Mick pushed forward. He was concentrating, his brow wrinkled and covered with sweat.
She didn’t want to get too far in front of him, but she also didn’t want him to feel as if she was taking it easy on him. The man was five foot nine inches’ worth of pride. So she stopped, pretending to catch her breath. “You’re doing pretty good for a guy who doesn’t want to be climbing.”
“This isn’t no Pike’s Peak,” he said disdainfully.
“It’s a start.”
“My grandmother could climb this hill.”
“It’s a start.”
“I got a dog named Mustard. He could climb this damn hill.”
“Good.” She adjusted her backpack. “Then you and Mustard can spend some quality time together back in Colorado.” She started to turn away in order to continue their ascent.
“Mustard got hit by a dump truck eight years ago. Mustard’s dead.” He sounded indifferent, although it was hard for her to determine whether he was just maintaining a macho act.
She stared at him. “I’m sorry.”
He trudged past her, taking the lead. “I’m over it. And by the way, I’m a big boy. I can watch my path just fine.”
Sam smiled to herself. He doesn’t miss a trick. Might be fake legs, but nothing’s wrong with his mind.
He called back to her, “What’s a semi-fiancé?”
She moaned softly, and then thankfully, before he could press the question—which she was pretty sure he was going to do—her cell phone started ringing. Saved by the bell. She glanced at the caller ID and saw Hopper’s name. Please let it be good news. Maybe they’ve reconsidered the captain’s mast. She answered it, putting the phone to her ear and moving away from Mick to get some modicum of privacy. “I thought you’d be out of cell range by now.”
“I’ve got about five minutes,” Hopper’s voice came back. He was popping in and out. “Five minutes” came across more like “ive in uts.” But she had long practice in deciphering sentences during patchy cell phone calls.
“Yeah. How’s it going?” She unslung her backpack since just standing in one place made it seem heavier.
“It’s all right. Something crashed near us. We gotta go check it out.”
Something crashed? This time the patchiness of their connection made her concerned. Had there been another brushing incident, like last year? Had Hopper gone off and punched out another officer? They might wind up skipping the court-martial and go straight to sentencing. “A ship?” she said tentatively.
“I don’t know. Not one of ours.”
She closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. Whatever was going on, Hopper wasn’t in the middle. He didn’t even sound especially worked up about it. Thank God. One less thing for him to get himself in trouble over.
There was a lengthy silence and Sam started to think that the connection had gone dead. But then she heard Hopper’s voice say awkwardly, “I know that I messed up. I’m really sorry and I’m going to try really hard to make it right. I’ll talk to your dad as soon as we get back.”
She appreciated the fact that he wanted to try and make things right, but somehow she had to think his intended course of action might lead to even greater disaster … assuming such a thing was possible. “Maybe you should think hard on if you really want to talk to my dad.”
“I don’t have to think. I know.”
She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “You know? You know what? What do you know?”
“What I want.” He hesitated and then said firmly, “It’s you.”
Tears rolled down Sam’s face. She spotted Mick out the corner of her eye, watching stoically. She lowered her voice and said, “Stop screwing things up.”
“I will. I love you.”
They were only hundreds of miles apart, but she felt as if there was a gulf of millions of miles between them. “I love you,” she said across the span. “I—Hopper?” There was silence on the other end. The line had gone dead.
She pocketed her cell phone and looked at Mick.
“Semi-fiancés,” he said slowly, “get in there and mess up your heart. Blow your concentration—stomach ulcers, gas, prolapsed bowels—”
“Got it. Thank you,” she said impatiently. Shouldering her backpack once more, she stalked past Mick, shoving him as she did so. “I’m taking the lead. You got anything to say about it, keep it to yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, tossing off a mocking salute and falling into step behind her.
PACIFIC OCEAN, IMPACT POINT
Seaman Ord stood on the observation deck of the John Paul Jones, studying the surrounding area with binoculars. They were flanked on either side by the other two vessels, each of them hanging back about a hundred yards, making sure to keep their distance. The last thing anyone needed was for the vessels to get in one another’s way.
He didn’t see it at first, the object that they were looking for. It was as if his eyes went right over it—as if it wasn’t there one moment and then suddenly it was. A maze of some sort, projecting from the water. It was triangular and industrial—definitely man-made, not some sort of natural phenomenon, like a meteor—encrusted with strange panels and what appeared to be a jagged assembly that looked like an antenna. It was protruding from the water about five hundred yards ahead.
“Is this some kind of surprise part of the exercise …?” Ord said to no one. “Like a big ‘Okay, what do you do when this happens’ kind of deal?” He paused and answered his own question. “Doesn’t really feel like it.” Then he grabbed the phone that immediately put him through to the bridge. “Contact at zero eight zero. Repeat, contact at zero eight zero.”
Word quickly spread to the other two vessels, and immediately all three came to a full stop. Brownley was on the horn with Stone Hopper over on the Sampson, who was saying, “Officer of the watch confirms contact, six hundred yards. But …”
“But what?”
“Tactical has nothing. We’re seeing it, but the computers aren’t. The Slick 32s say there’s no electronic signal.”
That made zero sense to Brownley. “Hang tight,” he said, and called down to the weapons room. “Hopper. We’ve got an unidentified contact dead ahead, six hundred yards.”
There was a pause and then Hopper’s voice came back. “We’ve got nothing on the screens.”
“Bearing 272.”
“I’m not seeing a thing, sir.” Hopper sounded as confused as Brownley felt.
Out of frustration with both Hopper and the situation at hand, Brownley said, “I am looking at it with my own eyes.”
“Instruments are blind down here, sir.”
“Okay. Keep monitoring.” He switched back to Stone. “Yeah, Commander, we got nothing on our scanners either.”
He could hear the voice of one of Stone’s radiomen in the background saying, “This is the USS Sampson on a heading 038, hailing unidentified vessel … or structure. We are a U.S. Navy warship. Identify yourself.” Pause. “No response, sir.”
“Okay,” said Stone, and returned his attention to Brownley. “Let’s get up close and personal. We need a recon.”
“I agree. We’ll handle it, Commander. I have just the man for the job.”
A twenty-foot rigid-hulled inflatable boat, or RHIB, cut through the water, heading straight toward the unknown structure situated two hundred yards ahead of them. Hopper was perched at the prow, with Beast at the helm. The RHIB was outfitted with a .50 caliber machine gun, and Raikes was crouched behind it, stroking it eagerly. To Hopper, it seemed as if she were just itching for an excuse to cut loose at something. If the opportunity didn’t present itself, he might wind up having to let her shoot down some passing seagulls just to keep her happy.
He loved the spray of the ocean around him as the RHIB hurtled forward. When it was just him and the water and a mission, all the other crap just seemed to fall away. It was like his life made sense once more. The certainty that this was going to be his last endeavor in the Navy continued to r
oot around in the back of his mind, an itch that couldn’t be scratched. But at least fate had arranged it so his final outing wasn’t going to be business as usual. He would be seeing something he’d never seen before. He just wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
They cut speed and Beast slowly nosed the craft near the metal structure. Hopper leaned forward, trying to get a sense of what the hell was in front of them. He kept thinking about icebergs: that the stuff you saw above the water wasn’t what would kill you. “Don’t get too close,” he said when they were about forty yards out. He studied the structure. “What do you make of that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Beast. He looked at the navigation array in front of him and cocked a bushy eyebrow. He tapped the array in order to bring Hopper’s attention to it. “Check out the compass. It says we’re heading due north.”
“We’re heading east,” said Raikes.
“That’s correct,” said Beast.
Hopper looked from the compass back to the metal structure that towered above them. “Whatever it is, it’s creating magnetic flux.” Let’s hope we don’t get fluxed while it’s at it. “Get the PA system online.”
Beast flicked a switch and passed a microphone on a cord to Hopper. Raikes called over to him, “Just be aware, if you’re going to sing ‘My Way’ again, I am armed.”
What Hopper was aware of was that Stone and Brownley were both watching from their respective bridges, so he refrained from sticking out his tongue at her. It was clear that he was never going to live down that Fourth of July party where he’d had way too much to drink and sung an assortment of Sinatra’s greatest hits, encouraged by shipmates who were only marginally more sober than he was.
Thumbing the mike to live, Hopper—all business—said, “This is the U.S. Navy. Identify yourself or prepare to be boarded.”
He hadn’t expected there to be any sort of response. He was right. The structure simply sat there, ignoring him. For all he knew, if there was someone inside, they probably didn’t speak English. He switched to Spanish but likewise got no answer, which also wasn’t much of a surprise, since he didn’t really think the thing had its origins in Madrid. His knowledge of Russian was limited to “Hello, how are you,” which he readily tried. Still no response. Finally he essayed some Japanese, but that likewise elicited no reply.
“What the hell was the last thing you said?” said Raikes.
“I asked if it knew where the restroom was.”
Raikes snorted. “That was useful.”
“It was damned useful in Tokyo six months ago, so shut up. Bring us alongside, Beast.” He tapped Raikes on the shoulder. “It’s your boat. You’ve got the gun.”
“Not afraid to use it, sir.”
“Just try not to shoot me.”
“No promises, sir.”
Beast angled the RHIB against the side of the structure. Mooring was tricky in the ocean swell, and everyone was soaked with spray before he managed to anchor the ship within reach of their target. The RHIB bobbed furiously, and Hopper timed the rise and fall of the ocean. Don’t fall in the drink. They don’t need to spend extra time pulling me out. He waited until he was sure he had the feel for the ship’s bobbing and then he leaped the remaining distance. He landed on a projecting ledge that seemed to run the length of the structure, and almost slid off the slick metal before steadying himself.
A distance away, there seemed to be a path that would allow him to climb higher up, along with a series of smaller projections that he could use as handholds to gain some altitude. Perhaps there was some sort of access there, since the area around him didn’t seem to be presenting anything. He made eye contact with Raikes, pointed upward and then at his buttocks. An onlooker would have interpreted it as some sort of obscene gesture, but Raikes immediately got the shorthand:
I’m going. Cover my ass.
Hopper returned his gaze to the array toward the top. At first he thought he was seeing some sort of trick of light, but then he realized that wasn’t the case. What he was actually seeing was some sort of blue and red shimmering being emitted from the top of the array. That has to be what’s screwing with the magnetism. But what’s it for? Why is it even here? I’ve never seen something that looks so alien to …
Alien. Yeah, right. That’s a laugh.
Hopper tested the support of the narrow ledge upon which he was perched. It seemed solid enough. Slowly he started making his way toward the tower, which appeared to be the center of this thing’s activity. To an onlooker, he might have seemed to be walking on water, since the ledge along which he was moving wasn’t visible from more than a few feet away.
He drew close enough to the tower that all he had to do was reach out, get a grip on it and climb up. The closer he drew to it, the more intrigued he became. It was a unique collection of shapes, materials and colors, which seemed to be shimmering in time to the blue and red pulses that were being emitted from the top.
“What the hell—?” he whispered as he reached out toward its surface. His fingers brushed against it …
The instant he made contact with it, an electromagnetic pulse ripped across the structure. As if it had a mind of its own, it zeroed in on Hopper in a split second and blasted him clear off the tower.
Hopper hurtled forty feet through the air. He would have been better served if he’d landed in the water. Instead the trajectory of his fall sent him slamming into the metal surface of the structure itself. He slid across it and barely managed to hang on. The world was spinning around him. He heard Raikes and Beast shouting from a distance, but he couldn’t determine how far they were.
He could, however, make out the tower. Apparently it was just getting warmed up. The panels that ran along its height were starting to glow, and there was a building cascade of electronic noise. Most bizarrely, from high overhead in what had been a previously clear sky, dark and fearsome clouds were rolling in and lightning bolts were ripping through the heavens.
Well, this can’t be good, thought Hopper, desperately trying not to pass out.
An F-18, dispatched from USS Reagan, had been sent to monitor the situation. The pilot observed the American Navy officer attempting a slow approach, and on his instrument board the monitor was broadcasting a live feed. “This is Rough Rider 404,” said the pilot, whose actual name was the far less intimidating “Kenny Johnson.” “Boarding crew from the John Paul Jones has made contact with the object …”
And then he watched in horror as the officer was blasted backwards, sent tumbling off the whatever-it-was. “Man down! Man down!”
The strange structure below him was starting to glow. His instruments went haywire, and suddenly, inexplicably, he was flashing back to that moment in Close Encounters of the Third Kind when vehicles went berserk in the presence of alien technology. Rough Rider was no big believer in UFOs, but he didn’t like the way this was shaping up. He endeavored to seize control of his F-18, which was fighting him as if they were suddenly opponents. “Reagan control, Rough Rider 404. I don’t know what this is! There’s some kind of energy field forming. There’s an incredible amount of turbu—”
That was when the F-18 abruptly angled downward, all control lost. Desperate, Rough Rider punched “Eject,” even though he was so close to the surface it was unlikely the chute would deploy fast enough to save him.
It didn’t matter. The eject ignored him. The canopy didn’t blow. Nor did the Reagan respond, which made him think that nothing was getting through. Then his frustration with his inability to carry out his mission gave way to his realization that he was in a spiraling death trap with no means of escape.
And he was no longer Rough Rider. Instead he was just plain old Kenny Johnson, screaming at the top of his lungs as the F-18 crashed into the side of the uncanny structure and exploded into a ball of flame.
The bridge of the Sampson became a hive of activity as Stone saw what was happening at the structure. “Condition Zebra!” he shouted. “Raise the fleet!”
Th
e communications officer, Ron Sinclair, was already on the horn. “This is the Sampson. Alert, alert. Condition Zebra. We’re encountering something that appears to be of …” He hesitated, having trouble believing that the next words were about to emerge from his mouth. “… of alien origin. We advise all …”
Then he stopped talking as he noticed that the dials measuring the volume of his output were flatlined. He tried to up the amps and got nowhere. The entire array wasn’t responding. “Crap. Sorry, sir. She went dead. All comms fully disabled.”
It wasn’t just the communications units. All the bridge screens had gone blank as well.
“Do you think it’s happening on the other ships?” asked Stone.
“That would be my best guess, sir,” said Sinclair. “If you like, I could get some string and a couple of tin cans and see if we can communicate with those.”
“Let’s save that for a last resort.” Stone stared helplessly toward the array in the distance. Alien origin? That’s what Sinclair had said. It seemed ridiculous. But the most ridiculous thing of all was that Stone Hopper wasn’t in a position to rule it out.
The weather roils the ocean, ionizing the air, seizing control of the waters, using them as the natural resource that they are, in ways that the pathetic residents of Earth could not begin to imagine. How blind they have been to the possibilities that their own world presents them. How inept they have been at exploiting them.
The churning waves grow, higher and higher. They reach up toward the clouds, and the pouring rain stretches down to meet them. The result is a massive wall of water, encircling the island of Oahu for a three-hundred-mile radius. Fishermen, marine vessels and two-thirds of the array of naval destroyers gape in astonishment at the barrier that has sprung up out of nowhere, an impossible wall of water that cuts them off from the remainder of the fleet. One of the vessels tries to power forward, but the contrary thrust is too strong; it literally pushes them back, the great propellers churning the water behind them with utter futility.