Oblivion (32 page)

The room grew silent. This, then, was what they had been waiting for.

Franklin took an extra moment, and then looked up. He waved the paper. “It’s a damage assessment report,” he said.

Mickelson felt his shoulders stiffen. A hard look came over Maddox’s face.

“It seems,” Franklin said, “that it’s better than we thought. We thought that if the aliens fought back—and it’s now clear they had spaceships in the area, attempting to destroy our bombs—we’d be lucky if one or two hit the surface. Fifteen— or five percent—of the missiles we sent up there hit and exploded on their planet.”

Mickelson found himself breathing shallowly.

“We’ve hurt them,” Franklin said. “We’ve hurt them badly. Let’s hope they’ll think twice before coming to us again.”

Everyone in the room cheered.

Franklin raised his glass and proposed a toast.

Mickelson grabbed his and feigned a sip, but he felt unsettled.

He made his way through the crowd, to Franklin’s side. “Mr. President,” Mickelson said, as usual finding it uncomfortable to greet an old friend that way, “you know as well as I do that they will still come back.”

Franklin nodded.

“Then why did you say that?”

He turned to Mickelson. “Because we need hope, too, Doug.”

“Hope won’t prevent the tenth planet from coming close to the Earth again in eighty-six days.”

“No, it won’t,” Franklin said. “But it just might give us enough energy to fight the next battle—and win it, too.”

August 16, 2018
9:51 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

86 Days Until Second Harvest

The sounds of celebration echoing over the city were dying down. Leo Cross sat on a lawn chair in the enclosed yard of his D.C. house. Britt sat beside him. They’d finished one of Constance’s wonderful dinners and a bottle of wine, and this time, when they went to bed, Cross was unplugging the phone.

The world could do without Britt Archer for one night.

“Sounds like people are getting tired of partying,” she said.

“Sounds like,” he said.

When the images of the bombs exploding on the tenth planet were broadcast all over the world, people took to the streets in joyous celebration. Confetti fell, fireworks went off, there was screaming and shouting and general mayhem. It reminded Cross of the pictures he’d seen of New York City the day that someone declared World War II had ended, only this time, the celebrations happened worldwide.

In Washington, a cheering crowd had gathered outside the White House, ignoring the damaged Capitol Building. But Cross knew that the damage was part of this battle. And that there was going to be more before the war was over.

“I would have thought the celebration would continue for days,” Britt said.

“People know,” Cross said. “The tenth planet still has to orbit close to us. There’s still a threat.”

He looked up at the clear sky. Stars winked against the blackness. Who’d’ve thought that something that happened so far away would affect them like this at home.

“At least now those damn aliens know how it feels,” Britt said.

Cross looked at her. She seemed fiercer than she ever had. “They’re just trying to survive like we’re trying to survive.” “I don’t give a damn about their reasons,” Britt said. “They hurt us. We hurt them. Maybe they’ll go away now.”

“They can’t, Britt,” he said. “They need Earth’s resources. Those aliens are going to come back even stronger. We didn’t destroy them, we only hurt them, just like they hurt us. Just like they have been hurting us every two thousand years.”

She sighed. “I know you’re right. I just wish you weren’t.” “I wish I wasn’t either.”

They both stared at the stars for a long moment.

“So we fight,” Britt said finally.

“We fight,” Cross said. “And it’ll be the most important battle we’ll ever fight. We have no other choice. The planet can’t support both races.”

“One of us must win,” Britt said, softly.

Cross didn’t reply. There was nothing to say.

August 17,2018

6:21 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time

85 Days Until Second Harvest

Danny Elliot slipped out of the house and onto the quiet street. All of the adults were still asleep. His mother had been up forever last night, drinking and laughing and celebrating for the first time since the black dust came. In the last few months, they had managed to put their lives back together, but his mother hadn’t laughed.

She said the aliens got what they deserved.

Finally.

Danny watched the bombs hit the tenth planet over and over again. The images made him a little sick inside, but he wasn’t going to say that. Instead he sat, quiet, wondering if that’s what the aliens saw when they dropped all that stuff on San Luis Obispo.

He adjusted his backpack and crossed the street, past the still-full houses and into the Zone. The patrols didn’t happen as often anymore, and the dust had long ago turned to a thick black mud, solid from the rains. It had packed down into something like concrete, except in areas closest to buildings or under trees where the wind had blown it.

He knew of a couple of places like that.

Maybe he should have called Nikara, but he didn’t. Their friendship didn’t feel the same anymore, not without Cort. The three of them balanced, but when Cort died the day the dust fell, the balance died, too. Nikara and Danny fought a lot, and there was no longer anyone to referee.

Danny’d said something about that to his mom, and she had looked at him sadly.

“It’s not the fighting,” she said. “Cort’s presence will always be a ghost between the two of you.”

Maybe.

But yesterday, Cort had been avenged.

Atomic bombs had been dropped on the aliens.

In all the stories Danny heard, in all the vids he saw, ghosts went to their final rest after they’d been avenged. And even though he didn’t want to lose Cort—the living, wonderful Cort—Danny didn’t mind losing the dead one.

He wanted to get the image of Cort, lying on the couch sick with the flu, melting under the black dust like those people on TV had, out of his mind. He needed to think about the friend he’d known, not the way Cort had died.

And this morning, he’d woken up with a way to do it.

It didn’t take long to reach the house that he and Nikara had climbed up to, that day in April. It was easier to get to now that the military wasn’t patrolling that much. They weren’t as afraid of the dust. They knew what it was, knew that it wouldn’t hurt anyone, or so they said. So they didn’t really guard it anymore.

The rhododendron bushes no longer had flowers. Instead, thick green leaves covered them, making one side of the white house look like a forest. The trellis they’d climbed a few months ago was hidden by climbing roses and out-of-control growth.

He slipped past all of it, catching a bit of ocean breeze, inhaling the salty scent.

Cort had loved living in this part of town. Cort would stop them sometimes and make them smell the ocean, or look at the way the roses had grown over the summer. Cort said it didn’t matter what kind of house you lived in, or what neighborhood you lived in, as long as you noticed what nature provided nearby.

What nature had provided here was a shelter.

Danny went around the house and into the backyard, right up to the beginning of the black dust. A giant rhododendron grew right on the edge. It would provide what he wanted.

The blackness looked less threatening now. Maybe because he was used to it, or maybe because he knew it would never come again. But he still wasn’t going to walk on it. Walking on it would be like walking on Cort.

Danny took off his backpack and reached inside. He had taken ajar that Cort had given him last year. It was obsidian and smooth, a magic jar, Cort had said. They both didn’t believe in magic anymore, but it was nice to pretend.

Danny’d had the jar beside his bed ever since Cort died.

Danny pulled the stopper and carefully set it on the top of his backpack. Then he grabbed a ladle he’d stolen from the kitchen, and slowly lifted a branch on the rhododendron. A branch on the side toward the destruction.

There was real black dust underneath, blown there by the winds off the ocean. Black dust and bits of other things, things that Danny’d always imagined were bones.

Ashes and bone.

Bits of Cort.

Carefully, using the ladle, Danny scooped up as much of the dust as he could and poured it into the jar. It was painstaking, disgusting work, but it was important.

Too many people had died in April. Too many went unaccounted for, and too many had just disappeared. Cort’s entire family—his dad, and his mom, and his dog—had died that day, too. And when entire families went, no one bothered with a funeral. Danny had heard that Cort’s grandparents, who lived in Minnesota, had had a memorial, but that had been too far away. No one in Minnesota even knew Cort.

But Danny had. Danny and Nikara and a lot of other kids. And it wasn’t right that they didn’t really get to say good-bye.

Danny stoppered the jar, and then took out one other container. He felt weird using his mom’s Tupperware, but the guys would understand. He filled it, too.

That container he would take to the ocean. They’d have a service, and he’d throw Cort’s ashes into the sea where Cort would want them.

But Danny was going to keep some in the jar, for remembrance.

For Cort.

Danny finished and climbed out from under the rhododendron. Then he leaned up and stared at the cloudless blue sky. He held the jar aloft and, imagining that black alien planet, the one where the bombs hit, he said, “Yesterday was for Cort, you bastards.”

He wondered if, somewhere deep down, they had known that. He imagined that they did.

He put the jar and the container in his backpack, then he stood. For a moment, he stared at the blackness.

Then he turned his back on it.

Forever.

85 Days Until Second Harvest

Watch for
The Tenth Planet: Final Assault

THE 10
^th
PLANET

The ultimate battle for survival!

Bethesda Softworks cordially invites you to witness the next revolution in computer games as you join the desperate fight for humanity against the diabolical aliens of The Tenth Planet.

Featuring unparalleled 3D graphics, lush cutscenes, and intense action!!

In this fast, furious action game based on the suspenseful science fiction book The Tenth Planet, you'll take to the skies as part of an elite strike force sent to save the Earth from the alien onslaught. Battle high above the Earth in futuristic fighters. Feel the g's as you engage in tense dogfights against the never-before-seen alien fighter craft!

Using the latest in 3D technology, The Tenth Planet brings the epic struggle to your computer screen with exceptional graphics and detail that make you feel like you're really there.

Coming to a retailer near you!