Death Orbit (29 page)

M
AJOR DONN KURJAN, AKA
“Lazarus,” did not fight in the “doomsday” battle for the Kennedy Space Center.

He’d left the morning before. Catching a ride on a cargo plane heading for Boston, he’d been forced to get off at the Newark military air station because the airplane could go no further north.

The reason was the atrocious weather that had been battering most of New England for nearly a week. A major hurricane, unnamed, its strength at the top end of the scale, had been parked off the northeast coast for six days. During that time, winds in excess of 110 mph had shorn whole forests along the Maine coast. Tides running more than 30 feet above the norm had flooded large sections of lower Connecticut and Rhode Island. Mid-sized tornadoes, spawned by the massive storm system, had torn up sections of New Hampshire and Vermont.

Electricity, phone lines, and water systems, shaky in the area since the Big War, were now nonexistent. Disaster relief forces from neighboring states were having a hard time just communicating with each other, never mind with victims caught in the storm’s gigantic swirl. Worst hit was Cape Cod. Here the winds were the highest and the rain the heaviest. Waves the size of tsunamis had been battering the fragile beaches for five days nonstop. Those caught on the Cape and the nearby islands could not get out, just as those who sought to bring relief to them could not get in. Most disheartening of all, UA military weather forecasters could see no end in sight to the massive tempest; indeed, the hurricane was actually gaining strength as the hours went by and not depleting itself, as storms of its ilk usually do.

A search of memories and the record books confirmed it: there had never been a storm quite like this.

So Kurjan’s airplane had been forced to set down at Newark; this was as far north as any UA military airplane dared to travel. Kurjan used his UAAF staff connections to secure an ancient military jeep from the airport security detachment. Once he’d been able to wrangle a tank full of gas, he headed out through New York City, up the rain-slicked highway into Connecticut, over several swaying bridges into Rhode Island, finally reaching the approaches of Cape Cod. The trip, normally a 5- or 6-hour affair, took Kurjan nearly 24, the conditions were that bad.

But this did not deter him. Something deep inside him, the same thing that had somehow graced him with the longevity of a cat and plain old good luck in his military adventures, was now compelling him to get to the Cape at all costs, not matter what. His trip had taken on a surreal edge. He’d somehow survived the night in the swamp during the Norse attack and remained unharmed as the C-5 gunship rained hell down upon earth. Yet in his brief recuperation, all he could think about was how he could get to Cape Code by the quickest means possible. How strong was this attraction, that he would risk life and limb to obey it? What outside forces were drawing him toward the center of the worst storm ever imagined?

Kurjan didn’t know—and the truth was, he didn’t really think about it very much.

He just kept on driving.

It was close to midnight when he began coaxing the Jeep up the long, winding road that led to Nauset Heights.

The rain was absolutely fierce, the thunder and lightning so constant, the night seemed as bright as day. The wind was blowing at such a constant gale, the sand and water spray made it difficult to see even a few feet in front of him.

Finally, he reached the top of the heights, just as the old Jeep’s engine gave out for lack of fuel and initiative. Kurjan was forced to abandon it at the slight bend in the road which led to the farmhouse at the edge of the heights. Only by the crack of lightning could he make out the name on the signpost swinging mightily in the supersonic breeze:
Skyfire.

Kurjan had been here several times before, back in happier days, when Hawk Hunter was repairing the place, living out his days in contentment and semiretirement. Kurjan’s fondest memories of Skyfire were the nonstop sunny days and cool, star-filled nights, when he, as a guest of Hunter and Dominique, would sit with them on the creaky porch and talk away the hours, sipping spiked lemonade and eating plump, sinfully juicy lobster. Kurjan recalled thinking back then that even though days like these were few and far between, sometimes the cosmos does reward those who are patient enough a little glimpse of heaven. He could still close his eyes and feel the warm sun heating his face. Never had he felt so content.

But now, in the scary winds and pounding rain, the little farmhouse looked like something from a horror movie. Dark, wet, and forbidding, it seemed like a place that had been abandoned for years. The waves of hay, long unkempt and uncut, were blowing so hard in the gale, they combined to emit a kind of screech, a sound that went right to the bone.

There was no soul here anymore, Kurjan thought, looking at the ethereal setting. No life. Or at least, life as the place had known so many times in the past.

Still, he unclasped the gate and walked down the flooded, sandy path. A particularly nasty crack of lightning hit just as he reached the first step, the thunder that followed a second later loud enough to make him jump. The same compelling feeling which had led him to this place at this time was now telling him to avoid the front door. He wisely chose to follow the advice. Moving his head down against the wind, he stumbled to the rear of the house and let himself in through the back door.

The kitchen was dark and smelled of salt and spilled oil. An old wick lamp, its glass container cracked and leaking kerosene, was sitting in the sink. Several candles, their wicks long ago soaked and useless, lay scattered on the table. Long strings of herbs and bulbs, hung from the ceiling rafters to dry, were now broken and ruined, littering the cabinets and the floor. The ancient icebox, which Hunter’d once stocked with dozens of bottles of the local brew, was alone in one corner, its door hanging off the hinges, its shelves bare and stained. Kurjan put his hand inside and was disheartened to find it had been warm for a long, long time.

He moved through the pantry, to the swinging door he knew led to the small dining room. He pushed the door open slowly, his massive .357 Magnum up and ready for anything. Inside he found a single candle burning on the dining room table. Caught in its bare illumination was the face of a young girl.

She looked up at Kurjan as he came through the door, tears rolling down her cheeks. She was wearing a bathing suit and was probably no more than 12 or 13 years old. The wind was blowing through the cracked window next to her chair, but she seemed unaffected by it. He stared back at her, not quite believing she was there. Pale and fragile, she looked like a ghost.

He stepped up to her, lowering his gun to his side.

“Who are you?” he asked. “Who else is here with you?”

The girl turned her eyes toward him, but he got the distinct impression that she could not see. Rather, she seemed to be looking right through him, just as he imagined he could see right through her.

“Who are you?” he asked her a second time—but again, there was no reply. The girl simply turned away and resumed staring at the barely lit candle. Her sobs sounded like they were being emitted through an echo box. Kurjan raised his gun and moved on.

He stepped into the living room and here he found another girl, wrapped up protectively in the arms of an older man. Kurjan could not see his face in the dark, but when he moved closer and a crack of lightning lit the room, he was astonished to see the man was someone he knew quite well.

“Frost?”
he asked incredulously. “Is that really you?”

Frost looked up at him; his face, too, was pale and almost transparent in the eerie light.

“I… don’t know,” he whispered back to Kurjan. “I’m really not sure.”

Startled and very spooked now, Kurjan backed away from his friend and found himself at the bottom of the rickety stairs, which led up to the second floor. An uncharacteristic tremor went through him. He’d been in combat many, many times; he’d faced death and had survived on more occasions than he cared to remember. But never had he felt so rattled as he did at this moment.

Somehow, he found the strength to begin climbing the stairs.

At the top was a hallway with four doors. The first he knew led to the master bedroom, the one next to it was the same room in which he’d slept many times before this place had become haunted. He toed open the door to the master bedroom, expecting to see nothing less than a gateway to hell on the other side. Instead, he found two more girls in bathing suits, sitting on opposite sides of the old brass fourposter. There was an unmoving figure lying beneath the covers of the bed; the pair of young girls seemed to be tending to it.

Kurjan stepped forward and pulled the covers down a bit. Instantly he fell back in horror and astonishment. Lying on the bed, ghost white and unmoving, was Stan Yastrewski, the man everyone called Yaz.

“My God…” Kurjan gasped, confused and shaking at this assault on his good senses. “Is he… is he dead?”

The two girls looked up at him, and then they began to cry, too.

“Not yet,” they answered, in unnerving unison.

His mind reeling, his stomach suddenly turning, Kurjan backed out of the room and stumbled down the stairs. He didn’t even look to see if Frost was still on the couch nearby. He headed for the front door instead, intent on leaving this place before he became a prisoner of its peculiar horror.

With shaking hands he opened the front door. A crack of lightning revealed a face looking in at him. He jumped back once again, his heart pounding as if it would leap out of his chest. His gun dropped to the floor. His hands were shaking so badly now he could no longer hold it.

That’s when he realized that the face looking in at him belonged to Dominique.

Her hair flowing weirdly in the strong winds, her skin dry despite the driving rain, she beckoned to him to come out onto the porch with her.

Somehow, Kurjan found the gumption to comply.

“I am not surprised you are here, Major,” she told him, her voice audible in the gale, though she sounded like she was just barely whispering. “You have always been gifted in matters such as this…”

Kurjan just stared back at her. With her long, flowing white robes and beautiful hair, she looked more like an angel than a ghost.

“Dominique,” he was finally able to gasp. “What is happening? What are you doing out here?”

She shook her head, turned, and sat back down on the same battered couch he and Hunter had shared with her during those long, lazy, perfect days so long ago.

“I am waiting,” she finally replied, her voice drenched in sadness and grief, “for someone
else
to arrive and tell us all.”

In Orbit

I
T WAS NOW VERY
crowded in the crew compartment of the Zon spacecraft.

Jammed in between all the clutter and instruments and wires and trash were Cook, Elvis, Geraci, and the two teenage girls taken off the abandoned Mir space station. Everyone was asleep, victims of exhaustion and a filtering system which was releasing much more carbon dioxide into the spacecraft’s atmosphere than would be considered normal. The craft’s back-up filters were working overtime, trying to keep the CO
2
below a dangerous level—and right now, they were doing the job. But as with everything aboard the crude spacecraft, the crew knew the filters could fail at any moment. Then they’d really be in a fix.

Floating above them all was Hawk Hunter. He, too, was asleep, but for reasons other than tiredness or low oxygen in the blood. Hunter was getting his first real sleep in nearly 72 hours because his powerful inner psyche was telling him this was what he should do.

The events of the past 24 hours had been significant. If Viktor was not aboard the Mir, then he must be somewhere else, somewhere bigger and better defended. Somewhere secretly located in orbit, because aside from the Mir and Zon, there wasn’t supposed to be any other place up here where humans could survive, nor was there any way they knew of for Viktor to get back down to earth.

Just as they had set out to find the Mir, now they had to find this new place. This secret place.

Hunter was sleeping to recharge his batteries. Before he drifted off, after leaving the Zon in the capable hands of Ben and JT, Hunter had set his mind into a kind of automatic review mode, a recalling of all significant events which had happened before and during the trip so far which might lead them to the secret place in orbit.

There were few clues. During his days in Viktor’s capture, Elvis had flown five Zon flights. Carried inside the cargo bay during these trips, Elvis recalled seeing materials and tools, battery packs and oxygen tanks. Each time he gained orbit, the cargo bay was unloaded out of his sight, however; in his rather prolonged and dazed state, he’d simply assumed these materials were being hauled into orbit in order to fix the Mir.

But their examination of that orbiting antique had proved this assumption to be wrong. The Mir hadn’t had any kind of refurbishing or revitalization in a long, long time. The place was basically a shell inside by the time they got aboard her. A shell with minimum power and just enough oxygen being pumped and repumped to keep four people alive. Those four were the two teenage girls and the two spacemen Hunter and Elvis had fought outside the space station. In subsequent interrogation of the girls, Hunter and the others had learned that they’d been aboard the Mir for at least four months.

They had originally come aboard as part of Elvis’s fourth space flight, though he’d not seen them en route. Their role in space had mirrored their role on earth. Orphaned and addicted, the girls had provided Viktor II with hours of perverse sexual amusement and drug-taking, a kind of time-killing hobby he’d acquired while his minions did his bidding up here in the zero-gravity environs of space. But some time in the recent past, the superterrorist had either tired of all this or had gotten scared. The girls said they’d come to after a particularly heavy night of
fricking
and snorting to find Viktor and most of his people gone from the Mir. That was about six weeks before, coinciding with the UAAF’s capture of the Zon on Lolita Island in the South China Sea.