Impact

by Douglas Preston

  “Of all the crazy—”

  “Dad!”

  He fell silent.

  “An alien weapon. Which fired on the Earth. That meteor we saw a few months ago was the first shot. That show on the Moon was the second shot.”

  She briefly explained how she and Jackie went looking for the meteorite and found the hole, how she’d met Wyman Ford, and what they had discovered.

  The expression on her father’s face suddenly changed from disbelief to skepticism. He looked at her intently. “And?”

  “That shot at the Moon was a demonstration. A warning.”

  “So what’s this thing you want to do?” asked Jackie.

  A gust of wind buffeted the pilothouse, spray hitting the windows. “I know this sounds crazy, but I think we can stop it.”

  Jackie looked incredulous. “Three wet people huddled in a boat in a storm off the coast of Maine, without cell reception, are gonna save the world? Are you nuts?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Oh no, not one of your ideas.” Jackie groaned.

  “You know the Earth Station, that big white bubble on Crow Island? Remember going there on field trips in high school? Inside that bubble there’s a dish that AT&T built to send telephone calls to Europe. Now it’s used for satellite communications, uplink and downlink of television shows, Internet and cell phone calls, shit like that.”

  “Well?” Jackie swiped her wet hair out of her face.

  “We point it at Deimos and use it to send that motherfucker a message.”

  Jackie stared at Abbey. “Like what kind of message? ‘My big brother’s gonna beat you up’?”

  “I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  89

  Jackie laughed. “You really are crazy, you know that? We’ll be lucky just to get our ass into port in this storm. But you want us to cross Muscongus Bay to send a message? Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”

  “We have no idea when the weapon might fire again. And something tells me the next shot might be the end.”

  “How’s that alien machine gonna know English?”

  “It’s highly advanced and it’s been listening to our radio chatter for at least two months now, since it was awakened.”

  “If it’s so advanced, call it on the VHF.”

  “Come on, Jackie, be serious. Even if it could distinguish our radio call from a billion other signals, it wouldn’t take it as official. What’s required is a big, strong, powerful signal hitting it with a clear message. Something that looks like an official communication from the Earth.”

  Her father turned to her. “Why can’t the government deal with it?”

  “You trust the government to handle this? First of all, they’re in denial. Either they’ll hold endless meetings or they’ll take a potshot at it. Either way, we’re dead. On top of that, I think the CIA, among others, have been trying to kill us. Even Ford was afraid of them. We’re on our own—and we must do something, now.”

  “Getting to Crow means traversing the Ripp Island tidal bore and then three miles of open water,” said her father. “We’ll never make it in this storm.”

  “We’ve got to make it.”

  “And once we’re there,” Jackie continued, “we’re going to waltz in there and say, ‘Hey, can we borrow your Earth Station to make a call to aliens on Mars?’ ”

  “We’ll force them, if need be.”

  “With what? A boat hook?”

  Abbey stared at her. “Jackie, you don’t get it, do you? The Earth is under attack. We may be the only ones who know it.”

  “Hell with this,” said Jackie. “Let’s take a vote.” She glanced at Straw. “What do you say? I’m for going to Vinalhaven.”

  Abbey looked at her father, his pale eyes red, his beard dripping water. He stared back at her. “Abbey, you sure about this?”

  “Not completely.”

  “It’s more like an educated guess, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “It sounds crazy.”

  “I know it does. But it isn’t. Please, Dad, trust me—just this once.”

  He was silent for a long time, and then he nodded and turned to Jackie. “We’re going to Crow Island. Jackie, I want you as spotter. Abbey, you navigate. I’ll take the helm.”

  90

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Straw thrust the throttle forward, spun the helm, and headed the boat into the storm. “Hold on,” he said.

  As soon as they came out of the lee of Devil’s Limb, the boat was enveloped in the roar of breaking water, sheets of rain slamming into the windows, spume flying through the air. The waves mounted up, violent chop riding bigger waves which themselves rode on deep and terrifying swells that marched along in a regular cadence, their breaking crests swept back by the hurricane-force winds.

  The wind had shifted from the east and now the waves were coming on their stern quarter, pushing the boat forward and sideways. Her father fought the screw-turn motion of it, speeding up and slowing down. Each comber rose under the boat, throwing its nose forward, steeper and steeper, as her father gunned the engine and tried to keep the breaking water from pushing the stern under. As soon as the wave passed, the boat would tip back, bow rising into the air, and it would subside into the trough of the following wave. The air would fall into eerie silence for a moment in the lee of the trough, and then a wave would tilt them up again, lifting them into the gale. Under her father’s expert seamanship the boat seemed to fall into a rhythm, its predictability bringing a small sense of reassurance. Abbey watched their progress across the bay, and finally, when they entered the protected waters of the Muscle Ridge channel, the sea subsided dramatically.

  “Abbey,” said her father, “check the forward bilge. I’m getting almost continuous bilge pump action here.”

  “Right.”

  She climbed down the stairs into the cabin and undogged the hatch, peering in with a flashlight. She could see water sloshing about. Probing with the light, she saw the water was well above the automatic bilge pump switch.

  Leaning in farther, she shone the beam into the murky water, then reached down into it, feeling along the inside curve of the hull. Her fingers located a crack and she could feel the flow of water coming in. It wasn’t a wide crack but it was long, and what was worse, the corkscrew motion of the boat was moving the two pieces on either side, grinding them against each other, slowly but surely opening it up. The water level was increasing in the bilge, despite the pump working full time.

  She came back up. “The water’s coming in faster than the pump can pump it out,” she said.

  “You and Jackie form a bucket brigade.”

  Abbey pulled a plastic bucket out from under the sink. Jackie positioned herself at the cabin door, while Abbey dipped it into the bilge and handed it to Jackie, who tossed the water overboard. It was exhausting, cramped work. The bilgewater had engine oil and diesel fuel in it, and soon they were both covered and stinking with it. But they seemed to have turned the corner: slowly but surely the water level was dropping. Soon the long crack came into view.

  “Get me some of that waterproof marine gaffing tape,” Abbey said.

  Jackie handed her the roll and she pulled off a strip. Leaning into the rocking bilge, stinking with fuel and oil, Abbey wiped the fiberglass clean with a rag. Then she taped the crack, horizontally and vertically, adding several layers and pressing down. It seemed to hold. The bilge pump, going full bore, now was able to draw down the water on its own, without the help of their bucket brigade.

  Jackie called down to her, “Abbey, your father wants you on deck. We’re heading into the rip.”

  Abbey climbed up the stairs into the pilothouse. They were out of the channel and the seas were mounting up again. Ahead, Abbey could see a stretch of whitecaps where the rip current began that gave Ripp Island its name, churning along the northern reefs. It was a classic cross tide, the flow running against the prevailing wind and seas, creating massive standing waves, whirl pools, and a
brutal chop.

  “Hang on,” said her father, increasing speed. As the boat hit the current, it slowed down and her father continued to throttle up to counteract the current. The sea was pushing the stern and the current wanted to turn the Marea II by the bow, giving the boat a fierce and unpredictable motion which her father struggled to control, throwing the wheel from one side to the other, heavy chop bursting over the bow and washing hard across the foredeck, while swells battered the stern, sending water boiling in through the scuppers. The boat shuddered under the twisting strain, the booming sound of water hammering the hull in two directions.

  Silently, her father remained at the wheel, the faint light from the electronics bathing his tense face in a ghastly greenish glow, his muscular arms working the wheel. It was a losing battle. The water erupting into the stern couldn’t clear out of the scuppers, each wave breaking over the foredeck piling more water into the stern cockpit.

  “Jesus, I think we’re swamping,” Jackie said, heading for the stern with a bucket.

  “Get back in here!” Straw said. “You’ll be washed overboard!”

  The engine roared, straining against the increase in weight, the boat shuddering and struggling in the sea. Abbey could hear the grinding and scraping of the cracked hull. It didn’t sound good.

  She ducked down the stairs into the cabin.

  Undogging the hatch, she saw the crack had opened up again, worse than ever, seawater pouring in. She grabbed the tape and peeled off a strip, trying to affix it to the crack, but it was underwater again and the previous piece had pulled loose. The heavy flow of water coming in prevented any attempt to cover it.

  “Get the bucket brigade going!” her father cried.

  “It’s coming in too fast!”

  “Then shift the forward bilge pump aft! Jackie! Get to it!”

  Jackie ducked down into the forward hatch and emerged a moment later with the pump, a roll of hose, and some wires.

  “Cut the hose and wires,” said her father. “Hardwire it straight to a battery and reclamp, run the hose out a porthole.”

  “Right.”

  The boat boomed and groaned through the seas while they worked furiously. In five minutes they were done, the outflow hose pushed out a porthole.

  The pumps hummed. The rising water in the bilge held steady and even began to drop.

  “It’s working!” Jackie yelled, giving Abbey a high five.

  At that moment a huge wave slammed the hull with a deep thunderous boom and Abbey heard a crack! Suddenly the water in the bilge was boiling in, a cascade of air bubbles coming up.

  “Oh my God.”

  Abbey watched in horror as the water gushed and swirled up, within moments spilling over the hatch and flooding the cabin.

  “Dog the hatch!” Jackie screamed.

  Abbey slammed the hatch into place and jerked around the levers as water came squirting up around the edges, and in a moment it was sealed. But the remedy was only temporary. The bulkheads, run through by cables and hoses, were not watertight and Abbey could hear the roar of water coming into the engine compartment.

  “On deck!” she heard her father yell.

  They scrambled up.

  “Dad!” She scrambled up. “We’re sinking—”

  “Get on your life preservers. Now. As soon as that water tops the forward bulkheads, we’re DIW.”

  Trying to build as much forward momentum as possible, he shoved the throttle to the console. The boat roared past Ripp Island and Abbey got a glimpse of the lights in the admiral’s house flickering dimly through massive curtains of rain. Even with the engine at peak rpms the boat was slowing rapidly and beginning to list. The engine struggled, roaring.

  “We’re sinking!” Jackie cried.

  A wave broke over the side, tilting the boat, and it remained cockeyed, dragging itself along, the heaviness of the incoming water straining the engine. Abbey glanced at the raging currents beyond, the massive breakers thundering on the rocky shore; they would not survive a sinking.

  Her father spun the wheel and pointed the boat straight toward the rocks of Ripp Island. Now the seas were bashing the boat on the beam, water erupting over the gunwales. A lash of sparks arced across the engine panel. With a loud pop the electronics went dark and the smell of fried insulation filled the wheel house. Simultaneously the engine coughed, jerked, and died. Steam came rushing up from the engine compartment, bringing with it the stench of oil and diesel. The boat slid along, propelled more by current than momentum, the waves breaking over the sides. Lightning flashed and there was a roar of thunder.

  The boat swung toward the pounding surf, the combers pushing it toward the line of white.

  “You two, get in the bow and get ready to jump!” her father cried.

  The boat, now dead in the water, swung past the tail of the rip current and another rising breaker caught it by the stern and carried it toward the maelstrom.

  “Go!”

  Clinging to handholds and the rail, Abbey and Jackie went forward. The surf in front of them roared like a hundred lions, a great boiling mass of white, with great jets of spray leaping ten, twenty feet into the air. Her father stayed in the wheel house, at the wheel, trying to keep the boat aligned.

  “I can’t do it,” Jackie said, staring forward.

  “No choice.”

  Another massive, breaking wave caught the stern and carried the boat forward, forward; as the curler thundered down upon them, the boat was propelled into the frothing surf. A massive, jarring crunch, almost like an explosion, shook the boat as they struck the rocks. But the deck held and the next wave lifted the boat and carried it past the worst of the breaking sea. It came down with another hideous crash, breaking its back, the deck suddenly askew.

  “Now!” came the roar of her father’s voice.

  They both leapt into the swirling water, scrambled for a footing. A wave came blasting over the Marea II, but the boat itself absorbed the brunt of the force, giving them just enough time to pull themselves up.

  “Dad!” Abbey screamed. It was pitch black and she couldn’t see anything except the vague gray shape of the boat. “Dad!”

  “Get up here!” Jackie cried.

  Abbey scrambled up through the boulders, half-swimming, half-slipping in the surf, and in a moment she made it to the top of a sloping rock. She saw a shape in the water, an arm, and her father rose from the breakers, his arm wrapped around a rock.

  “Dad!” Abbey scrambled down and seized his arm, helping to pull him to safety. They retreated up the rocks and into a small meadow at the shoreline, breathing hard from the effort. For a moment they watched in shocked silence as the Marea II, lifted high on the rocks, virtually split in half. The two pieces were sucked back out, wallowing and turning in the boiling sea, cushions and trash dancing on the waves. She glanced at her father’s face, turned toward his wrecked boat, but the expression was unreadable.

  He glanced away. “Everyone okay?”

  They nodded. It was a miracle they had all survived.

  “Now what?” said Jackie, wringing out her hair.

  Abbey looked around. The shingled mansion stood above the trees, upper-story windows glowing with light. Across the meadow, through a screen of trees, she could see the jetty and the island’s cove, where a large white yacht was moored in a sheltered corner.

  Jackie followed her eye. “Oh, no,” she said. “No way.”

  “We’ve got to do it,” said Abbey. “We’ve got to try. That alien machine is trying to get our attention, it wants to hear from us, and God knows what it’ll do if it doesn’t.”

  Her father rose to his feet. “All right then. We’re taking the yacht.”

  Rising, they crossed the meadow to the cove. The wind was lashing the treetops and the house stood, gaunt and tall, in the gusting rain. They walked to the end of the pier. A dinghy had been pulled up on the floating dock; they pushed it back in the water and climbed in. Her father took the oars and rowed, putting all his weight into i
t. The dinghy ploughed across the choppy cove, and in a moment they’d drawn up to the yacht’s swim platform. He jumped out and held the dinghy, hauling the others out. The pilothouse was unlocked.

  The keys were not in the ignition slots. They began searching and Jackie picked up a canvas bag and dumped it on the chart table. Money, tools, a whisky flask, and keys tumbled out.

  “Look here,” said Jackie with a grin.

  Her father took the helm, ran his hand down the engine panel turning on circuit breakers; he checked the fuel and oil levels and stuck the keys into the ignition slots, firing up each engine in turn.

  The engines answered with a deep-throated rumble.

  Abbey saw the flicker of lights out on the pier. A hundred yards away, people were running down the pier, shouting and gesturing. The dock lights blazed on, turning the harbor as bright as day. A gunshot sounded.

  “Cast off!” Straw cried.

  91

  The yacht was longer and heavier than the Marea II, which made it considerably more seaworthy. The boat rounded the jetty, her father at the helm, doggedly ploughing into the heavy seas. Lightning flickered in the heavy rain and the roll of thunder mingled with the roar of the wind and rumble of the waves. The VHF radio sputtered to life and an unintelligible but clearly enraged voice crackled over it.

  Her father turned it off.

  The boat slammed through a wave, plunging down into the next trough. Abbey felt her heart up in her throat.

  “Jackie, get the electronics working,” said Straw, gesturing at the wall of dark screens.

  Abbey said, “I’ll search the boat for weapons.”

  “Weapons?” Jackie asked.

  “We want to take over the Earth Station,” said Abbey. “We’re going to need a weapon.”

  “Can’t we just explain?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Abbey tried to open the door to the cabin but it was locked. She raised her foot and gave it a kick, then another. The flimsy door popped open. She felt her way down the stairs, hanging on to the rails, and turned on the lights.