Revelations

CHAPTER 1

Emily Baxter stood at the frost-encrusted window and stared out at a distant horizon beyond the Stockton Islands rimed with thick, red clouds. The storm she and Rhiannon had fought so very hard to outrun had seemed, for a short while at least, to be intent on sweeping after the two women, following them to the safety they had fought so hard to reach. But the threatening clouds had slowed their steady march across the sky and finally stopped, far enough away from their island sanctuary that Emily felt able to relax, just a little; far enough away to begin to hope.

The same could not be said about her feelings toward the man who had convinced her to make the trip to this tiny group of frozen islands off the northern coast of Alaska; the storm roiling through Emily’s blood was still a long way from subsiding. The deception that had led her on a trek thousands of miles to this place, that had cost lives, yet unquestionably saved her own and Rhiannon’s, had dug itself deep into her mind and lodged there. Jacob Endersby, the man who had seemed to be her guardian angel as he helped to lead her across two countries under the guise of trying to save her from the horrible product of the red rain, had been a lie. Emily, Rhiannon, and Thor had reached the Stocktons exhausted, haunted, but thankful, only to find Jacob’s motivation had not been as pure as he had led her to believe. Jacob was wheelchair-bound and trapped here in this icy prison, and Emily had been his only chance of surviving or ever getting off this rock.

There was no denying that Jacob had been correct in his assumptions about the alien invaders’ intentions or their aversion to the colder climate of the north. But he had failed to mention that he was trapped in this place and had outright lied to her that he was a part of a group of survivors rather than the reality that it was just him, alone here and doomed to a slow death by starvation once his supplies ran out.

Jacob had pled his case to her, telling her that he had not thought she would believe him if he told her he was alone, that there was no ulterior motive other than to bring her to safety, but Emily remained unconvinced. And when she thought back to what she had endured… what she had lost and, God forgive her, what she had been forced to do during that terrible journey, it was all she could do not to leave him here.

And go where?

Where was there other than here? The storm had consumed everything within sight and now lurked at their doorstep like a hungry wolf.

But there was also no doubt in her mind that if she had not believed him she would have stayed in Manhattan and, most likely, died there.

And then there were Thor and Rhiannon; beautiful, confused, sad little Rhiannon. The child had been forced to grow up so very fast after first the death of her father and then the terrible loss of her little brother, Ben. Benjamin! His was a memory she would keep locked and unvisited for the rest of her life if she could.

Her head felt like it was full of tightly wound string that could unravel at any moment. But those emotions had to be set aside for now, there were more pressing concerns for her to worry about.

Not long after Emily and her companions had arrived at the research station, they had received a garbled radio signal, not from the International Space Station circling the Earth and Fiona Mulligan, its ever-watchful, but doomed commander. This new message had been from a British submarine, the HMS Vengeance.

At the sound of the static-broken radio signal, Emily and Jacob had momentarily forgotten their differences and rushed to the radio room. But the garbled signal had not repeated. And now, almost four hours after the first message had been received, there had been no further contact with the sub.

As the minutes slipped into hours, Jacob had finally said he had chores to do and left (due more to the angry stare Emily would give him every time he opened his mouth, than any real tasks, Emily thought). And as time wore on first Thor then Rhiannon had fallen asleep. The girl was slumped in a chair in the corner of the room, Thor on his side at her feet. But Emily remained awake, periodically pressing the talk button on the tabletop microphone attached to the large radio transmitter.

“This is Emily Baxter calling the HMS Vengeance. I’m here with three other survivors at the research station on the Stockton Islands. If you can hear me please respond.” She spoke the words robotically now, the initial tone of excitement her voice had carried had moved to anticipation only to be replaced by one of desperation.

Thor gave a long, luxurious stretch of all four legs, arched his back, yawned, and looked up at Emily.

“Glad you’re able to relax,” Emily said to the dog, which immediately set his tail sweeping back and forth across the floor.

She rose from her seat at the radio and started over to where a slumbering Rhiannon was snoring gently. She was about to shake the girl awake when a crackle of static snapped her attention back to the radio. Emily rushed back to the desk, grabbed the mike in both hands, and thumbed the talk button. “Hello? This is Emily Baxter calling HMS Vengeance. Are you there?”

Another burst of static hissed from the speaker and then, as if he was standing in the room with her, a rich male voice burst from the speakers.

“Ms. Baxter, this is Captain Edward Constantine. I’m very glad to make your acquaintance. I hate to be—” The captain’s speech was suddenly broken by a wracking cough. The radio went silent for a moment then his voice once again filled the room. “My apologies. My crew has an emergency on our hands and we badly need your assistance. Are you the person in command there?”

Emily hesitated for a moment before answering. “Yes,” she stated firmly, “I’m the one you need to speak to.”

The Vengeance had been laid up at the Canadian Forces Base Halifax in Nova Scotia for resupply and some well-earned R & R for the crew the day the red rain had swept across the globe.

“Most of my crew were ashore on leave when we got an order from the Admiralty to put back to sea immediately as soon as I had enough crew to operate the boat,” the captain explained. “Only a handful managed to make it back in time. I cut it as close as I could, but we had only minutes, and orders are orders. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was leave my people behind. God help me. Thirty-seven of us. That’s all I managed to save, before we put to sea. Thirty-seven out of a crew of one hundred and eighty men.”

Even over the low-fidelity radio, Emily could hear the pain of regret in the captain’s voice. She wondered if she had that same tone in her own voice when she spoke.

The Vengeance and her crew had remained submerged, running radio silent, since that day, listening in disbelief as the world had died around them. Captain Constantine explained that the nuclear submarine could have stayed submerged for months if it had needed to, but two days ago a fire had broken out in the crew quarters. It had spread quickly, filling the ship with choking smoke. By the time the fire was out, four more of the crew were dead and another three had suffered serious injuries. Almost everyone else had suffered some kind of burn or smoke inhalation. The fire had damaged the sub’s medical bay, and with the storm swirling above the waves, they had begun to look for somewhere, anywhere, that they could put ashore to tend to the wounded and bury their dead. That was when they had picked up on the radio conversation between Emily and Jacob.

“With your permission, Emily, we’d like to use your station facilities, if you have the room for us?”

“Of course,” Emily said without hesitation. “Do you know our location?”

“We have your coordinates on our charts. You can expect us within the next two hours. I’ll sound the boat’s horn when we put ashore, so you’ll know to expect us. And Emily, thank you. Over and out.”

“Over and out,” Emily repeated awkwardly, trying but failing not to smile at how odd the words felt.

Emily turned from the radio. Jacob was sitting stone-faced in his wheelchair at the doorway. “You don’t think it would have been a good idea to ask me if they could come here, before you invited them?” he asked.

“No,” said Emily, flatly. “No, I did not.”

“Jesus, Emily. Did you stop to think about how their presence is going to impact us? We only have so much fuel and supplies to last. I really can’t allow you to—”

Emily felt her blood rush to her head as she took a step toward Jacob, her hands bunched into tight fists at her hips. “You are not in a position to allow me to do anything,” she spat. “You dragged us here for whatever reasons you had, and while I’m still not entirely clear how I feel about that, while we are here you will have no influence over my or Rhiannon’s life. Am I clear?”

Jacob held her gaze for a moment, his own face flushing red from either anger or embarrassment, then he swiveled his chair and stalked off in the direction of his room saying nothing.

The argument had woken Rhiannon and she stared up from her chair at a red-faced Emily.

“Come on,” she told the girl, “I need your help.”

“What? What for?”

“We’re expecting visitors. We need to make sure we are ready for them.”

“Visitors? Who?”

“I’ll explain later, just grab your coat and follow me.”

With a huge sigh Rhiannon pulled herself up off the seat. “That was comfy,” she said as though she had just been asked to give up her bed for the night.

“There will be plenty of time for sleeping later; right now you need to get your butt into gear and follow me.”

Emily tracked Jacob down in his bedroom.

“The other buildings,” she asked, “are they heated? Capable of holding the injured?”

“Yes,” Jacob said, the sullen tone in his voice making it obvious he was cooperating under duress. “Each building has its own generator. You’ll need to fire it up though. I’ve had them all turned off since… well, you know, since everyone left. The generator is in the small outbuilding adjacent to each of the living quarters. There should be more than enough fuel to power them for the next day or so.”

“Okay, I’ll find it.”

“But Emily, I’d suggest you leave one building turned off.”

Emily looked at him questioningly, expecting another attempt to re-exert control.

Jacob glanced sideways at Rhiannon, sighed, and spoke. “For the morgue, they’ll need somewhere to put the bodies.”

“Bodies?” Rhiannon asked. “What bodies?”

Emily found the generator where Jacob had said it would be and fired it up. Seconds later she heard the whine and rumble of the big industrial-strength heaters on the roof sparking into life, circulating the cold air out and replacing it with warm.

The inside of the second building was still above freezing thanks to the layers of thick insulation squeezed into the wall spaces, but only just. Within a quarter of an hour, though, the air was warm enough for Emily and Rhiannon to drop the hoods from their parkas. Ten minutes later the coats were off and draped over the back of a chair.

The two girls did a quick walk-through, moving from room to room. This building’s layout was similar to the one Jacob had claimed as his own, but it had a larger meeting area with four smaller office areas leading off of it. There were also several other rooms that served as sleeping quarters, the beds nothing more than hard-looking mattresses on a metal frame.

“The bigger room will work as a makeshift first-aid and hospital area. We can put the more seriously injured in their own rooms. What do you think, Rhiannon?”

The girl nodded enthusiastically. Rhiannon was obviously thrilled about the new arrivals. “Do you think there will be other kids?” she had asked, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice.

“Maybe,” Emily had replied cautiously, not wanting to dampen her enthusiasm. She didn’t think there would be many children serving on a modern hunter-killer submarine.

The main room had chairs and tables that needed to be moved to make space for their new guests. They stacked them out of the way against a far wall, then moved into the sleeping quarters and manhandled six of the ten beds out into the cleared room. Rhiannon found clean blankets and bedding in a storage locker and brought them to Emily.

“Good job, kiddo, now see if you can find the first-aid kits around here.” Emily had no idea what supplies the sub crew would have with them, but she figured every little bit would help.

The girl disappeared down the corridor and was back five minutes later carrying two large boxes with the distinctive red cross embossed on their lids.

“Will these do?” she asked.

“Perfect. Put them over there on the table.” Emily pointed to a foldout table with some of the supplies they had brought with them from the other building. It also held a large coffee machine that was already sending a steady signal of steam and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee into the air.

They were almost finished making up the beds when a deep bass ululation rumbled through the walls of the makeshift hospital. It could only be the horn of the sub, which meant their company would be arriving soon.

Emily stationed herself at a north-facing window, blotting away the condensation that had collected on the inside of the glass with the arm of her sweater, and watched. From her vantage point she could look out past the other buildings and have a clear, almost unobstructed view of the land to the drop-off that led down to the northernmost beach of the island. For minutes nothing but the occasional whirligig of snow moved between her and the distant edge of the world, but beyond that, a scarlet wall of angry clouds, shot through with deep purple layers, rolled and tumbled, filling the sky. The red storm—it lurked like some mighty beast, prowling the horizon, waiting for a chance to pounce.

Then, in the distance, Emily saw a silhouette emerge over a bank of snow. At this distance, the newcomers looked like a single entity, but as they drew closer the silhouette resolved into individual shapes and she could see it was a procession of parka-clad individuals, their heads bowed against the freezing wind as they trudged across the snowy ground toward the base. At the front of the procession were several men carrying the injured on stretchers; Emily counted eight stretchers in all. Behind them, each shouldering a large military backpack similar to the one Emily had used, came several sailors, wobbling as they tried to keep their balance on the treacherously uneven ground. And rifles, Emily noted somewhat nervously, all the figures carried rifles.

“Here they come. I have to go and meet them,” Emily told Rhiannon. “Can you finish these up?” She nodded at the remaining beds still left unmade, sheets and blankets stacked neatly beside them.

“I’m on it,” Rhiannon said in her singsong voice, and Emily felt a surge of pride swell in her chest. The kid was really turning out to be something.

Slow to button her parka as she stepped out of the building’s exit door and crunched down onto the snow, Emily felt the freezing hand of the ever-present wind push its way between the layers of her clothing, grabbing at the exposed skin it found there. She quickly zipped the rest of the jacket up and flipped the hood over her head. Dear God, how does anything survive in these conditions? It was a thought worth pondering, especially as she had no idea just how long she and Rhiannon would have to call this place home.

Looking up from fastening her jacket, she could see the snaking line of British submariners had almost reached the edge of the base, but they were angling toward the other building, following the lights from Jacob’s room. Emily took a few steps away from the side of the building so they would be sure to see her then began waving her arms back and forth above her head.

A few moments later she saw the lead stretcher-bearer stop and look at her. Whoever was beneath the parka turned his head and yelled something to the people behind him; she could see the white puffs of frozen breath spill out from the hood, then he changed direction and began trudging toward her.

The wind was beginning to make itself known again, picking up frozen crystals of snow and twirling them across the ground. Standing still wasn’t a good idea, she could already feel the knife-edge of cold cutting through the thermal armor of the coat, stabbing its way through the other layers of clothing, looking for the warm flesh below.

In the few minutes it took the sub crew to stumble their way to the building, the wind had whipped itself into a fury, gusts roaring between the boxlike buildings, rattling the triple-paned windows and whipping the antenna at the center of the camp back and forth until the guy-lines supporting it twanged and sang. Emily had to lean against the outer wall of the building for shelter or risk being blown over. It wasn’t that the wind was even that strong, it just seemed to switch direction in a heartbeat, as though it too was being pulled and pushed by some unseen force. The particles of snow and ice that flurried through the air only added to Emily’s disorientation.

The first member of the crew appeared out of the wind-whipped snow like a Bedouin nomad emerging from a sandstorm. Emily could not make out whether the form belonged to a man or a woman, their gender hidden beneath the layers of the white parka, their eyes hidden behind a pair of snow goggles, and from their nose down, some kind of facemask covered their lower face.

“Hello!” Emily yelled, but her voice was torn away from her by the wind. Instead, she beckoned the crewman toward the doorway, pulled the door ajar, and leaned into it to stop it being ripped from her hands.

“Inside,” she yelled. “Through the second door.”

The figure dipped his head and stepped through the door, carefully maneuvering the stretcher and its blanket-covered patient through the narrow doorway. The blankets and the injured sailor beneath it had been secured in place by what looked like straps or belts. Rhiannon’s face appeared around the edge of the far door; she opened it wide enough to allow the figures to stagger inside one after the other.

Over the next few blood-freezing minutes, the procession of half-frozen survivors made their way past Emily into the safety of the building, each clad from head-to-foot in the same all-white, military-style parka, facemask, and goggles. By the time the final one yelled into the hood of Emily’s parka that he was the last of them, she had counted all thirty-six survivors, including the injured carried on the stretchers.

Thankful to get out of the cold, she followed the figure through the door and closed it behind her, making sure the airtight door was fixed firmly in place, then followed the figure down into the anteroom off the corridor.

“That’s everyone?” Rhiannon asked as Emily stepped through.

Emily nodded and Rhia closed and secured the secondary door behind them. “I showed them where the beds are already,” the kid said.

Emily gave the girl’s shoulder a squeeze and shot her a smile as she dropped the hood from her parka, her lips still too cold to talk.

The last of the crew were disappearing from the anteroom into the main area she and Rhia had prepared. Emily followed them through into the makeshift hospital area. Thor was still sitting in one corner, his tail wagging slowly back and forth as he watched the procession of newcomers enter the room. His tail beat faster when he saw Emily.

Emily and Rhiannon waited patiently out of the way in the doorway, watching as the crew worked with military efficiency.

The newcomers wasted no time settling in. The injured had already been transferred from the stretchers to the waiting beds and the room was a commotion as the sailors dumped their backpacks and shed their cold-weather clothing. Medical supplies were pulled from packs as commands were shouted back and forth, order slowly being exerted on the chaos.

Bandages covered the injured, some had their chests wrapped; another had both hands covered in thick wadding that made him look like he wore boxing gloves as he was gently helped beneath the sheets of a bed; a woman, one side of her face wrapped up, watched Emily as she waited her turn to be transferred over. The gaunt-faced girl managed a weak smile, which Emily returned. Only six of the beds were occupied. She had counted eight stretchers, which meant two others must have been transferred to the side rooms she had prepped for the more seriously injured.

A tall man with a military crew cut directed the group from the center of the room. He looked to be in his early forties, a little taller than Emily, and with a week’s worth of dark-brown beard shot through with gray covering his lower face. He walked to the bedside of each of the injured, chatting with them briefly, smiling, joking too, judging by the smiles, and reassuringly touching their hands or arms before moving on.

“You must be Emily,” he said when he was finished with the last of his injured crew. He smiled widely and held out a hand, realized it was still gloved, and quickly pulled it from his fingers with his teeth. “I really can’t thank you enough for this.”

“It’s nothing,” said Emily as she shook the proffered hand. “This is Rhiannon.”

“Captain Edward Constantine,” the man replied, “and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.” He held his hand out to Rhiannon, who flushed bright red as her tiny hand was swallowed up within his.

“At some point, I’d like to arrange a burial service for the members of my crew who died.”

“Of course,” Emily replied. “I’m sure we can arrange something with Jacob’s help.”

“Jacob? Ah! Of course, he’s one of the scientists here at the station?”

Emily stifled a bitter laugh: “He’s the scientist. He’s also wheelchair-bound, so you’ll have to excuse him not being here to greet you.”

Another man, broad shouldered and obviously fit beneath the layers of his military uniform, approached them.

“Sir,” he announced.

“Jimmy. I’d like you to meet Ms. Emily Baxter. Emily, this is Sergeant James ‘Jimmy’ MacAlister of the SBS, and my head of security.”

“You’re the lass we owe for all of this? Well then I’m doubly pleased to meet you,” MacAlister said through a smile in what Emily guessed was about as thick a Scottish accent as she could imagine. He was only a few inches taller than her, with what could only be described as a craggy face; thick eyebrows sat above a pair of soft brown eyes that hinted at a hidden level of mischievousness.

“What’s an ‘SBS’?” Rhiannon asked curiously.

“Special Boat Service,” the captain explained. “British special forces.”

“We’re like your Navy SEALs,” Jimmy chimed in. “Only better looking,” he added, his face split by a playful grin. “Yeah, much better looking,” he agreed with himself.

Emily smiled politely and coughed, and even Rhiannon giggled.

“What? You don’t agree, young lady?” Jimmy said, directing a ten-megawatt smile at the little girl that caused her to flush an even brighter shade of red and burst into a fit of nervous laughter.

“If you’re quite finished making an impression, Sergeant,” the captain said with a hint of his own smile, “I believe we have some injured who could use your help?”

The soldier’s playful demeanor dropped away and he instantly snapped to attention, followed by a brisk salute. “Sir!” he said, twisted on his heels, and was gone, but not before he gave Rhiannon a playful wink and a farewell, “Ladies.”

“You’ll have to excuse Jimmy, modesty is not his forte. He’s a hell of a soldier but a bit of a charmer, I’m afraid,” the captain said, his voice taking on a tone of obvious affection for the man. He took Emily by the elbow and maneuvered her toward the door. “He left most of his troop back in Nova Scotia. They were a tight-knit bunch and he’s taken it pretty hard.”

Emily nodded. Everyone had lost someone because of the red rain. “Can you spare a few minutes to come and meet Jacob?” she asked.

Captain Constantine scanned the room, which had settled into a less frenetic scene. “Everything seems to be under control,” he said, more to himself than Emily. He caught the attention of one of the nearest sailors.

“Sir?”

“Ms. Baxter has asked me to accompany her to the other building. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

“Sir!” the man nodded his understanding.

Emily glanced to the back of the room where Thor still waited patiently. “Thor, come,” Emily said. The big dog was instantly at her side.

“He’s a beautiful dog,” said the captain, admiring the malamute as he joined them, sniffing the captain’s boots and trouser legs.

“I owe him my life,” Emily said matter-of-factly. She reached down and stroked the side of Thor’s head.

“Well I hope we’ll have the time for you to tell me all about your adventures, Ms. Baxter. Please, lead the way.”

Emily zipped her parka shut then made sure Rhiannon’s was also secured, flipping the girl’s hood into place, followed by her own.

“Call me Emily,” she said finally as she turned and headed toward the exit that would take them back out into the storm.

The squall had grown even more furious, whipping between the buildings so violently that it felt like multiple pairs of hands trying to push Emily over. She felt a sense of dread begin to permeate through the layers of clothing and chill her bones. If the red storm, which seemed to have slowed to a stop at the edge of the Arctic Circle, was once again pushing in on this tiny island, then there was nowhere left for them to run to. The effect of the cold on the creatures she had crossed paths with had been obvious: They either died or fell into some kind of hibernation, but she had no idea if the storm would be affected in a similar way. Surrounded on all sides now, she and the other survivors would have to hunker down here and hope that whatever changes the storm brought with it would at least leave them alive when it passed. If it passed.

“Use the guide rope,” Emily yelled to the others, pointing at the thick, red rope strung between the buildings that would ensure they did not stray off track in the blinding snow. Visibility was down to just a few feet. She pulled Rhiannon in front of her and headed in the direction of the main building where Jacob was still waiting, the light from its windows appearing periodically as a faint orange glow through the dense sheets of snow. At least there was no red mixed in with the dove-white flakes.

Even Thor seemed eager to get back inside. He loped on ahead through the storm, pacing impatiently at the entrance to the main building when they finally caught up with him.

Once inside they brushed off the snow and ice that had collected on their shoulders and around the hood of their parkas, allowing the warm air to revitalize their chilled skin.

Jacob was waiting for them in his room.

“Hello Captain,” he said, stretching a hand out in greeting. “I hope you’ll excuse me not getting up.”

Constantine gave a good-hearted chuckle and gripped the man’s hand in his own. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Emily told me a lot about you in our radio conversation.”

Jacob shot Emily a sharp look, but a second later the smile was back. “None of it bad, I hope?”

“All good, I can assure you,” the captain said, giving no indication that he was aware of the tension between them, but he quickly eased the subject away from Jacob. “I was just thanking Ms. Bax… Emily for your help, Jacob. My crew and I are indebted to you, more than you could know.”

“Well, I can assure you that your thanks should go entirely to Emily, Captain. She’s the one in command… apparently,” said Jacob with a smile and no hint of sarcasm. Before anyone could reply, Jacob wheeled himself out of the room. “If you’d follow me, please,” he said politely over his shoulder. He led the way to a larger conference room farther along the corridor, and gestured for them to take a seat.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, holding up a half-full bottle of whisky.

The captain declined politely.

“So, how can we help you?” Jacob said once they had all taken a seat and he had a half-filled glass of whisky in his hand.

“As I explained to Emily, we had originally planned on staying submerged for as long as we could, but the fire has basically scuppered that idea,” said the captain. “What we’d like from you is a place for our injured to rest while they recuperate. Only so long as this damn storm lasts, then we can repair our boat. And of course, we would like to make arrangements to deal with our dead.”

“And after that?” Jacob said abruptly, a smile still fixed disarmingly to his face.

“Well, that rather depends on you and how long that storm holds out for. If you’d like to come with us when we leave, we have more than enough bunk space for all of you.”

“And where exactly do you plan on heading?” Emily asked. She tried to hold back the note of uncertainty she felt edging into her voice.

“As soon as we are able we’ll reestablish communication with the nearest naval base and have them send out a rescue vessel.”

Emily felt her heart sink. “Captain, you said you’d maintained radio silence since the red rain fell, right?” He nodded, a question forming on his lips, but Emily ploughed on. “So you have no idea what caused the deaths or how wide spread the devastation is?”

The captain’s questioning look was replaced by one of uncertainty. “We assumed it was some kind of viral outbreak or maybe a highly organized and effective terrorist attack. You have information that would indicate otherwise?”

Emily sighed. In the confusion of the past six-or-so hours, Emily had not even considered the possibility that the British submarine crew would have no inkling of what was really happening in the world left behind after the red rain. And why would they? They had been submerged since the rain fell and maintaining radio silence. There was no way they could know.

“You’d better have that drink, Captain,” Emily said. “Because I’ve got a hell of a story to tell you.”

Captain Constantine sat in a chair and listened as Emily spoke, his chin resting on the interlaced fingers of his hands, eyes never leaving Emily for an instant, never interrupting her as she recounted the harrowing details of the events leading up to and during her trip. She chose to leave out Jacob’s outright deception (although she was tempted not to) and skipped over the more painful parts of the story after she met Rhiannon and her family; there was no need to stress the poor kid out.

When she was done, Constantine continued to stare at her, a look of wariness behind his steel-gray eyes. Understandable, she supposed as she returned his stare; Emily knew he probably possessed a highly tuned bullshit detector after years of navy service, but he must also be a highly intelligent pragmatist to have achieved the position of Captain of a nuclear submarine. It wasn’t like they handed out those positions to just anyone, after all. Still, his inscrutable gaze made her uneasy.

“You know,” he said, finally unfurling his fingers from beneath his chin. “I think I will have that drink after all.”

Jacob poured two fingers of whisky into a glass and handed it to Constantine. The captain downed the whisky in one go and set the glass aside, smacking his lips in appreciation.

“I hope you will forgive my bluntness, Emily,” the captain said, “but apart from your own eyewitness account, do you have any other proof—not that I am questioning your honesty, of course—but do you have any physical evidence to back up your account. Photos maybe?”

Not for the first time since leaving Manhattan did Emily give herself a mental kick in the ass for not thinking to take her camera. She had left it behind with almost everything else she owned in her apartment, an unforgivable sin for any journalist, but all the more so considering the incredible sights she had witnessed. There had been mitigating circumstances of course; like trying to escape from a city whose population had turned into an alien menace, but still. A couple of pictures of the aliens or even some video footage would have made explaining what had happened so much easier.

“No, nothing tangible that I can give to you or show you. Not unless you’re willing to travel back to Fairbanks with me at some point.”

Rhiannon had taken the seat next to Emily, sitting quietly while the adults talked. “Emily wouldn’t lie,” she said, suddenly interrupting. “I saw the monsters too. They murdered my daddy…” Her cheeks flushed almost as scarlet as the storm clouds surrounding their tiny island, her bottom lip quivering as she struggled to find the words, “…and my baby brother. They would have killed me too if Emily and Thor hadn’t saved me.”

Rhiannon’s voice trailed off when Emily laid a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. “It’s okay,” Emily said, smiling reassuringly. Rhiannon leaned in closer to Emily, a trickle of tears moist against her cheeks. Emily glanced at Jacob for some support of her story.

“Perhaps if we can get in touch with Commander Mulligan, she could at least tell you what she saw,” Jacob said.

“Commander Mulligan? Is she a member of your military?”

“She’s a Brit, like you,” said Emily.

“Oh!” said the captain, suddenly brightening, “You mean that Commander Mulligan, of the International Space Station fame? You’ve been in contact with her?”

All contact had been lost with the commander of the ISS and her crew, a consequence of the wild electromagnetic activity created by the huge storm that had blanketed North America, and Emily explained this to the captain.

“She’d be able to confirm what she saw on the first day, but not what I saw.” Emily leaned toward the sub commander. “Captain, I’ve gone through this experience once already with Simon, Rhiannon’s father; our lack of knowledge of just how dangerous the world had become cost him and his son their lives. I understand that you have a crew to worry about, but I have nothing to gain by lying to you—this is no longer our planet, and the sooner both you and your crew come to terms with that fact, the longer we all will live.”

“She’s telling the truth,” insisted Rhiannon.

Jacob nodded his agreement as he sipped from his glass.

“I believe you, Emily. At least, I believe that you believe what you saw was real. And, given the lack of evidence to the contrary, I think it would be foolish of me not to assume that you know what you’re talking about. But surely there could be other reasons. I mean, aliens?”

“Of course there could be other explanations,” said Jacob, finally coming to Emily’s defense. “It’s possible that the creatures Emily encountered were the result of some genetic experiment gone awry. It’s possible that the red rain and the storm are both just some natural beat within the ecosystem or some geological event. But Occam’s razor favors Emily’s account; the simplest answer is probably the correct one. Factor in that she is the only person we are aware of to have come into direct contact with the red rain and lived to talk about it, then logic seems, at least to me, to dictate that she is telling the truth. In short, listen to what she’s telling you, Captain.”

Constantine now regarded all three individuals sitting in front of him with a laser-sharp focus, his eyes moving from person to person, lingering momentarily as he considered them with an air of quiet intensity.

Eventually, he simply nodded. “If you will excuse me,” he said, standing and offering Jacob his hand again, “I have dead I need to bury.”

Given their circumstances and the storm that now lurked menacingly on the horizon, Captain Constantine eschewed the traditional burial at sea for his men. Instead, they chose a spot at the easternmost tip of the island. Four graves, shallow given the toughness of the frozen ground, lay in a row before the gathered mourners, each marked with a rough headstone denoting the name, rank, and date of death of the grave’s new occupant. Even though the wind had quieted somewhat, the temperature was still fifteen below, cold enough to freeze the tears in the mourners’ eyes. The group of crew members and Emily and Rhiannon stood quietly, shuffling from foot to foot to keep warm as Captain Constantine read a brief eulogy for each of the dead men; then, in his deep baritone, he read from a small, well-thumbed book of poetry clasped awkwardly in his gloved hands.

When he was finished he closed the book and slipped it back into his winter coat. Without another word, chilled and with a tangible sense of depression clinging to the air, the group left the dead to their new home and crunched their way back to the station.

CHAPTER 2

“Knock, knock.”

Captain Constantine and Jimmy MacAlister glanced up from their conversation to see Emily and Rhiannon standing in the doorway of the makeshift office he had chosen, hidden away at the back of the hospital building. The desk had a collection of maps, a laptop computer, and notebooks brought from the Vengeance strewn across it. The captain and MacAlister had been poring over the maps when Emily interrupted them.

She felt her cheeks flush as Jimmy’s face broke into a wide smile when he saw her. “Sorry to disturb you, but do you have a moment, Captain?” she asked.

“Of course, come on in. Excuse the mess.”

“No, thank you,” Emily said to the offer of a chair from MacAlister. “We’re beginning to feel like the proverbial fifth-wheel around here,” she began. “Your crew have been working around the clock over the past forty-eight hours, they look exhausted. There must be something that I can do to help?”

“Me too,” chirped Rhiannon. “I want to help too.”

The captain chuckled. “That’s what I like to see, enthusiasm in the youth of today. Let’s see: Sergeant MacAlister, is there anything that Emily and her young assistant can help with around here?”

“Aye, skipper. I think we have a few job opportunities available,” the soldier said with an even broader smile than usual. “Emily. Rhiannon. If you would like to follow me?” MacAlister escorted Emily and Rhia back up the corridor to the main hospital area.

“This fine gentleman is Amar. He’s in charge of making sure our injured are given the attention they deserve. Amar, meet Emily and Rhiannon. They’ve been kind enough to volunteer their time; do you think you can put them to good use?”

“Hello,” said Amar with a tired smile. He was a tall, good-looking man, no older than Emily and with distinct West Indian features. The medic sounded as exhausted as he looked but he managed to add a smile and a nod.

“I’ll leave you in his capable hands, then,” said MacAlister. He looked as though he was about to add something else, but instead turned and headed back toward the captain’s office.

“Okay ladies, here’s how you can help…”

Over the next few days, Amar taught Emily how to monitor and change the dressings on some of the less severely injured.

The crew was desperately short of medical personnel and Amar quickly began to refer to Emily and Rhiannon as his “Angels.” The sub’s surgeon had been ashore when the rain fell, along with most of the trained nursing staff, so the job of surgeon/chief nurse had fallen to Amar. Until the rain had arrived, he had been a nurse but now found himself the only qualified member of the crew with anything more than general first-aid training. Since the fire he had spent his time supervising the injured while trying to impart as much of his medical ability to the other surviving crew. Now he could at least grab a few hours of welcome sleep while Emily and Rhiannon watched over his patients.

The extra pairs of hands allowed him to direct more time to the three more severely injured members of the crew. Their injuries ranged from second-degree burns to the most severe, a crewman who had fractured his skull during the fire. He’d been in a coma since then.

“All I can do is make him as comfortable as possible,” he told Emily as they stood over the injured man. “If I had access to a hospital or a qualified doctor, he might stand a chance. Here…” his gaze swept around the small room, “there’s little hope he’ll make it.” The frustration Amar felt at not being able to help his colleague was palpable. “Thank God we at least have more morphine available than we need.”

Rhiannon on the other hand quickly became the crew’s surrogate mascot. She spent her time flitting from patient to patient, fetching water and meals for them, and listening intently and with wide eyes to the crew as they spun tails of the exotic-sounding ports of calls they had stopped at during their tour of duty aboard the Vengeance. She seemed particularly taken with one of the more badly injured patients named Parsons and would spend hours reading a dog-eared copy of Alice in Wonderland aloud, his burned hands unable to turn the pages.

Thor seemed especially happy with all the extra attention he was receiving too. To the extent that Emily had to speak quietly to the captain; his crew was surreptitiously feeding the dog treats and leftovers when she wasn’t looking, and he was starting to put on some extra pounds. The captain would make sure that stopped, he promised her, much to Thor’s chagrin, he was sure.

The only person who didn’t seem happy was Jacob. He was as good as trapped in the other building, the snow too deep for him to make it through in his wheelchair, but Emily got the impression that even if the path had been clear between the two buildings, he would have found some other excuse to stay where he was. The arrival of the crew of the Vengeance was a fly in the ointment for whatever plan he had had, she supposed. Her feelings toward him were still a confusion to her, his motivation for bringing her here to this desolate island duplicitous at best, but still, if he hadn’t done what he had done… she didn’t even want to think about what would have happened to her and Rhiannon. Maybe one day, she would be able to forgive him. For now, she kept her distance from him.

The young sailor in the coma died in the middle of the night two days later. Amar discovered him the following morning and they buried him in the cold ground next to his comrades that same day.

His death seemed to hit the crew especially hard, as if their defenses had been down, and Emily felt a distinct numbness begin to settle over them.

And, as she walked with them back to the tiny cluster of buildings, Emily realized she didn’t even know the kid’s name.

“Gregory,” MacAlister had told her bitterly when she asked. “His name was Gregory.”

CHAPTER 3

Emily had to lean hard on the second door leading outside before it would open. The temperature had dropped even further and bands of ice and snow had formed around the rim of the doorway, freezing it shut; she heard it crack as she leaned her shoulder into the door.

Stepping out into the glacial air, she felt her breath freeze instantly, stinging her nostrils and lips.

At least the wind had finally relaxed its hold on the island, leaving the air feeling thick and heavy in Emily’s lungs. But when she looked to the south she sucked in a painfully deep gulp of the freezing air; the skirt of cloud hemming the horizon was so much darker now, like thick pools of congealing blood. The intertwining seams of purple stitched through the storm’s body twisted and tumbled to form cauldrons of spirals that coiled and melted their way into each other like the beads and colored glass of a child’s kaleidoscope.

What little light that made it through the clouds covered the island in a pall of perpetual twilight. It created a dull dissimilarity with the pristine white of the snow. Emily’s eyes tried but failed to compensate for the painful contrast, and she quickly felt a dull throbbing headache form in her forehead as she squinted from beneath the shade of her outstretched hand.

She hoped it was just her imagination, but the cloud to the west seemed closer. It was hard to tell from ground level as the buildings obscured her view.

She stepped down off the ice-covered steps and crunched through the knee-deep snow, walking awkwardly around the side of the building while using the exterior wall to steady her balance as she high-stepped through the snow to the opposite end.

Fifty feet beyond the cabin a hillock rose sharply up to a blunt plateau high enough to give a clear view over the roofs of the camp’s buildings. Emily’s breathing came in short, rapid pants as she climbed to its top, the air collecting like rubble in the bottom of her lungs. At the hill’s summit she had an unobstructed 360-degree view of the island.

It stilled her heart, petrifying it in her chest.

The ring of clouds circling the horizon on every side had crept closer, constricting the hole of hazy sky above the survivors’ sanctuary.

Emily’s gaze skittered across the curve of the island, and out to sea where a shining mist descended from the cloud base and melted into the sluggish sea: rain! Sheets of it were pummeling the waves out there. She could see a slick of red forming on the ocean’s surface, slowly spreading with the swell. It was the same in every direction she looked, a slowly tightening noose around their necks.

A gust of wind thumped against her, pushing her back a step. A second gust buffeted her sideways. She tottered for a second, almost losing her balance as her legs tangled at the knees. She had a sudden disquieting notion that the storm knew she was observing it, and it was letting her know it saw her, watching her right back, this insignificant bug crawling on the surface of the world it had conquered.

From the west, another strong gust rocked her then rose to a constant blast that threatened to push her off the summit. Steadying herself, she sidestepped down the hill toward the camp just as the snow began to fall again, but this time the crystal-pure white of each perfect flake was stained with red.

CHAPTER 4

The survivors gathered in the large room, sitting on the floor in small groups, talking quietly amongst themselves. Occasionally, one of them would stand and walk to a window and look outside.

Emily had observed that whoever was doing the looking inevitably fell into one of two groups: The first would quickly glance through the frosty window, not taking more than a second to assess the situation and wander back to their seat, as dark of mood as when they’d first stood. The second group would linger for well over five minutes or more, staring out that window as if they were willing the bloodstained clouds poised just a few miles off every corner of the coast of their island sanctuary to dissipate.

Both groups left the window disappointed every time.

There was a third group too. The one Emily fell into: those who watched the watchers. That had always been her way, that deep drive to observe and understand had had a large part to play in her becoming a journalist. But she wondered now, as she sat, her butt on the floor, her back against the wall, whether she should attribute that calling to nature or nurture.

Emily shifted her legs, disturbing Rhiannon who, head in Emily’s lap, moaned softly in her sleep. “Shhhh,” Emily cooed, stroking the girl’s hair until she sensed the child was asleep again. Thor lay nearby, stretched out, his head resting on his front paws, eyes wide open, watching Emily and Rhiannon with an unblinking gaze that seemed accepting of everything that was happening around him.

Emily had brought the news of the red-tinged snowfall and the tightening of the storm’s stranglehold on the island to MacAlister. He in turn had relayed it to the captain. Both men had gone outside to check her story for themselves, and both had returned grim-faced.

“Emily, I think it’s probably best if you and Rhiannon stay here with us for the duration, don’t you think?” MacAlister had suggested and Emily had readily agreed. She did not want to be alone through whatever might be coming. Once had been enough. But the excited chatter of the sailors as they had learned of the encroaching storm and seen the red-tinged snowfall had quickly devolved into worried murmurs, and finally, as the hours wore on, almost absolute silence.

Emily had begun to wish she had done as Jacob had and requested a room to herself. She had not seen him but once since Constantine and his crew had arrived. But Emily thought that Jacob’s hermit-like attitude was more from the habit of loneliness (or possibly the stash of whisky she knew he’d smuggled across with him) than from a shirking of any need for social interaction.

Occasionally, MacAlister or the captain would wander between the groups, chatting with the sailors. They were the epitome of stoic, she thought as she eyed MacAlister. He took a knee next to a lone sailor who had isolated himself off hours earlier, his hands clasped around his drawn-up knees as he silently stared at the opposite wall, his head bobbing slowly back and forth as if he listened to some inner song. Within minutes of MacAlister talking with him, the kid was back with his shipmates.

He was a good man, MacAlister.

The hours wore on, darkness came, and with it a howling wind that tore at the roof and walls of their shelter, rattling the windows and denying everyone sleep. The wind-driven snow had long blocked any view through the windows, tinting the glass with its pink stain, but that did not seem to deter the “window checkers,” who would still occasionally stand and wander over to look, even though they could see nothing now.

By the time the second morning crept almost unnoticed over the camp, the mood had dropped as low as the temperature outside, and Emily began to feel a new nervousness settle over the group.

“Cabin fever” was not a phrase you heard very often in these modern times, but Emily thought she could detect a sense of paranoia attaching itself to the men. It was a knifepoint of anxiety pushing through the thin skin of civility still left; the thick blade, the part that would do all the damage, barely concealed beneath the surface.

Later that day MacAlister insisted that the two girls take over his room, which they did with a sense of relief. Earlier, a fistfight had exploded seemingly from nowhere, and Emily felt a skinny rat of worry begin to gnaw at her insides. As it was, it was all she could do to stop Thor from attacking. His barking and the men’s yells had alerted MacAlister, and he had quickly stepped in and banged some heads, stopping the fight before it got past a black eye and a few raw knuckles. But Emily doubted that even MacAlister’s imposing reputation and martial ability would be able to brace the emotional wall holding back the swelling fear that threatened to wash over the men for long.

For the second time in the last twenty minutes Emily checked the Glock on her hip, relishing the sense of security as her fingers played over the weapon’s butt in the holster. The move to MacAlister’s quarters would be a good idea, she decided.

You’re a regular Calamity Jane, Emily Baxter, she thought with a hint of disdain as she followed MacAlister down the corridor past Jacob’s temporary quarters to the tiny room Mac had claimed as his own.

“Here you go, ladies,” he said, holding the door open for them.

“Where will you sleep?” Rhiannon asked, her face still flushed from witnessing the earlier fight but, and Emily could not help but feel a surge of pride over the growing toughness of the kid, no tears had been shed.

“Oh, I think it best that I stay out there where I can keep my eye on the rabble for the foreseeable future,” he said. “You ladies relax, and make yourself at home. I’ll check in with you later.”

As he closed the door behind him, Emily reached out a hand and placed it on top of his.

“Thank you,” she said, fixing his eyes with her own.

MacAlister smiled and nodded, and then was gone.

CHAPTER 5

Emily was teaching Rhiannon how to play poker with a deck of cards donated by Parsons—and was already down three straight hands to the damn kid—when Jimmy MacAlister knocked loudly on his door, pushing it ajar before she could tell him to come in.

“Are you decent?” he blurted out through the gap, but didn’t wait for an answer before he stepped inside. “Sorry, ladies, but you need to come see this. Come on.” He grabbed Emily’s hand then Rhiannon’s and pulled them to their feet. Thor jumped up and leaped along beside them, barking excitedly, eager to join in whatever new game his humans were playing.

“What’s going on?” Emily said, half-protesting, half-laughing as she and Rhiannon were led down the corridor toward the exit.

“You’ll see,” he said cryptically.

As they passed Jacob’s lab he spotted them. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“That’s what Emily said,” Rhiannon laughed as they passed his door.

Jacob shook his head in bemusement, then swiveled his wheelchair away from his desk and followed after them.

MacAlister led Rhiannon and Emily through the anteroom and straight to the door, finally letting go of their hands as he reached for the handle to open the exit.

“Hey!” Emily objected, bracing for the sudden rush of freezing air. “Let us get our jackets on before you open that.”

“Won’t need ’em,” the Scot replied and pushed the door open.

The anteroom was flooded with bright daylight.

Emily gazed out through the open doorway. She could feel the cold air but she could also see all the way over to the other buildings and beyond even. She edged forward until she was standing in the doorway.

The blizzard that had pinned them to this island was gone.

“Finally,” Rhiannon sighed as she squeezed in next to Emily. Thor pushed his way between them and bounded off into the snow, barking as he plummeted through the newly fallen powder.

MacAlister stood behind the two women, then all three stepped aside to allow Jacob to edge up to the open door.

“Notice anything different?” MacAlister asked.

“Besides the absence of the ninety-mile-an-hour winds and the blinding blizzard?” Jacob asked, his voice buoyed by a sense of sarcasm. “Not really.”

“Look beyond what you can see,” MacAlister said in his most mystical voice, his eyes wide and his hands fluttering at the side of his head.

Emily ignored the cold and stepped down the steps into the snow. Slowly she turned, trying to take in everything: The sky above her head was clear of all but a few wispy white clouds, the sun beat down on her skin as it burned brightly in a blue sky that stretched off to the vanishing point in the distance.

To the clear horizon, Emily realized.

“Oh my God!” she whispered, her hands flew to her mouth, not daring to believe what she was seeing. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh… my… God.” Her eyes raised skyward, and she twirled around, looking for all the world like a child intent on making herself dizzy.

“What is it, Emily? What do you see?” Jacob called out.

Emily skipped back to the door and the waiting survivors. Truth was, she wanted to dance her way back, but the snow was still too deep for that. But already she could see the telltale wet glistening of a thaw.

“Careful!” said MacAlister.

“Careful, my ass!” she yelled out, grabbed MacAlister’s face with both her hands and, before either knew what she was doing, planted a smacker on his lips. She felt her face blush as the look of surprise on MacAlister’s face turned into a broad grin. To cover up her own embarrassment she grabbed Rhiannon and pulled her down into the snow with her.

“It’s gone,” she yelled, kicking waves of snow with her hands at the two men in the doorway as if she was in a pool.

“What is?” Jacob yelled back, frustration in his voice.

“The red storm,” Rhiannon yelled back. “The red storm is gone.”

No one knew when the alien storm had finally released its stranglehold on the planet. The only thing they did know was that when they looked out beyond the curve of the island, in every direction to the thin line where the sky met the sea, the blood-red clouds that had stained them for so many days were gone, vanished as though they had never been there. It had not simply faded away or subsided, there was no slow diminishing of its fury, nothing. It was simply gone, as if God himself had, with the sweep of a hand, brushed it from the skies.

Emily, Rhiannon, and Thor joined the crew of the Vengeance in the courtyard between the buildings, a white fog of hot breath collecting above their heads. Two crewmen carried Jacob and his wheelchair from his room, swaying from side to side as the two sailors carefully picked their way over the melting snow, like he was some ancient pharaoh. As they set him gently on the snowy ground, Emily looked down at the man who had brought her here. He looked about ready to cry, and Emily felt something shift inside her. It was as if, with the passing of the storm, her anger for him had also diminished… at least, a little.

It was still freezing out here, no way would they be ditching their coats just yet, but now that the blizzard had stopped, standing still for any period of time no longer meant you ran the risk of being frozen into a human Popsicle.

And the view. My God, the view was breathtaking now that she finally had a chance to take it all in. A crisp white blanket of snow with a top layer of rapidly melting ice particles that scintillated in the light lay across the undulating ground of the island, stretching off in all directions seemingly until it met the blue of the sky. But Emily knew the island sloped away just a few thousand feet from where she stood, dropping gradually down until it met the Beaufort Sea. As Emily listened carefully, in the spaces between the excited chatter of the assembled group, she could hear the waves breaking against the shoreline in the distance.

Everything looked so normal.

Emily had tuned out the chatter of the survivors milling around the entrance to the hospital block, but now she allowed the voices to fade back in again.

“…what’s it mean?…”

“…you think it’s safe now?…”

“…can we leave?…”

At a nod from Emily, the two sailors flanking Jacob raised him up again and followed Emily into the hospital building, depositing him in the corridor of the sailors’ quarters. Emily took the wheelchair’s two handles and began pushing Jacob toward the main room where the rest of the survivors now waited.

Jacob swiveled his head around and looked back at Emily with curiosity.

“Don’t start getting used to it, just yet,” she told him.

He looked at her with his sad eyes, the words almost forming on his lips, but instead he smiled. He faced forward again. “Onward James,” he laughed, with a pretty good imitation of an English accent, before adding “and don’t spare the horses.”

What had been the hospital area was now filled with the sub crew. They sat on the beds or stood together in small groups talking excitedly. Everyone looks ten years younger, Emily thought as she entered the room with Rhiannon, MacAlister, Jacob, and Thor.

MacAlister squeezed Emily’s elbow and nodded toward the front of the room where Captain Constantine and another man were talking.

“Duty calls,” Mac said and zagged across the room to join the men. Emily aimed Jacob toward the front, maneuvering the wheelchair through the tangles of bodies.

Captain Constantine’s deep voice cut through the chatter. “Alright. Alright. Quiet down everyone. I know today has brought some very exciting developments, but we still need to maintain discipline.” He waited for all eyes to be on him and all mouths to stop moving before he continued. “Alright, that’s more like it. While it does seem that the storm has abated, we still don’t know what’s changed out there. Now, I know that you’re all eager to get off this rock—no offense to our gracious hosts—but the simple fact of the matter is that we have no idea what this latest development means for us. And of course we’re not going anywhere until we repair the fire damage to the boat.

“I’m sure you all have a lot of questions, but neither I nor the good people of this station have any answers for you just yet. However, as soon as we have any clue as to the sudden disappearance of the storm, I can guarantee you will be the first to know about it. In the meantime… Mr. MacAlister?”

“Skipper?” grunted MacAlister.

“I want you to get some eyes on the inside of the boat to assess the damage. When you have a good idea of how bad it is, I’ll need you to organize two cleanup crews: twelve hours on, twelve hours off, so we have a constant presence on the sub. Am I understood?”

“Yes, skipper!” MacAlister replied.

“In the meantime, I want all of you to remain as calm and as professional as you have been up until this juncture. Am I understood?”

The crew responded in unison: “Sir!”

“Alright then. You are dismissed. Mr. MacAlister, carry on.”

Immediately MacAlister began barking orders at the crew. Within minutes he and three men had collected tools and supplies from the stash they had brought ashore and headed off in the direction they had originally arrived from.

“I think I’m going to head back to the radio room. Now that the storm’s over, maybe I’ll have better luck contacting the ISS again,” Jacob told Emily.

“Great idea,” said Emily, “but I still need to speak with the captain first.” She caught the eye of one of the two men who had carried Jacob across the snow and he agreed to round up another helper and get Jacob back to the other building.

“Captain?” Emily caught Constantine as he headed back to his office.

“Hello, Emily. Wonderful news, isn’t it?” he said, smiling warmly at Rhiannon.

“Have you given any more thought to what I told you about what could be waiting for us out there?” said Emily.

The sub captain’s eyes narrowed slightly and she saw him blow a puff of air out before replying. Exasperation. Well, at least she knew how he really felt.

“I’ve given it as much thought as a man stranded on an island with no way to contact the outside world can,” he said, his face softening again. “But now that the storm has blown over, I’ve got Jacob and MacAlister trying to establish contact with anyone that they can reach on the base radio. We’ll at least know if there are more survivors out there that can help us.”

The captain turned to walk away, but Emily grabbed his arm.

“One more thing, is there anything else I can do to help you and your crew?”

The captain considered her request for a moment. “Quite honestly, Emily, you and Rhiannon are of more use to us watching over the remainder of my crew who are still hospitalized. If you don’t mind continuing to help out here, it means I can pull a couple of the crew from hospital duty and get them on the cleaning crew instead.”

Emily shrugged off her coat then helped Rhiannon out of hers, the little girl chattering excitedly as they made their way back to their rooms.

“Do you think we’ll be able to go back home? Or maybe there’ll be others out there like us too.” She fired the questions off one after another, barely pausing for breath between each of them. Emily nodded noncommittally at each of them and added a “maybe” to each. But at the door to her room Rhiannon finally paused. “Do you think the monsters will be gone now?” she said, her voice barely audible over the sound of the warm-air vents.

Emily placed both hands on the girl’s shoulders and knelt down until her face was level with Rhiannon’s. It was so very easy to forget the kid was only thirteen, but when Emily stared into her eyes, she could see the traumatized child still hiding just behind those blue orbs, a reflection of Emily’s own inner fears.

“Listen, kiddo. I don’t know what’s going on out there, but I promised you when we were on our way here that I would never let anything bad happen to you, do you remember?”

Rhiannon nodded.

“But the truth is, I just don’t know what’s out there anymore. But guess what? Now we have all these other people who are going to help keep you and me safe. So, don’t you worry, okay?”

Rhiannon nodded and Emily watched as her frown turned into a smile again. “MacAlister likes you,” the kid said from nowhere.

“No way?” Emily replied with mock shock, nudging Rhiannon gently with her shoulder.

“Does too,” said Rhiannon.

Emily stood, her knees cracking in protest.

“Yeah, well, I quite like him as well,” she said, and ushered Rhiannon down the corridor toward the radio room.

Emily heard familiar voices floating down the corridor as she and Rhiannon headed to the communications room. One of them was definitely Jacob’s, the other MacAlister’s, but the third was too faint for her to make out.

MacAlister smiled when he saw Emily and Rhiannon in the doorway.

Only when Emily stepped into the room with the two men was she able to hear the voice clearly.

“Fiona?” she blurted out just as Rhiannon let out a happy cry of “Commander Mulligan!”

The microphone must have been open because the commander of the International Space Station immediately replied. “Emily! Rhiannon! It’s so very good to hear your voices and know that you made it to Jacob safely. I was so worried about you both. The storm blocked all radio transmission from us to you. I…” She paused as if wondering whether she should bring up the next painful subject. “I am so very, very sorry to hear about Simon and Ben. I wish… well, I just… I’m just so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Rhiannon, her voice barely loud enough to be picked up by the radio’s microphone. “They’re both with Mommy now.”

Emily pulled the girl closer to her, rubbing her hand up and down her arm.

“Commander, it’s good to hear your voice too. I’m assuming Jacob has told you about our new arrivals? The crew of the HMS Vengeance?”

“Yes, yes, wonderful news in so many ways, Emily. And it’s good to know that a little bit of Great Britain made it through all this.”

“Their timing could not be better; it looks like the storm we outran has disappeared. How does it look from the ISS?” Emily continued, steering the conversation away from Rhiannon’s deceased father and brother as succinctly as she could.

“The commander and I were just discussing that very thing when you walked through the door,” said MacAlister, his smile broadening even more. “Emily, the storm seems to have vanished… worldwide.”

“Everywhere?” Emily said, astonished.

“That’s correct,” said Mulligan. “We noticed it beginning to dissipate about six hours ago. Its disappearance was almost as strange as its arrival.”

“What do you mean, strange?” asked Emily.

“Storms usually take days or even weeks to really lose their full power, but this one was gone in a little over two hours,” said the commander. “It was almost as though it disintegrated, bit by bit. From what we could see up here, the edge of the storm just began to dissolve toward the center until there was nothing left, as though the original process was being reversed, only at a much faster rate. I’d tell you it was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, but I’ve seen some very odd things these past few weeks.”

“So that’s it? Everything is back to normal again?”

There was no reply from the space station.

“Commander? Are you still with us?” Emily asked, even though she could hear the astronaut breathing slowly over the radio.

“There’s something else,” said Fiona. “While the storm has vanished, it appears to have changed everything on a global scale. I can’t see any sign of Earth’s indigenous flora, nothing is green down there anymore. It’s all red. Everywhere.”

Emily knew that she should feel something at the commander’s shocking revelation, some kind of surprise or remorse at the passing of the final vestiges of the world that had existed since life first sprang forth on this tiny rock. But the truth was that she felt none of those things. She had suspected that when, or rather if the storm ever subsided, the world would be a very different place, transformed and as different as its former human rulers had been when they crawled from their cocoons after the red rain. Even Rhiannon seemed to have accepted that the world was no longer theirs. Only Jacob, who had witnessed the demise and eventual transformation overtaking the world from this distant, isolated island, seemed taken by surprise at the commander’s words.

“Nothing? It’s all gone?” he said, aghast. His skin was slowly fading from pink to a waxy gray, in spite of the warmth of the room.

“Yes” was the answer from miles above their heads. “While I obviously can’t be certain this far from home, I see little other possibility for the changes we are seeing.”

Jacob’s voice became momentarily childlike, almost a squeak. “What are we going to do?” he asked, his eyes wide. He was asking her, Emily realized. Why was everyone asking her what to do? Being a mother figure was not in her survival plan, and she sure-as-shit didn’t fit the job description.

Emily laid a reassuring hand on Jacob’s shoulder. “We’re going to do what we’ve always done: continue to survive.” It was the best reply she could come up with under the current circumstance.

Jacob stared up from his chair at her with watery eyes. “How? Can you tell me that, Emily? We have a limited amount of food and nowhere to go. So, how? How do we make it, exactly?” His voice held no malice, she knew, but Jesus, she expected a little more backbone from the man who had dragged her ass out here in the first place.

“We have allies now,” she said, looking at MacAlister. “We have the Vengeance and her crew. And once they get the sub fixed we have a way off this island.” She tried to sound as positive as she could.

Jacob laughed, an ironic grating snicker. “Well that’s just wonderful, but where do we go? You heard the commander, nothing out there is the same anymore.”

“Anywhere,” she said. “We go anywhere. Because if we stay here, then we’ve given up and the one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I never give up. Never.” She paused and sucked warm air deep into her lungs, calming her nerves. “Look, we are all there is right now, but the chances have to be good that there are other survivors out there, other submarines, maybe ships, bunkers. People are like roaches, we have a way of surviving even the worst of situations. We will find a way to survive this.”

“And that about sums us up, doesn’t it: bugs. We’ve been on the receiving end of a fucking galactic pest control effort and we’re the survivors.” Jacob paused in his diatribe for a moment, closing his eyes tightly, a vein pulsing periodically in his temple. He sucked in a deep breath of air before he began talking again, this time there was less of a panicked edge to his voice. “Jesus! I’m sorry, Emily.” He forced a bleak smile as he tried to pull himself together. “I’m just so sorry for all this. Truly.”

“We’ll find a way,” Emily said gently, laying what she hoped was a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder. “Commander?”

“Yes, Emily? Is everything okay down there?”

Now there was a question. Everything was far from fine, but compared to the crew of the ISS, trapped in that tin can circling the world, the survivors encamped here on the Stockton Islands were just peachy-keen, thank you very much.

“We’re fine, Commander, just ironing out some problems is all.” An idea had begun to form in the back of Emily’s mind, hell, she might even classify it as a plan. “Tell me, Commander, apart from the obvious changes to the landscape that you can see, is there anything else you can tell us? Do you still see cities? Any other sign of human life?”

There was a delay before the commander replied. “It’s hard to be exact, but we see some cities along the coasts of most countries that appear to be somewhat unaffected by whatever this red… stuff… is. But it’s really rather difficult to be sure from up here. We haven’t seen any distinguishable signs of any human activity though. If there is anyone else alive down there, they’re keeping quiet about it.”

“Okay, okay. That’s good.”

Everyone else in the room looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “Good?” said MacAlister. “By what stretch of the imagination can that possibly be classified as ‘good’?”

“Bear with me on this: Look, every alien life-form I encountered—from the spiders right through to the trees they constructed—seemed to me to be a small piece of a much bigger… machine, or…” she hesitated, looking for the right word to describe the sense of what she had seen, “or a part of a plan, yes, part of a plan. I mean, think about the progression we saw: The rain created the spider aliens, they made the trees, the trees made the dust, and the dust created the storm. Now that the storm is done, doesn’t that mean that whatever-the-hell plan was being implemented is probably done too? Ding! Ding! Ding! The timer on the stove is going off, because everything down here is cooked to perfection. I mean, that makes sense right? Tell me if I’m wrong?”

“It makes a strange kind of sense, I suppose,” said Jacob. “When you described your experiences to me there seemed to be a very definite progression of effects. Even the creatures that attacked you in the woods outside Valhalla could have been there protecting or maybe tending to the things growing in the white orbs. And the alien that attacked you and Rhiannon’s family—” Jacob paused and glanced at Rhiannon, measuring his words carefully, “—from the way you described the creature, it seemed very purposeful in its actions. It obviously had some kind of rudimentary intelligence, at least enough to be able to mimic the speech patterns of its prey—I mean, Rhiannon’s father. The fact that it didn’t just kill Simon outright, instead using him as a lure for the children and you, does suggest that it was following some kind of program or plan. Yes, I think you might be on to something, Emily.”

She hadn’t given that much thought to the motivation behind the takeover of the planet, and truth be told, there could be any number of reasons for the actions of the alien that had killed Simon and Benjamin, starting with it was just downright fucking evil, but Jacob’s theory of its motivation seemed as possible as any other. After all, every alien she had encountered had seemed… single-minded in its actions, designed for a very specific, even obvious, task.

“So, if the storm has truly ended and whatever changes it was designed to make have run their course, then the world should at least be safe again, right?” she said with a little more hope in her voice than she actually felt.

“Define ‘safe,’” said MacAlister. “Just because the aliens you encountered may have executed their programmed plan, doesn’t mean they aren’t still out there, either in their original form or maybe they’ve changed again. Or that there isn’t still another stage yet to come.”

Emily shook her head at that. “No, it’s over. Everything about this event has been so efficient, so incredibly neat, so precise in its execution. Whatever is behind this, its plan has succeeded. I can feel it.”

Jacob considered her words for a time. “If you’re right, then maybe we can start over again. Assuming the commander is correct and at least the coastal cities are free of this red ‘stuff,’ then there must be years’ worth of food and supplies left in some of those cities. All we have to do is find it. Who knows? Maybe we can find an island, preferably one that’s a little warmer than this one, and settle down. If there are other survivors out there, we can find them, and with enough determination and the right men… and women,” he added quickly, “we can start all over again.”

It was a beautiful dream, the idea of a second chance for humanity, a chance to get it right this time, but was it a plausible plan? The only way to find out would be to try, but they were painfully short of options: stay on this island and last as long as the food did or travel with the Vengeance and see what was waiting out there.

But what that really boiled down to was a simple choice: give up or forge ahead.

It was all starting to make sense to Emily, but as she said her farewells to the commander and headed back to her room, there were still far too many unanswered questions eluding her. But she needed two answered most of all: Why? Why had all of this happened? And if all the events had been part of a plan, then whose plan was it?

CHAPTER 6

Commander Fiona Mulligan tried to quash her growing excitement, she had to remain professional after all, but damn it, the news that there were other survivors, and a submarine crew of all things, was just so wonderful.

There was a chance for them up here. Some of them, at least.

She had a secret that she had held back from Emily, not wanting to cause her anymore undue distress than the poor girl had already gone through, but now that the Vengeance had shown up, she had new hope.

Mulligan shifted her body and maneuvered herself with practiced skill through the narrow spaces between modules, floating down to the Destiny module. For the third time since she had said good-bye to Emily earlier that day, she repositioned herself in front of the round observation port. Through the window she had a clear view of the rest of the station’s modules. And there it was. Their last and only chance. Locked onto the side of the space station, between the two Heat Rejection Subsystem radiators, was another spacecraft: a single Soyuz-TMA escape vehicle.

The Soyuz-TMA was a specially redesigned version of the Russian spacecraft used to ferry loads, supplies, and crew back and forth to the ISS. But this iteration of the craft had been specifically reengineered by NASA to act as an emergency escape vessel from the ISS. Normally, there were two of these space lifeboats docked with the station, enough to accommodate all of the crew. But just two weeks before the red rain had arrived, a life-threatening injury to an astronaut had proved too much for the medical facilities available at the station, and with no resupply craft scheduled for several months it meant one of the spacecrafts had been used to return the critically ill astronaut back to Earth. No replacement craft had ever arrived.

After the rain came, there seemed little reason to even consider the capsule. The commander and her crew had discussed it, of course, but the single escape pod could accommodate only three astronauts; the remaining would be forced to stay on the ISS, doomed.

The craft was programmed to land on the steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia, but it was feasible to override that programming and to use the manual guidance system to navigate the spacecraft for the majority of the two-and-a-half-hour trip back to Earth to any location. This latest edition of the Russian craft, while designed specifically to place the astronauts safely on land, did have the capability for a water landing. It could last up to three hours at sea before the crew either were rescued or abandoned it, forced to take to the inflatable emergency life raft.

And right there had been the sticking point for the crew.

Even if they did make it back to Earth safely, with no recovery crew to pick them up, whether they splashed down in the middle of the ocean or managed to survive a landing somewhere in that strange spread of red that now covered the majority of land, they would still face almost certain death.

Her crew had chosen to remain together.

Emily, she was such a sweet girl, so strong, but she had faced her own trials and problems, so Commander Mulligan had chosen not to tell her about the one escape route they had. There had been no reason to trouble her even more than she already was, but with the arrival of the Vengeance and its crew, there was a chance for half of her crew to escape.

When she got off the radio with Emily and Jacob she had immediately called her crew together and told them the news.

There had been arguments about who should go and who would stay. Her crew, as always, had made her proud, each volunteering to remain behind, insisting that someone else should take one of the three precious seats available, but eventually, they had resorted to the time-tested short-straw pick. And, with only one spot left, it had come down to herself and Muranov, the Ukrainian astrochemist, and two straws (actually, plastic toothpicks). Muranov had drawn the short one.

The commander had insisted that the Ukrainian take her place on the Soyuz, but he had refused.

“My family is gone,” he said in his heavily accented English. “I stay here, join them when I am ready.”

And so it was settled; they had a way off of the station and back to Earth. Now all she needed to do was persuade Captain Constantine that the three of them were worth risking his crew and craft to collect.

CHAPTER 7

They began work on repairing the submarine that very same day, right around the time the first of the most seriously injured crew was back up and on his feet, to cheers from his remaining, still less badly injured colleagues. His name was Parsons and he was the Chief Engineer for the boat. Emily assumed he had a first name, but nobody ever seemed to use it. Hell, for all she knew Parsons could be his first name. After a quick meeting with the captain, he emerged from the office and immediately rousted up three of his men, flexing his burn-scarred hands.

The fire had gutted several areas before the crew had managed to get it under control, and, while those areas had been destroyed beyond repair, a preliminary survey by Parsons showed there was no permanent damage to any of the submarine’s critical navigation, weapons, or propulsion systems. The real problem was the smoke damage. It was everywhere. With such a severely diminished crew onboard to fight the fire, watertight doors that should have been closed had remained wide open and the smoke had quickly penetrated throughout the boat, coating everything in a sticky black tar that gunked up controls and obscured vital computer screens. It was all going to have to be cleaned off before the craft was seaworthy again.

Parsons was a short, gruff Welshman with a thick beard and a habit of yelling at anyone beneath his rank, and occasionally, a few above him. He reminded Emily of the belligerent dwarf from The Lord of the Rings movies, but he had developed a soft spot for Rhiannon during his recuperation and would slip the little girl chocolate bars from a private stash he kept in his cabin. He had taken to calling her his little cariad, which he said was Welsh for love.

The cleanup took just under a week to complete. The Vengeance had to undergo a seaworthiness test, and then, if everything was “shipshape and Bristol fashion,” as Captain Constantine put it, they would be ready to leave at a few hours’ notice.

“We’re just going to take her for a short jaunt out to sea, make sure there are no holes or leaks,” said the captain straight-faced. “Would you like to come along?”

Emily laughed. “I think I’ll take a rain check until you’re sure the submarine’s not going to spring a leak and sink.”

“Oh, but that’s exactly what we’re supposed to do,” said the captain, smiling broadly this time. “Sinking is what that sub does best.”

CHAPTER 8

Hours later Captain Constantine and his selected crew members returned from the sub’s test run and met with the rest of his crew in their quarters. The boat had a few minor kinks that needed to be ironed out but otherwise she was seaworthy, he explained, to a rousing cheer from the assembled men.

“She’s ready to put to sea whenever we are,” Parsons added. “So you lazy buggers had better not get used to this cushy life or you’ll have me to answer to.”

There was a smattering of laughter at the comment, but Emily wasn’t sure Parsons was joking.

“And that leads me to the next item, and why I’ve invited our hosts to join us in this meeting.” The captain gestured to Emily, Rhiannon, and Jacob sitting at the table across from the crew who were either standing or sitting on one of the now unoccupied hospital beds.

“I don’t need to tell any of you that our situation would have been far more… uncomfortable, if it had not been for the kindness shown by our new friends, and for which I would like to officially thank you on behalf of both myself and my crew.”

A round of cheers and applause rose up from the assembled crew and Emily found herself smiling while she hugged a beaming Rhiannon to her side. Even Jacob, who had taken to secreting himself away for long periods, and, Emily suspected, begun drinking on a regular basis, had joined them. Looking embarrassed, and a little too pale, he raised a hand in acceptance of the crew’s thanks.

“It was never our first choice to remain here on this island,” the captain continued, “but given the circumstances and the information we’ve received from both Emily and Commander Mulligan of the ISS, I think it’s time for us to discuss what we will do next.”

The captain paced back and forth in front of his men, stroking his beard as he spoke.

“We have enough supplies to last us for several months, but after those supplies are gone we are going to be up that proverbial creek without any kind of a paddle. So, bearing that in mind, we need a plan for survival. So, if we are to survive… if the human race is to survive… then we must work together and we must do so smartly, with a plan. And that means we have to leave here and find somewhere where we can regroup, recuperate, and reorganize. I know we all hold out hope that there will be other survivors, but we have to assume that, for the foreseeable future at least, we are alone. And, while you are all still members of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, and subject to my command, this is not a decision I can make alone. It’s your lives that are at stake, and humanity has become the rarest of resources on this planet. So, I ask for all of you to speak your mind. Speak freely.”

There was a moment of silence as the crew looked at each other, unsure of just how much they could say. Finally a lanky seaman toward the back of the room Emily thought might be named John stood up.

“Sir. Why not just stay here? No offense to Miss Baxter, but all we have is her word for what’s going on out there. Who’s to say she’s not lying—again, no offense, Miss—but we don’t know her from Adam. Don’t you think we should check out other options first?”

Emily smiled at the young sailor, he couldn’t have been more than twenty. “No offense taken, but it’s not just my word, is it? You’ve all heard from the captain and MacAlister what Commander Mulligan has seen happening,” she said.

“And what options do you think we should aim for exactly?” the captain asked. “Where do you think we should go?”

“Well,” the sailor hesitated, “if these aliens are as affected by the cold as she says, then maybe we should stay right here? Or maybe stay in Canada at least? I mean, didn’t Miss Baxter say that they couldn’t survive in the cold?”

“That’s not entirely correct,” Emily said. “From my experience, all the cold seems to do is slow them down. Extreme cold seems to stop them in their tracks, to the extent that they are unable to thrive, but the same applies to us, right?”

“Emily’s correct,” said MacAlister. “And think about it for a second: Where would our food come from? We can’t grow anything here and there’s only so much food we can scavenge from the area. So that would mean regular trips out to locate supplies. We’ll need to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible, which means we have to find somewhere we can support ourselves. There’s no guarantee we’ll find anywhere that’ll support us, but we have to try. Besides, if you’re going to meet your maker, wouldn’t you prefer to do it in the sunshine?” Jimmy gave the room one of his devastating grins and Emily couldn’t help but smile right back. The man had a way of making even the most depressing of positions seem hopeful.

“Sergeant MacAlister is correct… for a change,” said Constantine, with a smile of his own. “We have to look at the big picture, long-term planning. If we are it for the human race—and God help us if we are—then we have to be smart. We need to find somewhere we can be safe and start afresh, grow our food, and settle down. Raise families and begin over.”

“Yeah, but if there really are aliens out there still, what then? How are we supposed to defend ourselves?” the sailor pushed.

“Son, we have a nuclear bloody submarine at our disposal,” the captain said. “I think we can handle a few aliens, don’t you?”

This brought a roar of agreement from the crew.

“So, let’s see a show of hands then. All of you in favor of finding someplace warmer than this island, hands in the air.”

The vote was unanimous.

Captain Constantine smiled like a happy father at his crew. Emily doubted that he had ever had any worries how the vote would turn out. In the time she had spent with them, it had become obvious that his crew had nothing but respect for the older captain of the boat. Most of them were still on the right side of twenty, by the looks of them, so the captain really was a father figure to most, she was sure.

“So, now the only question is where? Any suggestions?” asked the captain.

“Emily,” the captain said, turning his attention to her; he held a single sheet of paper in one hand. “We have put together a list of naval bases that we think would be prime candidates to at least set up an initial base. What we would like you to do is speak with Commander Mulligan, give her the coordinates of each site, and have her reconnoiter them from her rather unique advantage point for us. What we would like to know is how viable they are, given the spread of the alien plant life.”

“Of course,” said Emily, “I’ll get right on it.” She took the sheet of handwritten notes from the captain.

“Sergeant MacAlister. Would you be good enough to start organizing our departure plans? I expect us to be ready to depart as soon as we have confirmation from Commander Mulligan on an appropriate location.”

“Yes, skipper.” Mac turned to face the crew, waiting impatiently for their next order. “Alright you lot, you heard the captain. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

The crew was on their feet and immediately moving with a practiced familiarity toward their allotted tasks.

“Ms. Baxter. Mr. Endersby. If I may have a few moments of your time?” The captain asked as the rest of the crew cleared the room.

Emily walked with the captain while Rhiannon pushed Jacob as Constantine ushered them to his office, closing the door behind them.

“I know you had your own plans, and that we did not factor into them, but I want to officially extend you an offer to join us. There’s more than enough room on the sub for you, and, to be perfectly frank, we could use the extra sets of hands.”

“Are you offering us a ride?” Jacob asked.

The captain nodded. “If you’re interested…?”

“Yes?” said Emily, looking at Rhiannon. The little girl nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” Emily repeated to the captain. “You can count Rhiannon and me in.” All eyes turned to Jacob, who looked unsure.

“I suppose I have little choice,” he said eventually. “Yes, I’d like to come along too.”

Emily managed to establish a crackling, static-filled communication link with Commander Mulligan.

“These connections seem to be getting worse,” the commander told Emily. “I think the degradation of the Earth’s electronic communications systems is finally starting. We may not be able to stay as connected as we have been once the satellites begin to fail.”

“I understand, Commander. You have a fallback option?”

“The station is equipped with an amateur radio system that doesn’t need any kind of relay or satellite system, but it does require line of sight with whoever we are talking with, so you won’t lose us altogether when everything goes down, but communication will be a lot more sporadic, I’m afraid.”

“I understand. Commander, the captain has asked if you would be willing to survey a few locations, naval bases that he thinks would be viable locations for us to begin afresh from. Is that feasible for you right now?” Emily wasn’t sure how the commander was going to react to her request, it felt odd to Emily asking someone who was doomed to certain death to help them find a place to live.

But Mulligan did not hesitate. “Of course I can do that,” she said. “What are the coordinates?”

Emily read the list of six candidates to her.

“It’s going to take a full twenty-four hours for us to hit all of those locations but I don’t see a problem. Now, Emily, I have a question of you, well, actually it’s more of a request for Captain Constantine.”

“Of course,” Emily replied. “What is it?”

A long silence settled over the link, and Emily began to suspect the connection had been dropped.

“We have a way off this coffin,” Commander Mulligan said eventually, her voice surprisingly calm for the news she delivered, “and we need the Vengeance and its crew to pick us up when we splash down.”

For the first time in forever, Emily Baxter found herself speechless.

“Let me explain,” Mulligan said and began to tell Emily of her plan.

“My God,” Captain Constantine said after Emily relayed the news Commander Mulligan had passed on to her. “But they only have the one Soyuz escape vehicle? So just three of the crew will be able to make it off the station?… My God!”

“They drew straws,” Emily said. “The commander says that they are confident that between the adjusted programming of the Soyuz’s navigation computer and the craft’s manual controls they can pretty much put the escape craft down anywhere they need to. The problem comes once they land; it has to be a sea landing, so they will need to be picked up within a couple of hours.”

“And that’s where we come in,” said MacAlister, matter-of-factly.

“Yes,” said Emily. “The commander has requested that you rendezvous with the Soyuz and pick them up.”

Captain Constantine looked squarely at MacAlister. “It’s a risk,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s an exceptional one. If the commander can navigate the escape craft close to whichever of the new destinations we pick, then I think it’s feasible. Yes, I think it is very feasible. Tell the commander it’s a go. We’ll await her instructions.”

“I’ll tell her,” said Emily, her face wearing the biggest smile she thought it had ever had. “And Captain… thank you.”

Despite the space station being several hundred miles above her head, Emily thought the sigh of relief she heard from Commander Mulligan was palpable enough that she could feel it all the way down here on the ground.

Her call to the ISS was a hurried one, the connection between the Stockton station and the space station seemed to have noticeably deteriorated over just the past few hours.

“Wonderful, wonderful news, Emily,” the commander said. “Please thank the captain on behalf of myself and my crew. I don’t know how I can ever repay him or you.”

“You can thank him yourself when you meet him. As for me? I already owe you my life so, please, think nothing of it.”

“Listen, as much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, I’ve made some progress on the search for a new home for you. It’s not good I’m afraid.”

Two of the six potential locations were completely overrun by the creeping red vegetation she’d seen moving across the land, Commander Mulligan explained. The new plant life was spreading at an unprecedented rate. And if this was any indication of how bad the infestation was elsewhere, then the plan might have to change dramatically.

“I’m sorry, Emily. I’ll keep looking until we know for certain, you have my word.”

“I know you will, Commander. Thank you, and please be safe,” Emily said by way of a sign-off.

“You too, Emily. You too.”

And with that final comment, the commander’s voice vanished back into the ether.

CHAPTER 9

The news was better the next morning.

“Point Loma, California,” Commander Mulligan told Emily excitedly. “That’s where you need to go. There’s a large incursion of the red vegetation in the surrounding areas and into the base itself, but the main structures in the area seem to be more or less free. Of course, at the rate this plant life seems to be spreading, I can’t guarantee that it will remain that way for very long.”

The naval base at Point Loma, from what Captain Constantine and MacAlister had explained to Emily, was a collection of naval support groups, training facilities, and berthing for several submarines, among other things. Located on a peninsula of land across a bay from San Diego, it seemed like the perfect place to pitch their tent.

“Commander, we really can’t thank you enough. I know the crew will be ecstatic to hear this news.”

“Just convince them to move quickly, Emily. Time is of the essence for all of us.”

Once Emily notified Captain Constantine of Point Loma’s viability, things moved at a breakneck pace and, within a seemingly impossibly short time, their refuge at the Stockton Islands was stripped bare and emptied of all salvageable material and supplies, which in turn were transported to the Vengeance, waiting offshore.

And in just under two hours from the time Emily first passed on the information, she found herself standing on the snow-cleared pathway just outside the building she had called home since arriving at the Stocktons, waiting as two sailors carried Jacob out into the still-freezing air.

“This is so surreal,” Jacob said to himself. “So very surreal.” A plastic supermarket bag was clutched tightly to his chest, and Emily could make out what she was sure was the outline of a whisky bottle within it.

“It’s for the best,” she said as he was carried past her, not sure if she actually believed her own words.

But what else was there to say? They were giving up the safety of this place for the unknown, yet again, and more uncertainty. She looked back at the building and deserted camp one final time then took Rhiannon’s hand in one hand and Thor’s leash in the other and started after Jacob.