Heaven's War Read online

  HEAVEN’S

  WAR

  Ace Books by David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt

  HEAVEN’S SHADOW

  HEAVEN’S WAR

  David S. Goyer &

  Michael Cassutt

  ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2012 by Phantom Four Films and St. Croix Productions, Inc.

  Illustration by Steve Karp.

  Jacket design by Lesley Worrell.

  Jacket illustration by James Paick.

  Text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  FIRST EDITION: July 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Goyer, David S.

  Heaven’s war / David S. Goyer & Michael Cassutt.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58100-1

  1. Human-alien encounters—Fiction. I. Cassutt, Michael. II. Title.

  PS3607.O925H46 2012

  813’.6—dc23

  2012002325

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  Dedicated to all our Architects, especially

  Jack Vance

  Gene Wolfe

  Jack McDevitt

  Allen Steele

  and

  Connie Willis

  NEO “Keanu” Interior

  Dramatis Personae

  Present on Keanu

  ZACK STEWART, astronomer and astronaut, former commander of Destiny-7

  CAMILLA MUNARETTO, 9, Revenant

  YVONNE HALL, astronaut Revenant

  COWBOY, dog, formerly the property of Shane Weldon

  DASH, Sentry

  Houston Group

  RACHEL STEWART, 14, Zack’s daughter

  SHANE WELDON, Destiny-7 mission director

  HARLEY DRAKE, former astronaut

  SASHA BLAINE, astronomer

  GABRIEL JONES, former director of the NASA Johnson Space Center

  BRENT BYNUM, White House deputy

  XAVIER TOUTANT, Katrina refugee, drug dealer

  Bangalore Group

  VIKRAM NAYAR, Brahma mission director

  ZHAO BUOMING, Chinese intelligence agent

  PAVAK RADHAKRISHNAN, 16, son of Brahma commander Taj

  MAKALI PILLAY, exobiologist

  VALENTINA MAKAROVA, exolinguist

  DALE SCOTT, disgraced former astronaut

  CHITRAN RANHOTRA, refugee and mother

  JAIDEV MAHABALA, enterprising engineer

  DAKSHA SAIKUMAR, engineer

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  The Prisoner

  Zack

  Rachel

  Part Two

  Arrival Day: Valya

  Arrival Day: Xavier

  Arrival Day: Harley

  Arrival Day: Gabriel

  Arrival Day: Rachel

  Arrival Day: Jaidev

  Arrival Day: Harley

  Arrival Day: Zack

  Arrival Day: Zhao

  Arrival Day: Zack

  Arrival Day: Harley

  Arrival Day: Dale

  Arrival Day: Valya

  Arrival Day: Makali

  Arrival Day: Zack

  Arrival Day: Pav

  Arrival Day: Harley

  Part Three

  The Prisoner

  Zack

  Rachel

  Xavier

  Part Four

  The Prisoner

  Dale

  Zhao

  Pav

  Valya

  Harley

  Rachel

  Makali

  Gabriel

  Part Five

  The Prisoner

  Zhao

  Dale

  Harley

  Zack

  Rachel

  Valya

  Xavier

  Pav

  Jaidev

  Gabriel

  Makali

  Zhao

  Zack

  Harley

  Dale

  Rachel

  Xavier

  Part Six

  The Prisoner

  Valya

  Pav

  Gabriel

  Dale

  Zhao

  Part Seven

  The Prisoner

  Makali

  Harley

  Zack

  Epilogue

  Rachel

  Acknowledgments

  Heaven’s Fall

  NASA JOHNSON SPACE CENTER

  MISSION CONTROL STATUS REPORT

  AUGUST 29, 2019

  DESTINY-7 LANDING

  NASA’s Destiny-7 multipurpose crew vehicle successfully splashed down today in the Pacific Ocean near San Clemente Island, California, at 9:45 A.M. PDT.

  The combined crew of acting mission commander Tea Nowinski and Brahma spacecraft crew members Taj Radhakrishnan, Natalia Yorkina, and Lucas Munaretto were taken aboard the recovery vessel Liberty within an hour and are undergoing physical examinations at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

  Nowinski is expected to return to Houston this evening.

  The landing ended a ten-day mission filled with anomalies, including unplanned events aboard the Near-Earth Object Keanu that resulted in the deaths of Destiny-7 astronauts Patrick Downey and Yvonne Hall as well as Brahma cosmonaut Dennis Chertok and the apparent loss of mission commander Zack Stewart. The Coalition spacecraft Brahma was also destroyed, resulting in a combined return crew.

  NASA mission control continues its attempts to contact Stewart. Meanwhile, Keanu has departed Earth orbit at a speed of over 40,000 kilometers an hour.

  Those seeking information regarding the impacts near Houston and Bangalore are referred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

  NASA PRESS RELEASE

  Just came out of the presser—amazing in its uselessness. Dear God, “anomalies”? Destiny-7 made it back, yeah, but no one is talking ab
out the two UFOs and 200 MISSING PEOPLE!!!!

  POSTER ALMAZ AT NEOMISSION.COM

  Part One

  No one’s going to read this, I guess. Not even me. But it has to be done.

  Slate battery power is better than it used to be. If I’m careful, I might have two days with it. (It’ll last longer because I’m not using the Net, ever again.)

  Anyway, here’s what I know: I’m Pav Radhakrishnan, and I’m 16.

  Last week two spacecraft, one from NASA commanded by Zack Stewart, and the other from the Coalition of India-Brazil-Russia commanded by my father, Taj, landed on the Near-Earth Object named Keanu...and everything went to shit. First, it turned out that there were aliens living on Keanu as well as human beings. And these human beings were people who were killed on Earth—including Stewart’s wife, Megan, and a girl named Camilla. Pretty fucking weird.

  Then two of the NASA astronauts got killed and one of the Brahmans. No one’s quite sure how or why, but they’re gone.

  Brahma got blown up.

  Eventually four of the survivors, including my father, managed to get aboard the Destiny spacecraft and head back to Earth.

  Two days ago me and about a hundred other people from Bangalore got abducted from Earth by a big white balloon thing, some kind of spaceship sent by the Near-Earth Object Keanu. Wrong place, wrong time, story of my young life. About eighty other people got collected from Houston, Texas, too.

  We’re all here now, trying to figure out what the hell we do now—how do we eat, sleep, live? Oh, yeah: Who grabbed us and why?

  And how do we get away from them?

  It’s weird to think I’m never going to see my father again, and that we were really just passing each other in space.

  I’m going to call this the Keanu-pedia.

  Correction: No one HUMAN is ever going to read this.

  KEANU-PEDIA BY PAV, ENTRY #1

  THE PRISONER

  The days no longer had meaning. Even in the space beyond the barrier between the Prisoner and its former habitat, the cycle of light/lesser light/lesser dark/full dark/light had been irregular. The Keepers had almost certainly been manipulating it.

  But now even that false rhythm was missing. Here one could rely only on the subtle gradations of the barrier’s temperatures. Touch warm: light. Touch cold: dark.

  A poor method of keeping time, especially when keeping time was the only activity available.

  There was food—barely enough to sustain life, nowhere near sufficient to give one energy for action. Waste simply drained away.

  It was almost certainly another stratagem by the Keepers: to keep a being alive indefinitely, but useless, able only to measure the dimensions of the living space, to create fantastical scenarios of revenge, then to sleep and dream.

  Then, somewhere in the next cycle, to repeat.

  Even the revenge fantasies had long grown old and too familiar. Lately, in the past six cycles, they had given way to reconciliation dreams!

  To consider reconciliation with the Keepers—that was a sure sign of madness, and a cause for terror.... What came after that? Complete mental collapse?

  Fortunately, there had been an interruption...sharp vibrations through the floor and walls that allowed the Prisoner to reconnect with the physical universe, no matter how limited.

  Revenge scenarios were once again dominant. There was much touching of the walls, in search of temperature data and now more vibrations.

  Something was happening beyond the chamber. Whether bad or good, it was welcome...if only because it meant change.

  ZACK

  Where was it?

  The question played in Zack Stewart’s mind like an annoying ad jingle. And those three words had been present all through the past seventy-odd hours...hours that were very odd indeed, if, in fact, they even numbered seventy...

  Formerly a typical middle-aged American male of less than average height and weight, often dressed in khakis and polo shirts, he had become a haggard-looking man in stained and soiled long johns. Designed to be worn under a NASA EVA suit, said long johns were actually a garment filled with small plastic tubes through which water circulated. The outfit was now the only tangible reminder of Zack’s former life as an astronaut. Or as an inhabitant of planet Earth.

  His life before Keanu.

  Lacking a mirror and able to feel the ragged stubble on his face, he suspected that he now looked like a cartoon castaway, which, come to think of it, was exactly his state. Stranded on the interplanetary equivalent of a desert island—

  Steady, he told himself. You’ve been running on fumes for a week. You’re stranded on a runaway planetoid. Your choices are...find the exit from this habitat while still breathing.

  Or lie down and die.

  Even that decision wasn’t simple: Death on Keanu, anywhere around Keanu, didn’t seem to be permanent, or not immediately permanent.

  Maybe that whole life-death-what-have-you business was why he kept looking for the way out.

  Because of Megan. The last he’d seen of his wife, she had been swallowed up by a rogue Sentry and carried off to certain death. An hour later, Zack had had to fight a Sentry...The same one? He’d thought so at the time.

  Now...he wasn’t so sure.

  Of course now, he was five days more exhausted, five days less fed. Five days more distracted.

  Because two days after losing Megan, after killing that Sentry, 187 people had arrived on Keanu. According to them, they had been literally scooped from the surface of the Earth and carried across almost half a million kilometers in a pair of giant objects that resembled soap bubbles—

  “Great number,” Harley Drake had said. “One eighty-seven is the section of the California Penal Code for murder.” Harley was Zack’s best friend, a fellow astronaut who had been crippled in the auto accident that killed Megan Stewart (for the first time, he had to remind himself, two years before the Destiny mission), only to somehow wind up on Keanu, too.

  It was clear from the moment the 187 arrived that, beyond what they wore or carried, they had no clothing, few tools, no shelter, not even a common language. There was food on Keanu—the habitat had obviously been designed for creatures from Earth, but which era? There were edible plants, but few that Zack recognized. And how long would those supplies last? What nasty parasites or Keanu-specific bacteria were waiting to strike humans living on the Keanu diet of fruits and vegetables?

  There was also a lack of organization and leadership. Plenty of candidates, but to what end? Questions like “Can we go home?” or “Are we stuck here forever?” couldn’t be answered.

  Zack was the human race’s expert on Keanu—a title he would gladly have relinquished, given the shallowness of his expertise.

  Not that it stopped everyone, including Harley, from bombarding him with questions, questions, questions.

  Maybe that was another reason to go walkabout: for the sweet moment of silence.

  There was also shame and nagging responsibility; the castaways’ presence here was largely due to Zack’s actions as commander of Destiny-7. Zack had seen the anger in more than a few of their faces. How long before someone picked up a rock and clubbed him to death, just for the sheer catharsis?

  So, yes, Zack had wanted to get away from them.

  Even from his own daughter, one of the miraculously improbable new immigrants. Well, not so improbable: Harley Drake had been her guardian. If Harley got himself nabbed, Rachel couldn’t have been far away. And Zack had since learned that the reality was the opposite: it was actually Rachel’s fault that the pair had wound up in the not-so-magic 187.

  But, much as he cherished the contact with his daughter, Zack feared the road ahead. Rachel’s life—just like the lives of all humans on Keanu—might turn out to be nasty, brutish, and short.

  Wouldn’t it have been better to leave his daughter to a full life on Earth? She’d have been an orphan...but she’d have learned to deal with it.

  Another reason to beat himself up.
r />   He needed to think. He needed to take stock.

  He needed to explore.

  During the horrible end game of the First Contact on Keanu, in which his crewmates had been forced to leave him, in which Megan had been killed a second time...Zack had seen what he could only call Keanu’s “Factory.” He had walked the broad “streets” of this second habitat, marveled at its mysterious but somehow functional structures.

  He knew that answers to their situation, and tools to improve it, were likely to be found there.