Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

It never ceased to amaze Jack how much guilt that woman could cram into a one minute recording. He also realized, with heavy heart, that she’d never understand the rift between her sons. When Jack joined the ERC, he dedicated himself to helping people any way he could, regardless of race, religion or politics. He risked life and limb for strangers every day, and it just wasn’t the kind of work a person could do without believing in the cause. He was a true believer, through and through.

Then Charlie made the most Charlie-like decision possible: he became a damned mercenary with Carbon Corporation. He wasn’t helping people; he was putting bleeding holes in them and blowing them to bits.

This was nothing new. Charlie always made messes that Jack had to clean up, and now their childhood was repeating itself, but inflated to a global scale. This was the culmination of a pattern, the last step in making sure everything Jack did was ultimately meaningless.

After a moment of reflection, Jack suspected that was a tad melodramatic.

They didn’t see one another much anymore, and whenever they did, Jack conveniently forgot he was a pacifist. There were black eyes, split lips and cracked ribs on both sides, and they finally decided that avoidance was the only sensible answer. It turned out to be a great policy, and they hadn’t spoken in two years. Two wondrous, blissful years.

As Jack stood by the phone, mulling over his little brother killing dissidents in Egypt, he heard the door open and all of the anger and frustration melted away.

In a few long strides, he crossed the floor and intercepted Jess in the open doorway. His arms encircled her, his hands pressed into the small of her back, his head craned down and he gently pressed his mouth to her soft lips. The bag of groceries between them dropped to the floor.

After a moment, he pulled away and looked into her brilliant blue eyes, but stayed so close he could feel her warm breath breaking against his upper lip. “I missed you, too,” he whispered.

“I noticed,” she said with a grin. “You’re naked.”

“You said whatever I’m wearing is fine. You, on the other hand, are way over-dressed.” He stole another kiss. “And so beautiful.”

Before Jess could reply, Jack’s arms cinched around her waist and lifted her up, then he spun her around. She filled the room with laughter, and he attacked her open mouth, hungrily kissing and nibbling at her lower lip.

He lowered her back to the floor with one arm and closed the door with the other.

“Dinner?” She asked.

He ducked his head under her chin and laid one kiss and another on the tender skin of her throat, all the while inhaling her sweet honeysuckle scent. “Dessert,” he suggested.

Then the moment was ruined. The datapad in his backpack blared out an alert, but Jack was adamant about not answering it. Just let it go, he told himself. It can’t be anything important. He froze in place, savoring the feeling of her warm body against his. The second alert came and went, the third followed close behind. The fourth began, but he wouldn’t let himself reconsider. Before the fifth ring came, Jess made up his mind for him.

“You have to answer it,” she said.

He reached into the pack, retrieved his pad and looked grimly at the screen. “It’s Priority One,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I’ve been with the Corps for nine years, and I’ve never seen anything worse than Priority Two.”

He flashed back to orientation and heard his instructor’s voice listing Priority One scenarios. “Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact.”

Jack gestured at the TV and it came on, but the black screen said, “No Signal.”

“Damn storm.”

“You should go,” Jess said with two tons of regret in her voice.

“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” his instructor droned on.

“I’m so sorry,” Jack said. “I have to go.”

“I know. It’s why I love you, Corpsman Hernandez. You’re out to save the world, and someday, you’re going to.”

“Nuclear strike, nerve or chemical agent, epidemic, asteroid impact,” the old voice was now chanting.

“There’s something I need to ask you when I get back. You’ll be here?”

She smiled and kissed him, and there was a tension that hadn’t been there a moment before. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear, “I’ll always be here waiting for you, until the stars rain down from the sky.”

And he knew she would.

On autopilot, Jack dressed in fresh clothes, checked his gear and flew out the door. He ran to the train station and caught the mag-lev down to Vandenberg, totally oblivious to everything around him. He didn’t notice everyone in the station fiddling with their malfunctioning phones, or gossiping about blank televisions. He missed the announcement that the train was being guided manually in the absence of the traffic network, and he didn’t even notice that his GPS was blank.

Jack didn’t notice because he was thinking about that question he would ask when he got back. During the trip, he didn’t once hear his instructor’s voice and the list of possible calamities. All he heard, over and over again, was Jess’ promise to wait for him, in that voice that was too sweet for words.

The Vandenberg airfield was in a panic the likes of which Jack had never seen before. Preflight personnel were rushing everywhere, assembling equipment at a break-neck pace and prepping the massive tranzat carriers at all five gantries. Each spear-like tranzat was flanked by ten of the orange leviathan helicopters, lined up in rows with their blades folded, and waiting to be loaded. The helicopters looked like nothing so much as oversized Easter eggs painted by a strangely unimaginative kid.

The Priority One alert had gone out to everyone: primary squads, secondaries and reserves alike. That added up to about five thousand drop-ready corpsmen lined-up in rows on the tarmac, waiting to be briefed, loaded and launched.

Vandenberg was California’s primary launch site. More volunteers would be arriving at secondary sites by the thousands, and the same would be happening at ERC launch facilities all over the globe. The amount of manpower in motion was staggering to consider.

Jack found the SJ Bravos among the sea of orange jumpsuits without too much effort, and he fell into formation. “Hey Albright, any idea what’s up?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

He scanned the group and took a mental picture. He’d never seen five thousand completely dumbfounded faces before, and he doubted he ever would again.

The regional director came out a few minutes later and cleared his throat over the PA. “Settle down, corpsmen,” he said, and the chatter died. “I know you’re all wondering what the hell’s going on, and you’re not alone. There seems to be a perfect shit storm coming down right now, and we’re working double time just to put the big picture together.

“First off, as you no doubt noticed, communication networks are down right now. All of them. This is due to some sort of broad spectrum interference that’s wreaking havoc with anything wireless. We haven’t identified the source yet, but we believe the effect to be global.

“It’s a small miracle that we managed to get the alert out at all. Of course, I know all you dedicated boys and girls would’ve followed regs and reported in during a communications black-out, anyway.”

There was stifled laughter in the crowd.

“But that’s not Priority One.” The director took a moment to clear his throat. “Shortly before communications were interrupted, two impacts were reported on the Asian subcontinent, one in India and the other in China. The events registered on our seismic equipment, and we’ve estimated the power of each to be in the five gigaton range.”