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  Exodus

  The Supernova Cycle Book 2

  Elizabeth McLaughlin

  Kevin McLaughlin

  Copyright © 2020 by Kevin McLaughlin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  1. Alexandra

  2. Jackson

  3. Alexandra

  4. Jackson

  5. Alexandra

  6. Jackson

  7. Alexandra

  8. Jackson

  9. Alexandra

  10. Jackson

  11. Alexandra

  12. Jackson

  13. Alexandra

  14. Jackson

  15. Jackson

  16. Alexandra

  17. Jackson

  18. Proctor

  19. Alexandra

  20. Alexandra

  21. Jackson

  22. Alexandra

  23. Cady

  24. Alexandra

  25. Jackson

  26. Alexandra

  27. Jackson

  28. Alexandra

  29. Jackson

  30. Alexandra

  31. Jackson

  32. Proctor

  33. Jackson

  34. Alexandra

  35. Jackson

  Kevin’s Author Notes

  Elizabeth’s Author Notes

  Afterword

  Other Books by Kevin McLaughlin

  About the Author

  About the Author

  1

  Alexandra

  It had been a long six months.

  After the alien insurrection was defeated the ensuing months were spent trying to balance concocting a survival plan with smoothing out the relationships between humans and aliens. All things considered, we were able to hammer out a working relationship fairly quickly—being faced with the prospect of a painful and certain death tends to do that. The military commissioned a small ambassadorial team comprised of myself, a pair of anthropologists from Princeton University, a linguist, and a group of engineers and scientists tasked jointly with handling the translation of the alien technology into our systems.

  We worked with a team of career politicians. It wasn’t fun.

  We christened ourselves the Atlantis team—our little inside joke. After all, we were saving the Earth by studying an alien civilization, right? The survival plan was thus; the Americans would supply the resources needed to support the recovery and rebuilding of the alien ship. In return, the aliens would share with us the technology that enabled us to build a starship of our own. If all went well and we could establish cooperation across what remained of humanity, we’d stand a chance.

  As it was, more than a hundred thousand years of tribalism hadn’t magically disappeared. We spent almost as much time settling fights between nations as we did working with the aliens. Several countries absolutely refused to lend a hand. We were accused of trying to save our own people and leaving the rest of the world to die. The President was accused of American imperialism. One of the more popular theories in this vein was that she was somehow working to take over the planet once both ships were constructed. We were accused of selfishness and evil the likes of which I could not have imagined as nations across the globe screamed for their salvation. Others saw the advantage of contributing anything they could. Some countries, primarily Canada and Mexico, saw the advantage in contributing whatever they were able to send. In turn, we supplied both nations with aid and so North America settled into an uneasy peace.

  There were plenty of supplies to go around. Essentially, human civilization had fallen. What was left of the U.S. government kept the loss of life to the tens of millions through extensive use of military forces. Local emergency services worked constantly to keep people safe and alive, but no matter where you went things were falling apart.

  Early on, the President and her cabinet had decided to focus on infrastructure repair in the cities. The majority of the country was still without power or water. The lion’s share of resources was being directed to four strategic locations. Building materials and power supplies were the principle necessities directed to those of us stationed with the aliens. Food, aid, and workers to restore electrical power went to New York City where the best facilities to broadcast media and communications could be found. New York City had become our voice, our hub for transferring and receiving information, both for saving as many American lives as possible and for reaching out to the world. We got a lot done thanks to the people who gave countless hours to man the radios.

  Humanity’s starship—our ark—was being assembled in Florida. There was some debate as to whether or not it should be assembled in Texas or California where the majority of the equipment required to build and repair both ships could be manufactured. Florida was eventually chosen because of the already established facilities. Texas and California quickly developed routes to ship parts and supplies.

  The rest of the world was in far worse shape. Shipments of food and fuel from one continent to another were at a trickle and it was nearly impossible to navigate the new protocols some countries had set up. We were essentially barred from entering China or Russia, both of whom were somehow still convinced that the entire situation was an American plot to take over their countries. Other nations demanded increasingly complicated rituals of entry, sometimes changing their rules and regulations on what felt like a daily basis.

  When it came to humanity as a whole, we were in the dark. The truth was that we did what we could, but no one knew how many dead there were globally. We assumed it must be in the hundreds of millions, at least, but most likely in the billion-plus range. Many would have starved by now. We also were receiving reports from countries that mass migrations were taking place at an alarming rate. Looting and other crimes skyrocketed. Small scale wars had even cropped up. As tragic as this was, there was nothing I or anyone else could do to stop it. We forged ahead at the greater task.

  The American-built ship was almost finished. It was a mirror image of the alien ship for simplicity’s sake but with a few tweaks for human passengers like changes to the cabins and controls. The linguists spent their time devoted to roughing out a translation of the alien language. By now there were a few humans who could say a few words but the translation of the written language was vital. When the hardware was finished it would be useless to have instruments that worked but displayed unreadable gibberish. That was one of the last tasks. Once the ship was completed the linguists and alien ambassadors would work on loading the software and clearing out the bugs before launch. That would be one of the final tasks before our ship was ready to launch.

  At the moment I was trying desperately not to yawn and roll my eyes during another pointless diplomatic meeting. The military ran a tight ship throughout the entire operation, which meant that we were making excellent progress but there were higher-ups who needed to be apprised of every sneeze, snort, or hiccup. This meeting had been called so the military could make one last bid for aid from other countries. Things were progressing a little too slowly for their liking and they wanted to be able to present a picture of just how dire the situation was to the remaining hold-out governments. A security advisor to the President was also here to gather information and notify all the parties he was beholden to of the progress on the ship.

  Security for the meeting was tight. We were set up inside the military base constructed near the alien mothers
hip. The setup was so similar to Camp Duban that I was genuinely starting to believe that the armed forces copied the same blueprints for all of their bases. The meeting was being conducted in the small central structure that functioned as a communications hub and a secure building in case of an emergency. A locked gate formed an entry for personnel and vehicles to travel through and two small huts flanked each side with enough space for a single soldier to act as a guard.

  It was easy to see that everyone was starting to feel nervous. The alien ship was nearing the completion of its repairs and Ka’thak and his council were feeling the time crunch. The aliens wanted to launch as quickly as possible and their seemingly unending patience with humanity was running short. The humans were barely keeping their entire project together and getting more frustrated by the day. The infighting between nations was slowing progress too much. Human soldiers in full kit stood in every corner of the room and two flanked the doors. The aliens had sent soldiers as well, most of whom were standing away from the humans as best they could without looking like they were trying to avoid us.

  From among their group I spied David and ran to catch up. I grabbed him in a surprise hug as he was chatting with one of his fellow soldiers. He reached back and swung me in front of him effortlessly. He shot me a crooked grin, clearly not expecting to see me here.

  I was impressed at how well he had integrated himself with his new chosen people. He had outfitted himself with custom-built armor and wore a modified uniform that was nearly identical to the jumpsuits the Air Force still wore. On his hips were two knives, one around a hand’s span long. It looked like it was made out of the same material the aliens’ claws were made of, but I suspect whatever it was made of was given that appearance on purpose. The other was longer and more ornate, almost the size of a short sword. It had a gilded handle that wove in and out of itself leading to a short handguard. The blade itself was a gleaming silver cut through with black lines, remarkably similar to Damascus steel. They were both beautiful weapons, though I suspect the shorter of the two saw more combat than the ceremonial one.

  He returned the hug with gusto. I pretended to wheeze and gasp—his outfit wasn’t the only thing that had changed in the last half-year. He was in better physical shape than when I had met him and the increase in fitness suited him well.

  “Little sister!” He roared and lifted me into the air. “How have you been?”

  I laughed. Clearly, Jackson had found his true people! “I’ve been well! You can see that I haven’t turned into a complete government zombie, though they’re trying pretty hard. Since my appointment as a liaison to your people, they’ve got me on a team that is responsible for working with your folks to iron out the kinks of the ship in Florida. It’s been slow going, mostly due to bullshit from our side, but I think we’re making progress.”

  “So I heard,” he said. “I’ve been sitting in on some of the meetings with your team when I can. They seem to be the only ones who have gotten it through their heads that humanity needs to get over it. Well, most of them, at least. I wish I could share the mindset with the rest of the human governments. It’s do or die time.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “You think that if these morons don’t get the human ship all buttoned up before the end of the world that I could hitch a ride with you guys?”

  He nodded. “Most definitely. I know that Ka’thak would love to have you back with us. Any idea what the plan is from here on out?”

  I opened my mouth to reply but was interrupted by the call that the meeting was about to start. I took my place among the human delegation and stood silently as the officials greeted each other and read out the purpose of the meeting. Ceremony never ends, even in times of crisis. David stood in position across from me and rolled his eyes. I snorted a laugh and quickly covered it with a coughing fit as the human ambassadors turned to glare at me. The alien delegates looked over with curiosity but quickly returned to the business at hand.

  The alien ambassador began. “Gathered delegates, thank you for attending us today. As you have already been informed, repairs and refitting of our ship are nearly completed. Our people will be ready to continue on our journey within the next couple of your weeks. In order for us to be able to make it to the next star system in time to avoid the supernova, we must launch within the month. If we do not, departing this planet will do us no good. The wave of heavy ions from the supernova will rip through our ship in between stars”

  A representative from Earth stepped forward. “Ambassador, we have complete confidence that we will have the human ship finished in time for your departure. We are bringing in resources from every human nation we can reach. We have been able to stabilize our country well enough to execute a final push towards completion of the ship very soon.”

  The alien snorted gently. “We would like you to provide our leaders with reports detailing your progress on your ship. We need something to take to our council to prove that we should stay here any longer. Your people have done much for us, and we are grateful. However, given all that has happened, we simply cannot risk further loss of life.”

  “You have to trust us, Ambassador,” the human diplomat said. He was a man of sixty or so, his bald pate shining in the harsh meeting room lights. “We know what we’re doing. The American government has a long history of managing crises, and we will look after both our peoples.” I snorted and the man looked over sharply. The people who stood in front of us were offering us a path to salvation. They had only been civilized to us, a race of beings who had nearly sentenced their entire species to extinction. Still, the insanity of human bias remained.

  The alien ambassador dipped her head but kept their eyes on her human counterpart. One of the most difficult meetings I had with the alien council was to explain the ridiculousness of hierarchy. In a species where gender, income, and lineage had very little impact on the position one occupied in society, the idea that there were immutable rules based around these qualities was bafflingly foreign. After several long-winded attempts to explain how the human race continued to exist without killing each other, the council agreed that learning human courtesies would be to their advantage. Luckily the humans were too self-absorbed to notice any difference.

  I tuned out while the diplomats did their thing. Normally I would be leading this meeting, but I couldn’t find the energy to pretend to care. As I was contemplating the likelihood of falling asleep on my feet, shots rang out. The next thing I knew I was on the floor. One of the human soldiers who had been assigned to us was on top of me, pushing my head down.

  “Stay down, miss,” he said.

  No shit, moron. What now?

  I looked up from the floor to see that chaos had broken out. Both human and alien diplomats had been shoved to the ground while their respective guards tried to find the source of the threat. As soon as the soldiers realized it wasn’t in the room with us, we were hauled to our feet and shepherded to a back door. I watched as Jackson led the charge out of the room to meet our attackers.

  2

  Jackson

  The entire gathering dropped to the ground. The human forces moved to set positions over their ambassadors and huddled there, rifles pointing outwards. Our soldiers did the same, grouping up with their ambassadors and herding them into a corner of the room. I joined up with our warriors and several human soldiers to lead the charge while the others evacuated the civilians. We kicked open the doors and sprinted towards the sounds of gunfire.

  I pressed the radio lodged in my ear. “Captain, we have armed combatants in the building. We need evac in here now!”

  “Affirmative, we’re on our way. Eyes sharp, Jackson,” Ka’thak replied.

  We rounded a corner and found ourselves facing at least a dozen men. On the floor were five soldiers, their shirts bloody, torsos riddled with bullet holes. Our attackers were dressed in all black, balaclavas covering their faces and goggles covering their eyes. Each man held an assault rifle pointed towards us.

  “Fuck.�
�� I exhaled sharply. This wasn’t an invasion—this was a slaughter.

  Shots rang out and we dove to the floor. The desks and chairs worked as a bare minimum of cover but because of the close quarters, we couldn’t stay in one place for very long. We quickly abandoned the shelter of the office furniture in favor of just trying to stay alive. All told, we were eight against fifteen or twenty. The odds were not in our favor.

  As I fought, I struggled to place the enemy. They barely spoke, so I couldn’t catch an accent or recognize any terminology. Their uniforms bore no obvious symbols or flags, but they were equipped with cutting edge weaponry and armor. I signaled for our soldiers to circle up. We had to form some kind of firing line. The alien soldiers pushed outwards in a circle around the enemy and formed a phalanx behind me. I dropped to my belly and leveled my gun at the combatants. My comrades followed suit, taking various positions and leveling their beam weapons at the men while firing precise, short bursts. Any human who wasn’t wearing a familiar uniform was cut down immediately, bodies smoking from the energy that had passed through them.

  Still, the enemy pressed forward, more men streaming into the compound. The ones who did make it through the initial firing line rushed us, screaming. We were able to disarm most of them easily enough and the enemy abandoned their weapons for hand to hand combat. The human soldiers tried to mirror our tactics, but the close quarters made it difficult for them to fight effectively. They spread to both sides of the room and formed a kill box, picking off enemy soldiers who escaped as best they could.