Exo-Hunter Read online

  I toggle my mike. “BigApe, I did not receive. Say again. Over.”

  I don’t like the pause that follows. I’m about to order Whip and Brick to the surface when, “—oviets, en route! Over.”

  “Say again. Did you say Soviets? Over.”

  At the mention of our Cold War rivals, the temperature inside the ice bubble drops, and my team tenses.

  “Yes!” BigApe shouts, loud and clear. “ETA, one mike! Should we engage? Over.”

  “Shit,” I say, and then I ask Carter, “How important is this thing? Really?”

  “Very,” she says, and it’s not nearly good enough.

  “Important enough to die over?” I ask, while BigApe repeats his question in my ear. “Should we engage?!”

  “Whoever recovers this…” Carter motions to the artifact. “…might have the ability to sculpt the future into whatever form they like.”

  “What kind of Yoda bullshit answer is that?” Chuy says. “It’s a statue, built for some long-forgotten god. We should bug out.”

  “How did a statue get fifty feet inside ice that hasn’t seen the light of day for the past fifteen million years?” Carter’s shouted question echoes around the chamber, and it morphs into a strange kind of rumble. It resonates throughout the spherical space, somehow growing louder.

  “Fifteen million years is long before hominids evolved,” Chuy says. “If people didn’t make it, where did it come from?”

  Carter’s eyes move from Chuy toward the ceiling.

  We all understand her meaning.

  Out there…

  Space…

  Whatever is hidden beneath the ice…it’s alien.

  “Holee-shit,” Whip says.

  “BigApe,” I say, “Light ’em up.”

  The order might save our lives.

  Might also start a World War.

  Our only hope that the fight doesn’t blossom into something worse is getting the hell out without leaving a man or any evidence behind. And that includes what’s in the ice.

  “Chuy, Benny,” I say. “Find a way to get that thing out of the ice. Whip, Brick, get topside. Guard the entrance.” I set my eyes on Carter. “You, tell me every damn thing you can about what we’re dragging out of the ice. Right now. Or I’ll leave you for our comrades.”

  She looks about ready to tear my head off. But before she can speak, or my team can act, the rumbling draws our eyes to the ceiling.

  The silhouette of a snowmobile races across the ice above us.

  The sphere’s ceiling cracks as the vehicle passes.

  A second snowmobile follows.

  Shards of ice fall and shatter on the floor, forcing us to look away or risk being impaled in the face.

  Muffled gunshots tear through the air above. M16s. BigApe and his team are giving them hell. The thumping report of AK-47s follows.

  “We should all be up there,” Chuy says.

  “Do what I told you,” I say. “All of you—”

  The chamber shakes. A second rumble grows louder. At the fringe of the translucent ceiling, the underside of a five-ton Sno-Cat rolls into view. It’s going to drive right over the sphere’s cap, where the ice is thinnest.

  “Everyone out!” I shout.

  “We can’t leave!” Carter stomps a foot in protest. “We need to—”

  I grasp her parka, plant my feet, and toss her to the side, while the rest of my team heeds my warning, diving away from the room’s core.

  Above, the ceiling cracks.

  Ice rains down when a thick, metal track punctures through, grinding and carving. The ceiling buckles beneath the machine’s weight. I make it two steps before I’m forced to leap clear.

  Metal and ice grind. Then, for a moment: silence. It’s followed by an earsplitting crash as the Sno-Cat pounds into the floor. The impact cracks the smooth, blue walls, marring what had been an unnatural wonder.

  I roll onto my back, to find the Sno-Cat face down, its long body jutting fifteen feet into the air. Inside the cab, two Soviet soldiers—unconscious and probably alive thanks to their seatbelts. Outside the Cat are two more tangos, both most certainly dead. Blood pools around the closest, seeping down through cracks in the once perfectly smooth floor.

  A lightning streak of cracks spreads out away from the Cat. It cants to the side and then falls—straight toward me. I try to scramble back, but the floor is suddenly slick with moisture. Instead of gripping, my crampons slice through the softening ice.

  Pressure grips my neck like I’m being strangled. Brick’s got my hood in his big hand. He yanks and flings me clear, diving to the ice beside me.

  “Owe you one,” I say.

  “I’m sure you’ll get plenty of chances to pay me back.” He glances at the slushy floor between us. “Ice is melting.”

  Across the chamber, Whip gets to his feet, unsteady as water flows past him from the walls. “This can’t be good!”

  “If we don’t bug out now,” Chuy says, “we’re going to get frostbite topside before evac can pick us up.”

  “Unless we take Vostok Station,” Brick says.

  “That would definitely start a war,” I say, but I don’t see any other plays.

  Carter sloshes into ankle deep water, trying to get past the twisted wreckage, to the artifact beneath.

  “It’s not going to happen, Bugs,” I tell her. “Best I can do is bring this place down and bury it again.”

  “Not good enough!” she shouts, dropping to her hands and knees. She tries to push her way past some twisted metal, but she stops. Looks confused. “The water…is warm.”

  She’s right. I can feel moisture in the air like a humidifier on my face.

  Brick’s gloved hand squeaks over his goggles, wiping condensation away. “This place is going to be a pond in the next— What…is that?”

  The ice beneath Carter glows blue.

  Whatever she was after has been turned on…or activated, and since I don’t know if it’s a flashlight or a bomb… “Move, people!”

  “Nikomu ne dvigatsya!”

  I swivel toward the voice, M16 raised. One of the Russians from the Cat has hauled himself out and is now holding the biggest knife I’ve ever seen to Carter’s throat. The blade is distinctive. Probably one of a kind. The Damascus steel gives it an almost marbled look, while the stern eagle head carved into the pommel and the straight-edged feathers on the guard make the ebony handle scream: ‘I was made in Mother Russia!’

  Carter looks more annoyed than afraid, which is impressive, but that’s not going to save her life.

  That’s on Chuy.

  I can see her moving out of the corner of my eye, slow and catlike. The moment the sniper rifle scope reaches her eye, the man’s head will stain Carter’s jacket.

  “Otpusti yeyo,” I say in Russian.

  He squints at me. My accent is as clear as his would be, were he speaking English. “Amerikanskiy…” The blade pushes harder against Carter’s neck. A bead of blood runs down the metal surface. Carter’s eyebrows turn up slightly.

  There’s the fear…

  Blue pulses from the floor, rushing up around the translucent walls, revealing silhouettes…of something…of monsters…inside the damn ice! They’re impossible to make out in detail, but they are definitely not human.

  The Russian sees them, too, his eyes widening. “Zhizn’ ebet meya...”

  A scream draws our attention upward.

  Two bodies fall from above, locked together, grappling. The first, I don’t know. The second is BigApe.

  They land in the now three-foot-deep water, BigApe on top.

  Light lances all around us, reaching a crescendo of otherworldly energy.

  “Peredyshka!” He withdraws the blade from Carter’s neck and points it at the tunnel exit. “My mozhem poyti vmeste.”

  He wants a truce. Wants to leave together. I’d normally kick this Ruskie’s ass back to Siberia, but given the circumstances…

  “Da,” I tell him, and I lower my weapon. “Da.�
�

  Carter hurries away from him, and I motion for the others to lower their weapons, too. Chuy was half a second from taking his head off, but now we have a prisoner and might get some answers.

  BigApe grunts as he attempts to stand.

  “Get his ass up and out of here!” I shout to Chuy and Whip.

  “No complaints,” I say to Carter, shoving her toward the tunnel. “Not a wor—”

  Blinding light pulses through cracks in the walls.

  A wave of nausea rolls through me. Drops me to one knee.

  A high-pitched squeal fills the air, forcing my hands to my ears. I scream, but I can’t hear it. All around me, the team suffers the same fate.

  And then, an explosion.

  I think.

  It hits me like a freight train. Lifts me off the wet floor. And slams me into a white oblivion before knocking me unconscious.

  My breath fogs rounded glass. Feels like a rebreather used for long dives. But I’m upright. And walking. I look down. The first thing I notice is my clothing. It’s not a diving suit, it’s a spacesuit. There are glowing red bands around my biceps. There’s a stern looking eagle head emblem on my chest. The golden profile smacks of an authoritarian regime more than patriotic Americana, but it’s been painted over with a red X.

  A moving walkway scrolls beneath my booted feet. Turquoise light seeps out of the cracks between each pad. Each step keeps me in the same position. Takes me nowhere. I’m a hamster on a wheel.

  And that’s fine by me, because I want nothing to do with what’s before me.

  Despite the feeling of gravity keeping me rooted on the walkway, it’s clear that I’m in space. My view of the stars is unhindered by Earth’s atmosphere. The view is alive with pinpoints of light. A purple nebula glows and churns. But none of that holds my attention for long.

  Wholesale destruction twists through the vacuum. I’m not sure what I’m looking at—what it used to be—a vessel, several vessels, a space station, or something else. But it was clearly manmade and has now been undone.

  We have nothing like this, I think.

  Neither do the Russians.

  I look over my shoulder, hoping to see Earth. Instead I see a black sphere that is clearly not Earth or any other planet in the solar system humanity calls home.

  Where the hell am I?

  I look back toward the twisting destruction, my practiced eyes spotting bodies amidst the debris.

  Thousands of them.

  Maybe more.

  But they’re hard to make out. The details blur, like there’s something in my eye.

  What the fuck happened here?

  A voice echoes like a memory. “Found something…thing…thing…”

  And the world goes white again.

  “Another one! I found another!” The accent is funny. While the man’s English is perfect, the accent is faux German. Instead of intimidating, like just about every German speaker, he sounds a bit silly. Naïve.

  The wall of white lifts away. A sheet of snowy ice.

  A man in a strange black body suit stands over me. The emblem from the dream is on his chest, but right-side up and easy to see. It’s an eagle, profile head, wings spread, but then turned down. Looks a lot like what I’d been wearing in my dream, sans the X. I have no idea what country or military force it represents.

  When I blink my eyes at the Antarctic sun, his voice rises an octave. “This one is alive!”

  This one is alive.

  That means someone else was dead.

  I lift my arm from the ice, reaching for the man. “Help me up!”

  The man flinches back. His eyebrows are turned up in fear.

  That’s odd, I think. He’s wearing the tight black suit, but his balding head is totally exposed. He should be freezing.

  “Who… Who are you?” he asks.

  “Afraid I’m going to need you to go first,” I tell him, pushing myself up without his help. I’m desperate to get a look at my surroundings but taking my eyes off this guy for just a second would give him the opportunity to subdue me.

  “Ozark,” he says. “My name is Ozark.”

  “What kind of name is… What country are you from? Canada?”

  “Country?” He’s honestly baffled by the question. “Do you mean planet? Because this is Earth.”

  “I know what damn planet I’m on,” I tell him, and I’m about to unleash a diatribe of insults laced between questions when a breeze brushes up against my exposed face.

  It’s warm.

  Spring in New England warm. Maybe sixty-five degrees.

  I glance down at his clothing again. It’s not winter gear at all. It’s some kind of skin-tight armor. A uniform. There’s a name plate. Reads Burnett. Ozark must be his first name.

  My eyes flit to the side. It’s supposed to be a glance, but I can’t look away. Behind Burnett are the ruins of a post-apocalyptic neighborhood. Caved in homes. Twisted swing sets.

  Where the fuck am I, and how did I get here?

  Soviets, I think. This is a mind-screw interrogation technique meant to break my mind from reality. Loosen my tongue.

  A second man rushes up beside the first. He’s got a belly. Not a soldier. Name tag reads Morton. When he sees me, his eyes go wide, like he’s looking at a tiger with wings and a unicorn horn. And then he makes a comment that will haunt me for the rest of my life. “His skin… It’s dark!”

  His voice is deeper, but it has the same Americanized German accent.

  When I stand up, both men hop a step back.

  “Where on Earth are we?” I ask.

  “New Antarctica,” Burnett says. “You don’t live here, do you? I mean, no one lives here.”

  “That could explain the skin,” Morton says.

  “No one lives on Antarctica,” I say, trying hard to not slug the man. Yet. Broken jaws make answering questions difficult.

  “Not anymore,” Morton says.

  I’m about to accuse them of both being Soviet interrogators when I see the second body, pulled not from ice, but from the ruins of a building. It wasn’t a sheet of ice and snow pulled off my body. It was a wall and insulation. Laid out on the crumbling pavement of a long-since-used road is the big Russian. Eyes closed. Chest unmoving.

  They wouldn’t kill one of their own to convince me this is real… Would they?

  If I bring him back, maybe he can tell me.

  I head for the Russian. He’s got a full beard, a barrel shaped body, and he has the distinct look of a killer. Like a bear.

  “Fucking Soviets,” I mutter, and I fall to my knees by his head. “You two going to help?” I shout toward Burnett and Morton.

  “Help…what?” Burnett asks.

  “Useless,” I say, and then I start CPR, an act that draws gasps from the two men. The hell is wrong with them?

  When the Russian’s ribs crack, I know I’m doing it right. When he doesn’t jump up in pain, I’m sure he’s dead. I work on him for thirty seconds, pausing only to shed my parka. And then…

  He gasps awake, sits up, backhands me away, shouts, “Moi rebra!” He clutches his ribs and falls back down, unconscious.

  But breathing.

  When I turn around on the two strange men, they look stunned, like I’m a wizard casting spells in some post-apocalyptic—

  Hold on a fucking second.

  I reach for my hip. Find my Beretta M9 handgun still holstered there. I draw it. Aim it at Burnett. He flinches back. Raises his hands. Morton follows suit when I turn the pistol on him.

  No way this is a Russian ruse.

  “What year is it?”

  The two men look at each other. Confused by the simple question.

  “What. Year. Is. It?” I fire a round into the pavement between them. It sparks and pings, sending both men leaping in fright.

  Definitely not soldiers.

  “Twenty-nine-eighty-nine,” Burnett says.

  “Sure you don’t want to subtract ten from that twenty-nine?”

  “Ni
neteen-eighty-eight?” Morton says. “Why would we… Is that the year you think it is?”

  Keeping my weapon trained on the duo, I turn my head up. The sky is still blue. The clouds are still white. This is Earth, but there’s a dead neighborhood…in a warm Antarctica. “How did all this—” I motion to the destruction. “—get like this?”

  Morton’s brow furrows. “Do you not know?” Looks at Burnett. “Could he really not know?”

  “Know what?” I ask, finger on the trigger. The moment I put one of them down, the other is going to start blabbing like a truth geyser.

  A rumble approaches. Something airborne. Sounds like a jet. “Which one of you assholes called for air support?”

  “We called for a pick-up before we found you.”

  “Evac,” I say. “Why?”

  “Because we didn’t find anything worth salvaging,” Morton says. “Because there is nothing left here but junk and two-hundred-year-old death.” He turns to Burnett. “Just like I told you.”

  “Shut-up, space breath.”

  “Space…breath?” The question slips out of my mouth.

  “Because space smells bad,” Burnett says. “Like welding fumes.”

  “I think it smells like burned meat,” Morton says, “which I like, so go flap yourself.”

  “Flap yourself?”

  Before I can ask another real question, the roar of a jet engine grows too loud to ignore. If these two morons are about to get backup, I don’t want to look like a threat right off the bat. I holster my weapon and turn to greet the—

  Ho. Lee. Shit.

  It’s a spaceship…on Earth…but still, this is some Battlestar Galactica bullshit. The craft slows to a hover like it’s posing for pictures. Its ‘wings’ are only there to support the four VTOL jets keeping it airborne. Otherwise, it looks something like a boxy submarine with a broad windshield and one of those eagle emblems on the front. The ship lowers to the ground and settles with a slight bump. The jets’ roar comes to an abrupt stop. A hatch opens and a lone, very overweight man stuffed into a black uniform struts down the walkway.

  “I told you two slags that you wouldn’t find anything of any consequence down he—” He’s seen me. And the Soviet. His lips move, but no words escape.

  “Is it just the three of you?” I ask.