A New Dawn_Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series

by Mike Kraus

  “What did you say to me?!” Nealson bellowed at the man on the floor. “I don’t just leave someone alone! They killed my men, they shot me and you want me to just leave them alone?!”

  The man on the floor clutched his jaw, slurring his words as he tried to speak. “Bossh, I di’n’t mean…”

  “You didn’t think! That’s what you didn’t do! I don’t back down, so neither do any of you!” Nealson kicked the man savagely in the stomach, making him cry out in pain.

  “Boss, what’re you—” The rest of the group from the truck walked into the community center to see Nealson standing over the man on the floor. He looked up at them with fire in his eyes.

  “Get everything ready for an assault! And the next one to argue with me gets a bullet in between the eyes!”

  Chapter 8

  asdf

  “I’ll never get used to this.” Commander Palmer’s unusually candid confession surprises both Ted and Jackie.

  “Get used to what?” Ted wonders.

  “The silence. Especially after all that noise.”

  “The waiting’s what I hate,” Jackie joined in, “especially with a broken altimeter.”

  “Only another minute or two till splashdown. Just remember your training and we’ll get out of this just fine.”

  Trapped inside the small module with no view of the outside except through a small, obstructed porthole, the three astronauts try their best to imagine what is going on outside. A cluster of red and white parachutes pull taut lines fastened to the module, keeping it stable as it drifts along on a breeze that carries it over the open ocean. The weather is clear aside from the smoke and soot that clog the air across the planet, caused by the seemingly infinite number of fires that still burn out of control.

  When the module touches down, it does so with a bang and a splash, leaning over so far to one side due to its momentum that the trio think it might not stand upright again. When it does, though, it rocks back and forth, each time with less force until the creaking, groaning and sound of water against the hull finally dies down.

  “Straps off, check for leaks.” Commander Palmer speaks with a loud, confident voice. He, Jackie and Ted each unbuckle their harnesses and begin shuffling in their seats, looking around to see if any water has managed to find its way into the module. The seams held firm, though, and there’s no sound or sight of any water.

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  “Confirmed,” Commander Palmer nods. “Clear. Ted, blow the hatch and get topside. Jackie, what’s the battery look like?”

  “Better than we thought. We’ve got more than enough juice, assuming we’re close to shore.”

  “Excellent. Ted, see if you can spot land once you’re up there.” Commander Palmer leans forward and looks at Jackie. “Once he’s up, you and I will get the motor assembled in here then we’ll pass it up and go out to attach it to the hull.”

  Jackie and Ted both nod and set about their work, moving with a renewed purpose. Their bodies feel weak and ineffectual after so long spent in space, and gravity pulls hard against them, straining their muscles and bones. Normally, upon returning from space, they would be greeted by a recovery and rescue team, but they are completely alone and must rely on themselves if they wish to survive.

  Ted groans as he twists the handle on the module hatch, and Commander Palmer looks up at him. “Easy, Ted. Don’t break anything.”

  The handle finally spins free and Ted huffs as he pushes the door open. The smell of the ocean instantly permeates through the module, bringing with it the scent of a warm breeze, fresh air and just a hint of smoke. Jackie wrinkles her nose as she tosses her helmet to the side, then slowly stands up and turns to locate the equipment that she and Commander Palmer worked on assembling.

  “Anything in sight up there, Ted?” Commander Palmer looks up through the hatch as he speaks to Ted who is sitting on the edge of the hatch opening.

  “You… you could say that, yeah.” Ted’s voice is shaking and cracked, and Commander Palmer and Jackie share a quizzical look before Commander Palmer speaks again.

  “How close are we to land?”

  “Couple miles, probably less.”

  “Excellent. Did the floats deploy automatically?”

  “One did. I’ll go pull the manual release on the other two now.”

  “Good. We’ll pass the motor up once you finish.”

  There’s no reply from Ted, who stays seated on the edge of the hatch for a few more seconds before finally starting to move. The hiss of air and the soft bumps of inflating floats bumping up against the outside of the module echo through the quiet chamber, then Ted’s face appears at the top of the hatch. “We’re good now. Floats look like they’re undamaged.”

  Commander Palmer nods and begins taking parts from Jackie and passing them through the hatch up to Ted. The process is slow, partly because Ted seems incredibly distracted, constantly looking around as he takes the pieces of the motor up through the hatch and places them on top of one of the floats. When the entire process is finished, Commander Palmer helps Jackie climb up through the hatch before passing a cable to her and then following her up the ladder.

  As Commander Palmer’s head emerges from the hatch, he gasps involuntarily at the sight, joining Ted and Jackie as they stare transfixed at the horizon. The coast of Virginia Beach is less than two miles to the west, and in the afternoon light the fires, smoke and destruction are clearly visible. Along the entire coastline there doesn’t appear to be a single intact building, and the normally green backdrop is brown not just because of the season, but because of the fires that already burned out.

  Chosen over a Florida landing due to its proximity to Norfolk and Washington, D.C., the choice of Virginia Beach as the target landing site is unusual and Commander Palmer begins to wonder whether it was the right one or not. He pushes himself out of the module and holds on to the side, next to Jackie and Ted. They stare at the carnage-strewn horizon for a few moments before Commander Palmer finally speaks.

  “Let’s get this set up and start making for land. We’ve got a ways to go and the light won’t last forever.”

  Chapter 9

  The Waters’ Homestead

  Outside Ellisville, VA

  “Clear the table, quickly!”

  “I’ve got her, just make a space. Make a space!”

  “Tina? Just relax and stay with us, okay? You’ll be fine! Mark, I need a syringe with a needle!”

  “What kind, mom?”

  “Doesn’t matter; I have to try to suck out some of the air from her wound.”

  “Suck out… the air?”

  “Just get a syringe and needle! And someone get a light over here; Jacob, you do that. Get some lanterns or something!”

  “Dianne, I’m taking a quick look around the outbuildings to make sure there aren’t any surprises here.”

  “Good thinking, Jason. We’ll hold it down here. Sarah, you got a hold on her arm? I need to cut off her shirt.”

  Jason took a few steps back, watching in the dimly lit interior of the house as his wife and friend worked on a body lying on the table. Tina was still alive, but the bumpy ride back home hadn’t done her any favors and her chest wound was leaking bubble-filled blood from around the edges of the duct tape that had been hastily applied.

  Hoping that Tina would make it, Jason stalked out of the dining room and into the kitchen before making a quick tour through the entire house. He checked in each and every nook and cranny that was large enough to conceal a person, just on the off chance that one of the gang had hung around and was waiting in ambush. With the house checked and cleared, Jason made his way outside, casting a wary eye at the burned section of the porch.

  Out at the edge of the woods, just beyond the driveway, he could make out the forms of the men he and Mark had slain. In too much of a hurry to do anything with the corpses before, they had stripped them of their weapons and thrown them beyond the driveway. They were all still there,
just as they had been previously, and Jason nodded grimly and whispered to himself as he added up the bodies. “Guess no one showed up to try and help you fellas.”

  The rest of the property was as quiet as the front yard, aside from the animals which were both hungry and tired of being cooped up for so long. Jason slung his rifle on his shoulder and distributed feed to them in the barns, wrinkling his nose at the smell and at the prospect of likely having to help clean out the messes they had been making.

  With the outbuildings checked and cleared and the edge of the property looking clear, too, Jason made his way to the small shed in the woods and pulled open the trapdoor leading down into the tunnel. Rifle and flashlight in hand, he made his way down the tunnel until he reached the barred doors that led up into the basement. It took a few moments of grunting and levering, but he eventually freed the doors and swung them open to emerge into the basement of the house.

  “Mr. Statler!” Mark cried out from the base of the stairs before stepping out, a pistol gripped between two nervously shaking hands. “I didn’t know you were coming back in through the tunnel. I thought you were one of them breaking back in or something.”

  “Good instincts,” Jason smiled, “but no, I was just finishing up checking outside. Everything’s clear for the moment. How’s Tina?”

  “Mom said she’s alive, which is all we can hope for right now.”

  “Morbid, but I can’t say I disagree.”

  “Do you think they’ll come back? The gang, I mean.”

  “I don’t see how. Their leader’s the only one who was alive there, and I doubt if he’d be foolish enough to try attacking us by himself.” Jason paused. “I hope not, at least.”

  “If he does, we’ll be ready for him.” Mark slipped the pistol into a holster on his belt and Jason smiled, wrapping his arms around the boy.

  “You’re doggone right we will.”

  Chapter 10

  Washington, D.C.

  The drama and horror—both old and fresh—that had ensued in the basement of the building made all the more stark the differences between the subterranean labyrinth and the cool, clear air of the outside world. The emergence of the three survivors into a sharp breeze and the whisking away of the scent of death that had permeated their clothing was not appreciated, though. Neither was the silence and peace that still reigned over the area after the previous battle that had been fought. The only thoughts on the minds of Rick, Oles and Dr. Evans as they stepped forth back into the natural sunlight were contemplations of their mortality and remembrances of their friend.

  The grounds of the old naval observatory were mostly paved with asphalt roads and parking areas, but there were a few places with grass and potted plants that looked like they were well-maintained, once upon a time. It was there, in one of those small patches of grass and soil, that Rick, Dr. Evans and Oles stood over a mound of freshly-dug earth. Moments passed in silence before Oles finally broke it, speaking nervously as he looked at the others.

  “Should we say something?”

  “We’ve already said everything we need to.” Rick sighed as he leaned on a shovel they had found in a small shed in a corner of the grounds. “She was a friend to us and a genuinely good person. For her to die here is unjust and unfair… but so’s everything that’s going on. She didn’t have to help us, but she did.” Rick slammed the point of the shovel into the ground and looked at Oles and Dr. Evans with moist, steely eyes. “So let’s finish this.”

  “For her,” added Dr. Evans, meeting Rick’s gaze.

  “For her,” Oles finished.

  Rick worked his jaw for a few seconds as he took one final look at the gravesite, then turned and headed back for the police car. He, Dr. Evans and Oles each took a mask off of the hood of the car, grabbed the rest of their gear and headed down into the building from whence they had come. Though the rush of adrenaline and the sheer panic during the struggle with the Russians had left Rick temporarily unaffected by the rancid smell in the building, he, Oles and Dr. Evans had all felt violently ill during their trip back up.

  Passing through the halls and down the stairs, Rick stayed in the lead until they reached the bottom server room where he stood back and let Oles and Dr. Evans sit in their seats. Both were still nursing their wounds, but a quick bandaging of each other while Rick had been digging was all they had been able to afford due to their short timetable.

  “So you have the codes.” Rick looked at the pair. “What do we need to do to broadcast them out? Swap out this server with another one and use the dedicated line?”

  “No,” Dr. Evans shook his head, “when we were in the system we saw that it had specific authorization to work over their internal network. If there is another authorized system, we have no way of determining what it is.”

  “Hm.” Rick turned and looked at the darkened servers—purposefully ignoring the shape of Jacob’s body still lying on the floor—as he pondered their situation. “Are all of these systems clean? Or have they been compromised by Damocles?”

  Dr. Evans used his feet to push his wheeled chair over to another desk, then pointed at a box mounted to the wall. “This whole room is sealed off from the outside world, and the only way to allow a connection through is by manually joining the cables together with this box. One and only one system can connect to it at a time. So no, I don’t see how any of these could have been compromised by Damocles.”

  “Good. Where are the access keys for Damocles?”

  Oles produced a small thumb drive from his pocket. “Dr. Evans and I made two copies before the system went down. I have one, and he has the other.”

  “Oles, give me your drive. You and Dr. Evans make sure you don’t lose the other one. The pair of you get upstairs, get to the car and get the inverter hooked up and ready for me.”

  “What’ve you figured out, Rick?” Dr. Evans narrowed one eye at him, as if he could read Rick’s mind. A sly smile passed across Rick’s face and he looked back at the servers.

  “Hopefully saving our asses. Now hurry up.”

  Outside, Oles and Dr. Evans worked together, each favoring their injured arm. The inverter was retrieved from the trunk of the police car, a power strip was retrieved from a nearby building and they even managed to get a small folding table and chair set up, too. They were just about to go looking for Rick when he staggered out of the front of the building, his head concealed by the server and monitor that he was carefully balancing in his arms. He turned to the side to check where he was going, saw the table near the car and beelined for it, huffing and puffing in his mask.

  Thud!

  The table groaned and creaked under the impact, but held firm. Rick ripped off his mask and threw it to the side before collapsing into the chair. Sweat poured down his face and neck, and he unzipped his jacket and unbuttoned the top of his shirt, pulling on it to help circulate cold air across his skin. Dr. Evans handed him a bottle of water and Rick took a few sips after his breathing slowed, then he zipped his jacket back up and looked at Oles and Dr. Evans. “It’s been a long time since I had to haul one of these things anywhere. I forgot just how doggone heavy they are.”

  “Rick, I hate to say this,” Dr. Evans began poking at the equipment Rick had retrieved, “but what good is a server, monitor and all this cabling and such going to do?”

  Rick smiled at the question, leaned back in his chair and pointed at the top of the building across from them. The glare from the sun was bright, but they could still make out the edge of the flat roof and the antennas mounted on top. “When I sat up there with Ostap, I noticed that they’ve got a lot of communications equipment up there. Not surprising, right? Well, one of the devices they’ve got up there is an LKN Series VI short-range broadcaster and receiver. State of the art, dead simple to use and can transmit and receive radio to satellite and basically anything in between.”

  “Don’t you need specialized equipment to connect with something like that?”

  “That’s the brilliant part. We worke
d with the prototypes of these for some of the work my company did in the autonomous car field. They accept half a dozen types of connections and the interface is a simple command line you can get to through almost any OS. They can draw power from the host system and anything you tell them to do is run through their internal system so there’s no specialized software required.”

  “Wouldn’t something like that have been infiltrated by Damocles?” Dr. Evans shielded his eyes as he looked up.

  Rick stood and grabbed a thick bundle of cabling that he had wrapped around the base of the monitor. “Only one way to find out, eh?”

  Chapter 11

  asdfsdf

  “How much battery’s left?”

  “At least four more hours before we deplete the main cell. The two backups might give us a couple more hours, tops.”

  “Good. We’ll make land by then for sure.” Commander Palmer nods in satisfaction as he climbs back down the side of the module and goes to check on Ted. Seated on one of the floats, next to the jury-rigged outboard motor, he clings to both the float and the motor like his life depends on it.

  Thought of in a spur-of-the-moment inspiration before leaving the space station, the idea for the motor was born out of pure necessity. Landing in the water would, as Commander Palmer put it, leave them stranded for “who-knows-how-the-hell-long” unless they had a way to get back to shore. Makeshift paddles would work, but pushing the module filled with life-sustaining supplies to the shore with paddles had not been on anyone’s wish list. So, before setting off for Earth, they stripped down spare parts from the inside of the station, pulling apart any and everything that looked like it might be useful in constructing a makeshift motor.