by Mike Kraus
A tap on his shoulder makes the Commander turn, straining against his thick coat. One of the officers remaining behind hands him a pistol and two extra magazines, which Alexeyev slips into the pocket on his jacket. Only a few men from each group will be armed, and everyone is under strict orders to not fire unless the leader of their team gives them the explicit order to do so. On the Russian side, shots might cause an overreaction by the military patrols but on the American side, they could ignite a border war.
“The men are ready, sir.” The second-in-command – the Executive Officer – of the Arkhangelsk, Vitaly Yegorov, looks up at the Commander from the ladder below. Commander Alexeyev nods and descends down into the sub, making his way to one of the side hatches that opens onto the main deck.
Built for transporting twenty submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the sisters of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Arkhangelsk’s main deck is flat nearly the full width of the sub, with ten hatches on each side for the missiles to be fired through. Each missile is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to a target anywhere on the planet within fourteen minutes of launch, with a destructive power greater than one thousand times the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Though the Arkhangelsk is on a training mission, she is still loaded with a full complement of missiles and torpedoes. Even though she is decades out of date and one of the last ancient subs still afloat, she is a force to be reckoned with.
Passing through a doorway onto the deck of the sub, Commander Alexeyev pauses, looking over the two teams preparing to disembark. He salutes the team assigned to the Russian side of the strait, then prepares to join his team to head to the American side.
“Vitaly,” Alexeyev speaks candidly with his second-in-command, “lock everything down tight while we are away. We will radio you when we reach the village, and I’ll have further orders for you then. If you sense any danger, submerge the Arkhangelsk, but do not move her from this position. We will return as quickly as possible.”
Yegorov nods, saluting his superior officer. “Yes, sir. Good luck to you, sir.”
Commander Alexeyev turns with a grunt and walks off, descending a ladder down the side of his sub to the ice below. He pats the black metal of the Arkhangelsk lovingly before leading his team out across the ice, heading for the American shoreline and – if he is lucky – answers.
Leonard McComb | Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | Nancy Sims
3:52 PM, April 5, 2038
Leonard and Nancy were both shaking their heads at the plan Marcus had just described.
“This is crazy,” Nancy muttered, “I’m just an office manager. How am I supposed to help in all of this?”
Leonard smiled at Nancy as they began to open the doors to the APC to go around and speak to Rachel and Marcus once again. David had signed off abruptly, telling Rachel that one of the satellites needed some attention, then the radio went silent. The winds shifted as well, blowing from the west and sending the majority of the ash and smoke away from the group and into the city.
“The very fact that we’re alive means that we can all be a huge help, Nancy. It’s like they were saying, the fact that we’re alive means that we have an advantage over these swarms. As long as we don’t lose that advantage, I think we’ll be alright in the end.”
Leonard’s words brought a small measure of comfort to Nancy, though she still felt useless. So far, her contributions to the group had been accidental, and she had no technical or survival skills like the others had. Still, Leonard was right; they were all alive, and that did give them an advantage over the nanobots. The only question left was whether that advantage would be enough to help them win. And if they did ultimately win, what would happen next in this shattered and burned world?
The doors to Leonard and Nancy’s APC opened with a loud click and Leonard swiveled in his seat, getting ready to jump to the ground when a distant sound made him freeze in place. He turned around, staring through the window at Rachel. Her expression was one of fear and mirrored Nancy’s face. Leonard quickly slammed the door shut, locking it and motioning for Nancy to do the same. He yelled out the window at Rachel, trying to figure out what they were going to do.
From behind them, in the direction of the police station, a low buzzing echoed through the base. It was similar enough to the previous sounds that the group instantly knew that it had to be the approach of one or more creatures. However, the sound was different in that it was deeper and louder than any they had heard before.
“It sounds like hundreds of them!” Nancy wore a panicked expression as Leonard leaned over, shouting through the porthole in the APC. Rachel swiveled her head, checking the rearview mirrors to try and catch a glimpse of what was causing the sound, but their view was blocked by the camouflage material that hung over the area where they were parked.
“We need to leave, now!” Rachel yelled back. She groped around the steering column on the APC, finally finding the ignition switch. The diesel engine roared to life, then Leonard and Nancy’s did the same.
“David!” Rachel yelled over the radio. “David are you there?”
A few seconds later, David’s voice came in over the radio. “What, what is it?”
“We’re about to be attacked by these things!”
“Things? What are you talking about? The nanobots?”
“No, it’s these creatures! The nanobots have hybridized with humans, forming a mutant of some kind. They’re in complete control, they don’t follow the DNA inhibitors and –” Rachel’s frantic explanation was cut short by a large chunk of concrete slamming into the top of her APC. It shattered as it impacted, shaking the vehicle as the piece broke up into smaller bits that rolled to the ground.
“Shit! We have to move, now!”
Leonard groped for the four-point harness that was embedded in his seat, motioning for Nancy to do the same. “Better buckle up; this ride’s probably going to get bumpy.” The fully automatic controls of the APC made it easy for even a novice driver to handle, though the immense size and large turning radius of the vehicle would take some getting used to. Next to him, Rachel roared ahead, tearing a hole through the camouflage covering and plowing through a stack of sandbags on the other side. Leonard could hear the roars of dozens of creatures behind him as he put his foot down on the gas. He turned the wheel to follow after Rachel, silently hoping that they could survive the city and the creatures long enough to escape.
Leonard McComb | Rachel Walsh | Marcus Warden | Nancy Sims
4:08 PM, April 5, 2038
“Rachel, this is David. Look, I know you’re in a tight spot, but just listen to me. If the nanobots are merging with humans, that pushes our timetable up dramatically. It’s like we said before, there’s not enough time for all of you to come to Washington and then try to get to Alaska. You need to split up. That’s the only option.”
Rachel reached for the microphone with one hand as she tried to keep the APC on the road. Plowing ahead through mountains of debris, the APC was making good headway, but the flood of creatures behind them were not deterred. Just a few car lengths following the pair of APCs, a huge group of creatures poured out of every side street and building they passed. Hundreds of the beasts tore down the road, desperately trying to catch up with the group.
Marcus took the radio in hand before Rachel could reach it to argue. He held it back from her, speaking into it while she glared at him. “Leonard? Nancy? Are you two okay with this? Rachel knows the layout of Washington and the laboratory there, so the two of us need to go in that direction. Can you both handle getting all the way to Alaska?”
Leonard and Nancy looked at each other, trying to read each other’s faces in the bumpiness of the APC. “I’m game if you are, Nancy.” Nancy hesitated, then shrugged her shoulders and nodded. “If we’re going to die, we might as well die trying to kill these things.”
Leonard spoke into the microphone. “David, Rachel, Marcus; we’re okay with it. We’ll take on the Russians. We’re going to need some help, though. F
or starters, I have no idea how to get to Alaska or how to break into a submarine and steal a nuclear missile.”
“You leave that to me, Leonard.” David’s voice was calm on the other end of the radio. He sat in his chair with his hands clasped, speaking slowly and precisely. “Listen carefully. You need to head west. Take the first road you can that heads west, and go straight on out of here. You’ll get out of radio range soon, but don’t worry about that. The APC’s radio unit has a satellite radio transmitter, so I’ll be able to communicate with you through that. It’s somewhat limited, and we’ll only have six intervals to talk each day, with each interval lasting about half an hour, but I’ll be able to guide you to the sub and help you once you reach it.”
“David, this is insane! We all need to get up there to help you get out!” Rachel grabbed the microphone from Marcus, throwing the APC to the side with a twist of the wheel. “I’m sure we can fix Bertha, I’m positive!”
“We might, yes, but if not, then we won’t have time for anything else. You’ve seen the signs better than I have. You know that they’re accelerating their development. We barely have enough time to even try these plans; to think of delaying them or throwing them out the window would be suicide. Just listen to me. You know I’m right.”
Rachel blinked several times, fighting back the tears that threatened her vision. “Dammit. I know.” Rachel’s voice dropped to a whisper, but she kept the microphone on. “I don’t want any of these people to die, though. Too many have died because of me.”
“Not your fault, Rachel.” Leonard came through on the radio, his voice strong and energetic. “None of this is on you. Time to listen to me for a second. These things want to get to us, and we’re not going to have much of a chance if we keep going straight down here. We need to split up at the next intersection so we have a better chance of losing them. You keep heading north, Nancy and I’ll go west. Your friend can give us all directions once we’ve lost these things.”
Rachel stared ahead at the city, holding the microphone in her hand while she tried to find the right words to speak.
“Leonard… Nancy…. Good luck. We’ll be in constant contact. We’ll get through this.”
“Damn straight we will. Now get going, you two. Marcus, you and Rachel watch after each other.”
Marcus smiled, sad that two of his new companions were leaving, but excited by the prospects that lay ahead. Despite the certain loss of his family and the devastation that surrounded him, Marcus found strength in the new family that had been forged in the ashes of a dead city. No longer just survivors, they were warriors, taking a desperate fight to their enemy’s front door.
The fight wasn’t about land, freedom or even their own lives. It was for their species, their humanity and their planet. The fight was for all the other survivors that might be out there, hiding in caves or huddled in basements, struggling to stay alive. For those people who had to rebuild the new world, it was up to the four of them to ensure the world remained standing.
Marcus looked at Rachel, then stared in the rearview window, watching as Leonard and Nancy’s APC took a sharp turn to the left, roaring off down a highway to the west. With Sam curled up at his feet and his new companion sitting next to him, Marcus brought the microphone up to his mouth and spoke once more.
“You and Nancy do the same. Godspeed.”
Final Dawn
Season 2
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While you’re waiting for the next episode of Final Dawn, you may enjoy another book by Mike Kraus:
Prip’Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl
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