Escape Meridian
Escape Meridian
Star Ascension – Book Two
Jeremy Michelson
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
What Happens Next?
One
The wrecked spaceship behind me sent up clouds of black smoke into the sharp, blue New Mexico sky. I was bone tired. Cut and bruised in more places than I cared to think about. My desert camo uniform was singed and tore and smeared with three kinds of blood. I was limping from a cheap shot the other guy took at me.
He was gonna live to regret it.
I had a bunch of blue tentacles clutched in my right hand. Which was attached to an unconscious blue alien. One that was gonna have one helluva headache when he woke up. Even though he was downwind, I could still catch a whiff of the rotten meat stench of him.
Nothing that smelled that bad could be any good.
No matter what that goody-two-shoes, Chris, tried to say.
In my other hand was a busted plasma rifle. The charge had gone out of it long since. But it still made a nifty club. Plus it was property of the United States military, so I felt somewhat obligated to bring it back.
In the shimmering distance I spotted flashing blue lights, and dark shapes on the ground, coming my way. They was too far away for me to hear the sirens and engines. That’d come soon enough.
Two silver hover jets shot over the distant trucks.
Them, I could hear, even though my ears was ringing from all the explosions behind me.
The hover jets screamed overhead, zooming past. I didn’t turn to look, but I heard the turbines of one whine as the sleek craft pulled to a stop and set down near the wreck.
The other one made a different sound as it pivoted and swung back around toward me. Its turbines changed pitch, then revved back up as the pilot played the controls.
It reminded me, I was gonna have to learn how to fly stuff. Useful skill that I'd probably be needing some time in the future.
There was a lot of work to be done. I needed to be prepared.
The second hover jet zipped back over me. Then stopped, pivoted and set itself down right smart about fifty yards in front of me. A cloud of red dust and sand puffed up around it, momentarily obscuring it.
The turbines wound down. The main hatch popped open and a landing ramp extended. A herd of Space Marines in silver space armor and handheld plasma rifles piled out. They quickstepped out in formation. Five of them run up to me. The rest spread out, taking up positions.
Could have told them it was a waste of time. It was just me and old tentacle head.
But they wouldn’t have listened. Heck, most of them knew me, and they still wouldn’t have listened.
“Hold up there, Buck,” said the center Marine. His voice came out a little metallic and crackly through the grill at the bottom of his helmet. All five of the Marines had their plasma rifles on me. The rifles whined. Armed with full charges. The ozone coming off them made me want to sneeze, but I held it.
I squinted at the name stenciled on the Marine’s chest. Gny Sgt Stewart.
Good man. Not quite so green as some of them other boys.
I came to a halt. No sense in trying to walk through a wall of men in space armor. I kept hold of the jerk-hole alien’s tentacles. And my busted plasma rifle.
Couldn’t blame the Marines for wondering if I was friend or foe. Had a little trouble figuring that out myself until just a little while back.
“How about you let go the alien and put the rifle down, Buck,” Gunnery Sergeant Stewart said.
Not using my rank when he addressed me told me a lot about how mad folks were.
Too bad. Doing the right thing isn’t always pretty. Or comfortable.
Neither is figuring out the right thing to do.
Right, Chris?
“I’m returning the prisoner to the brig, Gunny,” I said.
I could just catch a hint of Gny. Sgt. Stewart’s face behind the smooth, polarized visor on his silver helmet. The Space Marine armor was the most advanced stuff Earth could make. It was sleek and smooth. A bit bulkier at the joints where the servos whined and hissed as the men in them moved.
But compared to Don armor, Space Marine armor was little better than those medieval tin cans knights used to gallivant around in.
And compared to Liz…Don armor wasn’t much more than tin foil.
“We’ll take it from here, Sgt,” Stewart said, “Just let him go and hand over the rifle.”
“Rifle’s busted anyway. Just wanted to get it back in inventory,” I said.
Stewart’s helmet rotated just enough to show he was looking at my rifle.
“I see that,” he said, “Buck. Need you to stand down now. Can you do that for me?”
A wave of weariness washed over me. Just as quick as it arrived, I pushed back at it. I’d come too far to give up.
“No, Gunny, can’t do that,” I said, “Need to see this through. You can give me a lift back to base, though.”
Servos whined as the Marines exchanged looks. There was probably some radio chatter between them too, but I didn’t care what they was saying.
Stubborn was in my genes. Going back a whole lot of generations.
My folk didn’t give up. Mostly, we’d always been dirt poor. But we h
ad pride stiffening up our spines.
“Buck…” Stewart said.
One of the Marines spun around, the servos on his suit hissing and clattering. He raised his rifle. Then just as quick, put it down.
“Shit! She’s coming!” he said.
All the other Marines forgot about me, jerking around to look at the gold streak that suddenly appeared in the sky.
“Whatever you do, don’t shoot!” Gny. Sgt. Stewart shouted, “That just pisses her off!”
The streak of gold became a comet, flashing through the cloudless New Mexico sky. It came racing at us so fast no one had time to react. One second there was nothing but empty air over us, the next…
A golden figure came to a stop. A blast of hot air washed over us. Then she gently lowered to the ground.
My heart did a little flip-flop at the sight of her. I wasn't immune to the charms of a good looking woman.
But this was something different. A whole other level.
I never got impressed easy.
But that woman impressed the living hell out of me.
Liz, covered from head to toe in gleaming, golden Dendon armor, stalked toward me. The armor was near skin tight. She looked like a stylized statue of a naked woman, but with the naughty bits sorta obscured. Which only made it all seem even more sexy.
The armor over her face was a blank mask as she came up to me. I got a distorted glimpse of my dirty and weary face in it.
She put her hands on her hips. Which made a musical, bell-like chiming sound as metal hit metal.
“Buck,” she said, “You are one lucky bastard, you know that?”
I rested the busted rifle against my leg. Then tipped my beat-up, black Stetson to her.
“Luck’s only part of it, ma’am,” I said.
The whole thing that happened here was different parts, luck, foolishness, and plain old stupidity. The rest was skill, guts, and a bit of late arriving good sense.
It had all started when Chris and Liz arrived back at the base with a messed up ship and a pissed off blue alien…
Two
I was heading for the noonday chow line when the wounded spaceship came down outa the hot New Mexico sky and hovered over the base.
And turned everyone’s day upside down.
Even beat up as it was, the spaceship had a sinister shape to it. Like some bird of prey with wings folded back, ready to strike. Thing was all harsh angles and pointy parts that looked a bit too much like jagged teeth. It was black as a politicians’ heart, except for places where the hull had been torn up.
Ain’t nobody’d look at that thing and think anything good was gonna come out of it.
Santa Claus wasn’t gonna pop outa the hatch with toys for us.
The ship limped out over the acres of sun-baked concrete laid between the rows of big hangers on either side. Streamers of thin, gray smoke trailed from the front and back of the ship, and from the tears in the hull.
It came in with an eerie silence, though. Wasn’t until it come in close that I heard anything. Even that was just a low hum–with an occasional crackle of something like static.
Sweat ran down from my temples. Wasn’t scared of the ship or nothing. It was just danged hot out there. I pushed a stick of cinnamon gum into my pie hole and started chewing. Wiped my sweaty palms on my pants and adjusted my grip on my plasma rifle. The thing was fully charged, letting off a scent of ozone as the barrel buzzed with contained energy.
I glanced up and down the line of grunts lining the front of Hanger 6. They were all in desert camo, holding up Class V plasma rifles like I was. Just a bunch of Marines, waiting for orders to start shooting. If Command were so inclined.
Just beyond the landing pads and the hangers, the tall cloaking poles buzzed. The air around them was distorted like a funhouse mirror. At the top of the poles, globes of white energy pulsed with a slow and steady rhythm. The air above the base was distorted, too. The blue New Mexico sky was covered up with shimmery browns.
The old hands here told me it was some super fancy alien cloaking system the government had gotten from the Blinkys.
Which should have sounded like a load of horse crap.
The Blinkys–and later on, the Stickmen–had made First Contact with us lowly Earthlings about a decade back. Since then, everyone’d been told the aliens weren’t handing out any techno goodies to us butt-scratching apes.
But…rules always got bent somewheres, didn’t they?
The ship came to a stop above the landing pad. Everyone jumped as hatches slammed open on the underside. I was half amazed no one took a shot at it.
Though not too amazed. General Mattany woulda had the ass of anyone who started taking pot shots without his orders.
A set of landing gear extended. Then the ship dropped down on them. A bit hard. Enough to make the ground jump under my feet. The humming from the ship started winding down.
General Mattany showed up a second later in a ground car–a smaller, open-topped version of the big, armored Grums that constantly patrolled the base' perimeter. His driver screeched the car to a halt just forward of our line.
There were other troops filing out of various hangers. Mostly grunts like me and my squad, in our desert camo uniforms. But there were a few Space Marines in their silver armor and forearm mounted plasma blasters, too. Some of them were running for the last two operating hover jets we had on base.
I was off base when the other jets got destroyed. So far, whoever I asked about ‘em would just shake their heads and walk off.
Something had been going down at Area 53, as the military, with their usual imagination, had named this super secret base. Everyone was twitchy. And folks weren’t wanting to talk about it, either.
Dang my luck. If it weren’t for Momma insisting me attend little brother Roy’s college graduation…
But it looked like my luck was finally turning. Cause I had a damned good idea what was gonna come off that ship.
General Mattany pulled a bullhorn from somewhere and started shouting orders at the ship. Which didn’t produce much of anything. Danged thing just sat there ignoring him.
Mattany’s face went red. He yelled at the armored Space Marines closest to the ship to move in.
The General looked the part of a General. He had a square jaw and a bristle cut head of steel gray hair to match his steely eyes. He was broad shouldered and narrow waisted. The dress blue uniform he always wore was always spotless, the crease on his trousers pressed to a knife-like edge.
The only thing that didn't match was his small, long-fingered, delicate hands. They looked kind of ridiculous clutching that bullhorn. He had the hands of a teenage girl. My momma had bigger hands than him.
But what his hands lacked in authority, his voice more than made up for.
Them armored Space Marines jumped right to. They ran up to the sinister looking ship, holding their forearm mounted plasma blasters in front of them.
Mattany yelled through his bullhorn about final warnings and authority of the U.S. Government and such.
From the corner of my eye, I caught motion. My hackles rose up. I turned my head just enough to get a better look at the thing staring out from the shadowed doorway of the Special Hanger. The one hanger on base that didn’t have a number. The extra most secret hanger on the whole danged secret base.
The creature stayed out of the sunlight. Apparently its sort didn’t take too kindly to New Mexico sunshine. My guess being the thing was more accustomed to dank, dreary swamps.
The thing was sort of human shaped, dressed in a dark blue coverall type of suit. Its body was squat, with two thick arms and two even thicker legs, attached to a thick, barrel-like body. Its fingers were stubby and thick. So was its darned neck. Which was holding up the ugliness that was its head. The creature’s skin was gray and rough looking, like a rhino’s. I wasn’t close enough to smell it, but it’d been near enough to this particular specimen once. I recalled it stank like a stagnant tidal pool. A stench like rotting oc
ean plants.
But the stank wasn’t the worst thing about it. No, that honor belonged to its head. It had two, flat ears on either side of its bald head that were hardly more than cauliflower bumps. Its mouth was a wide, thin-lipped slash on the lower half of its face. Closed, it didn’t look so bad. But when it talked, that things’ lips moved in ways that didn’t seem right. Ways that could make a grown mans’ stomach turn sour.
Above the mouth were two wide nostrils sitting on its flat face. On top of that were two normal, though large looking eyes, with wide, brown irises. But above those was one more eye. Right smack in the middle of its thick forehead. This eye moved independently of the other two. It had an extra wide, pale yellow iris that reminded most folks of what they flushed down the toilet every now and again.
Blinky.
The type of aliens who had made first contact with little old Earth. They were kind of creepy, but not so unlike people that people would lose their minds when they saw ‘em.
That would come later, when the Stickmen arrived and made themselves known.
The Blinkys had a real name–Ponohejon. But no one ever called them that. Folks took one look at that big ass, yellow eye and started calling them Blinkys. The name stuck. Heck, even the Blinkys call each other Blinkys here on Earth.