by Tom Abrahams
She gripped the edges of the lectern. “That, however, is not why you’re here,” she said. “You are here because another, more powerful CME is on its way. Whatever is left of our modern infrastructure—communication satellites, power-generating plants, oil and gas pipelines, cable television, the Internet, water treatment plants—are all going to be gone.”
She paused and allowed the hundreds in the room to squeal, cry out, moan, protest, or however it was the previously uninitiated chose to cope with the news. For more than five minutes, Chandra watched self-pity consume the dining room. The woman on the riser stood icily with her hands wrapped around the lectern’s Lucite edges until the rumble subsided.
“The United States military has deployed teams across the country, choosing strategic spots to facilitate traffic, contain potential threats, and prolong peace as long as possible. This is primarily to allow for the safe travel of others, like you, to other regional facilities like this one. At a point after the second CME hits Earth, they will retreat to secure facilities and leave the surviving masses up top to fend for themselves.”
The woman kept talking, informing those assembled of things to come, but Chandra stopped listening. He was focused on six words she’d said that changed everything.
Other regional facilities like this one.
The implications of those six words were unfathomable to Chandra. Not only had the government successfully, and secretly, been planning for doomsday with a ridiculously hi-tech underground facility bent on saving mankind from itself, but it had done it in multiple places. Instead of preparing to provide for all of its three hundred million citizens, it had created a network of bunkers across the country designed to save only a fraction of the populace. As Treadgold had already explained to him, the CME wasn’t a reason to escape underground and thin the herd. It was an excuse. It was an opportunity.
Chandra was numb, as if he were floating above himself and looking down at the collection of survivors who’d been afforded a golden ticket into a life-saving bunker. As he floated higher, he wondered if that ticket was in fact golden or if it was another mineral so commonly found in the mines dug deep into rocks and mountains called iron pyrite.
Fool’s gold.
He was determined to find out and, if need be, get out as quickly as he possibly could.
CHAPTER 30
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
74 DAYS, 14 HOURS, 51 MINUTES, 08 SECONDS
RED DEER, ALBERTA, CANADA
Steve Kremer looked out across the thin layer of snow that covered the grass runway. Dark, frozen blades poked out from beneath the white, giving the landscape the appearance of a stubble chin in need of a shave. The sky was cloudless and a pastel shade of purple. The aurora was fading as the sun peeked over the horizon. It was a new day.
He patted the fuselage of the fueled RV-8 with his hand.
“You’ve got somebody on your side,” he said to Clayton. “God, the Holy Ghost, somebody.”
Clayton was sitting in the plane’s cockpit with the canopy open. He was starting his preflight checklist. The operating handbook was on his lap. He confirmed the master switch was on and the prop control was pulled forward. He flipped on the fuel pump, counted to two, and turned it off.
“Why do you say that?” he asked. He rubbed his sore jaw and looked over at Steve.
Steve shrugged and pointed skyward. “I’m thinking about all of the things that had to go right for you to survive up there and then make it down here. Then we find you a plane that still works and a way to fuel it up.”
Clayton smiled. “You’re the somebody. Steve,” he said, “if it weren’t for you, I’d be a huge steaming pile of wolf crap right now.”
Steve squeezed his face in disgust. “Two things, Clayton. One, you know how to paint a picture, that’s for sure. And two, you’d be a frozen pile of wolf crap.”
The men laughed. Despite only having just met, there was an ease between them as if they’d known each other for years.
Clayton cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew on them. He flexed his stiff fingers. He opened the throttle by one eighth and put the brakes on hold.
“You’re a saint,” Clayton said. “I mean, people like you don’t exist, Steve. You’ve risked your life, spent precious fuel, given up a part of your garden. I feel guilty, like I’ve taken advantage of you. I’ve got nothing to offer in return.”
Steve stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked wistfully at Clayton. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about,” he said. “I did all of this because I wanted to do it. How often does a guy like me get to be useful to an astronaut, eh? Plus I got to kill a wolf with a Russian axe pistol and steal a plane. That’s some stuff out of an adventure novel, right there. You ever read Murray McDonald’s stuff?”
Clayton stretched his injured leg in the cockpit, easing the discomfort. “The writer?”
“Yeah, the novelist,” said Steve. “He writes action thrillers. The God Complex, Traitor, Scion. All really good. He’s also got this clever series about an EMP and a government conspiracy. Lots of adventure. I feel like a guy in one of his books. I owe you the thank you.”
Clayton started to respond but hesitated and rubbed his jaw again. He gripped the sides of the cockpit and hoisted himself out of the plane. He landed on the snow with a crunch and stepped over to Steve. He put his hand on his shoulder and then drew the Canadian toward him for a bear hug. He slapped Steve on the back.
Clayton pulled away. “You’re better than an action hero, Steve. You’re real. And I did leave you one of the survival packs,” he said. “It’s got a lot of good stuff in it. Some extra food, some first aid, that kind of stuff. I know it’s not adequate compensation, regardless of what you say. It’s something though.”
“I appreciate it,” he said. “You didn’t have to give me anything.”
“If Tim Horton’s was open, I’d buy you a cup of coffee too,” Clayton said with a smile.
“I’d take you up on it, eh?” said Steve. “You gotta go. The weather’s probably as good as it’s going to get. I checked the runway. The snow here’s not too bad. You should have plenty of traction. Plus, I took a huge jug of windshield washer fluid I had in the house and doused the wings with it. No need to worry about freezing.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“Me?” Steve said, chuckling. “Of course, I’ve been alone for a long time, Clayton. I’m used to it. It was nice having you around for a couple days, but I’ll admit you’re cramping my style.”
Clayton smirked. “Funny.”
The men shook hands one more time and Clayton climbed back into the cockpit. He strapped in and reached over his head to close the canopy. He was ready to go.
After turning the ignition to start and checking the oil pressure, he idled the engine at a thousand RPMs. The avionics master was on, the autopilot switch was on, and the flaps were up. He checked the flap switch. It was off.
He throttled up to 1700 RPM and began taxiing out to the strip, which was essentially a wide clearing with enough distance for him to gain speed and take off. The engine instruments all looked good as he advanced the RV and centered the aircraft on the runway.
Clayton rechecked the canopy and made sure it was locked. He looked back over his shoulder and found Steve standing alone in the snow, his hands on his hips. Clayton lingered for a moment. The chances of seeing Steve again anytime soon, if ever, were slim to none. The man had not only saved his life, he’d provided for a respectful resting place for Ben Greenwood and Boris Voin. Clayton checked a North American map he’d found tacked to a wall in the hangar. He’d scribbled Steve’s name, address, cell phone, and HAM radio call sign on the Pacific Ocean in black Sharpie. If things ever returned to normal, he’d know how to find him and thank him properly. He could even introduce him to Jackie and the kids.
Clayton looked straight ahead and throttled up, accelerating across the near-frozen field until he’d reached t
he right speed and he pulled back on the stick. Gravity pushed him back against the seat. It wasn’t quite the rush of a Russian rocket lifting off for the International Space Station, but it was equally as exciting. He couldn’t help but smile as he cleared the end of the runway and the tall, snow-dusted evergreens clustered at the end of the field.
He quickly tilted the controls to the left and then back to the right, tipping his hat to Steve, and climbed rapidly, heading south. He adjusted his direction slightly, hitting more of a southeastern line as the RV-8 whirred skyward. He’d already figured he could fly at eleven thousand five hundred feet. That was the target. He couldn’t go above twelve and a half without oxygen.
Clayton climbed higher and higher, watching the altimeter reflect the changing altitude. For the first time since the alarm sounded in the ISS cupola, he felt in control.
He loosened his grip on the controls and slid his hips forward, finding a comfortable spot in the seat. He could travel about seven hundred and fifty miles or so without any fuel problems. Much more than that and he’d run into serious issues. Given that the trip to Houston was thirty-five hundred miles, give or take, he’d need to stop four times and refuel. Based on maps and what he remembered from some of the trips he and his dad had taken, he’d circled the areas he was most likely to find a good spot to land and find more fuel.
He had an extra twenty gallons in the cans he’d loaded into the front and aft storage compartments, which bought him a little leeway. Those were emergency supplies though, and he’d only use those if his first landing choice for each stop didn’t have access to fuel.
To be conservative, his first circle was Billings, Montana. It was roughly six hundred miles from Red Deer and home to Billings Logan International Airport. Chances were good it had a general aviation component. It was in Yellowstone County and Clayton figured there were plenty of rich adventurers who’d rather fly private than commercial to Big Sky Country. That meant he could probably find the needed 100LL Blue fuel required for the RV-8’s engine.
Once he reached altitude, he’d cruise at two hundred ten miles per hour. That gave him a three-hour flight to the first stop. It was a good plan and it worked.
Until it didn’t.
MISSION ELAPSED TIME
74 DAYS, 21 HOURS, 21 MINUTES, 02 SECONDS
Clayton was singing The Gourds’ country version of Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” loudly enough he could almost hear it over the vibrating hum of the RV-8’s four-cylinder engine and the whir of the nose propeller. That is, he was singing the same four lines over and over again while pretending to play the drum with one hand. He was at eleven thousand four hundred and eighty feet. He was cruising at more than two hundred miles per hour. The sky was clear. There were virtually no clouds, aside from the occasional thin wisp of vapor, and he was more than a thousand miles into his journey from Red Deer. Clayton was closer to his home, to Jackie, and to the kids than he’d been in seventy-five days.
Billings had been the perfect place to stop. He’d identified the airport without any problems given the excellent visibility, and he’d landed the aircraft cleanly despite a gusty crosswind. It was bumpy, but he’d managed it and eased the aircraft onto the runway, applying more than enough force to the brakes for a solid landing and stop.
As long as the number of landings equaled the number of takeoffs, then all was good.
He’d taxied for a few minutes, searching the buildings that lined the tarmac. He’d found a flight school called Aviation Adventures at the southwestern edge of the north-south taxiway. Next to it was an elevated tank similar to the ones he’d used in Red Deer. Unlike the Canadian crop duster’s strip, however, which relied on the gravity tanks as the primary source of fuel, the single tank adjacent to Aviation Adventures appeared to be the emergency supply.
“I think this qualifies as an emergency,” he said to himself as he’d attached the grounding cable to the aircraft and uncapped the tanks in each wing. He’d filled each until he could see the fuel rise to a level about one inch from the top and recapped the tanks. He’d be good for another seven hundred and fifty miles.
His plan, however, didn’t take him quite that far on the next leg. He’d traced his finger along the map from the circle around Billings to the one he’d drawn around Fort Collins, Colorado, and the Fort Collins-Loveland Regional Airport.
Under normal circumstances, the FBO there, JetCenter, operated twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. He’d been there with his dad years earlier. They’d gone to see Colorado State play the University of Florida in football, and he remembered the FBO having elevated fuel tanks. He also remembered the Gators winning handily in a rare nonconference game outside the sunshine state.
Clayton thought about that game as he neared Colorado. He stopped singing and grew quiet. The engine whir and the icy wind whistling against the canopy faded into white noise as he recalled sitting in the stands with his dad. They’d had too much fun. He missed his father.
He also missed his own son, Chris. He’d not done enough for the boy. He hadn’t taken him to far-flung college football games or teed it up on a tough par three. He hadn’t taken him to enough late night movies and shared a tub of greasy popcorn doused with fake theater butter. Now the chances to do those things were gone. There’d be no college football next fall, time for golf, or a midnight showing at the Cinemark Hollywood or NASA Dollar Eight. He’d taken Chris camping a few times, but as far as he could remember, Rick Walsh had taken him more often.
That was one of Jackie’s more frequent complaints. She could understand his commitment to work, the endless hours required for his mission. Their son could not, she’d told him countless times. He couldn’t rationalize his father’s absence. He only knew a seat was empty at the dinner table and a ticket to the latest Star Wars movie went unused.
Clayton had blown her off. “This is temporary,” he’d told her. “He gets that. When I get back, I’ll have plenty of time.”
Plenty of time.
Clayton checked his altitude. He was steady at eleven thousand four hundred eighty feet, but he felt himself sinking.
If only he could erase what he’d done, what he’d missed, and start again. If he had it to do over, he never would have signed up to be a candidate. He’d have stayed with his boring, but lucrative job and spent more time with his family. He’d have taken Chris to Rockets basketball games. He’d have spent weekends binge-watching old seasons of Game of Thrones with Marie. He’d have listened to his wife. More than anything he would have listened to Jackie.
The controls rattled in his hand as he hit minor turbulence. It wasn’t much, but it was enough of a bump to jolt him from his lamentations and force him to focus on the flight. He checked the flight timer conveniently installed on the instrument panel and estimated he was getting close enough to Fort Collins he should lower his altitude.
He dropped to eleven thousand feet and then ten five. The plane responded to his fluid commands, the nose dropping on his initial descent. He looked out in front of him at the snowy jagged peaks of the Rockies extending in all directions. Even from his altitude he didn’t think they were as impressive as those he’d seen in Canada. That was another point for the Canucks. There was hockey, John Candy, Ryan Reynolds, Maple cookies, CanadaArm2, Steve Kremer, and the majesty of the mountains in Alberta. Wolves, glaciers, and Nickelback were still negatives.
He checked the altimeter. It read ten thousand feet.
What was it about Nickelback that was so offensive? Clayton wondered. They were talented musicians. They had a distinctive sound. They had several hit singles. They weren’t the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, or even The White Stripes, but it wasn’t like they were Creed either. Why were they the butt of jokes?
He didn’t have a chance to figure it out.
The nose pitched sharply downward and the only sound Clayton could hear was the wind screaming against the canopy. The electronic instrument panel went dark. The engine was dead. The propeller spun
but acted as a large speed brake. Clayton’s stomach jumped and the belt straps dug deep into his shoulders to keep him in his seat.
In the instant after the engine failure, as Clayton grappled with the reality of his falling plane, the sky shifted colors to a deep red that bathed the cockpit in an odd, undulating light that only heightened the sense of urgency. It was as if an alert were sounded on a submarine as a torpedo rushed toward it.
For a split second, Clayton took his eyes from the black instrument panel and looked up through the clear canopy at the sky above him. It was awash with an aurora. He knew immediately what had happened. Another CME.
Avoiding panic, Clayton massaged the flight controls and raised the nose of the aircraft to a more tenable position. He was still on course, but he’d have no power to control where exactly he landed. Or crashed. He’d have to do his best to glide the RV-8 to the ground, using the analog controls still at his disposal.
Blooms of sweat dripped into his eyes. His back was suddenly cold and damp. His hand was slippery on the control stick between his knees. He swallowed hard, his eyes sweeping the terrain some seven to eight thousand feet below him. Everything was unacceptable; snow and thick evergreen forests and jagged mountains. There was nowhere to land. He fought the aircraft to level the nose as much as he could to extend his flight. He knew, without the engines, the altitude would plummet enough without aiding the descent.
The aircraft shuddered and dropped horizontally. Clayton pulled back gently, working the aerodynamics of the home-built aircraft as much as he could. As far as he could tell, the propeller helped maintain some speed, but he’d slowed the aircraft significantly. The faster he traveled, the more quickly he’d hit the ground. He guessed his glide speed was about half of his cruising speed. The plane was probably moving at about one hundred miles an hour, or eighty-five knots.
