Frozen Sky 2: Betrayed Read online

  The Frozen Sky 2:

  Betrayed

  Jeff Carlson

  International bestselling author of Interrupt and Plague Year

  Jeff Carlson

  www.jverse.com

  Film / TV

  Jim Ehrich

  Rothman Brecher Kim Agency

  9250 Wilshire Blvd., 4th Fl.

  Beverly Hills, CA 90212

  310-432-4629

  Literary

  Don Maass

  Donald Maass Literary Agency

  121 West 27th St., Ste. 801

  New York, NY 10001

  212-727-8383

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons either living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

  First Edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9960823-0-3

  Copyright 2014 Jeff Carlson Cover art by Jacob Charles Dietz © 2014

  European Space Agency maps and schematics by Jeff Sierzenga. Copyright 2014. Reproduced with permission.

  Ebook conversion by Digital Bindery

  Other Books by Jeff Carlson

  Interrupt

  The Europa Series

  The Frozen Sky

  Betrayed

  The Plague Year Trilogy

  Plague Year

  Plague War

  Plague Zone

  Short story collection

  Long Eyes

  Praise for The Frozen Sky

  “I’m hooked.”

  —Larry Niven, New York Times bestselling author of The Fate Of Worlds “A first-rate adventure set in one of our solar system’s most fascinating places. This is his best book yet.”

  —Allen Steele, Hugo Award-winning author of the Coyote series “Pulse pounding.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Intelligent and entirely new. Highly recommended.”

  —Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Chimes At Midnight

  Praise for the Plague Year trilogy

  “An epic of apocalyptic fiction: harrowing, heartfelt, and rock-hard realistic.”

  —James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Bloodline “Chilling and timely.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “I can’t wait for the movie.”

  —Sacramento News & Review

  “Compelling. His novels take readers to the precipice of disaster.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  Praise for Interrupt

  “Let’s be honest: Carlson is dangerous. Thumbs up.”

  —Scott Sigler, New York Times bestselling author of Pandemic “This book has it all—elite military units, classified weaponry, weird science, a dash of romance, and horrific global disasters. Carlson writes like a knife at your throat.”

  —Bob Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of the Green Berets and Area 51 series “Terrific pacing. Dimensional characters. Jeff Carlson delivers everything and more in a killer thriller.”

  —John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author of The Hunter “The ideas fly as fast as jets.”

  —Kim Stanley Robinson, Hugo Award-winning author of 2312

  For Ute and Bill.

  Thank you for always

  standing by us.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Contact Info

  Copyright

  Advance Praise

  Dedication

  Timeline

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by Jeff Carlson

  Bonus Material: "Interrupt"—The original short story from the Long Eyes collection

  About the Artist

  About the Author

  Timeline

  900 through 1200 AD: Chinese alchemists and artillery experts develop “fire arrows,” the world’s first crude rockets, to repel Mongol invasions.

  1200 through 1350 AD: The Mongol Empire adapts fire arrow technology in its conquests of Asia, Russia, and Europe.

  1300 through 1800 AD: Cannon and incendiary weapon programs advance throughout the regions exposed to Mongol and Chinese power.

  1792: India uses the world’s first iron-cased rockets against the British.

  1803 through 1815: The British develop cylindrical iron warhead rockets, which they use against French and American forces.

  1903: Russian mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes the first detailed work on rocket propulsion for space travel.

  September 1944 through March 1945: The German Wehrmacht launches thousands of V-2 rockets against British and other Allied targets.

  August 6 1945: The United States Of America deploys fission weapons against Japan.

  October 4 1957: The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics launches Sputnik, Earth’s first orbiting satellite.

  The “Golden Age” begins

  July 20 1969: Neil Armstrong walks on the moon.

  March 1972 and April 1973: NASA launches unmanned probes Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11.

  November 1973 through December 1974: Pioneer flybys of Jupiter.

  August and September 1977: NASA launches unmanned probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.

  March through July 1979: Voyager flybys of Jupiter and Europa.

  1981 through 2011: The USSR and the USA each develop and operate partly reusable low Earth orbit spacecraft.

  Beginning 1986: The USSR and its successor, the Russian Federation, construct and maintain humankind’s first space station, Mir.

  December 1995: NASA unmanned probe Galileo reaches Jupiter and performs dozens of orbits and close observations through 2003. When the probe’s energy systems begin to fail, NASA deliberately plunges Galileo into Jupiter’s atmosphere to avoid striking any of its moons and contaminating those environments, three of which hold liquid water.

  October 15 1997: NASA, the ESA and the Italian Space Agency design and launch unmanned probe Cassini-Hyugens bound for Saturn.

  Beginning 1998: The United States Of America, the Russian Federation, the ESA, Japan and Canada construct and maintain a larger, more permanent orbital platform called the International Space Station.

  Late 2000: Cassini flybys of Europa.

  So-called “Blind Age” begins

  March 21 2001: Mir burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.

  September 11 2001: Prominent terrorist attacks in USA.

  October 7 2001: USA invades Afghanistan.

  March 20 2003: USA invades Iraq.

  Beginning 2007: The Long Recession debt crisis. Global economy crashes, then remains suppressed for more than a decade.

  July 21 2011: NASA shuttle program discontinued.

  October 30 2022: Day One of the November Revolution in the Russian Federation, henceforth known as Great Russia. “Dirty bomb” strikes across eastern Europe. Ecological disasters. Global markets collapse.

  February 4 2028: Military coups in Beijing, Hanoi, and Pyŏngyang usher in the formation of the People’s Supreme Society Of China.

  February 27 2028: Assassination of Premier Kiông in Taiwan.

  February 24 2028 through July 1 2035: Brazilian invasions of Paraguay, Columbia, and French Gui
ana draw USA and EU forces to South America.

  September 20 2034: South Korea falls to PSSC Liberation Army.

  “New Cold War” begins

  January 2037: PSSC launches a next-gen series of reusable space shuttles.

  2040 through 2085: PSSC constructs several orbital stations, igniting new tension between the western nations and a far-flung alliance led by PSSC, Brazil, Iran, and Great Russia. Beginning in 2049, the western nations begin constructing their own orbital platforms. Four decades of the renewed Space Race result in limited colonization of the moon and Mars, asteroid mining, and a PSSC deep space probe to Pluto as a show of technological might.

  October 14 2094: NASA astronauts land on Europa, establishing mecha teams to process deuterium for the western military and civilian fleets.

  December 29 2094: PSSC mecha land on Europa.

  March 23 2096: ESA mecha land on Europa.

  June 7 2096: The One-Day War. Great Russia devastated. Kinetic missile strikes include London, Paris, Miami, and Nanjing.

  June 10 2096: Armistice declared.

  November 25 2096: Formation of the Allied Nations.

  “Restabilization” begins

  October 7 2097: A.N. treaties affirm international law exclusively limiting Near Earth Space, the moon, Mars, and all celestial bodies to non-military purposes.

  May 1 2098: PSSC spy sats identify American missile platform in Earth orbit.

  May 3 2098: American government publicly shares data on similar missile platforms operated by the PSSC in Earth orbit and above Mars.

  May 6 2098: The Rodgers Incident—a PSSC cruiser collides with an American shuttle near the suspected missile platform. Six PSSC marines killed. Emergency councils in Geneva and Beijing.

  Beginning 2101: PSSC commissions five new Yinglong-class destroyers.

  January 2 2113: ESA mecha discover primitive lifeforms (deceased) on Europa.

  April 20 2113: A three-member international science team leaves Earth orbit aboard the Deep Space Reconnaissance ESA Marcuse, a low-gee ship on a long-term mission. They will require eleven weeks to travel to Europa.

  June 22 2113: Chinese mecha open a tunnel in the ice lined with what appears to be a “library” of hieroglyphics and biological materials constructed by intelligent alien lifeforms.

  June 26 through July 1 2113: New high-gee ships leave Earth orbit.

  July 11 2113: ESA Marcuse lands on Europa.

  July 13 2113: Bauman, Vonderach and Lam enter the tunnel, setting off a cave-in. Bauman and Lam are killed. Vonderach is trapped beneath the ice.

  July 15 2113: First Contact.

  July 16 through July 23 2113: High-gee ships from the PSSC, the ESA, NASA, and the FNEE reach Europa.

  July 17 2113: Vonderach rescued by NASA mecha.

  July 18 through July 24 2113: Exploration/scientific/diplomatic efforts begin. Contact made with various sunfish tribes by NASA, the ESA, and the PSSC.

  August 2 2113: FNEE military incursion thwarted by ESA cyber attacks.

  August 24 2113: Political agreements reached on Earth between the European Union and Brazil. New FNEE incursion supported by ESA mecha. FNEE gun platforms ambush and surround Top Clan Two-Four until another, unknown tribe opens a geyser, causing blowouts on the surface; ESA Astronauts Collinsworth and Pärnits are killed; ESA Hab Module 03 is destroyed with one hundred and forty-three listening posts, relays, beacons, and other mecha.

  August 28 2113: Treaty formed by the ESA and Top Clan Eight-Six.

  September 9 2113: ESA Submodule 07 constructed beneath the surface…

  Betrayed

  1.

  The ice shook again. Vonnie felt a groaning movement through the steel floor of Submodule 07. Every vibration traveled through her bare feet into her legs and spine, invading her bones, rippling through her nerves and flesh.

  It scared her. Submodule 07 was ten meters beneath the surface. A thousand tons of ice encompassed her, and she’d darkened the room except for one heads-up display.

  The display had shown a stream of alien hieroglyphics. Now it flickered. The eight-armed shapes winked on and off like a living mass of sunfish.

  Vonnie tried to stay calm. She was thirty-six years old and had worked for Arianespace or the ESA for a decade, first as an engineer, then as a member of an elite off-world crew. She trusted their sensors. Ben didn’t forecast any quakes. This is just another tremor, she thought until the module shuddered with two noises like rifle fire—like the insulated hull had ripped apart. Krak kak!

  Red alarms filled her display. Inside, the module was a steel box lined with cabinets and her data/comm station. Outside, struts and mooring cables bristled from the exterior.

  Three struts had torn on the west side. The hull was under stress, although if it had split, the fractures were thin since she hadn’t experienced decompression. Not yet. But there were other dangers in the ice.

  Suddenly the floor dropped. Vonnie’s jaw muscles tightened and her posture changed as she spread her arms, struggling for balance. Her tall, lean body bent at the hips.

  Behind her in the darkness, a sunfish screeched.

  Oh God.

  The alien’s scream was real, not a simulation like the complicated dance of eight-armed shapes on her display. A living sunfish was inside the module with her. Its beak clacked as it inhaled the oxygen-rich air.

  Vonnie turned to fight. She bared her teeth and raised her fists, which were unprotected like her feet. Submodule 07 was as warm as a summer day on Earth. She wore a tank top, shorts, and a med systems bracelet. Her forearm and the bracelet made a poor club. Its nano circuitry weighed a few ounces and its wrist band was soft mesh—but the alumalloy edges of its casing would appear bright and hard to a sunfish.

  The alien screeched again, reading Vonnie with its sonar calls. Then it leapt at her.

  More than a meter wide, it was a writhing albino monster. The body at its center was a flattened ball ringed with eight tentacles. Blunt dorsal spikes armored its topside. On its underside, its arms were lined with thousands of tube feet and pedicellaria like squirming hair. Gill slits and a sharp, compact beak were the sole features on its belly. No eyes. No nose. No ears except well-protected nubs hidden in the grooves between its arms.

  “Come on!” Vonnie yelled.

  Deafening the sunfish was her first weapon. Crouching on the floor—taking the low position—was her second.

  As the sunfish flew closer, Vonnie pistoned upward to block it, using all of the sinewy muscles in her abdomen and thighs. She knew better than to let it get behind her. At the same time, she swung her right fist up and over in a high roundhouse punch. She wanted to strike its topside. She needed to avoid the grasping, cutting snarls of its pedicellaria. One good blow would stun it. She was stronger than a sunfish. But it was faster.

  It curled two of its arms and glommed onto her wrist. Then it clutched at her head with six more arms. It scratched her ears, her collarbone, her temples, her chin.

  The floor shuddered again and threw Vonnie sideways. Outside, the ice rumbled.

  Impossibly, the sunfish anticipated the complex interaction of the seesawing floor and her jerking body. It scrabbled past her hands, spreading its arms like a hideous flower. It stank. Its breath smelled of feces and carrion.

  “Yaaaaaaaah!” Vonnie screamed.

  She grabbed one of its gill slits with her right hand, then locked her arm and neck, using her skeleton like a jack to hold the sunfish at bay.

  It twisted bonelessly around her. It slithered toward her face. She pummeled its topside with her left fist, but the dry cartilage of its skin felt like rubber. The pedicellaria beneath its arms were an undulating nightmare.

  Yanking on her short hair, it dragged her face closer to its snapping beak.

  “No! No!”

  One of its arms had been severed in its past. The scar-ravaged stump was a weak spot. Vonnie wrestled her shoulder against the amputation. She let the sunfish enfold her right arm. Then she levered
it away from her head, barely noticing when it peeled her skin apart.

  She slammed the sunfish against the ceiling and roared, “You son of a bitch!”

  It screeched at her. Its high-pitched sonar caused an eerie ringing in her skull, but she leaned closer, deliberately exaggerating her grimace.

  Its species understood threat displays—and in its culture, the submissive position was above. Standing on the module floor, Vonnie had the dominant position. Her size added to her bid for control.

  She yelled again. “Yaaaaah!”

  Its arms cinched tighter on her wounds. Blood fell onto her cheek. The hot moisture stung her eyes, yet she refused to lean back. She kept her teeth bared.

  I’m hurt, she thought.

  Worse, the sunfish was surely tasting her gore through the tube feet mingled among its pedicellaria. Second by second, it was regaining energy, absorbing protein from her with the accelerated metabolism of its race.

  Vonnie had fought her battles in an armored suit or standing at a data/comm station. Her species conducted war by mecha, satellites, missiles, and SCPs. To the sunfish, combat was a pheromone-infused spasm of rock clubs, beaks, and cannibalism. Its tolerance for pain and filth far exceeded her own. It would eat from her until her victory was indisputable both physically and mentally.

  “Stop!” she yelled. “Don’t make me kill you!”

  It screeched again.

  “Stop!”

  Now it shrilled—a plaintive sound?—and Vonnie risked a look over her shoulder to assess the module.

  Outside, the ice was settling. She heard a bang as a chunk dropped onto the roof, but there were none of the louder noises of an ongoing quake. The tremor was over.

  She hadn’t lost her air. Was the module intact? The room was lighter now, not red, which meant her display had turned off its alarms. She saw a flurry of reports from the ESA grid. Faintly, she realized she’d also been listening to human voices. The radio was loud but not as loud as her heartbeat or the agony in her arm.