Descent from the Black: An Odyssey One Novella Read online

  DESCENT FROM THE BLACK

  From Evan Currie’s Odyssey One Series

  Hugh Taylor

  DESCENT FROM THE BLACK

  An Odyssey One Novella

  By Hugh Taylor

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  KINDLE EDITION

  Copyright 2016

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  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to real persons, events, or places are purely coincidental; any references to actual places, people, or brands are fictitious. All rights reserved.

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  Edited by Monique Happy Editorial services

  www.moniquehappy.com

  Also by Hugh Taylor

  Interstellar Navy Investigations Agency Series

  Paradigm Lost

  Limits of Power

  For humanity, a cause still worth fighting for.

  Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

  ― John Stuart Mill

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost, I must thank author Evan Currie for creating this intriguing universe and then allowing me to take part in it. I couldn’t be more excited! I also want to thank my cover artist, David Mickolas, who is basically a graphical genius. Additionally, my editor and friend, Monique Happy, provides great advice and makes sure that I color in between the lines. Any mistakes in this novella are mine and mine alone (sometimes I go rogue).

  This book also wouldn’t be what it is without the generous feedback from John Krushat. I’m thankful for both your advice and your service to this great country, in which I have both the freedom and opportunity to publish this book and others like it. My usual but extraordinary crew of crash-test dummies include Stacey Godfrey, Sean Erickson, and my father. This book would be a much lesser product without their thorough and enthusiastic review.

  Chapter 1

  If you are reading this, then you are a survivor.

  Those were the words that woke Patrick Lang from a deep sleep. Well, more accurately it was the beeping noise accompanying the message that woke him. Whatever the exact cause, he groaned as he regained consciousness. Though he could tell that the alert was urgent based on the tone, he silenced it anyway. Lang was copied on at least one of these per week, and they usually pertained to some missing “mission critical” item, such as a ball bearing for the chow hall’s tertiary waste compactor. The items were rarely ever lost, either; most often they were just in a mislabeled container. Whatever the issue, it usually wasn’t a real problem. At least not since his pending reassignment to Supply Chain Logistics, of all places.

  Lang also noticed that over ten hours of drug-induced sleep hadn’t rid him of the stench of beer and Chinese food, or of self-pity, either. He did his best to focus and read the rest of the message, but he only needed to get a few sentences into the formal orders before the adrenaline rush removed any traces of grogginess.

  UNCLAS

  SUBJ/IMMINENT DRASIN INVASION

  ORDERS /

  LANG PATRICK NICHOLAS, X-XXX-XX-1208

  RMKS/

  TERRESTRIAL DRASIN CONTACT. TRANSFER TO LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW CANX. REPORT TO CAMP PENDLETON IMMEDIATELY.

  They had started landing on Earth approximately five minutes ago, according to what he was reading, which meant he’d been sleeping through the alarm. Apparently Earth had received some advance warning. He was mentally distracted by the fact that the Drasin weren’t supposed to know the location of this planet, but that was a moot point now. He needed to get to base, and yesterday.

  Lang stood quickly, stumbled, but caught himself as he surveyed his studio apartment. It was a mess. Fortunately, the habits from his military training ensured that he had clean uniforms and a go-bag ready. He instinctively glanced to the far corner of the room and saw that his camouflaged backpack was stocked with necessities, ready and waiting for him. After verifying that, he made his way to the closet and put on one of his combat utility uniforms, swishing some mouthwash as he did.

  He spat the mouthwash in the kitchen sink as he grabbed some extra bottles of water and energy bars, which he threw in his bag. He barely glanced in the mirror to check his uniform as he reached for the door, but he couldn’t help noticing how horrible he looked. He had no reason to expect otherwise; he hadn’t left his apartment, let alone showered, in over three days. His brown hair was unkempt, his eyes were still a little bloodshot, and his normally solid frame was starting to show signs of softening for the first time in his adult life. He didn’t have time to worry about any of that now.

  Just to be sure that he hadn’t been hallucinating, which would be a new level of bad, he stopped and double-checked the message from Command. Lang wasn’t sure whether or not to be happy that it still informed him of an alien invasion; at least he wasn’t going crazy, but the flip side of that coin was that this planet was under serious duress. The public had some idea of what humanity had found out in the black, but with his position and security clearance, he knew how horrifying it truly was. Well, my former position.

  Lang pushed those thoughts out of his head and was about to leave when he realized that he was unarmed, since all of his military kit had to stay on base. He grabbed his combat knife and his personally owned shotgun, made sure it was loaded, and tossed all of the slugs he could carry into his bag. He did his best to secure the weapon to his backpack, putting the entire apparatus on when he was done. With knowledge of what was about to happen to Earth, Lang burst from his apartment as fast as his twenty-seven-year-old body would move. He didn’t even bother to lock the door.

  Lang double-timed it down the outer stairwell, but came to a stop halfway down. The beautiful morning sky of San Clemente was filled with dozens—no, hundreds, at least—of objects, burning as they descended toward the greater Los Angeles area. Making the view even more apocalyptic were the thousands of contrails from surface-to-air missiles tracking as many of the inbound contacts as they could. Because they definitely weren’t meteorites…

  That thought got Lang moving again, and he practically jumped down the last half-flight of stairs. His bike was only a few spaces away and it started on the first try, which was good because it seemed like everyone in his apartment complex was now looking out their windows, beginning to realize that they should be panicking.

  He threw the motorcycle into gear, pulling the front wheel off the ground as he tore out of the parking lot heading for the I-5. He continued in that direction until he realized that the freeway was a bad idea. On a normal day, his crotch rocket would have free rein in late-morning traffic, but this was no normal day. No, he had to stick to the back roads and pray that there weren’t any crashes yet. It was only a matter of time before there were, after all; or at least he figured the end of the world would be like that. With that in mind, he opened the throttle as much as he dared on the residential and semi-residential roads, leaning into the curves like he used to on the racetrack. As the miles went by, more and more people were coming out of their houses. Many were rushing to pack their cars, but some were still staring up at the sky in confusion. Lang didn’t think that the latter group would last very long. Again, he forced himself to push that ty
pe of thought away. Even with the adrenaline rush, the after-effects of the sleeping pills were still slowing his reaction time and he needed to focus.

  Lang didn’t get the chance.

  A streak of fire came down from the sky so close to him that he swore he felt the heat from it. The object at the leading edge of the flame slammed into the middle of a shopping center at the intersection farther down the hill. Reflexively, he gunned his bike even harder, momentarily forgetting the physics that he’d learned in college. When the shock wave from the impact did hit, he wasn’t ready for it. The motorcycle went one way and he went another.

  Fortunately, he was still on a residential street and landed in a yard that had real grass, which was a rarity in southern California. Aside from the jarring of the initial impact, he slid uneventfully, though for quite some distance. He finally came to a stop and, after groaning for a second, slowly got up and patted himself down to make sure that all of the important body parts were still present. Even his backpack and shotgun appeared no worse for wear.

  He was definitely going to feel this in the morning, but most of what Lang had to deal with were mud and grass stains, not the road rash with which he would’ve been rewarded had he fallen in the other direction. With that thought, he looked for his bike, finding it in a yard across the street. He trotted in that direction, realizing that most people in the neighborhood had stopped staring at the smoldering impact crater down the street and were watching him.

  “Run!” he yelled after raising his helmet’s face-shield, not able to think of anything more eloquent. Fortunately, it seemed to spur most of them into action. He was also pleasantly surprised to find that his motorcycle started on the first try. It was definitely going to need a new paint job, but—

  Lang’s thoughts were interrupted by screaming. He quickly turned toward the sound and found that it was coming from near the impact site.

  It did not take long to identify the cause.

  A spider-like … thing, at least the size of a horse, was crawling out of the crater. Lang had seen the files, but seeing one of “them” in real life triggered every primal fear instinct that he had. As he stood, straddling his bike, frozen in shock, a sizzling could be heard as a laser lanced out from the alien and two of the screaming people simply ceased to exist.

  Whether it was courage, stupidity, or training—and Lang largely suspected the latter—he put the bike in gear and headed straight for the alien. By the time he’d closed half the distance, everybody else was running or jumping into their cars. Suddenly, something in his peripheral vision caught his attention right before he heard the squealing of tires.

  Lang glanced to his right and saw a flashy, lowered sedan come fishtailing around the corner on the other side of the intersection with the main road. He let off the throttle as he saw fully automatic gunfire come from the vehicle, some of it actually hitting the Drasin. The car’s occupants did manage to get its attention, but they only ticked it off. The alien drone turned towards the speeding car and sliced it cleanly in half with its beam weapon. A small secondary explosion followed and what remained of the car became covered in flames.

  Lang almost turned and fled, but there were still at least a dozen civilians in the area who were sitting ducks. “What the hell, my life is over anyway,” he muttered aloud as he revved the bike and headed straight at the monstrosity. It had been that type of week.

  The Drasin was still tracking the civilians, so he began struggling to unlatch his shotgun from his backpack with one hand. He eventually managed to get it free and did his best to aim it at the Drasin, partly using the bike to stabilize it. Doing what he could to brace for the recoil, he fired the semiautomatic weapon.

  Somehow, he wasn’t thrown from his motorcycle when the round fired. By this point, he’d closed so much distance that he couldn’t miss, and he didn’t. The slug impacted the drone someplace close to center mass and Lang started to breathe a sigh of relief when it staggered slightly, but it recovered quickly and turned straight toward him.

  He’d had higher hopes for the shotgun slugs, but Lang didn’t miss a beat as he leaned right and gunned the engine. The return fire from the Drasin sizzled through the air behind him as the drone fired at his previous position. Lang risked a glance backward and saw civilians fleeing the area, so he made a split-second decision. He dropped his shotgun, put both hands back on the handlebars, and pulled a tight U-turn, heading back toward the drone.

  The Drasin was still targeting him, so he weaved his motorcycle as erratically as he could while still maintaining speed. His enemy learned quickly, though, and the beams started getting far too close for comfort, especially when the geometry began to turn against Lang. He scanned for some cover, but he was distracted by a noise. Even over the alien’s beam weapon, the revving motorcycle, and his heartbeat, he could hear what he now realized were buildings crumbling.

  He turned to look at the source of the noises as he passed the alien and his heart sank when he saw more enemy drones crawling out of what was left of the shopping center. He couldn’t be sure due to the dust from the impact and collapsed buildings, but he didn’t see any other civilians left. At least, none who were alive.

  The next beam from the alien disintegrated a streetlight that he had just passed, bringing his mind back to his own predicament. He’d never walked away from a fight before in his life, but one thing was clear …

  There was nothing he could do here except die.

  Chapter 2

  Patrick Lang downshifted and decelerated as he approached a group of civilians who were on the corner and in the middle of a deep argument. It had been less than ten minutes since he escaped the Drasin, but he managed to raise his visor without his hand shaking as he came to a stop next to them.

  “What’s the word, Marine?” one of the men asked him.

  “I’m trying to get to base,” Lang responded.

  “Yeah, but what are they telling you?” another asked.

  “Honestly, sir, just that I need to get to base.”

  “Well don’t take the I-5,” a third one said emphatically.

  “I still think it’s our best shot,” the first one interjected.

  “Just whatever you do,” Lang interrupted, “do it quickly. These things move fast.”

  “I thought you said you hadn’t heard anything,” the second one said.

  “I got that piece of info up close and personal, sir,” Lang responded. Looking at the third person, he asked, “The I-5 is jammed?”

  “That’s what the radio said.”

  “Before it went silent,” one of the women added. “Let’s head for the campsite!” she yelled at the group, walking off toward her vehicle. It seemed like she was their de facto leader, as the group all followed her. Lang didn’t have time to wait for them or babysit, though; he needed to get to where he could actually do some good in this nightmare. The San Mateo Campground was his current destination as well since it bordered Camp Pendleton, so he got back on the road and rode until he came across an entrance. He easily maneuvered his motorcycle around the short cement pillars designed to keep cars off the dirt paths in the park.

  He was definitely not driving a dirt bike, but if he kept it slow, he could keep it on two wheels. He did his best to make his way toward base by dead reckoning through the campground. At first there were quite a few people, but as he got to higher ground he went minutes at a time without seeing anybody. Eventually, at a cautious twenty miles per hour, he came across a man and a woman, but he could instantly tell that something was wrong. The woman, somewhere in her mid-twenties, looked scared stiff, while the man, in his early forties, seemed agitated and hyper-alert. “Keep on going, soldier boy,” the man said to him once he rode within earshot.

  Those words made Lang’s decision easy. He revved the bike and slid sideways to a stop, spraying dirt in the man’s face. He quickly dismounted and moved toward the man, but he pulled a revolver before Lang could close the distance. “Instead of going and fightin
g the aliens, you’re gonna pick on me?” the man yelled, the gun pointed at Lang’s face.

  Lang was no stranger to firearms. He’d grown up in a very rural area and had spent his entire adult life in the Marine Corps. Still, he had to admit that he’d never stared down the barrel of a gun in a situation quite like this. Nonetheless, he was still able to function. “What’s going on here?” he asked as the man walked toward him.

  “None of your damn business!”

  “I already gave you all of my money!” the woman, now in tears, pleaded.

  The man glanced at her as he said, “You’re too pretty to leave all alone—”

  Lang’s attacker was an amateur. He’d closed to within a dozen feet or so with his weapon held in one hand, so as soon as he looked at the woman, Lang sprang into action. He closed the remaining distance, used his left hand to push the man’s gun-hand wide, and whipped his knife out of its hiding place with his right. The gun went off right before Lang sank the knife into the man’s chest and the shot went wild.

  The man looked at him with a mix of confusion, rage, and fear. He pulled the trigger again as he tried to bring the pistol to bear, but Lang was stronger, inside his reach, and wasn’t mortally wounded. Lang didn’t pull the knife out until the pistol hit the dirt. His attacker then staggered backward and was dead by the time he hit the ground.

  The woman made a choked cry as her mind struggled to process everything that had just happened, that hadn’t happened, or both. “Are you alright, ma’am?” Lang asked. It was a stupid question, but he didn’t know what else to say. She was clearly in shock, so he moved in to comfort her, but she flinched back.