Jeremy Robinson

FROM ABOVE

A Novella

When my arm came off, I knew something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the pain, because there wasn’t any, it was the way it detached from my body—as though a small portion of the world was suddenly freed from the pull of Earth’s gravity. It rose up, cut clean, still clinging to my C130 Magnum, and disintegrated, piece by piece until nothing was left. But not just my arm; a perfect circle of the warehouse was carved out as if by a giant, invisible cookie cutter. Everything within the warehouse and the ground beneath that was inside the affected radius simply floated free and then disappeared—atomized. There was no explosion, no twisting of metal or bursting of pipes, it happened as silent as a mouse fart and was over in seconds.

As far as I could tell, I was standing at the edge of ground zero. Another foot forward and I would have joined the three perps I had cornered in the warehouse. Poor bastards were either in deeper than The Authority thought, or they did something to really piss off God.

I looked up and saw the sky; at least it looked clear during the day. A hole, fifty feet wide had been carved into the roof of the warehouse—one of several warehouses I had been checking for Dretch production. Being a narc wasn’t my idea of important police work, but some of the hot shots up-town didn’t like my style. Of course, that would all change now.

Peering down into the hole, created by whatever invisible force was at work, I came to the realization that this was going to be a big case, maybe the biggest ever. And with me as the only survivor, I’d be back in business.

A tingling in my arm tore my attention away from the gaping hole and thoughts of the future. A stump wiggled below my shoulder. I swore I could still feel my arm moving, but the smell of burnt flesh confirmed my suspicions. Whatever had taken my arm had also cauterized the stump, and it happened so fast that my nervous system didn’t even register the catastrophic wound. What was worse, my leathers were ruined.

I decided that I’d find out who took my arm and make sure they paid for what they did. At the very least, they could buy me a new Tac-suit.

That was a year ago. Shit.

Sure, I’m up-town. I’ve got a new synthetic limb that puts my old arm to shame. But I had to buy my own damn new Tac-suit, and I’m no closer to finding out who put a mile-deep hole in the Earth. The tech-boys tell me it came from an object in orbit, which makes finding the source near impossible. Back in the twentieth century, the human race started putting things in space. Three thousand years later and we haven’t stopped. At night it’s impossible to tell what’s a star and what’s some yuppie’s space-winni.

A layer of crap, a half mile thick, surrounds the Earth on all sides and bulges at the middle, like the rings of Saturn. And with almost as many people living up there as there are down here, finding out who or what owes me for this Tac-suit is near impossible. The fact that only three wanted felons and my arm were taken makes this case a low priority. Until someone decides to take another potshot at the Earth again, I’m grounded. Not that I’m complaining. My new partner is a fox.

“You on Dretch or something, Priest? Watch the freakin lanes.”

Rehna has a way with words that I always enjoy.

I twist the wheel and dodge some old lady driving way too slow for air-trans. She should have stayed on the ground with the rest of the simps. Damn people, afraid of technology. When the human race took to the skies en masse it gave us room to breathe and new freedoms that led to a technological renaissance that lasted for thousands of years. Cities grew up, thousands of feet tall. Vehicles took to the air, traveling faster and safer. Life sped up. Got better.

But not everyone took to the air. Some, afraid of change, stayed on the ground—living slow, unproductive lives; hugging trees, driving cars with wheels and sniffing the damn daisies. Aren’t many simps left now-a-days. Good thing too.

“Daydreaming again?” Rehna asks me with a smirk.

“Not about you, so don’t get your hopes up.” She’s gonna love that.

“Do you want me to land and beat you like a school girl?” Her face is turning red. She’s either embarrassed or about to shoot me. I decide to find out.

“Keep talking. I think I’m fallin in love.”

“That’s it.” She shoves me to the side and I see her take the wheel, but it doesn’t quite register in time to stop what happens next. We’re hurtling straight for the ground. My instincts tell me to take the wheel back, to scream, but I know Rehna. She’s not suicidal.

Our air-trans mobile unit comes to a stop five feet above the ground, face down. If it were a civilian unit we’d be a smudge on the pavement, but these sleek new mobile units can stop on a dime and cruise at nearly the speed of sound. It’s sleek and smooth, the way I like my women, but I can’t say I like the light blue color. Kind of Nancy if you ask me.

The hatch opens and I fall five feet onto the pavement. She knew I wouldn’t be wearing my belt. I hear Rehna’s boots hit the pavement behind me. A second later I hear the hum of her C130 warming up. We have a winner. She’s gonna shoot me. Now I know I’m falling in love.

“On your feet,” Rehna tells me.

I stand and turn to face her; damn she looks hot in a Tac-suit. I gotta remember to thank the man who designed them. They’re projectile proof, which is nice, as most perps can’t afford C130s. In a pinch can even protect the wearer from the depths of the ocean or the vacuum of space. Not that I’ve had occasion to test either claim. The point is, in most cases, they’re nearly indestructible. But the hot laser Rehna’s packing will cut through me like a slab of lard. I admire the curves of her body, which are accentuated by the tightness of the black Tac-suit. Her belt hangs loose on her hip…My eyes linger.

“Ugh. That’s it,” Rehna says. She’s losing patience with me. Her C130 falls to the ground. Her belt falls next. This is getting interesting.

Rehna swings high and then low, missing both times. She’s fast, I’ll give her that. But I’ve got ten years experience on her, and I can scan her like an unsecured porn server.

“This is stupid,” I say, but I don’t think it goes through.

I duck two more swings and a third catches my arm. Too bad for her, she picked the wrong arm. Cling! My synthetic arm is hard as steel, and she hit it with enough force to knock out a Rhino. Her thick glove keeps her fingers from shattering, and she lets out little more than a stifled grunt. She’s tougher than I thought. Her fist comes at me from the other side. I feel a breeze on my chin as her knuckles skim past my face. Too close.

I step back and prepare to end a fight that should have never begun. I told The Authority adding women to up-town was a bad idea. Of course, they didn’t listen and now I have to teach Rehna a lesson. One punch to the side should do. Don’t want to ruin her pretty face.

As I clench the fist in my human arm, a slight aberration in my vision catches my attention. My memory surges back to the warehouse. I saw the same distortion right before I lost my arm. My eyes track up. A wavering visual phenomenon, like heat rising from hot pavement, cuts straight through the center of a ten thousand foot behemoth, constructed a thousand years ago.

Whack! My check burns with pain after Rehna’s punch connects. But my eyes don’t leave the sky. Rehna must have noticed, because I don’t feel a second punch—good thing too, the first almost broke my jaw. What a woman.

Then it happens. Just like before. Gravity ceases to exist. Half of the behemoth and what looks like miles of other buildings come loose and float toward the sky, turning to dust as they move. Then it’s over.

Down the street, I see a hole like the Grand Canyon, but I can’t see the other side. It’s beyond the horizon. Then I hear the screams; folks panicking, shrieking in fear. We kick into gear and head for the mobile unit. Rehna’s in and buckled up in seconds, but two nearby noises catch my attention. Both are whiny—one from above, one from below. I turn to the second and see a little girl, the daughter of some simp probably, but still just a kid.

“Priest, move it! The whole thing’s comin down!” Rehna sounds panicked. That’s not good.

I look up and see what remains of the behemoth begin to crumble. I run for the girl, arms stretched out. The mobile unit’s engines are loud behind me. Rehna’s on the ball.

The girl must sense my urgency because she’s running for me now. I scoop her up like a football and look over my shoulder. Rehna’s coming on fast. Thank God she left the hatch open. This is going to be close.

I toss the girl back, and she lands hard in my seat. Probably hurt like hell, but at least she’ll live. Can’t say the same for me though. Let’s hope Rehna’s reading my mind and doesn’t want to kill me.

The mobile unit is on my heels when I jump into the air. I feel the closed hatch sliding beneath me, then the hard metal of the rear casing. I dig my mechanical fingers into the metallic roof and feel a tug as Rehna hits the accelerator, making a beeline for the edge of the city.

Like a falling redwood, the solid building begins to topple above my head, its shadow looming and blocking out the sun. My face begins to sting as dust moving past at one hundred fifty miles-per-hour scours my skin. Rehna must be able to see what I’m seeing. We have ten thousand feet of twisting metal and cement to outrun. As we hit the two hundred mile-an-hour mark, I think about how much of a bitch paper work for today is going to be back at up-town. Then I remember there might not be an up-town left.

We hit four hundred miles an hour, and I’m not thinking anything. My face is burning like its being held against an open flame, and the skin stitched to my synth-arm feels like it’s going to tear off. The wind is so loud in my ears I don’t hear the explosion as the building hits the ground behind us, leveling miles of city blocks and destroying several other buildings.

The mobile unit slows to a stop somewhere outside of the city. I don’t know where, wasn’t really paying attention. My forward momentum carries me over the roof and I slide across the hatch, landing on the pavement.

I look up and see Rehna leaning down above me. “You still alive, Priest?”

“Been worse. Help me up.”

I stand to my feet and see my reflection in the mobile unit’s slick paint job. “Damn.”

“What is it?” Rehna asks me.

I look at my Tac-suit, torn and shredded on my body, hanging like a limp corpse. “Now they owe me two Tac-suits.”

Rehna smiles.

With most of up-town reduced to atoms there isn’t anyone left to report to. Hell, I might be the highest ranking cop in town. All city-bound lines of communication are inoperable, so I turn to the next best source of information. The dashboard sat-link blinks on and is instantly filled with the image of a screaming woman. She appears to be reporting on the wave of destruction that just ravaged my city, but she’s incoherent. Useless.

“Channels one through fifty, news filter priority one.” The sat-link responds to my voice like an obedient dog, filling the screen with twenty three thumbnail feeds. I scan the images and listen to the mix of voices.

“English only.” One by one, images disappear. Only five remain when it’s done. Three screens show women reporters crying their guts out. Another displays a man wailing like a stuck pig—embarrassing. The fifth shows an aerial shot of the carnage, something had carved a clean, perfectly round hole in the center of the city, miles wide and countless fathoms deep. Millions of lives have been lost.

Rehna gasps. “My God.”

Women…

The kid is sitting in Rehna’s lap, staring intently at the screen, eyes wide. Kid’s taking it all in stride. Probably not old enough to be an emotional wreck yet.

“Track five, audio only. Enlarge.” The image of the destruction fills the screen.

The voice of a reporter speaks calmly over the feed. “Once again, as it did a year ago, a sinister force from orbit has struck the Earth. The source of the devastation is still unknown and with The Authority headquarters destroyed, chances are, we will never know where and when this evil force might strike again. Scientists studying the clean-cut hole of last year’s attack could not identify what kind of weapon was used, only that it is far more advanced than anything in the World District’s arsenal. Could technology finally be turning on—”

Before I have time to react, the kid reaches out and messes with the sat-link controls. We lose the feed.

“What the hell, kid? Don’t touch this shit,” I say, while attempting to readjust the controls.

“Move your damn hand,” the kid barks at me.

I stop and give her the coldest stare I can muster—sends most mutts running scared. But the kid just gives it back to me.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Well, it ain’t kid.”

I wait.

“Gawyn.”

“Well, Gawyn. I ain’t letting no simp mess with my mobile unit.”

“Good. Cause I ain’t no simp, old man.”

Old man? Kid’s looking to get a close up look at my knuckles talking like that. I clench my left fist. Then I feel a squeeze on my shoulder. Rehna’s glaring at me. “Let her play with the freakin sat-link, Priest.”

I smile. “There you go talking dirty to me again.”

Gawyn goes to work. Her fingers are a blur on the screen, working the controls masterfully, faster than I could even with the synth-arm. My eyes widen with every half second, cause that’s all it takes for her to access The Authority’s satellite mainframe. She’s no simp. She’s a damn cyber-genius.

“What are you doin, kid?”

“The anti-matter pulse came from orbit.”

“Anti-matter pulse?” Rehna’s as confused as I am.

“That’s just what I call it. I detected its energy field twenty minutes before the pulse. That’s how I got out of the target area in time, but just barely.”

“You can detect it?” I ask, knowing it’s a dumb question.

“Duh. Any kid with an old 40-Gig system and a sat-link could detect it. But you have to look for it. Auto detection won’t pick it up as more than a temporary heat-spike.”

“And you were looking for it?”

“Since last year.” The kid’s fingers continue across the controls. She breaches several protected servers and accesses classified surveillance systems. “It’s the most kick-ass weapon since the beginning of time.”

The kid looks me in the eyes. “You’re must be lucky or something. Missed you twice now.”

Rehna and I look at each other. “You know who I am?”

“Who doesn’t. Your wrinkly face was pasted to every sat-link transmission for a month… Of course, not everyone has been tracking you for the last year. You know, for all your research, you didn’t find much.”

I look the kid in the eyes and try not to blink. “You’ve been spying on me for a year?”

“It’s not like it’s hard, you know.” The kid smiles. I have one of the most secure systems in the city. She probably sees it as a playground. Damn kids today. “You’ve been trying to find out what happened that day…what took your arm, and your Tac-suit. You’re obsessed with Tac-suits.”

I’m losing patience. “Get to the point.”

“When I detected the heat spike, I came to find you. The anti-matter pulse cut the engines off my hyper-scooter. Almost got me too, and I crashed just outside the target area. That’s when I found you. I knew that you, more than anyone else, would take action once I told you what I know.”

I raise an eyebrow. It’s all I’m willing to give.

Gawyn taps one last button on the sat-link. A diagram of Earth orbit and every piece of space junk currently above the city blinks onto the screen. One of the objects is highlighted with a red circle.

“And this is?”

“How’d you ever become a cop?”

Kid’s a wise ass. I like her.

Gawyn rolls her neck and speaks quickly. “I figured that if the antimatter pulse fired on this city again that it was probably in a geosynchronous orbit above us.”

“Okay…”

“This cuts out bazillions of other possible suspect satellites.”

Rehna leans forward. “Meaning we’re left with the millions of orbiting objects currently over the city.

“Right, but not everything up there is geosynchronous and the fact that nothing in orbit was destroyed means that what we’re looking for is on the bottom layer of a half mile of junk.”

Damn kid is smart. Not even the tech-boys could have figured this out. Good thing too, now that they’re all dead.

“Now we’re left with only a few thousand targets.”

“And you’ve narrowed it down to one?” Rehna asks.

Gawyn nods.

“How?”

“It’s hot,” I say, finally catching up with the kid.

“Right, but not for long. It’s already cooling off.”

I activate the hatch and it seals down over us. “What are you doing?” Rehna asks.

“Buckle up,” I tell them.

Gawyn looks nervous. “I don’t have a seatbelt!”

I smile. “Better double up then.”

Rehna and Gawyn wrap a belt around the two of them, and I gun the throttle to the max, pulling more G’s than a Disney Universe shuttle pod. I aim for the sky, swerving in and out of airborne traffic—most of it fleeing the city. Three minutes later, we clear ten thousand feet and leave most of the traffic behind.

“Priest, what are you planning to do?” Rehna asks. I can tell she’s afraid of the answer. I try to go easy on her.

“Even been in space?” I ask.

Rehna and Gawyn stare at me blankly. The kid explodes, “Bring me back! Bring me back down!”

“I can’t,” I say as calmly as possible.

“Why not?” Gawyn shouts.

“Cause, kid, I might need you.”

Gawyn stares at me. I can feel her trying to gauge my seriousness. Her eyes narrow. “You’re right, old man. You do need me.”

“I hate to break it to you, Priest, but mobile units aren’t rated for space travel.” Rehna is trying to remain calm. I’m pretty sure that if the kid weren’t on her lap, she might fight me for the controls.

“Actually, that’s not entirely true. Up-town might not have let me change the color, but they did let me make a few modifications.” I can’t help but smile.

“Priest… What modifications?”

I respond by opening a panel next to my right knee. After flipping a switch, the mobile unit beings to shake as loud whirs and clacks emanate from the back. Sounds like we’re falling to pieces, but I know better. Rehna screams as we lose power and our ascent slows.

Just as our forward momentum ceases and gravity reclaims its pull on our mobile unit at twenty-five thousand feet, the secondary propulsion unit kicks in, slowly at first, but building in power with each passing nanosecond. Suddenly with a burst of speed, we’re flattened against our seats, skin stretching back as we enter Earth’s crowded orbit.

For the first time since I’ve joined the force, I’m wearing my seatbelt. Hard to drive in zero grav when you keep floating off the seat. The kid is having too much fun, working the sat-link upside down, drifting in the cabin. Rehna just looks mortified…or is it pissed? Kind of hard to tell with Gawyn spinning around between us.

“Which way, kid?”

“Gawyn. My name is Gawyn, old man.”

“Fine… Gawyn. Which way?”

“Well, Priest, straight-a-freakin-head.”

Through the windshield is a mass of floating objects. Some are satellites, serving some purpose to someone. Some are space-decks, orbiting apartment units for people afraid of gravity. The rest is crap—trash tossed into space by folks in the late twenty-first century when they ran out of room for their trash. They figured it would all just float aimlessly through space for all eternity. Dumb bastards didn’t count on picking it all back up a year later when they caught up with their own shit. The thought that this is only a year’s worth of trash makes me sick.

“Heat signature is faint, but we’re within fifty meters,” Gawyn says.

All eyes scan the debris field. Some of the trash separates and we enter a clearing, twenty meters wide, twenty tall. Strange.

I cut the gas and we drift forward, toward the center of the clearing, where a satellite floats alone. It’s big, the size of an air-bus. At its base, pointed toward the Earth is what appears to be a satellite dish attached to three metallic coils extending out like a solidified DNA sequence.

Fwang! A series of laser blasts ricochet off the mobile unit’s hull. The kid jumps back, away from the windshield, but there’s nothing to get cranky about. “Ratchet down, Gawyn. Lasers barely left a scratch.”

Rehna looks at me, more relaxed now that we’re seeing action. “Maybe they’ll let you change the paint color now?”

The smile on my face must tell all, because Rehna looks away quickly. Never in my life has a woman remembered something I’ve said, unless it was an insult. Of course, now might not be the best time to think about it.

Fwang! Fwang! Lasers barrage the outside of the mobile unit doing nothing more than providing a cheesy lightshow. “Must be low yield,” I say.

“Probably to deflect space junk,” Rehna adds.

I steer us toward the satellite and pull up close next to what looks like a maintenance hatch. Then it occurs to me, this might not just be a satellite…maybe it’s a space station. Someone might be alive inside this thing.

As we come within inches of the orbiting beast’s hull, the laser fire dies off. Gives me a chance to inspect the outer surface for clues as to who owes me money. “Shit,” I say, now knowing I’ll never get reimbursed for my Tac-suits.

“What is it?” Rehna asks.

“Mooners,” Gawyn spits out. “Dirty Mooners.”

Fifteen hundred years ago a moon colony was established and its population grew. Low grav made them multiply like rabbits on Dretch. But their advance in everything techie grew just as fast and they quickly adapted to supporting a massive population. It was one of the most modern facilities ever built and larger than any Earth city at the time. Damn toilets probably wiped their asses for them.

Millions were thriving when Albin was born. The bastard rose to power two hundred years after the colony was formed. He was some kind of religious zealot and fancied himself as God’s divine prophet. And the Mooners, ungrateful little whelps, whining about being controlled by us Earthers, staged a brutal and savage revolt. Under Albin’s direction, a series of hit-and-run attacks on Earth cities were carried out. The cowards couldn’t stand toe to toe with us, so they took aim at normal people, the simps, the young, the yuppies, people who never see the inside of a mobile unit. Killed thousands. They forced Earth to retaliate. Rather than wipe the Mooners clean from the moon with nukes, like I would have done, the government at the time opted to carry out a strategic strike aimed at Albin himself.

A single Earth agent managed to infiltrate Albin’s organization and rose to power from within, as a trusted General. Too bad for Albin; he lost his head while taking a crap. A single, high-caliber bullet splattered his brains against the bathroom wall. Got what he deserved too. But he died a martyr. The Mooners continued to piss and moan and soon gained their independence. Not much has been heard from them since. The colony hasn’t grown in size. No new construction has been reported…but from the insignia on the outside of this satellite, I now know that they’ve kept busy over the years.

I attach the docking seal to the side of the satellite—another modification. The sat-link gives the OK and I unbuckle myself and float through the tight opening into the mobile unit’s backside. With my new C130 tight in my hand I head for the hatch.

“Wait for me.” Gawyn says.

I don’t even look back. “Sit your ass back down. No one moves until I say so.” I can hear her fold her arms. Must not be used to being told what to do. What I’ve seen her do with a computer this far leads me to believe she hasn’t had much parental supervision. Not that parents are any good for anything other than feeding you.

I open the docking hatch, and a burst of stale air surges into the mobile unit. “Ugh, smells like old farts.”

Gawyn’s right. Something either died in here or they’ve got a miniature cow farm tucked inside. At least the air is breathable. “Stay here,” I say, as I float forward, into the belly of a beast capable of wiping out entire cities.

Floating inside an orbiting super-weapon isn’t something I tend to do often. And the smell has got me spooked—so I lead with my C130 aimed high. It’s cramped inside, like a soda can just big enough for a human. I float through the entrance tube into what must be a cockpit and—holy shit!

I fire my weapon three times with deadly accuracy; two to the chest, one to the head. Too bad the bastard is already dead; shots that precise and that quick would’a gave me braggin rights. But this guy is a rotting heap. His skin is tight and dry, wrapped around his skull like a facelift for the dead. He’s probably been here for years, maybe hundreds, with nothing to break down his flesh. Nothing but a human-sized stick of jerky now.

For a dead guy, he packs a lot of attitude. His dried lips are frozen in a sinister grin and his two middle fingers are extended toward the entrance hatch. This guy died knowing he would eventually be found. Definitely Mooners. No one else is this fanatic, to deliver a message hundreds of years after his death. A thought occurs to me; if this guy is dead, who is picking targets and firing this hunk of junk?

“Out of the way, asshole.” I take the dead guy by his gray flight suit and toss him to the back of the inner cabin. I hear him hit the wall with a crack. Kind of gives me the creeps, defiling the dead like that, but I’m sure he deserves it.

My body fits in the single cockpit chair nicely. This boat was designed for a single occupant. After scanning the array of controls spread out across three separate panels, I decide I’m screwed. Everything is labeled in some language I’ve never seen before. So I decide to take a chance and start pushing buttons. The first three do nothing, but the forth opens a front panel, revealing a large windshield and a stunning view of the Earth below. Few people ever get to see the Earth like this, with all the garbage floating in orbit, real estate on the lower levels is near impossible to find. Of course, this view has a flaw. Even from this far away, the clean-cut hole in the Earth, through the heart of my city, can be seen clearly. Gonna make the bastards pay for that.

I reach for another button. “Don’t touch that, you idiot!”

I can’t remember ever jumping in fright, not even once in my life, but in zero grav I launch out of the seat and hit my head on the ceiling. Embarrassment keeps me from getting angry, as I float above the control panels, looking down at Gawyn. Kid takes my seat at the controls. Probably a good thing too; I might have ended up putting another hole in the Earth.

Rehna floats in through the entrance tunnel. “Sorry, Priest. I tried to stop her.”

Gawyn looks up at me. “Can you read Mooner?”

“No.”

“Really? No kidding.” Gawyn brims with sarcasm. “Cause I could’a sworn you wanted to kill us all.”

I don’t argue.

Gawyn starts with the magic fingers again. Screens blink to life. The power comes online in full. The air is purified, thank God. I push down from the ceiling to get a closer look at the display screens. Images flash past quickly as Gawyn tears through the complex computer system. Then she stops and looks up at me, floating above her.

“I’m in,” she says.

“In where?”

“Mooner city. Their database.”

“Kid, you want a job with The Authority, you got it.” She smiles, and for the first time I notice she’s cute. Not that I go around calling kids cute that often, most of them are about as pleasant looking as an overused snot rag. But Gawyn, she manages to serve a purpose, and she ain’t bad to look at, at the same time.

I get lost in my thoughts and fail to notice the changes on the screen. “Priest, are you seeing this?” Rehna asks me.

The screen displays text and images: war machines, tactical gear, a diagram of the Earth with hundreds of orbiting satellites lit up in green. “What the hell?”

Gawyn reads my mind and digs deeper on the satellites. She brings up detailed schematics and tactical information. “Move over,” Rehna says, and I push to the side. Rehna can read faster than lightning. One of her eyes was shot out two years back, before I knew her, and she got some new-fangled eye. Lets her scan pages of information like a robot taking snapshots. Rehna scrolls through the information and even the kid can’t keep up.

“Holy…” I’ve never seen Rehna look so stunned. She looks me in the eyes, but the connection I’ve felt between us is buried deep beneath a sense of dread. “We’ve got an hour before three hundred of these satellites open fire on the rest of Earth’s major cities. Priest, they’ve been planning this for the last twenty five hundred years.”

I roll with the biggest mental punch I’ve ever received. “The last legacy of Albin. And then what?”

“Invasion.”

“So they turn the Earth to Swiss cheese and then invade,” I say. “Doesn’t sound like the Earth will be worth keeping around.”

“It won’t be,” says Rehna as plain as day.

My eyes widen with the realization that the Mooners don’t mean to take over Earth, they mean to destroy it…or at least everyone living on it.

I blink and the kid’s back to work, flying her fingers across the consoles, working the keys. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“I ain’t letting no Mooners take out my planet,” Gawyn replies. “I got friends down there you know.”

A loud hummm emanates from the rear of the satellite and the walls begin moving around my floating body. She’s turning the satellite, aiming at a different target…aiming at the moon. I can’t help but smile. This kid’s a fighter, but I can’t let her be a killer.

“Out of the seat, Gawyn, I’ll take it from here.”

“But…”

“Now.”

Gawyn huffs and floats out of the seat. I resume my place behind the controls. “Okay, now tell me what to do.”

Gawyn talks as fast as she types. I do my best to keep up. Within minutes we have the weapon powered up and aimed straight at Mooner central, which Rehna thinks contains the majority of their control centers, population and army, awaiting orders to begin the invasion of Earth. If we’re lucky, we can take them all out in one shot.

“Increase the target radius,” Gawyn instructs me. “We can take them out in one shot.” There she goes, reading my mind again.

As I increase the target radius, a blue bar races across the screen, turning green, yellow, orange and then red. Rehna looks over my shoulder. “Taking a shot that big is going to overload the system. I’d rather not die up here if it’s all the same to you.”

“If we leave even one control system intact they could still plug the Earth full of holes. I’m not gonna let that happen, even if it kills us all.” Rehna doesn’t argue, neither does Gawyn. Figures, I’m minutes away from dying and I’ve finally found a family I could get used to. Oh well.

A vibration tickles my ass beneath the seat as the weapon reaches full charge. I can feel the raw power being built up. Before I can finish my thoughts on how the Mooners were able to leap ahead of us technologically, I see movement in the debris field between us and the moon. Four men in space suits with rocket packs come at us like laser rounds. “We got company,” I say plainly.

“Who are they?” Gawyn asks.

“Doesn’t matter.” I look at their weapons. They look powerful enough to destroy the satellite before we can get a shot off. “Can we set this thing on a timer?”

“I don’t know!” Gawyn’s starting to panic.

I take her by the shoulders. “You stay here. Set a timer on this thing.” I look at Rehna. “Stay with her.”

Rehna takes my shoulder as I head for the exit. “Be careful,” she says.

What’s this mushy stuff? We’re trying to save the world from Mooner terrorists and my partner is about to cry over my freakin life, which I have yet to lose and don’t intend to lose. Ahh, screw it. I’m growing tired of being the rude, manly hero anyway. I take Rehna by the waist and pull her toward me, an easy feat in zero grav, and plant a wet one on her lips. I feel my normal stew of negative feelings cool to a light simmer before I pull away. Rehna floats away from me, looking stunned…and stunning. Now I know I love her.

Before Rehna can say something to change my mind, I launch through the docking seal and back into the mobile unit. I fire up the engines and prep the weapons systems. No way I’m gonna let these punks kill my girls.

The assailants pause at the sight of me bearing down on them in a fully armed mobile unit. I don’t give them time to figure out what to do. I take aim at the two closest to one another and open up with a lase-sweep. The solid beam of red hot energy slices through space, cutting the two men in half like meat on the butcher’s block. The other two rocket away, weaving in and out of the debris field.

They think they’re getting away. They’re wrong. Obviously, these jokers have never seen what a mobile unit is capable of, or they wouldn’t be fleeing in a fairly straight line. Probably think all the junk between me and them will slow me down. Heh, this is going to be fun.

I switch on the mobile unit’s auto-defense system and step on the gas. My cannons open up on all sides and unleash Hades. Every hunk of crap within twenty feet is turned into space dust. Anything missed by the cannons, I just plow through. Good thing there’s no sound in space or these jokers would hear me coming, like an angry avalanche…with guns. Too much fun.

I lock on to one with an intelrocket. This is gonna scare the crap out of that last guy. The rocket flings through space, dodging debris with incredible agility. Aside from teleporting, there’s no way to escape an intelrocket once it’s locked on. Two seconds later, the third man explodes in a silent splash of guts, leaving just one more.

He must have seen bits of his friend fly past, because his movements become erratic. Hasn’t he learned that shaking me is impossible? The man takes a ninety degree turn and I follow with ease, clearing a wide path for myself the whole way. I lose sight of the man and suddenly burst free of the debris and into a clearing.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit. I should have seen this coming. At the center of the clearing, are what appear to be three Mooner-versions of my mobile unit. They open fire with everything they’ve got.

I turn hard right and take two hits to my left side. Shakes me up, but I’m otherwise unscathed. After turning off the defense systems, I launch into the debris field, weaving in and out of old satellites and garbage cans. I know I can lose them and it might buy me some time…but for what?

I turn on the com system and try Rehna. “Rehna, this is Priest. You copy?”

“Roger, Priest. We copy. Where the hell are you?”

“Got some unwelcome guests on my tail. How close are you to pulling the trigger?”

“Ready when you are.”

Fwash! A laser skims off the hull. Getting closer.

“I want you to wait until I’m in your sights. Then fire that thing, full power.”

I hear the kid grab the line. “You can’t! That’s crazy!”

“Shut-up, kid.” No time to play wet-nurse. “Pull the trigger or I’m gonna die anyway.” I hang up, not in the mood for goodbyes.

After entering the path I carved earlier, I floor it, pouring on the speed like a cybernetic cheetah. They’re right on my ass. Fast little bastards. I make a beeline for the Mooner-weapon’s attack zone and set the controls: straight ahead, full speed. I take my biohazard mask from its compartment and strap it to my head. Might help me survive.

I pick up the com. “Rehna?”

“We’re ready, Priest,” she replies, voice wavery.

“I need you to go ahead and open the outer airlock doors.”

She responds just the way I like it. “Done.”

“Be ready to seal the airlock on my signal.”

“What signal?”

“You’ll know.”

Bachoom! A shot hits me directly in the rear. Then another and another. Better make this quick.

“Priest, you got five seconds before we fire.”

I pop the hatch and it floats away at five hundred miles per hour. I push off the floor and float out of the cab at the same speed, as I enter the target area. The three Mooner ships continue after the mobile unit, guns blazing. Probably thought I was a piece of shrapnel they blew off. Their mistake, my salvation.

Reaching out with my synth-arm, I wield a grappling hook, which I launch toward the Mooner satellite. It finds its home, embedded in the metal hull and catches tight. At five hundred miles per hour, even in space the pull is incredible. It takes all of my cybernetic strength to hold on, as I swing wide, out of range. A second later, my vision blurs as the weapon fires and the three Mooner ships cease to exist, along with my mobile unit.

My chest begins to burn. I’m longing to take a breath, but I know if I do, I’ll just suck in the cold of space. The face mask over my eyes holds nicely and gives me the ability to aim where I’m going, spinning around the satellite, over and over again like a wild tetherball getting closer and closer to the pole. My speed slowed at first, but has picked back up with every revolution. This is gonna hurt.

On my last revolution, I can tell that my aim was true. Instead of slamming into the outer hull, I’m about to be flung inside the open airlock. I lead with my synth-arm, letting it take the majority of the impact and using it to slow the rest of my body before I slam into the airlock doors.

The impact knocks the wind out of me and I feel desperate to suck in air. But I know if I do, I’m dead. My vision starts going black, and I concentrate on keeping my mouth shut, clenching my jaw. I feel hands grab my shoulders and pull, but it’s the last thing I sense.

I wake up ten minutes later to the sound of Gawyn yelling up a blue streak. “What are we gonna do! We’re gonna be splattered!”

After opening my eyes, I quickly survey the situation. Through the windshield I see the Earth spinning below and coming up quick. I must have knocked the satellite out of orbit when I hit. Better lay off the cheeseburgers.

My stomach turns as I feel gravity begin to take control. A sudden jerk pulls me off the floor, and I fall down the now vertical satellite. I fall past Gawyn and Rehna, and slam onto the windshield, face down. I open my eyes to a close-up view of the Earth’s surface. But now it’s approaching more slowly.

I roll over onto my back and face Gawyn and Rehna, their eyes wide. “I think it’s safe to say this thing has a parachute.”

“And hard freakin glass,” Gawyn says with a smile.

I smile back. Kid’s making me all warm and freakin fuzzy. Maybe I’ll retire.

After twenty minutes of floating through the sky, we land back in the city, on the top of one of the few remaining ten thousand foot buildings. Popping the hatch proves a challenge for my weary and burning muscles, but my synth-arm is still up to the task. We’re greeted by the cool night air, kept clean and breathable by air scrubbers running up the sides of every building in town. I suck the air in like a siphon.

The girls climb down the side of the satellite one at a time, both refusing my help. I’m just shocked that I offered to begin with. As I roll my neck back, letting the bones crack back into place, I notice how bright the stars are. Stars… I laugh as I realize that when the weapon was fired it cleared a clean hole over the city. Probably killed a bunch of civies in the process, but you know what they say about breaking a few eggs.

My vision follows the stars to a bright object floating in space that I’ve only seen in books. The moon. With all the crap orbiting the planet, no one on the surface has seen the moon for a thousand years. Probably just the way they liked it, being able to move in concealment, like sneaking up on a scared kid hiding under the blankets. Too bad for them, this scared kid got hold of a big gun.

A perfectly round hole, the size of Maine, stares back from the Moon’s surface—evidence that any threat from the moon has been wiped out. Any Mooner forces remaining are probably scattering in a confused daze, unsure where to run. Rehna and Gawyn stand next to me, staring up in silence.

“Hard to believe we did that.” Rehna says.

I look her in the eyes. “Think they’ll let me go back up there and turn it into a smiley face?”

She just smiles back and takes my hand. Feels funny, but I let it linger. A pressure on my finger brings my eyes back down, and I see Gawyn holding onto my index finger. My muscles tense and I fight the urge to shrug them both off, but after wiping out an entire civilization, I’ve destroyed enough lives for one day. I pick the kid up and throw her over my shoulders. With my arm around Rehna, I head for the roof stairwell, thinking about starting a new life. Maybe I’ll get a dog too.

Heh, I’m all freakin heart.

AFTERWORD

My editor recently described this story as noir. My immediate internal reaction was, “What?! No! I hate noir!” Having reread the story, I see that he’s right. While sci-fi noir is not something I would consciously write, it seems a part of me appreciates the genre. My only memory of actually writing this story is being in between novels, having a few hours to spare and sitting down in front of laptop.

As an artist, I often sit down with a blank piece of paper and just start drawing. I don’t know what I’m going to draw. I just start putting lines on the page and something emerges. It’s not some kind of metaphysical experience, I just see something in the shape and expand upon it. I play the same game with my family while waiting for food in the restaurant. Someone scribbles some quick lines and I turn it into a drawing. The creation of FROM ABOVE was similar. I sat down and started dreaming up good first lines. After a few minutes I typed, “When my arm came off, I knew something wasn’t right.”

I built the rest of the story around that line, first explaining how it had happened and then asking and answering the follow-up questions that explanation created. The story emerged on its own, and I suspect the noir feeling of it comes from it being written that way. I was asking and answering questions like a detective and that voice crept into my writing.

The end result is an experimental story that turned into my first magazine published piece and made me a whopping fifty bucks.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of eleven thrillers including Pulse and Instinct, the first two books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. His novels have been translated into ten languages. He is also the director of New Hampshire AuthorFest, a non-profit organization promoting literacy in New Hampshire, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Connect with Robinson online:

Website: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com

CLICK HERE

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Copyright

© 2011 Jeremy Robinson. All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For more information e-mail all inquiries to: info@jeremyrobinsononline.com

Visit Jeremy Robinson on the World Wide Web at: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com

—SAMPLE—

CALLSIGN: KING

by JEREMY ROBINSON

and SEAN ELLIS

Available for $2.99 via the E-Book Store

DESCRIPTION:

The fabled Elephant Graveyard has been discovered. It contains enough ivory to make Ethiopia a wealthy nation. But the cave contains more than physical riches—it also holds the means to control the world. Fifteen scientists enter the cave. Only one leaves.

Jack Sigler, Callsign: King (field leader of the covert, black ops Chess Team) receives a cryptic text from Sara Fogg, his girlfriend and CDC "disease detective". A catastrophic disease has been reported in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, but Fogg suspects something more is going on. Her suspicion is confirmed when King’s arrival in Africa is met by a high speed assassination attempt.

As King fights against two competing, high-tech mercenary forces, each struggling for control of the deadly discovery, Fogg disappears. Working with the surviving member of the science team that made the discovery, King begins a search for Fogg and the source of the potential plague that takes him back to the Great Rift Valley, back to the Elephant Graveyard, and brings him face-to-face with modern man’s origins.

1.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Four men were sent to kill King.

Of course they didn’t think of him as “King.” They knew his name was Jack Sigler, but even that meant nothing to them. He was just the target. If they had known about his callsign, identifying him as part of the ultra-secret and ultra-lethal black ops group called Chess Team, they probably would have sent forty.

# # #

King settled into the cracked vinyl seat in the taxi’s rear passenger area, and just for a moment, closed his eyes. He was tired, but strangely his fatigue was not the product of sustained physical or even mental effort. In fact, he thrived on exertion.

This capacity had served him particularly well in his military service, enabling him to surmount whatever challenges training or combat placed before him, whether it was negotiating a twelve-mile nighttime land nav course, or taking down the deadliest terrorists in the world. His ability to turn the tables on exhaustion had been instrumental in his success as the leader of Chess Team, a small but very elite group of operators drawn from the ranks of the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command, and now recently given special autonomy to defend the nation—indeed, the entire world—from threats that were beyond the comprehension of traditional military forces. They took their operational callsigns from the chessboard. As leader, he was naturally “King.” Zelda Baker, the first woman to battle her way up through the male-dominated world of Spec-Ops, was “Queen.” Erik Somers, Iranian by birth, but 110% an American patriot—the extra ten percent owed to a physique that would have been the envy of Schwarzenegger in his prime—was “Bishop.” The Korean, Shin Dae-jung was “Knight,” and “Rook” was reserved for Stan Tremblay….

King sighed. Rook was presently missing in action, presumed dead by many of those who knew the circumstances of his final mission, and that was surely a contributing factor to his weariness. So also was his recent discovery that his parents—his loving mother, and the father who had walked out on both of them years before—were in fact Russian sleeper agents, actively engaged in an operation directed against Chess Team. Their subsequent disappearance, and the knowledge that they were still out there, working against him, was a burden King carried alone. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d somehow become the foster father to Fiona Lane, a thirteen year old orphan whose knowledge of an ancient divine language had made her both very powerful and a target for kidnapping or assassination. At first, King’s mission had been to protect her, but he’d since grown to love the girl as his own. Officially, Fiona Lane no longer existed. After Chess Team rescued her, and became a black op, she came with them. That didn’t make being her father any easier. He sometimes thought taking down terrorist cells was less work.

But the true source of his weariness was that he was tired down to his bones because of inactivity. He had spent most of the last twenty hours in the cramped confines of passenger jets, interspersed with equally interminable periods of waiting in ticketing and security checkpoint lines, all the while plagued by the possibility that Sara might be in danger.

Sara Fogg was King’s girlfriend.

The term felt alien to King. He had never had much success with relationships. None had ever lasted more than a few months, but he and Sara had been an item since working together on a critical Chess Team mission to Viet Nam in 2010, where her unique abilities as a “disease detective” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had literally saved the human race from extinction.

Theirs was not, suffice it to say, a traditional relationship.

He ran a hand through his unruly black hair then opened his eyes and took out his phone. The display screen told him what he already knew—“service unavailable”—but what he was interested in was stored in the device’s memory: Sara’s text message to him:

Safari time. Got a hot one ;-) Every THing Is Ok. Pizza In A week or so.

“A hot one” undoubtedly signified a disease outbreak; epidemiologists referred to an area where a contagion was spreading as a “hot zone.” The rest of the message seemed innocuous enough.

Or at least it would to anyone who didn’t know Sara Fogg very well.

King had seen the text for what it was almost immediately. The message was anything but typical for the erudite, precise and detail-oriented disease detective. Sara would never send a missive so riddled with apparent formatting errors, at least not without a very good reason.

The simple fact of the message itself was very telling. Once a CDC response team was activated, its members were not supposed to communicate with the outside world. As team leader, Sara knew this better than anyone, so for her to break protocol, even in such a seemingly harmless manner, was a veritable cry for help. The kind of help that only Chess Team could provide.

Also, Sara never, ever used smileys.

It had only taken about fifteen seconds for him to decipher her hasty code. The capital letters following the emoticon spelled out: ETHIOPIA. That was absolutely not an accident. The code wasn’t very sophisticated, but it probably would have slipped past an automated eavesdropping program like the NSA’s massive Echelon system. And so within a minute of receiving the text, King was on the move.

He had made a conscious decision to deal with this on his own. Most of the Chess Team members were otherwise occupied anyway, but with nothing more to go on than a cryptic text message and a bad feeling, he was loath to utilize the many other assets that were available for discretionary use. That included Deep Blue.

King may have been the head of Chess Team, but Deep Blue was its central nervous system. When the group had first been mustered, they had believed the mysterious Deep Blue—the code name was an homage to the computer that had defeated chess champion Gary Kasparov in the 1990’s—to be a cyber-warrior with a Spec-Ops background and almost unlimited information resources. Only later did they learn the man’s real identity: then-President of the United States, Tom Duncan. The leader of the free world, a former Army Ranger, had been moonlighting as the eyes, ears and guiding hand of Chess Team. A recent crisis had forced Duncan to sacrifice his presidency in order to save the country, but that hadn’t spelled the end of his association with Chess Team. With a few strokes of the keyboard, Deep Blue probably could have arranged for supersonic transport to Africa, and put King on the ground in Ethiopia inside of three hours, armed to the teeth and ready for anything.

But if Sara had wanted that, she would have come right out and said it. King wasn’t entirely convinced that her message had been intended to summon him. She might simply have been saying: ‘Keep an eye on me.’ King had decided to split the difference.

So, instead of parachuting in from a stealth aircraft in black BDU’s, sporting an XM-25 airburst delivery weapon, his favorite SiG P220 .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol and his 7-inch fixed blade KA-BAR knife, King was riding in a battered Toyota Corolla taxicab, wearing a black Elvis T-shirt and blue jeans, with nothing more in his go-bag than a change of clothes, some travelling money, and a phone with a service plan that didn’t extend to Ethiopia. But that didn’t mean he was without resources. Chess Team had contacts in every part of the world, and his phone also contained a list of suppliers—some reputable, some not so much—who could provide him with almost anything he needed on very short notice. A discreet inquiry made during a layover in Germany had revealed that the CDC team planned to establish a command center at Tewahedo General Hospital in Addis Ababa; in fact, they would have only just arrived. The drive from Bole International Airport to the hospital would take about thirty minutes. King reckoned that inside of an hour, he’d be ready for anything.

That was an hour more than he got.

# # #

One of the first lessons every soldier learned was the importance of situational awareness, or as drill instructors were fond of saying: “Keep your head on a swivel.” Even in the absence of a perceived threat, it was almost second nature for King to crane his head around for a 360° sweep every few minutes, scrutinizing the faces of passersby, the shadowy recesses of alleyways, and the way other cars moved through traffic. The first sign of trouble might not be obvious, just something about a scene that wasn’t quite right.

The pair of black Dodge Ram pick-ups charging up behind the taxi, however, were pretty hard to miss.

“No way.”

The black trucks certainly stood out from the other cars King had seen since arriving, but the reason they commanded his attention owed to the fact that he had seen similar vehicles roaming the streets of Baghdad and Kandahar—trucks with darkened bullet-resistant glass and concealed armor plating, driven by private security contractors.

Got to be a coincidence, he thought. Security contractors—mercenaries, in more common parlance—were ubiquitous in developing countries, working as bodyguards for wealthy businessmen, or training military and police forces.

His belief that there was a rational explanation lasted about ten seconds—the length of time it took for the lead truck to race ahead and pull alongside the taxi. As it did, the passenger side window slid down.

“Look out!”

Even as he shouted the warning, King curled himself into a ball behind the driver’s seat. An instant later he heard a sound like hammers striking metal followed by the distinctive crack of shattering glass, but the report of the gunfire was conspicuously absent. There was a rush of air through the cab and the noise of an engine roaring past. He risked a quick look.

All the windows on the driver side had been shattered and the tempered glass of the windshield was now fogged with myriad tiny cracks. King saw the truck that had strafed the cab a few hundred meters ahead, while the second remained close on their tail. He then turned his attention to the driver.

“Are you…” He didn’t bother finishing the inquiry. The Ethiopian man lay slumped over the steering wheel, his head and back a mess of red.

King breathed a curse at the senselessness of the murder, and then another when he realized that the cab was now veering out of control toward the edge of the road.

Even though it meant risking exposure, he knew he had to keep the car on the pavement; if it crashed, then he was dead anyway. He thrust his upper torso over the back of the driver’s seat, shoving the slain driver out of the way with one hand, and gripping the steering wheel with the other. He steered the cab away from disaster, but this minor victory did little to cheer him. The cab was losing speed and the two pick-ups had him boxed in. It was only a matter of time before they checkmated him.

Where’s Chess Team when I really need them?

He pushed that idea right out of his head. Defeatism was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe he didn’t have the team to back him up, but that was no reason to give in to despair. Maybe it was true that the king was the least effective, most vulnerable piece on the chessboard, but his callsign didn’t define him or his abilities.

Still, it would have been nice to have Rook next to him, blasting away with his Desert Eagle pistols.

Prioritize, he told himself. First order of business, get control of this vehicle.

He manhandled the driver’s dead weight over onto the passenger’s seat, and then without letting go of the wheel, crawled over the back of the seat. By the time he finally got his legs onto the pedals, the Corolla was down to about 30 km/h—he could sprint faster than that. He cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the trailing pick-up hurtling toward him like a tsunami. King stomped the accelerator to the floor.

The engine revved loudly with the infusion of gasoline, but for a few seconds, the car refused to gain speed. Just as it was grudgingly beginning to cooperate, King’s head abruptly snapped back against the headrest. The charging truck had rear-ended him, hard.

A sharp pain shot through King’s neck, but he gritted his teeth through it and maintained steady pressure on the gas pedal. The driver of the pursuing Dodge had probably been hoping that the bump would send the Corolla spinning out of control, but instead it acted like the catapult on an aircraft carrier, launching the cab forward and giving it enough momentum to actually start accelerating again.

It was another small—too small—victory. King was still vastly outmatched. His unknown enemies had all the advantages. As he maintained steady pressure on the accelerator, the speedometer needle creeping past 100 km/h, he took quick stock of what he had to work with in order to mount an effective counter-attack.

It was a very short list.

He tore a hole through the damaged windshield to get an unobscured view of the road ahead. The lead truck was braking, slowing down and dominating the center of the road to prevent him from passing. The side mirror showed him the grill of the trailing truck, looming large once more as it closed in for another bump. It was safe to assume that the drivers were coordinating their actions; King knew that his only hope lay in unpredictability.

He steered to the right side of the road. The pick-up immediately moved right in order to block him.

King swerved to the left, and again the truck did, too.

He did this twice more, testing the driver’s reaction time, and more importantly, getting familiar with the Corolla’s capabilities. The vehicle was not in the best shape, but thus far he’d seen no indication that it was on the verge of breaking down. The temperature gauge showed the engine running hot—not too hot yet, but he didn’t want to take the chance of it failing at a critical moment. He turned the heater on full blast, venting some of the heat into the car’s interior. With the windows shot out, he barely noticed.

He steered left again, all the way to the edge of the road. The truck followed suit. He then swerved right, exactly as he had before, putting the Corolla in what he hoped was the lead truck’s blind spot. The driver of the pick-up took the bait, pulling all the way to the right in order to prevent King from passing on that side.

King shifted the automatic transmission out of overdrive and stomped the gas pedal. Even as the truck was moving right, King steered left. The taxi surged ahead closing the gap before the other driver could react.

King kept one eye on the pick-up as the Corolla pulled alongside it. He caught a glimpse of the driver—a Caucasian man—snarling in frustration as he hauled the steering wheel left to cut King off, but he was too late. The taxi slipped past the Dodge. King had escaped their killing box.

He didn’t waste time congratulating himself. His situation was just marginally better than it had been thirty seconds earlier. His only hope lay in finding a way to lose his pursuers, and that meant getting off the highway where the trucks had the advantage of superior horsepower. With one eye on the road, he took out his phone.

Before leaving home, he had downloaded a city map of Addis Ababa. It wasn’t quite as useful as a live GPS, but it was better than nothing. He dragged his finger around the touch screen until he found the airport, and from there, was able to guess his present position, moving northeast along Ring Road, the major highway that circled the city.

The area near the airport was sparsely inhabited, with few access roads, but a more developed section of the city lay ahead. If he could make it there…get lost in the maze of surface streets and buildings… he just might have a chance.

If, he thought grimly.

The sound of hammer blows reverberated through the taxi’s frame and King ducked as bullets plucked at the upholstery of the seat beside him. He felt something tug at his right arm and a moment later his biceps started burning. He didn’t look; his arm was still working, so it probably wasn’t anything more than a graze, and besides, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Then he realized, almost too late, that the shots had been a diversion. When he had ducked down instinctively, it had given the pick-up’s driver a chance to close in. The protective bumper guard that wrapped around the Ram’s front end filled the side mirror as the truck sidled up next to him.

In a rush of understanding, King realized that the other driver was trying to spin him. It was a technique taught in tactical driving courses; a carefully delivered hit to the rear wheel of a fleeing car could force it to spin around 180°, at which point the car’s momentum would be pulling against the direction of the drive wheels, causing the vehicle to stall instantly.

I took that class, too, asshole!

When the pick-up’s driver made his move, King was ready. As the Dodge veered toward him, he hit the brakes. The taxi was no longer where the driver of the pursuing truck thought it would be, but he had already committed himself to the maneuver. The truck swerved across the lane in front of the taxi, even as King accelerated again, steering the opposite direction to swing around on the other side.

It almost worked.

A crunch of metal shuddered through the taxi as the truck’s rear tire hooked the front end of the Corolla, and suddenly both vehicles were locked together, rolling over and over down the length of the road in a spectacular dance of mutual self-destruction.

—SAMPLE—

THE LAST HUNTER

by JEREMY ROBINSON

Available for $2.99 via the E-Book Store

DESCRIPTION:

I’ve been told that the entire continent of Antarctica groaned at the moment of my birth. The howl tore across glaciers, over mountains and deep into the ice. Everyone says so. Except for my father; all he heard was Mother’s sobs. Not of pain, but of joy, so he says. Other than that, the only verifiable fact about the day I was born is that an iceberg the size of Los Angeles broke free from the ice shelf a few miles off the coast. Again, some would have me believe the fracture took place as I entered the world. But all that really matters, according to my parents, is that I, Solomon Ull Vincent, the first child born on Antarctica—the first and only Antarctican—was born on September 2nd, 1974.

If only someone could have warned me that, upon my return to the continent of my birth thirteen years later, I would be kidnapped, subjected to tortures beyond comprehension and forced to fight… and kill. If only someone had hinted that I’d wind up struggling to survive in a subterranean world full of ancient warriors, strange creatures and supernatural powers.

Had I been warned I might have lived a normal life. The human race might have remained safe. And the fate of the world might not rest on my shoulders. Had I been warned….

This is my story—the tale of Solomon Ull Vincent—The Last Hunter.

EXCERPT:

12

My foot rolls on a bone as I kick away from the bodies. There’s so many of them, I can’t make out what I’m seeing. It’s like someone decided to play a game of pick-up sticks with discarded bones. I fall backwards, landing on a lumpy mass. My hands are out, bracing against injury. Rubbery flesh breaks my fall, its coarse hair tickling between my fingers. I haven’t seen the body beneath me, but I know—somehow—that it’s dead.

Long dead.

This is little comfort, however. After finding my footing, I stand bolt upright. My chest heaves with each breath. Each draw of air is deep, but the oxygen isn’t getting to my head. I try breathing through my nose, and the rotten stench of old meat and something worse twists my stomach with the violence of a tornado. I drop to one knee, fighting a dry heave.

“Slow down,” I tell myself. “Breathe.”

I breathe through my mouth. I can taste the foul air, but I force each breath into my lungs, hold it and then let it out slowly. Just like I learned at soccer practice. I only lasted a few practices before giving up, but at least I came away with something. Calm down. Focus. Breathe.

My body settles. I’m no longer shaking. But when I look up I wonder if I’ve done something wrong. Stars blink in the darkness, like when you stand up too fast. But they’re not floating around. They’re just tiny points of light, like actual stars, but I get the feeling they’re a lot closer. The brightest of the light points are directly behind me, and to test my theory I reach out for them. My hand strikes a solid wall.

Stone.

The points of light are small glowing stones, crystals maybe. I’d be fascinated if I weren’t absolutely terrified.

My hand yanks away from the cool surface as though repulsed by a magnetic force. For the first time since waking, a rational thought enters my mind.

Where am I?

It’s a simple question. Finding the answer will give me focus. I turn my mind to the task while my body works the adrenaline out of its system.

The dull yellow stars behind me are large, perhaps the size of quarters. They wrap around in both directions, almost vanishing as they shrink with the distance. But I can see them surrounding me with a flow of tiny lights. There is no door. No escape.

I’m in a pit.

Full of bodies.

Long dead bodies, I remind myself as my breathing quickens. It’s like looking at the mummies in The Museum of Fine Arts. They can’t hurt you.

With my eyes better adjusted to the dim light, I crouch down to look at the bone I stepped on. What I see causes me to hold my breath, but I find myself calming down for two reasons. First, my mind is engaged, and like Spock, my emotions, which can overwhelm me, are being choked out. Second, the bones are not human.

The nearest limb looks like a femur, but it’s as thick as a cow’s and half the length. I try to picture an animal that would have such thick, short limbs, but nothing comes to mind.

I scan the field of bones. Most are similar in thickness and size, but many I can’t identify. Whatever these bones belonged to, I’m fairly certain they’re not human. In fact, they don’t belong to any creature I’ve ever seen before.

Remembering the soft flesh that broke my fall, I turn around and look down. If not for the clumps of rough red hair sticking out of the sheet of white skin, I might have mistaken it for a chunk of rug padding. The skin is thick, perhaps a half inch, and hasn’t decomposed at all despite the bones beneath it being free of flesh.

A scuff above me turns my head up as dirt and dust fall into my face. Someone is above me.

“Who’s there?” My voice echoes.

The only response I get is silence, which makes me angry. I’ve been beaten and kidnapped after all. “Hey! I know you’re there!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

The sinister scrape of the voice makes my stomach muscles tighten. This is the man who took me.

“Why?” I ask through clenched teeth, determined not to show this man fear.

“Because…” I suspect his pause is for dramatic effect. When I feel the sudden urge to pee, I know it’s working. “…you’re not alone.”

I spin around, forgetting all about my bladder. I can’t see more than ten feet of body-strewn floor. Beyond that it’s just a sea of light flecks. If there is someone down here with me, I’ll never see them.

Then I do.

In the same way we detect distant objects moving in space, I see a body shifting to my left, blocking out the small lights.

“Who is it?” I whisper.

“Not a who,” answers the voice.

Not a who? Not a who!

“What am I supposed to do?” My whisper is urgent, hissing like the man’s voice.

“Survive. Escape.”

“How?”

“That’s up to you.” I hear him shuffling away from the edge. His voice fades as he speaks for the last time. “I will not see you again until you do.”

A rattle of bones turns my attention back to the sneaking shadow. My eyes widen. It’s no longer slinking to the side. It’s growing larger, blocking out more and more stars. That’s when I realize it’s not growing larger, it’s getting closer.

In the moment before it strikes, I hear it suck in a high pitched whistle of a breath. I duck down to pick up the thick bone that tripped me up. But it’s too late. The thing is upon me.

13

I scream.

I’m too terrified to do anything else. My hands are on my head. I’m pitched forward. My eyes are clenched shut. Every muscle in my body has gone tight, as though clutched in rigor.

It knocks me back and I spill into a pile of bones and old skin. But I feel no weight on top of me. No gnashing of teeth on my body. The thing has missed its tackle, striking a glancing blow as it passed, but nothing more. Perhaps because I bent down. Perhaps because it can’t see well in the dark. I don’t know. I don’t care.

I’m alive. For now.

And I don’t want to die.

But I’m certain I’m going to and the events of the past few months replay in my mind. I can’t stop it. I can’t control it. And in a flash, I’m back at the beginning. A moment later, my mind returns to the present. I’m still in the pit. Still waiting for death. But I feel different somehow.

My attention is drawn down. The thick bone is still in my hand. I stand, holding it at the ready like Hercules’s club or Thor’s hammer. What I wouldn’t give for an ounce of their strength right now.

But strength is something I lack. I can already feel my limbs growing weak from fright. If this fight doesn’t end quickly I’ll probably lie down and accept death like a deer in the jaws of a mountain lion. It always amazes me how quickly prey animals accept their fate once caught. Will I be any different?

The answer surprises me.

A shift of shadow to my left catches my eye. But this time the fear is drowned out by a rage I have felt before, a rage that now has an outlet. I lunge for the shadow, bone-club raised. The thing flinches back, surprised by my attack. My first swing misses, nearly spinning me around. But I follow it up with a backhand swing worthy of John McEnroe. The impact hurts my arm, but it lets me know I’ve hurt the thing, too.

The thing stumbles back, letting out a high pitched whine as it strikes the wall. I struggle to see it, but it’s backlit by the wall. I can, however, see its silhouette more clearly now. Its body is egg-shaped and maybe four feet tall, with short, thick legs. Its arms are almost comical—short stubs sticking out to either side as useless as a T-Rex’s tiny appendages. I feel emboldened by the thing’s size and awkward build. But I’ve underestimated its will to live. This thing doesn’t want to die as much as I don’t.

It lets out a shrill scream and charges again. I start to duck, but this time it doesn’t leap. Instead, it lowers its top half—I can’t see where the head begins or ends or if it even has a head—and plows into me like a battering ram. It lifts me off the ground and carries me ten feet before slamming me into a stone wall. I hear a crack as my head strikes, but I don’t lose consciousness. There’s too much adrenaline in my system for that to happen.

But when I open my eyes and look at the thing, I wish I had fallen unconscious. Then I wouldn’t have seen it. I wouldn’t be awake when it devoured me. But I am awake, staring into a set of jaws that looks like it belongs to a great white shark—rows of serrated triangular teeth set into a jaw that protrudes from the mouth. The entire top half of the creature, just above its pitiful arms, has opened up to take me in. I have no doubt I’ll be severed in half. I’ll spend my last living moments bleeding out in this thing’s gullet.

I can’t die like this.

“Get off of me!” I scream. My voice distracts the creature. Its jaws close slightly, revealing a pair of perfectly black eyes, like two eight balls jammed into the top of a killer Humpty Dumpty. Tufts of thick brown hair cover its milky skin.

I’ve seen this before. The remains of these creatures litter the cave floor. These things aren’t killing people here, they’re being killed. It wasn’t put here to kill me, I was put here to kill it.

“Get off me, I said!” I shout, further confusing the beast. I dive to the side, but it clamps down on my shirt—a red, white and blue flannel that looks much more patriotic than any piece of clothing should. I spin around and lose my balance. The shirt rips as I fall away. My hands stretch out to brace my fall and I plunge into a litter of bones—the bones of this thing’s kin. But my right hand catches on something sharp. A hot burn strikes my palm, followed by a warm gush of liquid over my wrist.

I’m bleeding.

And the thing can smell it. I hear its quick breaths, sniffing as a dog does. Then I hear the smacking of lips and then it moves again, closing in on me.

Ignoring the pain in my hand, I dig into bones and find the sharp object. Playing my fingers over it gently, I feel a large triangular tooth. Then another. And another. In my mind’s eye I can see its shape: a broken jawbone from one of these creatures. I find an end that has no teeth and grip it.

I’m back on my feet for only a moment before the creature charges again. But I’m ready for it. Whatever this thing is, it’s deadly, but it’s not smart enough to realize I would anticipate the same attack.

I step to the side and swing down. I feel an impact, and then a tug on my weapon as the teeth catch flesh. A sound like tearing paper fills the air and makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t see it, but I know I have just sliced open the creature’s back.

It whimpers and stops.

I step closer.

It steps away.

Some instinct I never knew I had tells me I’ve inflicted a mortal wound. The thing is dying. I see its form again as it nears the far wall—egg shaped body, tiny arms, squat legs, large eyes. And I recognize it for what it is. Not the species, the age.

It’s a baby.

I’ve just killed a baby.

As it mewls against the wall, each call weaker then the last, the jaw-weapon falls from my hand.

“No,” I whisper, falling to my knees. What kind of a sick world have I been brought to?

I want my mother.

I scream for her. “Mom!” I scream again and again, my voice growing hoarse. My face is wet with tears and snot. My body is wracked by sobs between each shout for my mother. My thoughts turn to my father. How awful he must feel now that I’m gone, knowing I disappeared while angry with him. Not only had he lied to me for thirteen years, but he also believed I was capable of hurting Aimee. He didn’t trust me. Never had. But I trusted him now. Was this what he was protecting me from? This thought strikes me like a fist and I long for my father’s presence. He could protect me. I yell for him next.

But he doesn’t come. He can’t hear me. He’ll never hear me again. How could he?

My voice fades to a whisper. Pain stabs my head with every beat of my heart. The pinpricks of light surrounding me are now blurry halos. In the quiet, I can no longer hear the ragged breathing of the young creature. Certain it’s dead, I weep again, mourning not just the death of this deformed thing that tried to eat me, but the death of something much more precious to me: my soul. As my body gives way to exhaustion, I slide down onto the stone floor, surrounded by bones and wonder, maybe that’s the point.

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FICTION by JEREMY ROBINSON

The Antarktos Saga

The Last Hunter - Pursuit

The Last Hunter - Descent

The Jack Sigler Thrillers

Threshold

Instinct

Pulse

Origins Editions (first five novels)

Kronos

Antarktos Rising

Beneath

Raising the Past

The Didymus Contingency

Short Stories

Insomnia

Humor

The Zombie’s Way (Ike Onsoomyu)

The Ninja’s Path (Kutyuso Deep)

PRAISE FOR ROBINSON:

“Rocket-boosted action, brilliant speculation, and the recreation of a horror out of the mythologic past, all seamlessly blend into a rollercoaster ride of suspense and adventure.”

— James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of JAKE RANSOM AND THE SKULL KING’S SHADOW

“With THRESHOLD Jeremy Robinson goes pedal to the metal into very dark territory. Fast-paced, action-packed and wonderfully creepy! Highly recommended!”

— Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of ROT & RUIN

“Jeremy Robinson is the next James Rollins.”

— Chris Kuzneski, NY Times bestselling author of THE SECRET CROWN

“If you like thrillers original, unpredictable and chock-full of action, you are going to love Jeremy Robinson…”

— Stephen Coonts, NY Times bestselling author of DEEP BLACK: ARCTIC GOLD

“How do you find an original story idea in the crowded action-thriller genre? Two words: Jeremy Robinson.”

— Scott Sigler, NY Times Bestselling author of ANCESTOR

“There’s nothing timid about Robinson as he drops his readers off the cliff without a parachute and somehow manages to catch us an inch or two from doom.”

— Jeff Long, New York Times bestselling author of THE DESCENT

“Jeremy Robinson’s THRESHOLD is one hell of a thriller, wildly imaginative and diabolical, which combines ancient legends and modern science into a non-stop action ride that will keep you turning the pages until the wee hours. Relentlessly gripping from start to finish, don’t turn your back on this book!”

— Douglas Preston, NY Times bestselling author of IMPACT and BLASPHEMY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of eleven novels including PULSE, INSTINCT, and THRESHOLD the first three books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. His novels have been translated into nine languages. He is also the director of New Hampshire AuthorFest, a non-profit organization promoting literacy. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children.

Content

Jeremy Robinson
FROM ABOVE
A Novella

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Copyright

—SAMPLE— CALLSIGN: KING by JEREMY ROBINSON and SEAN ELLIS

DESCRIPTION:

1.

—SAMPLE— THE LAST HUNTER by JEREMY ROBINSON

DESCRIPTION:

EXCERPT:

12

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FICTION by JEREMY ROBINSON

PRAISE FOR ROBINSON:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: