Space: Above and Beyond 1 - Space: Above and Beyond Read online

  Books by Peter Telep

  Space: Above and Beyond

  Squire

  Squire's Blood

  Squire's Honor

  This novel is dedicated to:

  Nicholas Zahn, Corporal, Retired, United States Marine Corps, 13th Defense Battalion

  Because he soldiered his way through my teenage years and kept me squared away.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Glen Morgan and James Wong have written for and produced such shows as 21 Jump Street and The Commish. Barbara Kantrowitz and Adam Rogers of Newsweek said they wrote "some of the most compelling episodes" of The X-Files. Their teleplay, on which this novel is based, was another example of their exciting and inventive work. I am pleased to be able to thank them for it here.

  Lise Vansen at the production office answered my many questions and provided me with the photographs and artwork I needed to keep this novel as accurate as possible.

  I'm indebted to the folks at HarperPrism: John Silbersack, Christopher Schelling, and Caitlin Blasdell for choosing me for this project. Their trust and faith is deeply appreciated.

  My agent, Robert Drake, did what he does best and did it quickly. I describe this as "bing-a-da-bang-a-da-boom" contract negotiations.

  Mr. Ken Nuckols served as my first reader. He went through the text line by line and any errors you may find are his. Seriously, Mr. Nuckols spent many hours helping me to polish the manuscript which was written under a tight deadline. I hope to return the favor on his novel.

  My wife, Nancy, was a trooper. She suffered through dinners listening to me tell her how many pages I wrote each day and what challenges faced me the next. I admire her patience. I know it's hard living with a man whose body is present but whose mind is somewhere in the Epsilon Eridani star system.

  prologue

  Possibilities.

  Lovell knew about possibilities, about losing them and about finding them. He had once defined his life as a bet that had not paid off. One too many relationships and ten times too many manual-labor jobs had siphoned away his will. He had grown tired, tired of searching for something that would make him happy. And for a time he had existed. Nothing more.

  But one night his car had broken down, and he and his blond mutt had been forced to walk five kilometers down a stretch of lonely, dark farm road. It had been then that he realized—finally realized—that he couldn't live without being happy. He had looked forward and had looked back, and there had been only darkness.

  Then he had looked to the sky. And they had been there. And he had seen them as if for the first time. Stars, a perfect celestial field, neither fettered by clouds nor choked by light pollution. Lovell had laughed out loud, realizing how ridiculous he looked standing in the middle of the road, staring slack-jawed into space. But when his laughter had subsided, and he had turned and continued his walk, he had come to know for the first time in many years that a possibility had been before him.

  Now, twenty-one months later, he and his dog stood on alien soil. He wiped his sweaty palms on the hips of his rust-colored flight overalls, then resumed holding hands with Jax and the woman to his right. As the wind picked up, hinting of the scent of jasmine and causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand, Lovell let his gaze play over the 250 men, women, and children of the Vesta Colony Mission who had gathered to listen to Colonial Governor Borman. He glanced past the crowd to the thick jungle that stretched to horizon. Above the trees, where orange and mauve should have been, was a strange violet twilight superimposed by brilliant planetary rings that arced across the sky. A single full moon, ice-blue and not exactly round, hung low but followed an ecliptic that took it much higher in the sky than Earth's satellite. For Lovell, Vesta was a place of eerie beauty, and it already felt like home.

  "Incredible, isn't it?" Jax observed.

  "Yes," he answered without looking at her. "Actually, I was seeing another night in my mind. I guess it's moments like this that make a person reminisce."

  "Judging from what you told me back on the cutter, coming here is the smartest thing you've done in a long time."

  He gazed on her and smiled. "Are you calling me stupid?"

  She returned a grin of her own, a very nice one. "You know what I mean. We've all made mistakes."

  "And what mistakes have you made?" he asked, then squeezed her hand.

  She squeezed back. "True, I haven't said much. But we'll have time later." She gestured with her head. "Here comes the governor."

  Lovell watched as Governor Borman strode to a position in the front of the group, turned to face everyone, then cleared his throat. If Borman was a day over forty he didn't look it, and there was a glimmer in his eyes that spoke volumes of his determination. Lovell averted his gaze at the sound of a whimper from his dog.

  "What's the matter, Captain Krunch?"

  "Captain Krunch?" Jax asked incredulously. "What kind of a name is that for—"

  Lovell cut her off with a sigh. "It's a long story." He released his grip on Jax's hand then patted the dog. The mutt wagged his tail and kept his attention focused on the sky. Jax took Lovell's hand in her own.

  "Tonight we stand beneath a new heaven," Borman began. "After one hundred and fifty years of calling out, the silence of the universe assures us that life on Earth is unique. We are... alone."

  There was something, well, lonely about Borman's words. Lovell wanted to believe that there was another race out there, a race that knew the secret to discovering and maintaining happiness and could teach that incredible knowledge to humans. Admittedly, it was hard to argue against one hundred and fifty years of silence, but that silence would not douse Lovell's hope.

  The governor shifted his weight, then cleared his throat once again. "You and I are among the first to bring life to the stars, to this planet, the farthest any humans have ever ventured."

  Captain Krunch let out a bark. Many of the colonists looked to the mutt, and a few half-grinned. Lovell felt his face warm with embarrassment.

  "He's barking because Borman forgot to mention him," Jax said softly.

  Lovell nudged the dog with his foot. The mutt turned around and sat on his hind legs, facing Lovell. "Good. Now you stay there and be quiet." He looked up—into Borman's gaze. He mouthed "I'm sorry."

  Borman nodded slightly, then closed his eyes. "The light that shines from this new sun will not touch our old home for another sixteen years." The governor opened his eyes, then paused.

  Lovell considered Borman's words. He was sixteen light-years from home, standing on a planet in the Epsilon Eridani star system. Though the governor had just reminded him of that fact, it was still well-nigh impossible to comprehend the distance.

  "Unlike that light... we cannot go back. We can only move forward." The governor swallowed, then blinked hard several times, fighting back what had to be a surge of emotions. "I know there are those back home who say we're only here as a status symbol. Others call us fortune hunters or say that we're running away. But I know we're here because of faith, a faith in each other, in a better world."

  Out of the corner of his eye, Lovell caught a tear sliding down Jax's cheek. Instead of turning to her, he allowed her the moment and kept his gaze on Borman; as he did so, he felt his own eyes grow moist.

  Borman continued. "The rocket fuel that brought us here can be burned away, but the belief in ourselves, in one another—in the future—never can be. Never will be."

  A man Lovell recognized as the pilot of the cutter stepped up to Borman and handed him a flagpole. The pilot resumed his position in the crowd. Borman paused a moment before lifting the flag, studying it with reverence. Then the gove
rnor stabbed the flagpole into the soil. A white flag with a blue Earth in it unfurled in the Vestan wind.

  The colonists around Lovell took the flag's presence as their cue to let out a cheer. The woman to Lovell's left, a slim brunette who was probably in her twenties, pulled him toward her. Lovell released Jax's hand and found himself in an embrace with the girl. She hugged him hard, then thrust him backward, keeping her hands on his shoulders. Lovell saw that the name patch on her flight overalls read: TISHA, JOAN.

  "Oh, what a rush!" she said, then looked at his name patch. "Lovell. Does that mean you have a will to love?"

  Immediately Lovell knew that she was not one of the engineers responsible for designing the ship that had carried them to Vesta "Uh, I'm not sure."

  "Oh," she said, her cheeks flushing. She let her hands slide off his shoulders. "Well, I bet you do. It's nice to meet you."

  Lovell detected the weight of a hand at the base of his neck. He turned to see Jax move in next to him. She took his arm in hers, and suddenly Lovell felt nervous.

  "It's nice to meet you, too, Tisha," Jax said. "Now if you'll excuse us." Jax pulled Lovell away from the young woman and steered him through the dissipating crowd. Captain Krunch fell in at Lovell's side.

  "I didn't know we were an 'us,'" Lovell said.

  Jax tossed her head to remove some golden locks that had strayed into one of her eyes, then lifted her brow. "You didn't?"

  He shook his head no. "Does that mean we are?"

  "Maybe," she said, then started away. "Come on, let's get something to eat."

  Lovell groaned. "I hate it when they're coy." He regarded Captain Krunch. "Don't you, boy?"

  The mutt wagged his tail fiercely, licked his chops, then barked.

  For two Vestan months, the equivalent of two and a half Earth months, Lovell helped build the settlement. The cutter's fuselage, an enormous structure which lay on its side in the clearing of the lush tropical rain forest they had chosen for their home, was utilized as a storage warehouse. Though in the years to come they would build permanent dwellings, for now they lived out of prefab Quonset huts arrayed about the cutter like tin cans lying on their sides, half-buried in the soil. Lovell participated in the raising of the satellite dish, a project that should have been accomplished in one day, but one that had taken the team of five nearly a week.

  Of the sixteen rovers that had been packed for the journey, all but one was functional. There was something wrong with the transmission on the vehicle, a defect that had been present before loading. Lovell suggested they cannibalize the rover for spare parts. Borman agreed.

  Lovell shared nearly every meal with Jax. Though she was busy with her geological studies, she always found time for him. He knew they were destined to become lovers, but thus far he was the one holding back. What scared him was the fact that if their relationship didn't work out, there was nowhere to run. One planet. One settlement. And he knew he would hate the awkwardness of having to occasionally be in her presence.

  But her wanted her. Badly.

  After one particularly long day of serving on a construction team, Lovell skipped dinner, went back to his hut and collapsed on his cot. He shared the hut with fifteen other colonists, all of whom were, thankfully, away. He knew Jax would be upset with him, but he would make her understand. He dug his back deeper into the cot and closed his eyes. Then he felt Captain Krunch leap onto the bed. The dog used his muzzle to drive Lovell's legs to one side of the bed.

  "Oh, come on, dog, can't you sleep on the floor?"

  But the Captain would do no such thing. He found a spot and settled down, resting his chin on one of Lovell's ankles.

  Sometime during the night Lovell was awakened by a snarl from his mutt. He opened his eyes and focused on the clock at his bedside; it was 2:00 A.M.—early—even on a planet with thirty-hour days. Lovell cocked and lifted his head a little, then squinted at the window. A wedge of blue moonlight shone into the room and split the floor in two. The window's curtain, an old T-shirt hanging half-off, billowed in the wind. Something rose behind the curtain, something like steam or fog, but Lovell dismissed the image as a trick of his sleepy eyes. Captain Krunch rose shakily on the bed, then hopped off onto firm ground.

  Lovell sat up and rubbed his eyes on the heels of his hands. "What now, Captain?"

  The dog paused before the window; then uttered a steady, foreboding growl that rose slightly in pitch but dramatically in volume.

  Reluctantly, Lovell threw off his covers, scratched at his belly button, then got out of bed. He crossed gingerly to the window, swearing under his breath that he didn't have a pair of slippers to insulate his feet from the icy floor of the hut. "This had better be important," he told the dog.

  Lovell rested an arm on the windowsill, looked right, then left, and saw no one outside the hut. He wasn't sure why, but he felt the impulse to look skyward. The tableau was peaceful... but then he saw something, and he felt his mouth open. Three horizontal slits of light, in formation, approached the settlement.

  First thought: We don't need any help. Why the hell did they send another team here? What the hell were they thinking?

  Second thought: They wouldn't send another team....

  Then he heard the thrusters of jets. It was a sound with attitude, an angry, malevolent sound that swelled and struck fear in Lovell. He detected something new in the air, a smell the likes of which he had never encountered. The closest thing he could compare it to was that of burning leaves.

  He studied the slits of light, probing deeper into his memory, trying to draw angles from them, insignia, something. And in his next heartbeat they were visible: a squadron of black, triangular warplanes in a diamond attack formation. Lovell toyed with the idea that the planes were part of some top-secret military project, but at the same time that he tried to rationalize their presence, his heart told him they were not from Earth. The military would not spend that much money to put fighters this far out. The only people in the system were the colonists.

  From somewhere outside came a thunderous approach of footsteps. As he turned away from the window, Lovell's mouth went dry and a knot formed in his stomach.

  Jax!

  Screams rose from the Quonset hut beside his. Lovell craned his neck, shot a look through window and saw colonists fleeing from the rear exit of the shelter. Above, a warplane swooped down, its engine howling, and let loose with a volley of laser fire that tore the hut into gleaming, sizzling ribbons of corrugated steel. Lovell's dog howled back at the roar of destruction.

  By now, the other colonists were bolting from their cots, and Andrea, a biotech, rushed up to Lovell, her face a mask of fear and concern. "What's going on?"

  "We're under attack," he said, the words sounding more like a question than a statement.

  "Ohmygod..."

  Lovell spun away from Andrea and started for the door. Jax's hut was only two down from his. He could make it.

  A sound came from behind the door, a hissing, and Lovell froze.

  The door blasted off its hinges and slammed onto the floor. Through an acrid-smelling cloud of smoke, an immense silhouette appeared and advanced into the threshold. Other silhouettes became visible behind it.

  Then Lovell caught a glimpse of the thing. It was a flat, black and green creature, and because of the straight-lined patterns all over its body, Lovell assumed it was armored. Somewhat humanoid, it clenched in what could be called its hand the cylindrical device it had used on the door.

  Lovell's dog bounded for the alien shock trooper.

  Amid the screams of the colonists outside and inside the hut, Lovell heard his name. He looked over his shoulder and saw Jax standing in the rear doorway of the hut.

  He shot a glance forward and saw his dog prepare to leap onto the shock trooper. The alien raised its weapon.

  Lovell turned and ran toward the rear exit, but the other colonists clogged his path.

  The last things he heard were a yelp from his dog and the Shhhhhaaaa! of the ali
en's weapon igniting.

  Jax was hurtled five meters away from the rear doorway by the shock trooper's weapon. She collapsed onto her side, felt a fire in her hip, brushed it off, then rolled and stood. "Lovell," she said, her voice cracked and tremulous. Jax backed away from the hut, then in one fluid motion, turned and sprinted away.

  She heard the demonic cry of an alien warplane, then laser fire paralleled both sides of her path. Dirt and stones shot into her legs from the barrage. She was between Quonset huts, and up ahead lay the relative safety of the jungle. A tremendous explosion sounded in the west. She looked right, just as the giant satellite dish exploded and toppled to the ground. Above it, alien war-planes swooped like metallic ravens over the treetops, flying in flocking formation, hunting....

  From within the hut to her right came the hysterical voice of a colonist. "Mayday! Mayday! This is the—"

  A salvo of alien laser fire ended the man's message.

  Jax rounded the corner of the hut, and there, in the distance, she caught sight of the Earth flag, flapping defiantly against a wall of flames. A shock trooper ran by the flag, then swung around, aimed its weapon and torched the emblem. Bastards! Jax felt a rush of air from behind her and came to a jarring halt. She looked over her shoulder and saw an alien warplane diving to zero in on her. The urge to duck passed instantly, for she knew that no matter what she did the alien would not miss. Every nerve in her body thundered. For a moment there was only the deafening thump of her heartbeat. Then the world became a place of intense heat and light.

  one

  "We are T-minus thirty seconds and counting..."

  Nathan West was strapped tightly into his launch seat. He listened to the steady, feminine voice of the mission commander through his helmet's comlink. It didn't matter that Nathan had heard her run through the checklist over a dozen times in the past; each and every time her voice made his adrenaline pump.

  "H2 tank pressurization..."