BENEATH - A Novel Read online

  PRAISE FOR BENEATH

  "Here's a near-future space adventure that's as frightening as it is smart. Jeremy Robinson's BENEATH is packed with believable tech, a page-turning story and an alien intelligence so creepy, you'll pray NASA never makes it past the moon."

  --J.C. Hutchins, author of PERSONAL EFFECTS: DARK ART and 7th SON: DESCENT

  "Jeremy Robinson hits his stride in BENEATH. His story-telling is as tight as ever, delivering thrills that raise the heart rate and science detail that gets the mind cranking just has hard. An evocative blend of Crichton and Clarke, BENEATH is destined to become an instant new media classic."

  --Phil Rossi, Best Selling author of CRESCENT, HARVEY, and EDEN

  "Isolation, cold, and the unknown: Like The Thing, BENEATH taps into those fears, and a couple more we never know we had. Robinson strips away all that we hold dear, sends us into the deep dark, and dares us to make our way out of it."

  --Mur Lafferty, author of PLAYING FOR KEEPS and award-winning podcaster of I SHOULD BE WRITING and the HEAVEN series

  “Robinson grabbed my attention in the first chapter, and kept hold of it. BENEATH isn’t your run of the mill way distant future fantasy sci-fi. It reads like its real, like it could happen today…but we hope and pray it doesn’t.”

  --Basil Sands, author of 65 BELOW and FAITHFUL WARRIOR

  "Masterful Craftsmanship...a chilling tale that finally answers the question: Are we alone?"

  --thenovelblog.com

  PRAISE FOR JEREMY ROBINSON'S CHESS TEAM SERIES

  INSTINCT

  "If you like thrillers original, unpredictable and chock-full of action, you are going to love Jeremy Robinson's Chess Team. INSTINCT riveted me to my chair."

  -- Stephen Coonts, NY Times bestselling author of SAUCER and DEEP BLACK: ARCTIC GOLD

  "Instinct is a jungle fever of raw adrenaline that goes straight for the jugular."

  -- Thomas Greanias, NY Times bestselling author of THE ATLANTIS PROPHECY and THE PROMISED WAR

  "Jeremy Robinson is a fresh new face in adventure writing and will make a mark in suspense for years to come."

  -- David Lynn Golemon, NY Times Bestselling author of LEGEND and LEVIATAN

  PULSE

  "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 THE LAST ORACLE

  "PULSE contains all of the danger, treachery, and action a reader could wish for."

  -- Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of THE CHARLEMAGNE PURSUIT

  "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 and YEAR ZERO

  "Robinson's latest reads like a video game with tons of action and lots of carnage. The combination of mythology, technology, and high-octane action proves irresistible. Gruesome and nasty in a good way, this will appeal to readers of Matthew Reilly."

  -- Booklist

  "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets Tom Clancy meets Saturday matinee monster flick with myths, monsters, special ops supermen and more high tech weapons than a Bond flick. Pulse is an over-the-top, bullet-ridden good time."

  -- Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of CONTAGIOUS and INFECTED

  "Greek myth and biotechnology collide in Robinson's first in a new thriller series to feature the Chess Team... Robinson will have readers turning the pages..."

  -- Publisher's Weekly

  BENEATH

  By Jeremy Robinson

  © 2010 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: [email protected]

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

  Liscense: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase a copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON

  The Didymus Contingency

  Raising the Past

  Antarktos Rising

  Kronos

  Pulse

  Instinct

  BONUS MATERIAL!

  Don't miss the exclusive sample chapters of Robinson's Chess Team series found at the end of this book.

  PULSE will be available 3/26/2010 in mass market paperback.

  INSTINCT, the sequel to PULSE, will be available end of April, 2010, in hard cover.

  FREE AUDIOBOOK/PODCAST NOVEL

  BENEATH is also available as a FREE audiobook, available at Podiobooks.com or the author's website:

  www.jeremyrobinsononline.com.

  DEDICATION

  For Walter and Stan, my techie geniuses

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Because this is a special edition ebook I don't have the normal group of people to thank. No publisher, agent or designers took part in the creation of this book. I wrote it, laid it out and designed the cover myself.

  But that doesn't mean it was created in a vacuum. I must thank the diligent work of my advance readers and spell checkers whose dedication and support made this possible. Karen Cooper, Tara Elly and Dan Boucher – your advance reading comments helped improve the story. You were my editors for this book and I thank you for it. Merrill Allen, your final read and typo fixes were invaluable and kept me from looking like a dolt.

  Thanks must also go out to audiobook narrator extraordinaire, Jeffrey Kafer, the voice behind the free podcast novel edition of BENEATH as well as the (not free) audiobooks for PULSE and INSTINCT. You make my text come to life.

  Last, and always, I need to thank my infinitely supportive wife, Hilaree and my three adorable and creative children, Aquila, Solomon and Norah.

  Table of Contents

  Quotations

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  About the Author

  Author's Note

  Exclusive PULSE Sample

  Exclusive INSTINCT Sample

  "If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short o
ne - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative."

  -- Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space

  "It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task."

  -- Virgil, Aeneid

  "Spaceships and time machines are no escape from the human condition. Let Othello subject Desdemona to a lie-detector test; his jealousy will still blind him to the evidence. Let Oedipus triumph over gravity; he won't triumph over his fate."

  -- Arthur Koestler, Writer

  "The search for new life, exploration of the world around us, accumulation of global knowledge for the betterment of mankind; no one questions these ideas. They are the fundamentals of world-wide human society and the very basic principles of science. New life forms are discovered every year in the most remote regions of our world, providing unique glimpses of the evolutionary process and delivering incredible advances in medical science, saving countless lives. Seeking out new life should be a tantamount concern to every living soul on Earth..."

  -- Dr. Kathy Connelly, Biologist and Oceanographer

  "Maybe this world is another planet's hell."

  -- Aldous Huxley

  PROLOGUE -- COLLISIONS

  Glowing dully in the light cast from the distant sun, a spinning chunk of interwoven nickel and iron the size of Khufu's Pyramid, cruised past the outer fringes of our solar system, missing Pluto by a miniscule six hundred thousand miles.

  Moving at 75,000 miles per hour, the asteroid sped past the orbits of Uranus, Neptune and Saturn, bringing it deeper into the solar system and on a direct collision course with Earth. But, as often happens with solar intruders, a slight tug, a nagging pull of gravity began to exert its force on the interplanetary projectile. The course of the asteroid was modified and redirected towards the solar system's vacuum cleaner, mighty Jupiter.

  Just as the ancient god Jupiter protected the Roman Empire by reaching out and smiting enemies with lightning bolts, so too did the solar system's guardian. Reaching out with its gravity, Jupiter pulled the asteroid toward its surface, threatening to crush it within a high pressure atmosphere of hydrogen, nitrogen, helium and other gases. The asteroid, now on a collision course with the outer atmosphere of Jupiter, began building speed, pulled in faster by Jupiter's influence.

  Passing Jupiter's outer moons in rapid succession, the asteroid's fate seemed clear. But a near miss with Callisto, Jupiter's eighth and second-largest moon, altered its course ever so slightly, just enough to cause a premature collision. Noiselessly, the asteroid impacted with the frozen surface of Jupiter's sixth moon, Europa. The surface of the moon exploded with energy created by the impact and massive chunks of ice, launching stone and other materials into space. Some were pulled back by Jupiter's gravitational grip, but other chunks, moving fast enough to escape, tumbled into space and scattered across the solar system like a broken dinner plate across a tile floor.

  One object in particular made off like a fleeing prisoner, toward the center of the solar system—toward Earth. The football-field-sized asteroid which once threatened Earth had been replaced by a smaller chunk of Europa, which slowly spun through the solar system, passing through the asteroid belt and the orbit of Mars without incident.

  The house-sized object passed the moon and burst into flames as it entered Earth's atmosphere—3,053 years later.

  EARTH

  CHAPTER 1 -- IMPACT

  Muscles stretched and bones cracked as Michael Peterson twisted his own neck with his hands. His mother had always told him that cracking his own neck would one day paralyze him. But Peterson had stretched his neck to the point where his vertebrae popped every morning since his was a child. He stepped out of the tent and shivered as the frigid air struck his lungs.

  If only mom could see me now, he thought as he looked out at the white expanse of the Arctic where he'd come in search of meteorites. Every year, thousands of space rocks made their permanent home on the surface of the Earth, or in this case, the frozen surface of the Arctic Ocean. It wasn't that meteorites were more plentiful at the North Pole, just that they were easier to spot. Black specks on the stark ice usually meant one of two things, a polar bear's snout or a meteorite.

  Peterson had the rugged look of a man who ought to be out in a cold expanse, seeking out new-found wonders. His face was covered in stubble, which helped block out the unending cold. His jet black hair had a slight wave to it, but was now covered by a wool cap and parka hood. Some teenagers might consider him old, but he was still ready to take on most any challenge his profession could throw at him. Not that there was much to being an astrogeologist with a specialization in meteorites. If he wasn't collecting rocks from around the world, he was dissecting them in a warm, cozy lab. But it was exciting work. He believed that the evidence for life on other worlds wouldn't be found through monitoring radio waves like the folks at SETI or by finding traces of water on the surface of Mars. No, the proof would come to us, in the form of microorganisms embedded in a meteorite. It only needed to be found.

  He was only a child when the news of ALH84001 hit the papers in 1996, but it was one of his sweetest memories. The meteorite had been found on Antarctica in 1984, but wasn't analyzed for years. When it was...it rocked the world with the possibility of extraterrestrial microbial life on Mars. The president addressed the nation about the find. Conversations of life on other worlds ran rampant. Peterson based his school science project on the Martian stone, earning him an A in eighth grade astronomy. He was devastated when the stone was proven to contain no evidence of life, but the flame had already been ignited. Earning his doctorate degree by age twenty-five garnered him the respect of his peers and allowed him to start working on his life's dream at a young age. It was now 2021 and after seven years of searching, he was no closer to his life's goal than he was at the millennium.

  Peterson lifted a stone in his gloved hand and let it drop. He watched as the rock hit the snow, creating a small plume of icy dust, and a tiny pockmark. Lifting the stone, Peterson smiled at the mini crater. He had often pictured what it would be like, witnessing a meteorite crashing to Earth; bursting through the atmosphere and crashing to the ground. He'd seen the results when such collisions took place in the civilized world; car engines torn through like a tank had just taken a pot shot, living rooms destroyed, trees severed in half. It was a miracle no one had yet been brained by one of the falling stones. He'd seen it all, but when it happened to him, for all his years of dreaming, he found himself completely unprepared.

  The streak overhead caught his attention as he stretched in the early morning, preparing for another long day of scouring the frozen cap of the world. His first thought was that it was a crashing plane, or perhaps a satellite. But something about the way it glowed and broke up told him the object falling across the deep blue sky was not man made. This was the real thing. An asteroid turned meteorite plummeting to Earth before his eyes.

  It fell to the north, disappearing over the horizon. Peterson's eyes widened; he feared the object had been completely disintegrated by Earth's friction filled atmosphere. Perhaps he would find nothing but interstellar ash? Or maybe nothing at all. He was terrified that he would have nothing to show for the most enlightening, most invigorating and satisfying experience of his life. He held his breath.

  A second later, he heard a distant thud. The meteorite had struck the ice, and not too far away. His mind spun with the possibilities that came when any meteorite was discovered: proof of extraterrestrial life, new elements, maybe even evidence for the beginning of the universe. The possibilities were endless. This object that just fell into his proverbial backyard could be as old as the universe itself. He stood there for a minute, pondering what he would find, and then suddenly snapped out of his thoughts, sounded the alarm and gathered his crew.

  "Benson! Get your ass up!" Peterson shouted as he shook the outside of the sturdy, orange tent.
/>   "I'm awake. I'm awake," came a voice from inside the tent. Seconds later the tent was unzipped from the inside and a tired, bearded face gazed out. "What the hell is so important?"

  "A meteorite," Peterson said, with glowing eyes.

  Benson was annoyed. "Yeah, we find a lot of those up here, but not at six o'clock in the morning!"

  Peterson leaned in close and spoke with a voice that demanded attention, without the use of volume. "You don't understand. It just hit. I saw it hit."

  Staring straight forward for a moment, Benson was lost in thought. "You're sure?"

  "Saw it with my own eyes," Peterson said. "Wake the others. We're leaving in twenty minutes. And we're not taking any chances, so break out the bio-suits."