A Time To Run Read online

  A Time To Run

  Book Two of the Turning Point

  By

  Mark Wandrey

  PUBLISHED BY: Blood Moon Press

  Copyright © 2018 Mark Wandrey

  All Rights Reserved

  Get the free Four Horsemen Universe prelude story

  “Gateway to Union”

  and discover other titles by Mark Wandrey at:

  http://worldmaker.us/

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  Cover Design by Konstantin Kiselyov

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  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Acknowledgements

  In early 2016, looking to expand my audience, I considered stepping out of sci-fi. I’d observed how popular ZA, or the Zombie Apocalypse genre was, and I enjoyed The Walking Dead and the Day by Day Armageddon series by J.L. Bourne. I decided it was a place I could play. The book came out easier than I expected, but with one big hitch. I realized it wasn’t a standalone book idea, but a series I’d come up with. So I finished it, put it out, and was surprised to get the first solid bestseller of my career. Then it was nominated for a Dragon Award in 2016! I had no choice but to write the sequel.

  Thus, here you have the sequel to A Time to Die, A Time to Run. We pick up where we left off and see what happens to our favorite ZA survivors, further explore just what Strain Delta is, and where it’s going, and more importantly realize there’s another book coming. I promise not to keep you waiting 2 years for this one.

  For all the fans who got this ball rolling, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I think you’ll really enjoy the ride. The nombies are waiting, open it up, and let’s play. For my wife and son as well, always. And to Chris Kennedy, who puts up with my fractured writing style and makes sense of military situations which couldn’t quite work the way I want them to, terminology which is completely wrong, and abbreviations that are just sometimes made up. You’re the man, dude.

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  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Excerpt from “A Time To Hide:”

  Excerpt from “Cartwright’s Cavaliers:”

  Excerpt from “Wraithkin:”

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  Prologue

  Morning, Wednesday, April 27

  250 Miles Above the Earth

  As the earth slowly turned, the three humans floated in their tiny spaceship and watched the extinction event unfold below them. The night side of the world, once lit with electric lights in every inhabited corner, was now dark, although patches of white held out against the darkness. There were also more than a few bright red splotches, vicious scars gouged out of the planet by nuclear fire.

  The crew remained in silence. Alison McDill, an electrical and materials engineer along as an expert on the alien drive, continued to monitor every radio broadcast she could find, slowly putting the pieces together. They’d only been gone two days. Two days during which the planet had been devastated.

  Lloyd Behm, the backup test pilot, had a tablet computer attached to his thigh with Velcro and was busily entering data from the ship’s systems. His concern now was endurance. After two days in space, how much time did they have left? Their captain, Alex West, kept his hands on the controls even though they floated in zero gravity, still drifting toward earth but slowly enough to have many hours without changing direction before they’d reenter the atmosphere. He’d been watching smaller flashes in the northwest Pacific Ocean, flashes that likely meant a battle underway. Even as the species faced eminent extinction, it appeared there was still time to settle old scores. It was finally Alex who broke the troubled silence.

  “Look, I have to say it.” The others both glanced at him. “Are we really talking about a zombie apocalypse? The walking dead? Brain eating monsters?” The only sounds were the muted voices from Alison’s headset and the whisper of air circulating fans moving the atmosphere over the nearly saturated CO2 scrubbers. They thought of all those dying below. “Do we have any images yet?”

  “It’s harder to resolve the TV signals,” Alison explained. “I’ve tried repeatedly to reach OOE’s uplinks without luck.” Oceanic Orbital Enterprises, the company that owned Azanti, their space ship, had contracts all over the planet to relay signals. It was unrealistic to think that they’d all be down at the same time…but they were.

  “Try NASA freqs,” Lloyd said. “Houston, alternate tracking, Launch Alliance, too, someone has to be out there. Right?” The other two nodded, though neither really agreed.

  Alison worked the controls of the radio for a time, what they used to call ‘spinning and grinning’ in the days of analog radio. There was still a dial, but now there were also several inputs and a USB interface from a laptop, which was what she used now. A program allowed her to analyze dozens of frequencies at a time for signs of radio broadcasts.

  “Two lights on the CO2 warning,” Lloyd told them. They had less than 4 hours before the scrubbers were saturated, and they would succumb to CO2 poisoning. They were already feeling a little fuzzy-headed. At least they wouldn’t die from freezing when the fuel cell ran out of hydrogen. Not that asphyxiating was any better.

  “Holy shit!” Alison said suddenly and held up a hand. “I got something.”

  “Where?” Alex asked.

  “121.5, the old distress channel.” She worked to fine-tune the station. “It’s coming from an orbital source.”

  “Satellite?” Lloyd guessed.

  “No,” she said as she shook her head, “it’s voice modulation. Satellites wouldn’t use this frequency. Let me clean it up a bit…” she said and played with the computer some more. “There,” she announced finally, and with a flourish she patched it over the cockpit’s speakers. A man’s voice spoke mid-sentence.

  “—since 14:42 Greenwich, and are trying to reestablish contact, over.” There was a short delay. “This is the ISS, Colonel Faye Richardson calling in the clear for any NASA or JPL receiving station. We’ve been LOS groundside since 14:42 Greenwich, and are trying to reestablish contact, over.”

  “The International Space Station!” Alison crowed.

  “That’ll work,” Lloyd agreed. “We have a universal docking collar.”

  “Agreed,” Alex said. “See if you can raise them.” Alison grinned and set the transmitter to a matching frequency.

  “ISS, ISS,” she called, “this is private spaceship Azanti, responding in the clear to your call.”

  “This is ISS,” the same woman replied almost instantly, “did you say private spaceship?”

  “That’s correct, ISS. This is the Azanti, experimental ship owned by Oceanic Orbital Enterprises. We were on a…” she looked at the others in sudden concern and they shook their heads em
phatically, “we were on a test flight outside the moon’s orbit.”

  “We didn’t hear anything about that from NASA.” Alex cursed and activated his headset.

  “Commander Richardson, this is Alex West, captain of the Azanti. With all due respect, ma’am, does it really matter why we’re up here?”

  “I suppose not, considering.”

  “Exactly,” Alex agreed. “We’d like to come aboard, if possible. Our consumables are in critical condition. We can’t raise our ground tracking station.”

  “Neither can we.” There was silence for a few moments, probably while she consulted with whoever else was on the station. “Okay Azanti,” she said, “I don’t see any reason not to let you aboard. At the very least, I’m curious about your ship. We’re transmitting you our orbital data; do you have the delta-V to match?”

  “No problem,” Alex said without waiting for the data. When Richardson replied, the curiosity in her voice was unmistakable.

  “Now I really can’t wait to examine this ship of yours. See you soon, Captain.”

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  Chapter One

  Afternoon, Wednesday, April 27

  The Flotilla, 150 Nautical Miles West of San Diego, CA

  When Vice Admiral Lance Tomlinson accepted his 3rd star from the President, he’d known his days sitting in the hot seat of a supercarrier were coming to an end. After 29 years in the Navy, he’d been one of a rare breed to make it into the admiralty after first serving as enlisted. He was a star of the service, beloved by the rank and file, but looked upon by Annapolis’ finest with a mixture of confusion and distaste. His prior service made him nearly a god among the fleet’s complement of chiefs, especially on that rare inspection when he stuck his head into their mess and shared a cup of joe.

  Now his plans for a final tour at the Pentagon, maybe a shot at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then retirement spent fishing in Montana had turned into a mountainous pot of steaming shit, in the form of an alien bug named Delta. A few hours ago, he’d been aboard a C-2 Greyhound on approach to Pearl when reality came crashing down. The base was overrun; they had lost Hawaii. Worse, Admiral Jenkins, COMPACFLT, had been lost there, and now he was stuck wearing the damned fancy hat.

  He had headed east toward the only significant command element the spotty comms could identity. It was a crazy flotilla of private and military ships, moored roughly 150 nautical miles west of San Diego.

  From the moment his Greyhound caught the hook on the deck of the Ronald Reagan, he’d been force-fed bigger and bigger shit sandwiches, until his eyes were brown. No national command authority. No link with any authorized members of the constitutional authority. Scattered and unreliable satellite communications which, after a brief time, had now completely failed. A shitload of Marines on their amphibious assault carriers and 26 US Navy ships were still answering the call, six of which were submarines.

  Shortly after his arrival, Los Angeles fell. The Army Guard units couldn’t hold it, and, while attempting to withdraw, were completely overrun minutes before Marine helicopters could come in to relieve them. With nowhere to land, and only a few squads of their own, they’d been forced to watch helplessly as the defenders were swamped and eaten alive.

  Only hours later, Lt. General Ross, in command of 3rd Corps, came flying in with C-17s full of equipment, troops, and dependents. What had seemed the bright spot, 3 carriers with their strike groups, turned to yet more shit as he’d been forced to all but wreck 2 of the flattops via the most jacked-up operation he’d ever had the misfortune to run. Amazingly, they’d gotten two of the C-17s down without killing anyone. Well, except for on the carriers. A third C-17 had come in much lighter aboard the Gerald R. Ford. No flight deck damage, but the ship almost destroyed her engines in the effort.

  Tomlinson found himself in the Reagan’s main operations conference room, at the head of a big mahogany table, listening to an endless line of disasters—and everyone expected him to put this cockup on line for victory. The damned chair was one of those new thin-backed things, too. His ass had spread a bit in the last 20 years, and he dearly missed the old, wide chairs the Enterprise had sported.

  “I’m only going to say this once,” he said, raising his voice over the cross-traffic in the room. “I want this flotilla put into some kind of order so the Navy can be the Navy, without holding the hands of every sailing boat captain.” They all looked like puppies who’d lost their favorite bone. “Capt. Gilchrist?”

  “Admiral?” the big captain of the Gerald R. Ford growled.

  “Since your ship is currently in shit shape, doesn’t have an air wing, and has a big fucking plane blocking the flight deck …” Several people chuckled. On one of the screens was a view of the incredible sight. Tomlinson made a mental note to shake the hand of the crazy fucking flyboy who’d managed that feat. He understood the pilot was a fighter guy, not even a heavy pilot. “You’re in charge of fleet logistics. Get it all put together. Requisition any staff not already in critical roles to work with the civilians. Start getting lists of any ex-military in the flotilla, their skills sets, and begin reactivation. The more of them in uniform, the better.”

  “I’ll do my best, Admiral,” he said and saluted.

  Tomlinson grunted and dismissed him. “Now, I understand supplies are the number one consideration. As Dr. Breda explained, this Strain Delta comes from fresh food and living animals, as well as water?” His science expert nodded. “Okay, we need to start getting food, or we’re going to be a ghost fleet in…” he consulted a piece of paper, “jumping Christ, only three days?!” The officer in charge of their supplies nodded grimly. “Fuck me, this just gets better. So this is global, and we’re starting to get distress beacons all over the Pacific. There are, at any one time, about 500 transports between the CONUS and China. A lot of those are container ships, but a lot are bulk transports, too, with wheat and such. I guess we start searching them.”

  “Sir?” a Coast Guard junior officer said, raising his hand.

  “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  “Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Grange, sir. I’m currently in command of the Boutwell, sir.” The admiral looked inquiringly at his aide.

  “Sir, there just aren’t any other Coastie personnel here, so she’s been left in temporary command.” Tomlinson gave a little shrug and gestured for her to continue.

  “Admiral,” she said nervously, “you were mentioning that you want to find shipments of bulk foodstuffs on the ocean?” He nodded. “Well, sir, all that data is kept on AMS, the automated manifest system that Customs and Border Protection maintains.”

  “Lieutenant,” Cmdr. Scott Bascom, the admiral’s aide, said, “if you haven’t noticed, the internet is down, so we can’t access any government servers.”

  “You don’t have to sir,” she said, looking sheepish. He glared. “Sir, we have copies on the Boutwell. Sure, they’re a few days old, but we still have them. We routinely download that data because we might have to intercept a ship off shore, and our uplink isn’t reliable on those boats.” She turned the laptop she’d had in front of her around, and the eagle logo of Customs was displayed there, with “Automated Manifest System” in big black type.

  The admiral leaned a little closer, glancing at the display, then at Bascom, who sputtered for a second then looked chagrined.

  “Lieutenant Grange?” the admiral said.

  “Sir?!” she gulped.

  “Please get your people to start finding us candidate ships, then transmit that information to the Reagan here so the E-2s on patrol can start looking for them.”

  “Sir!” she said, beaming. “Right away sir!”

  “Good, you’re in charge.”

  “Me, sir?”

  “Of course you,” he said. “You’re a ship’s commander, and that’s a commander’s job. Unless you don’t think a Coastie is up to the task.”

  “No sir!” she bristled.

  “Good, then you’re dismissed.”

  After she’d bustle
d off, his aide looked after her with a dark expression on his face. “I can’t believe you’re okay with a kid like that in command of a ship, sir.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re a little short on experienced commanders, and a lot short of Coasties.” When his aide didn’t seem to be convinced, he asked, “Can you read manifests or know of any of our people used to boarding boats under potentially hostile conditions?”

  “The Marines can handle that,” the commander said.

  “If you haven’t noticed, they’re pretty busy here handling intermittent outbreaks.” The admiral looked at the whiteboard that showed the National Continuity Coordinators list, those people who’d be qualified to act as Commander-in-Chief. Under a directive set up by then-President G.W. Bush, there were a series of coordinators whose jobs were to ensure that a Constitutional authority remained intact in the event of a national emergency. The act, called the Continuity of Government Plan, had been created with war or natural disaster in mind, not a fucking zombie apocalypse. Yet, here they were.

  Six hours ago, there was brief flash of traffic via satellite from Air Force One, from somewhere in the Midwest. Aboard, in direct violation of policy, was the President and almost all of her Secretaries. In all, 13 of the 18 in direct succession. The VP had been confirmed dead in an attack in NYC two hours prior. The other five were still unaccounted for. So the Continuity of Government plan had been put into effect, with no results. The country’s communication infrastructure appeared to have been shut down, and the admiral’s cyber warfare specialist suggested it may have been by Presidential authority.