still and subdued, a flow of tears the only sign of motion. When she finally spoke it was in a voice wholly lacking in hope. She was no astronaut but the extensive knowledge imprinted into her brain gave her an understanding of the difficulties involved in successfully crash landing a vessel traveling at the velocity it must have built up. Her head slowly turned to face Olson. "He so close, Mark.. so close." * * * Sub-Commander RaGa'harth Gir of the Hadaran Imperial Expeditionary Forces snarled his frustration and anger. He had ordered the takeover of the power plant in hopes of recharging the power cells for the assault platforms and their energy weapons. However, the equipment appeared too primitive to be of immediate use. It was the only reason the plant still functioned at all. Its circuitry and controls were not transistorized and therefore had not been put out of commission by the EMP from the nuclear blasts. The combat engineer attached to his unit tried to explain but RaGa'harth dismissed him with a roar after the explanation exceeded his knowledge of physics and energy conversion. Not only would the engineer have to fashion from scratch-without the proper tools-adaptors capable of bridging the gap between their equipment and the inhabitants' primitive components but also the frequency of the electrical output was several orders of magnitude below ideal. Even if they could bridge the incompatibility gap it would take several planetary rotation cycles to fully charge all of their power pacs. RaGa'harth was certain they didn't have a tenth of that time before the primitives attacked in strength. Although they were pale, nearly furless, weak creatures with inferior technology, they had demonstrated an ability to deploy first generation nuclear weapons with deadly efficiency. His need for a source of energy had motivated his decision to leave their hiding place in the outback and enter a populated area. He'd waited ninety planetary rotation cycles in vain for a rescue ship. He finally had to accept the fact that the rest of the expeditionary force had been defeated and destroyed. Either that or so degraded as to be unable to mount a recovery operation. He had finally come to terms with the former possibility. There had been not one acknowledgement of their distress signals. There would be no recovery operation. He and his warriors were abandoned and marooned on this primitive world. They had very little food and water with them at the time of the battle. The emergency rations stored on all attack platforms were exhausted in less than a thirty local days. They had resisted feeding off of the indigenous wildlife but eventually had to or starve to death. They found few of the animals to their taste but it was nourishment. Although they were not poisoned, they had grown weaker on the diet. It was obvious that certain essential nutrients were not available in the flesh of the planet's offering. They were slowing wasting away. RaGa'harth turned from the crude instrument panel and regarded his troops assembled in the rear of the central control room. It was evident that they had already come to the same conclusions he'd reached. Even though they were stuck on this pathetic mud ball of a planet with little hope of ever leaving, there was no despair or fear of death. The bones of Hadaran warriors were scattered over hundreds of planets throughout this spiral arm of the galaxy. They lived to die in battle. But to slowly waste away from lack of proper food and a dwindling energy supply was no way for a Hadaran warrior to end his days. He made up his mind quickly. It didn't take long to outline his plan. There were few, if any options. Sergeant Donavan struggled up the slope of the railroad embankment with a wounded man and took cover behind a coal carrier. As far as he knew they were the only survivors from their platoon and Pvt. Stanley, with his gaping wounds, didn't appear to be long for this world. The aliens had come out shooting and in a matter of minutes routed the demoralized Aussies. The force fields around the hovercraft deflected the concentrated gunfire from the soldiers but were completely pervious to the laser bursts from the alien's weapons. Their fire was inherently accurate and soldier after soldier fell to precisely targeted white-hot laser beams to their heads and upper bodies. The explosive rounds they rained down on his men was just as devastating as the lasers. Donavan wasn't sure how he'd survived but he was determined to live to sound the alarm. Before they reached the bottom of the reverse embankment a string of sharp concussions slapped their eardrums and sent them tumbling down the slope. Donavan assumed it was the aliens coming to finish him off and struggled to reach his rifle that lay partially under the wounded man. Another series of ear-slapping explosions assaulted him. He scrambled back up the slope and peered over the top in time to see a flight of helicopters bank away after their attack. One of the alien hovercrafts was grounded and in flames. The others were returning crisp bolts of laser fire that exploded one of the choppers that he instantly identified as an American Super Cobra attack helicopter. The Marines had arrived! * * * It was a testament to Olson's standing with the President that an hour after his request for a meeting of his Security Council, the United States Navy and Coast Guard were put on worldwide alert with orders to disperse to every large body of water on the planet and prepare for emergency recovery operations. A detachment of FBI agents, from the Cincinnati field office, were dispatched to Jessica's parents' home to take custody of the discs. Olson didn't quite know what to do with Jessica. Except to fill the gas tank and use the restroom, she'd driven nonstop from Cincinnati to Washington without luggage or even an overnight bag. He eventually decided to take her home with him. Maureen, his wife said, "Well hello," to Jessica and gave Olson a look of her wide-eyed surprise. He just shrugged. Beth, his thirteen year old daughter stared perplexedly at the wild looking black woman but said nothing. After a brief explanation of who she was and why he'd brought an unexpected houseguest Maureen quickly took over. Olson ate a quick supper and headed back to his office to monitor progress on the mobilization to save Logan. It took him half an hour to convince Jessica to remain behind and get some rest. * * * Captain Joshua Thacker gave a course correction to his navigation officer that would change the destination of the USS Ronald Reagan from the port of Perth, Australia to the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. Most of his strike aircraft had been left behind at Pearl Harbor. Five thousand cots lined the hanger bays in their place for this humanitarian mission. The mighty Nimitz class aircraft carrier turned eleven degrees to starboard on the new heading and the six escort ships of his CBG, or Carrier Battle Group, executed the same maneuver with practiced ease. His orders from fleet HQ at Pearl Harbor had designated a five-thousand square mile area centered roughly one thousand miles southwest of the Hawaiian Islands as his search area. His orders were both explicit and vague at the same time. Proceed at flank speed to the designated coordinates and prepare for an emergency sea rescue-recovery operation of a manned space reentry vehicle. The orders were puzzling at first. He was accustomed to participating in recovery operations in conjunction with the U.S. space program. But after the destruction of the international space station and every satellite by the Hadarans, there was no space program to speak of. Thacker, now satisfied with the course change, heaved himself out of his command chair, turned the helm over to his executive officer and left the bridge. His destination was the ready room and a meeting with his operations officer and the commanders of his air-sea rescue team. * * * Colonel Townsend checked his MP-5 sub-machine gun for the third time. He was determined to be there for the assault on the power plant. He wanted to smell the blood of the bastards who'd caused the death of a yet unknown number of his men. He'd watched in horror as one of the troop carriers in the assault force was shot down by laser fire. The CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter dropped like a stone, crashed heavily and exploded before anyone could escape. Townsend said a silent prayer. Major Ronald Edwards, his Executive Officer, had been aboard that helicopter. A second Sea Stallion was hit seconds later and forced down. The pilots managed an emergency landing of the burning aircraft and most of its human cargo got out alive before the fuel tanks exploded, taking the brave crew with it. After that Townsend ordered the rest of his troop carriers to disembark their Marines well beyond laser range and another attack by his gun ships. The AH-1F Super Cobras roared into action with a shower of TOW missiles and 20-mm Auto-Cannon fire. Two more of the remaining seven Cobra gunships were swatted out of the sky before the energy shields of the alien hovercraft failed and the floaters began to explode from multiple missile strikes. Townsend whooped with bloodthirsty glee at the sight of the alien machines being blasted apart. At the end of the air battle all four of the enemy hovercraft, two Sea Stallions and three Super Cobras lay burning on the sun baked Australian soil. Townsend knew it was reckless and totally against sound battlefield doctrine but he wanted personal revenge. He'd chomped at the bit for the forty-five minutes it took to establish his command post and now it was time. Townsend jumped out of the depression on the heels of the three Force Recon Commandos serving as his bodyguards. He followed them at a swift looping run for a half of a mile along a paved access road then down into a four-foot deep rain water detention basin that served as the Alpha Company command post. Captain Vince Fischer frowned at the sight of the 'Old man' entering his command post. He had his hands full with coordinating the deployment of his troops and didn't need the distraction. Townsend noticed the look and felt sympathy for his subordinate. He knew what Fischer must have been thinking. The last thing a combat commander needed was the brass looking over his shoulder or worse, jaunting around his AO, Area of Operations, looking for a little youthful excitement. Townsend wasn't there for an adrenaline rush and beyond the desire for revenge he was sure that this mopping up action would not be the last time humanity would have to deal with Hadarans on the battlefield. If he was to be engaged in a war with these creatures he wanted firsthand knowledge of their capabilities. When he flopped down near Fischer and his radio operators he was out of breath from the short run. He silently chastised himself and vowed to fit more time for running into his schedule in the future. "Hi'ya Vince. Nice day for a war ain't it." Townsend quipped. "Any war will do, Colonel." Fischer answered with a fierce smile. "What's the sit-rep?" Townsend asked after a quick peek over the rim of the depression. "I just got off the horn with my scouts. They've linked up with the Aussies, or what's left of them. There's only one able bodied man and three wounded who survived out of what had been a reinforced platoon. I just ordered litter teams forward with the point platoon to evacuate the wounded. The scouts have spotted the aliens regrouping inside the power plant. It looks like we're going to have to dig them out. First and third platoons will establish a frontal blocking position. Second is split and maneuvering around both flanks. There's nothing we can do about their rear with most of heavy weapons platoon out of action." His voice turned troubled when he spoke again. "Is there any word on survivors from the first crash, Sir?" Townsend sadly shook his head. "It looks like they're all KIA, Vince." "Damn!" Fischer barked. He looked over his shoulder at the column of black smoke from the crash site. The platoon commander had been his brother-in-law. His sister would be devastated. <"Razor Two-six to Razor Six Actual, over."> The radio call interrupted the solemn moment. The company RTO passed the hand set to Fischer. "Six-Actual, go Two-Six, over." <"Be advised we've established a flank position. No contact, no sight of enemy. Suggest we attempt probe of objective. Over."> "Wait one, Two-Six." Fischer answered then looked to Townsend. "It will take the choppers at least forty minutes to get Baker Company back here to block the rear of the plant. We could lose them. I suggest we-" Townsend raised and shook his head. "This is your show Vince. I'm not here to run your company." Fischer nodded his appreciation and went back to his radio conversation. "Six-Actual to Razor Two-Six, over." <"Two-Six, over."> Fischer spoke clearly and forcefully. "Negative. I repeat, negative on the probe. Send a squad sized blocking force to the rear of the plant, outside of the fence line, and wait for my command to launch a coordinated assault. Do you copy?" <"Roger that, Six-Actual. Establish blocking force to rear and a coordinated attack on your command, over."> "That's affirmative Two-Six. Six-actual, out." <"Two-six, out."> "Six Actual to Three-six, over..." Fischer gave new orders to his third platoon commander then turned to Lt. Zane, his operations officer, and instructed him to liaison with Bravo Company as soon as it arrived. When he turned around, Col. Townsend was gone. Townsend ran in a crouch along a drainage swale that fed the detention pond during Perth's infrequent rainstorms. The ditch ended at a concrete apron of a storm culvert that ran under the access road. His bodyguards were close behind and around him. He took a few moments to catch his breath then crabbed up to the rim of the road embankment to peer through his binoculars. After he focused, the burning hulk of one of the alien hovercraft came into view. The smoldering body of a Hadaran lay on the ground a few feet away. He could see few details but he was mesmerized. It was his first sight of an alienoa being from another planet, a distant solar system. He felt a brief moment of sorrow for a fellow soldier. Poor Bastard, it's no different for his kind. He thought. The alien had made the supreme sacrifice, dying on foreign soil far from home at the whim of his superiors and politicians. The moment passed and his hatred of the enemyathe killers of his mentreturned full force. Townsend panned the glasses to take in the Marines. First and third platoons were deployed about a hundred yards away from the generating plant's destroyed security fence. He studied their deployment and grunted satisfaction with the platoon commanders' positioning of their troops. Between the Marines and the plant lay more decomposing human corpses then he cared to count. Next he shifted his view to the plant itself. What he saw was a typical electrical generating plant. Except for the battle damage, it looked like it could have been situated in any American city. There were no signs of the aliens he knew were still inside. After five minutes of assessing the plant, Townsend slid down to the toe of the slope. He noticed the curious look on the faces of his bodyguards and passed the field glasses to Sgt. Shumaker, the closest Recon Marine. "Well, now I guess we wait for Bravo to land and get into position." Townsend said with a sigh and reached for his canteen. RaGa'harth had calmly watched his assault boats being destroyed by the primitive flying machines. They were running low on power and would soon be unable to energize both kinetic shields and gravity drives. They would be useless then. Better to have them exhaust their remaining energy in an assault on the primitive's defensive positions. The results of the sortie disappointed RaGa'harth. As expected, the gun boats brushed aside the few enemy warriors opposing them. Then, just as he was about to order his remaining warriors to exploit the breakthrough, high explosive missiles began exploding against the gun boats. The surprise appearance of the enemy aircraft negated the tactical advantage the breakout had given him. The smaller ones were faster, more agile and fired missiles of an advanced design that were very accurate and defied the electronic jamming signals broadcast by the boats. The Hadaran commander wasn't long in concluding the missiles had to be wire guided and immune to standard counter-measures. His respect for the war-fighting abilities of the primitives rose a notch or two. It would be important battlefield intelligence if he could contact high command. RaGa'harth had little concern for the dead assault boat crews. They had died in battle, in the service of the Imperium. It was what was expected of them. There was no other fate awaiting them or him. The only question was when, where and how. He calmly watched the remaining warriors under his command make final preparations for the new breakout he'd planned. A squad would conduct a frontal assault on the new enemy's main strength as a diversion while the rest of his command escaped from the rear of the facility. He had other plans for a last stand. His observers had reported a small contingent of primitives establishing a blocking position across their escape route. RaGa'harth knew he had to act now before the lightly manned position was reinforced. Finally his second in command, who would lead the diversionary attack, approached and reported all their preparations were completed. RaGa'harth growled acknowledgement and instructed him to gather the warriors around him. It was now painfully obvious to all that they could not realistically expect retrieval and would probably never leave this planet. He looked each of his warriors in the eye and saw a reflection of his own ferociousness and determination to die like warriors. He stood to his full seven feet of height, whiskers rigid and ready to plunge into the eyes of the enemy, to lead them in a renewal of their pledge to die for the Empire that ended in the Hadaran battle cry. The walls and windows shook with the intensity of their thunderous vociferation. Townsend was startled by the sudden crackle of gunfire that rose to a crescendo in seconds. He had been engaged in a radio conversation with Capt. Fisher when the shooting started. He tossed the radio handset back to Shumaker, crawled up to the rim of the embankment and threw the field glasses to his eyes. The first thing he saw was the backs of Marines as they frantically fired their weapons, lobbed grenades and died from laser bolts. He swung the glasses through a short arc, adjusted the focus and was presented with an astounding sight. A group of fifteen aliens were attacking the Marines defensive positions. They came on in a skirmish line, a straight frontal assault firing lasers and explosive rounds. As he watched, six of them went down from concentrated gun fire and grenades but the others continued their relentless advance seemingly without regard for their own lives-they didn't seek cover at all. The aliens moved with such cat-like quickness that they were upon the Marines position in seconds. A brief, vicious hand-to-hand fight ensued but the Marines were no match for the seven-foot tall felines. The young grunts caught in their line of advance were either burned down with laser fire, blown apart by explosive projectiles or pummeled and ripped apart. Eight aliens were still on their feet after breaking through the Marines' position and seconds later careened into the platoon CP. The aliens never slowed or changed the direction of their assault. They plowed into the officers, radio operators and other command post personnel at full speed. Townsend watched the CO of 1st platoon die from a laser bolt through the head a split second after he emptied a full magazine of 5.56mm rounds into a Hadaran that nearly tore the creature in half. Most of his staff was dead or wounded within seconds of his death but in dying they took a full measure of the enemy. Only Four aliens lived to pass through the CP and they were headed in Townsend's direction. One was felled when a sustained burst of machine gun fire from behind tore it in half. Several Marines from the flanks were pursuing the aliens, firing on the run. Another alien went down when a 40mm round from a M203 grenade launcher burst at its feet and took a leg off. "Get down, Sir!" Shumaker bellowed. "Townsend felt himself being pulled down along the embankment and at the same time the sharp bark of gunfire assaulted his ears when the other bodyguards opened fire on the last two aliens. Return laser fire sizzled into their position. One of his bodyguards screamed and fell back with a smoldering hole drilled through his shoulder. Another yelled, "Reloading!" and ducked down to do so. Shumaker bounded up the slope and ran headlong into a Hadaran who was scrambling over the crest. The muzzle of his M4 was jammed into the alien's chest when Shumaker trigered a five round burst; at the same instant the creature ripped his throat open with a swipe of his inch long claws. Both dying soldiers fell in a heap near Townsend. The last alien appeared above them and aimed his laser rifle at the Marine who'd just reloaded and tried to fire-nothing happened. The energy cell was completely drained. The alien didn't hesitate for a second. It threw the weapon with inhuman force and accuracy and struck the Marine in the face with a sickening crunch. The alien pounced on the dazed marine, lunging for his throat. His roar of anticipation of the kill was cut short by a burst of 9mm rounds from Townsend's MP5. The alien was punched aside by the impact of the burst but the low velocity 9mm rounds didn't put it down. The alien whirled and sprang to meet the new threat. Townsend was shocked at the alien's ability to absorb the point-blank burst; he nearly panicked as it loomed in front of him. He watched in adrenaline-induced slow motion as the deadly claws swept towards him. He dodged in seemingly slower motion. The claws raked his left shoulder, a stunning blow, then snagged on the edge of his body armor. Before he could react the Hadaran struck again, a blazingly fast slashing of the front of his body armor with the other paw. In spite of the shock and pain Townsend's gun hand instinctively aligned his weapon even as his body recoiled from the second vicious blow. The six round burst caught the alien full in the face, blasted its head open and exploded its brain. The body fell across Townsend's lower legs. Bright red blood pulsed, from the last alien heart beats, out of the pulped alien flesh onto his thighs and groin. Townsend sat stupefied for what felt like hours staring down at the thing he'd killed. It's Red... red, red blood! His mind was screaming. The spell was broken when a burly sergeant kicked the corpse off of him but his mind didn't want to accept what his eyes took in. The mangled flesh of alien and human lying intertwined in the dirt, the smell of ozone and cordite mixed with the foul odor of bowels loosed in death, and the screams of the wounded all assailed his senses. "Colonel, Sir, are you okay?" Then he saw the wound and yelled for a corpsman. Townsend looked up in a daze then down at Shumaker's body. Tears filled his eyes when he looked back to the sergeant. "Take care of my men first. See to my men!" Corpsmen from company CP were already tending to the other wounded. A young corpsman jumped down into the depression. In seconds he was preparing a morphine injection for their regimental commander. Townsend looked down at the spot where the alien first struck him. His shoulder muscles were shredded. Blood welled up at an alarming rate from the lacerated flesh. The shoulder strap of his combat harness and the outer covering of his body armor had been ripped by the second blow. The Kevlar lining was exposed and bore deep claw marks. Damn, if not for the vest that fucking thing would have ripped my heart out! His mind dwelled on that line of thought until the crackle of distant gunfire drew him back to the moment. He cringed inside; more of his Marines were dying. At the rear of the power plant Sergeant Rufus McKay, the Marine in charge of the blocking force, had his fifteen-man squad alert and ready for an attempted breakout. He had requested and received an additional M-240 SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon, for a total of three. Every other man was armed with a SAW or the M-203 M16 Assault rifle/grenade launcher combo-they were loaded for bear. When the shooting began at the front of the plant, the Marines were instantly alert and primed for action. McKay, a very tall and muscular black man from a backwater town in the Mississippi River delta moved in a crouch from one position to another reassuring his men and reminding them to maintain their fields of fire. He was performing the age-old ritual of infantry sergeants when multiple laser beams lanced out from the building and burned holes through the heads of all of his machine gunners and their foxhole buddies. A third of his squad was down in an instant. A split second later two rear doors burst open and a large contingent of aliens charged out into a greatly reduced fusillade from the nearly panicked Marines. Two quick thinking leathernecks took over one of the SAWs and got the weapon into action. The ravenous stream of high velocity 5.56mm slugs cut down two Hadarans before laser bolts silenced the gun again. McKay, after burning through two full magazines from his position, quickly decided that if he was going to stop the attack and save his unit it was crucial to get the SAWs back into action. He was sprinting towards the nearest machine gun position when an explosive projectile impacted against his hip and vaporized most of his body. The aliens reached the security fence in seconds. Only seven of their number lay on the paved equipment yard behind them. They didn't slow down to climb the fence but vaulted over the ten-foot high obstacle with effortless leaps. The first aliens over the fence fired lasers or projectile weapons in mid-air before landing on the run and continuing their assault without missing a step. Within seconds every position of the blocking force had been overrun and the Marines lay smashed and bleeding or dead. The last two able-bodied Marines found themselves firing at the backs of the catlike creatures. Three more aliens were cut down before the main body of perhaps sixteen reached cover in a tree line several hundred yards away. Marine reinforcements rounded the south side of the plant in time to witness the last Hadarans enter the woods and added their firepower to that of the survivors from the blocking force. The lieutenant in charge of the reinforcements was on the radio in contact with Capt. Fischer and soon the sound of attack helicopters filled the air. The officer ordered a 40mm smoke grenade fired into the tree line to mark the enemy's location. Seconds later the Cobra gunships roared in and began shredding the tree line with 20mm cannon fire and 2.72in. Rockets. RaGa'harth and the remaining Hadarans pushed through the trees. Their power cells were nearly drained and their ammunition depleted. They were down to less than thirty rounds for all projectile weapon and very few explosive rounds. Even so, the situation was more to his liking. He decided they would wait for the enemy warriors to enter the forest where they would hunt them down one by one and kill them with fang and claw; a Hadaran warrior was never weaponless. Then the rockets and cannon rounds started raining down and all they could do was run. Above the fearsome din and concussion of the explosions, the snarls and screams of his dying warriors lashed his ears. He tried desperately to outrun the deadly fire but a mighty bass drum boomed next to him. The concussion knocked him off of his feet and slammed him into the trunk of a huge tree. He was dead before his shrapnel riddled body slumped to the ground. * * * Logan applied power judiciously to further slow his headlong plunge towards earth. He cut the power flow when a yellow flashing indicator informed him the last energy cell was down to the cautionary level. He frowned; it was all he could do. He now had roughly ten minutes of power left. Ten minutes! The shell that had been a cocoon of safety and warmth was starting to feel like a form-fitting coffin. The view of earth swelled in his forward port. In spite of the dust clouds obscuring a large portion of the southern hemisphere, it was still as beautiful as ever and a comfort to him. If he was to die, he felt it was fitting that the world that spawned him would also be the instrument of his demise. He glanced down to check his velocityfit was still nearly thirty thousand miles per hour or roughly ten miles per second. That was pitifully slow by interstellar standards but at that speed the friction from the earth's atmosphere could burn the ship to a cinder. That was not his only concern. It was possible that his velocity would be great enough to escape earth's gravity field and send him on a one-way trip into infinity. If that happened he would face a slow torturous death from lack of oxygen. His body, entombed in the powerless craft would drift in space for eternity. Logan languidly rolled his head until the array of instruments came into view. He focused on one all important readout. It indicated his velocity had dropped to nine miles per second. Again he frowned. It was still a huge amount of kinetic energy to shed through atmospheric friction. By comparison, the shuttles employed in NASA's space program had an earth-orbital velocity of only five miles per second. Even the Apollo capsules returning from the moon had only to shed a reentry velocity of seven miles per second. His eyes strayed to the power level indicator. He didn't need to recalculate the rate of deceleration versus power usage again. The result would not change. There would be no margin of safety. The assault craft was not designed to be used as a space reentry vehicle. Its hull was sufficiently heat resistant to withstand hypersonic velocities within an atmosphere but the craft's top speed in an atmosphere was Mach 10, or ten times the speed of sound, roughly two miles per second. With a tired shrug of his shoulders he made up his mind. His best chance was to slow the GAC as much as possible. He activated the power fed to the forward steering pods in incremental steps. The resulting gravity field pushed against earth's stupendous gravitational potential and the gage showed a noticeable slowing. After a couple of tense minutes he sat back and tried to relax, he,d feared an equipment failure or some other malfunction. After performing a series of computations Logan activated his gravity-band transmitter. He'd come to both like and respect Hector Cruz. The man had an unusual mind. Logan hoped to live to meet him one day. He communicated the updated calculations on his projected splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Cruz wished him well and signed off. Every muscle in Logan's body was tense while he endured the violent buffeting as the GAC bored through the upper reaches of earth's atmosphere over South America. He'd drained the power supply down to the emergency reserve to slow the craft as much as possible and make small course corrections to his trajectory. It was definitely going to be the Pacific. He transmitted the revised estimate of his reentry and probable splash down coordinates to Hector Cruz. Now it was up to the immutable laws of physics. Either the assault craft would resist the heat of reentry or he would be burned to a cinder. Either his velocity will be reduced enough for him to survive the ocean impact or he would be bashed to a pulp. It was impossible to predict the final outcome. He had a brief temptation to pray. But he, more than any other human being, knew the futility of that. There was no merciful God, no savior or redeemer. Over eons of human progress after the Reiign mutated Neanderthal with their own DNA to produce early man, their efforts had been theologized by the Cro-Magnon left behind. Gradually through myth creation and legend the scientific project, GOD, Genetic Optimized Development, became God the deity and creator. Sadly, there would be no divine intervention. The heat haze was blurring his view through the port but he could still make out the curvature of the planet and he recognized the west coast of Africa. A quick check of the altimeter showed his rate of descent was within his projected glide path. Now if only his old friend could hold together for a few more minutes. The GAC bucked wildly as it passed through a thermocline and noticeably slowed in the denser air. In a matter of moments the temperature grew very hot and Logan found it increasingly difficult to breath but he refrained from using any power to cool the air inside the suit. When he peered out of the port again he was over the African continent and at a much lower altitude. The buffeting was continuous and getting worse as the southeast coast of Africa flashed by. It seemed like moments later he had crossed the Indian Ocean and was streaking over the Indonesian islands. His altitude was less than twenty thousand feet and low enough that he could clearly see individual islands and their geographical features. A loud clang made him flinch. At first he thought it was a collision with another aircraft but then another part of the hull broke off and rattled along the fuselage before flying off behind him. He checked his velocity again; it was still more than five miles per second. Damn! It was painfully obvious now that air breaking was not going to bleed off enough speed. His altitude was under eighteen thousand feet now and dropping rapidly. Without internal gravity stabilizers it was like riding the craziest roller coaster imaginable. Although firmly strapped into the battle harness he was whipped violently back and forth with the motion of the craft. Loose and unattached panel covers, circuit boards and other discarded items careened back and forth around the cockpit. The armored suit protected him from any sharp edges but they were still irritating and distracting. The next few minutes were a blur of judicious power adjustments to individual steering pods, a delicate balancing act to maintain his topside up orientation and minimize the viscous pitch and yaw. Clang! Thunk! Clang! Logan flinched again when another piece of the hull broke away and rattled along the length of the outer hull. It caused a spike of fear that the GAC might be breaking up but it also sparked a line of thought within the depths of his integrated mind. The germ of an idea blossomed into the realization of a possibly life-saving solution. It was as old as Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Would it work? Whether or not it was possible, it was certainly better than being crushed to death after hitting the water at a velocity that would make the surface of the ocean as hard as concrete. Logan opened the circuit to the GAC's forward steering pods and held his breath as he gradually increased the power. The pods generated a gravitational field of opposite polarity to earth’s own gravity and caused the nose to slowly rise. When he could no longer see the horizon, Logan cut the power. Immediately the nose started to level out and inertia carried it past horizontal into a steeper dive. Logan swiftly reapplied more power and brought the nose up to a fifteen-degree incline. It was a hell of a trade off. Draining his last power reserves would limit his options to precisely one. His altimeter indicated he was below ten thousand feet; impact was moments away. He checked the various hold-tights and straps of his battle shock harness and waited with his eyes glued to the altimeter. He started counting down at five thousand feet. He had to trust in his instruments since he couldn't see the surface. He was momentarily distracted when an aircraft flashed across his view on the port beam. It passed so quickly he didn't have time to identify the type of aircraft. Could Cruz and Olson have organized a rescue operation fast enough to have a ship near his point of splash down? It had to be a military aircraft. No civilian airliner would fly at such a low altitude over the ocean. His hopes rose exponentially. * * * Captain Thacker had stayed on the bridge after watching the early warning radar aircraft being catapulted from the flight deck of the USS Reagan. It would relieve the plane currently on station and near the end of its operational fuel supply. He didn't know where CINCPAC was getting its information but it appeared his CBG was very close to the most probable location of the splash down of a space craft. The U.S., Russia and other countries, three months after the climatic battle, were just now reestablishing a network of communications satellites but no manned space missions were under way. Yet, his orders were to recover, at all costs, the person aboard the reentry vehicle. Thacker was not a dumb man. He knew that since the first day of the invasion the only human operating in space had been Logan. But from all reports he'd perishedd, sacrificed himself in the attack and destruction of the last alien warship. Now he was ordered to rescue a lone individual returning from space. It has to be Logan. But it's been more than three months since the battle. If he survived, why has it taken so long for him to make contact? Thacker frowned; he didn't like mysteries. His head snapped up when he heard the call sign of the radar aircraft currently on station came over the loud speaker. The excitement in the pilot's voice told Thacker she'd spotted something. After listening to her report of the contact, he picked up the tactical operations phone and ordered a course change and preparations made to launch the rescue helicopter. Then he reached for the handset to the satellite communications system to inform Fleet Headquarters of the contact. * * * Olson hung up the phone and gave Jessica an encouraging smile. "They're tracking his reentry. Luckily we have a sizable navel formation in the area. They have equipment and personnel required to conduct a proper sea rescue. It looks like his chances are pretty good if the GAC holds together during reentry." Olson watched her hopes rise with every word. He thought she looked a thousand percent better than she had the previous day. Maureen, Beth and Jessica had gone on a marathon-shopping trip after he returned to his office. They must have been a sight to see. He tried not to think about next month's Visa bill. Now she more resembled the attractive young woman he remembered, although the new cloths and makeover did little to mask the sadness in her eyes. "Don't worry, Jessica, Logan has a way of defying the odds. He has more than nine lives. In that way he's more of a cat than the Hadarans." His comments brought a small, sad smile to her face but a solitary tear streaked her makeup.
* * * Lt. May Bridges banked the Grumman E-2C Hawkeye early warning airplane hard to starboard and asked her radar operator for a fix on the bogey. They were near the end of their patrol when the object had showed up on their radar screens. CPO. Larry Meyers was doubtful when the computer reported the object's velocity but he dutifully reported it to Bridges. "Holy shit," Lt. Josh Randal, her copilot exclaimed, "if it hits the water at Mach 7, there will be debris scattered from here to Maui." Bridges wanted another visual so she had descended as quickly as was safely possible with the E-2. They were at five thousand feet when the thing a red-hot, disc shaped meteoraflashed by. It was like no aircraft she'd ever seen. That left two possibilities. Either it was a Hadaran survivor or it was Logan. She didn't think the brass would have sent her unescorted to locate a hostile craft. So the rumors were true, it had to be Logan. Could it be? Had he somehow survived but was unable to return to earth until now? After a few minutes of discussion the crew split three to two in favor of it being Logan. "May, it's now or never. We're near the point of no return." The worried voice of her copilot distracted her. She glanced at the fuel gauge. They were well past the halfway point in fuel consumption. She gulped then pursed her lips in determination. "I know, I know, but Search 31 will not be on station for at least fifteen minutes. I want to pinpoint his splashdown before we turn back. This is a big ocean, Josh. If we can't pin his location to within a hundred mile radius we may never find the wreckage, you know that." Randal sighed heavily and glanced at the fuel gauge again. "You're the commander, but it's a big ocean for us too." "I know, Josh. I know." She said in a voice that was becoming to show a tinge of worry. May Bridges was the new breed of female naval officer. She was five feet seven inches tall with a well muscled but definitely feminine body. She had blonde hair that she kept in a boyishly short cut, a cute button nose and eyes that were so green her commanding officer gave her the call sign 'Jade' within minutes of her reporting for sea duty. She was not a classic beauty but never lacked for male attention. At that moment she wasn't nearly as confident as she tried to sound. May was fully aware that if she had to ditch the plane after running out of fuel, her career would go down with the ship. She glanced over at Randal. "The Reagan will be headed in our direction at flank speed. That will give us more of a margin. Relax Josh; I'll get us home, feet dry." Randal chuckled but he couldn't resist another glance at the fuel gauge. The GAC bucked and shuddered as it rocketed toward the dark blue waters of the Pacific. There was one last thing do. It all came down to this. Either his plan would work or he would soon become part of a debris field settling to the ocean floor. Logan energized the forward steering pods again and felt the nose of his craft rise a degree or two. His whole body tensed and jaw muscles clinched as the altimeter reading reached zero. His whole world, his entire being was suspended in an endless moment of doubt, dread, anticipation, excitement and the foreboding specter of violent death. A second later he was jolted by the mighty impact of the craft hitting the ocean surface. The angle of approach had been near optimum and the craft struck the surface and hydroplaned like a flat stone. Its first hop was five miles long and the second little more than half that. When it hit the third time its velocity was less than a hundred miles per hour. "Hot damn! Did you see that?" It was a rhetorical question from Randal since both of them were looking through binoculars and had watched the splash down from two thousand feet and ten miles away. "Man, if he survived, that guy is the luckiest man in the universe." He finished with awe after witnessing the astounding sight. Bridges ignored his comments and banked the E-2 slightly to port and pushed the throttles forward for maximum speed. A few minutes later they were over the first splash site and in a stern chase with the skimming GAC. When she overflew the downed craft it was bobbing in moderately rough seas. She asked for a plot of the position from her navigator, which she radioed to Search 31, the S&R helicopter and the Reagan simultaneously. Her mission accomplished, Bridges said a silent prayer to the patron saint of idiot pilots as she climbed to ten thousand feet for better fuel economy and turned the E-2 on a course for the carrier. Logan was bruised and battered anew from the terrific beating he'd taken during the series of mighty impacts against the rolling seas of the southern Pacific. The first impact tore the previously damaged combat harness from its deck mount and flung him violently forward. He was temporarily stunned but the armored suit saved him from being bashed to death against the forward instrument panel and bulkheads of the cockpit. After three lesser impacts he came to rest upside down against the port bulkhead. He slumped to the deck partially dazed and hurting. It occurred to him that the AFS's power level must be nearly exhausted; he'd felt every thump and bump when he slammed repeatedly against the inside of the suit. The thought came infinitely slowly and from a great distance. With it also came a fear of being trapped in a three hundred pound shroud with no way to get out. It helped to clear the mental fog. Logan struggled slowly to a sitting position. The fact that he could even move told him there was still sufficient power to extricate himself. It took a lot longer to struggle to his feet. He then initiated the sequence to disengage the atmospheric seals and open the suit. Logan held his breath in suspense until the power seals released, the back seam split and the two branch seams opened behind each leg. Usually the AFS projected a gravity anchor to hold the suit in an upright stance but there was insufficient power and the rolling motion of the craft caused the suit to topple. It jammed Logan against the bulkhead with a jarring impact and then with the next roll of the waves it pitched over face first to the deck. The impact added to his already considerable collection of bruises and ripped the waste tubs from his bodily orifices. A grunt of pain escaped his lips but he shook it off as best he could and slowly, painfully extricated himself from the powerless suit of armor. Logan rolled onto his back. He was naked, completely drenched in sweat, exhausted and bleeding from his rectum. He curled into a fetal position gently cradling his throbbing penis. He laid there for several minutes while mind numbing pain washed over his entire body. At the same time a part of his mind was marveling in the sensation of being alive and free from the confines of the suit. Get up, Marine, it ain't over yet! His will to live would not let him rest. Logan groaned as he struggled to a sitting position and then with great difficultly to his feet. He had to concentrate on maintaining his balance. He hadn't been on his feet for months. The rolling and pitching of the AFS as it rode the waves made the task infinitely more difficult. No rest for the weary! The old words of motivation from his time in the Marine Corps spurred him to action. He stumbled to the equipment locker and removed his null suit. It took everything he had to don the one-piece garment. The way it hung on his emaciated frame shocked him. He took a few more moments to place the NK-Knife and other items into their various sheaths and pouches. Afterwards Logan sagged against the locker; he had to rest for a few moments before tackling the next step. Logan soon realized that getting out of the wreck was going to be more difficult then he'd hoped. There was absolutely no power. The hatch's manual override resisted his feeble efforts for a few fearful moments before the triple locking system grudgingly released. He was able to slide the retracting hatch less than a third of the way but it was enough to allow him to slip through. The airlock was a shambles. Super heated air had penetrated the outer hatch and scorched the inside of the lock. Seawater streamed in from a number of cracks and split seams. The water was already ankle deep. Logan splashed through the deepening pool to the control of the outer hatch and attacked the manual controls. The locks finally released after several anxious moments of pulling and pushing levers. But when he tried to pull the hatch open it moved no more than four inches. Ice-cold seawater gushed in faster. In seconds it was up to his knees and rising fast. Logan moved swiftly to widen the portal. He grabbed one edge, placed his foot against the frame and pushed with what little strength he had. The hatch moved another two inches. Still not enough! He tried again but no matter how much he strained the hatch refused to budge another inch. The recess into which it should retract was warped from heat and impact damage. It was hopeless. Logan stepped back, his chest heaving from his fruitless efforts. There was only one alternative. He drew from its sheath what looked like a hard rubber motorcycle throttle and thumbed a button near the hand guard. A low, barely audible hum accompanied the materialization of an eighteen-inch shimmering metallic blade. The NK-knife was the one weapon he called his own. It had been designed and produced to his specifications by his Scorpii-Reiign weapon masters. The blade, though it looked solid, was composed of nano-constructs held in place by ultra strong electro-magnetic containment fields. The constructs vibrated at several million cycles per second and was capable of cutting through any known material. It generated an intense ultra-sonic pulse that disrupted the coulomb-molecular binding energy of constituent matter. Logan wasted no time in attacking the hatch. Although many times stronger than steel, the triposite metal yielded to the hyper-vibrations of the NK and soon Logan had a three by three foot escape hole. Logan thumbed the power stud again to retract the blade and secured the hilt in its sheath at his right hip. The cold attacked his legs while he waited until the water level was at the bottom of his improvised escape hatch then he easily swam out to the open sea. The power of the ocean was at once fearsome and refreshing. Logan used whatever jagged edges he could find as handholds and moved along the hull until he found what he was looking for, the maintenance hand/foot wells recessed into the hull plates. He slowly climbed up the side of the tumbling and pitching craft and huddled exhaustedly on top of the pitching craft. His long weeks of forced inactivity in zero gravity had left his muscles weak and atrophied. It was all he could do to maintain his tenuous perch. Finally he decided that spread eagle was the best position. He lay like that for nearly twenty minutes while the GAC floundered on the wind tossed waves. "There! Debris field at two o'clock." The co-pilot shouted excitedly. Lt. Fredrick Carlson banked the big helicopter hard to starboard and accelerated toward the wreckage. Within minutes they over flew the downed craft and could clearly see a lone survivor signaling to them by waving his arm. The craft was nearly submerged with waves washing over what parts remained above the surface. The man had seconds. They had arrived in the preverbal nick of time. "Diver, stand by." Carlson ordered over the intercom as he continued hard to port in order to come about. The downed spacecraft had nearly disappeared in the seven-foot seas. It was obvious that the survivor was weak and wouldn't last very much longer. As he slowed to a hover he followed carefully the instructions from the crew chief to position the starboard hatch over the crash site. <"Diver out!"> Came across the intercom. Carlson acknowledged the announcement from his crew chief and then concentrated on maintaining his hover—lives depended on it. Logan had clung to the hull of the GAC as long as he could. He was too weak to do much else. After three months in space, earth's gravity rapidly sapped what little energy he had left. When the second search plane began circling overhead his spirits were buoyed immensely. When the chopper appeared on the horizon it was literally a last minute reprieve from a death sentence. His strength was waning fast. It took a monumental effort just to wave as the angel of life roared overhead. Before the chopper made its turn the GAC began its final slide into the waiting abyss. A distant warning yammered for attention in Logan's fatigue slowed mind. It finally dawned on him that he needed to distance himself from the doomed craft before it went under or the suction would surely take him with it. Logan franticly crawled a few feet until he could slide into the cold water. The water was freezing but the buoyancy relieved some of the strain of his weight in normal gravity. His feeble attempt at a breast stroke carried him less than ten feet before he heard the hiss from the last escaping air and felt the pull of the suction. Logan struggled against the icy fingers of the Pacific but he knew that it was a losing battle when he was pulled under. He barely managed to draw a full breath. Instinct caused him to reach in the opposite direction of his impending doom and he clawed for the surface. As hard as he struggled the suction and gravity conspired against him. He couldn't hold his breath much longer and Logan realized that he was too weak to climb out of his death plunge. In desperation he jacked into combat mode. The cybernetic implant buried deep within his brain pulsed. It electrified his entire system, giving him added strength and speed far exceeding human capability. With supreme effort he was able to reverse his motion and start the long climb. Unfortunately, combat mode required huge amounts of oxygen of which he had little. Normally he could hold his breath for five minutes or more but his body was so malnourished and weak it wasn't up to the challenge. Fifteen feet from life giving air his strength gave out. Logan's mind screamed at the unfairness. Had he come this far, overcome the greatest odds, only to drown? He raged at the futility of it all. Seconds before he would have been forced to breath water something solid brushed against his arm then his left wrist was taken in an iron grip. He peered up towards the light and saw a human figure. Rescue diver! Logan decided in an instant what had to be done. He reached deep within his being for a level of control of his physiological processes an ordinary human could never achieve and savagely purged from his oxygen-starved mind everything except the total denial of the nearly overwhelming urge to breathe. Logan's eyes bulged and his lungs burned. He was on the verge of passing out as he felt himself being pulled to salvation. The rest of the rescue operation went quickly and smoothly. Less than ten minutes after Logan was pulled gasping and sputtering to the surface he and the diver had been winched up into the hovering helicopter. After identifying himself, Logan weakly but gratefully thanked the diver and the rest of the crew while they wrapped his violently shivering body in blankets. The diver, Seaman First Class Douglas Fenner, a freckle faced twenty-year old kid from Akron, Ohio stared long and hard at Logan. Was this the superman who'd saved the whole human race? Fenner thought he resembled a half starved African refugee. Logan's hair was three months long, uncombed and matted. His beard was nearly as long and just as wild. He'd lost nearly a third of his body mass. His unwashed, emaciated body filled the cabin of the helicopter with a rank odor. He watched the crew chief help Logan sip hot chicken broth from a thermos for several minutes before he spoke. "You're the luckiest man in the world, Mr. Logan." Logan eyed Fenner for several moments before nodding in agreement but said nothing. He slowly turned towards the hatch and looked out at the soiled sky. When he turned back to the diver; his expression was infinitely thankful and sadly forlorn. Yeah, Logan thought, I'm lucky. About as lucky as you can get, if you're marooned on a doomed planet. |
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