Winter World (The Long Winter #1)(62)

“Might be a long shot now.”

This makeshift spacecraft can’t pull off a controlled landing. We’ll need to land in the ocean. Our plan has been to land off the coast of Cape Canaveral. We’ve assumed that NASA would be watching and come and retrieve us. Now I’m uncertain. The Kennedy Space Center is covered in ice. The entire US is. I have no idea where the NASA personnel evacuated to—or whether they’re watching for us to touch down. They’re not expecting us, and they may not have gotten the broadcast from the comm buoy we deployed.

Once we touch down, we’re definitely going to need some help. I can’t exactly row us to shore. And that’s only the beginning. Even if the tide somehow carries us in, I can’t drag Emma across a barren, frozen world looking for civilization. We need help or we’re as good as dead—whether we die up here or down there.

“Okay,” she says. “When?”

“As soon as the comm lockout lifts.” I glance at the time. “Today. Four hours from now.”





She and I sit by the tablet, watching the timer count down until the comm systems come back online. Thirty seconds left.

“Hey,” she says. “If we can’t make contact, and we just have to land wherever… I want you to leave me.”

“Emma—”

“Just listen. I’ll be safe in the module. It’ll float. I’ll have food, and it has enough power for heat for a while. You can get help and come back for me. I’ll slow you down. You know it.”

I don’t like that one bit. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The tablet flashes a message.

Comm suite is now online.





Be advised, long distance charges apply.





We both laugh. Nice to see our old crewmates still kept their sense of humor while secretly planning this worst-case contingency.

We’ve already debated whom to call with our first broadcast. If the world is at war, announcing ourselves could put us at risk, make us a target, a pawn to be used or traded, held hostage maybe. There are so many unknowns down there.

We settled on broadcasting on an encrypted NASA channel. The reasons are simple: NASA and its network of private space contractors still have the largest space program. They and the US military are best equipped to rescue us. And Emma and I are both Americans—assuming America still exists.

I start to activate the transmission but hesitate. “You want to talk, or you want me to?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. You do it.”

I tap the tablet.

“Goddard flight control, NASA, private space entities, and anyone listening: this is James Sinclair and Emma Matthews, two members of the Pax on approach to Earth. We could use some help.”





There’s no response initially. Or during the first hour. Or the second. Every minute that passes feels like slow motion. We try to stay busy.

I have a plan for when we arrive on Earth. I’ve been working on it, in some fashion, since I woke up in this capsule. It has one purpose: to save Emma’s life.

“What are you thinking?” Her voice is calm, but I know she’s nervous. She’s in far more danger on the ground than I am.

“I think we broaden the transmission.”

“Europeans?”

“Yep.”

The great thing about the Pax is that we have access to every imaginable encryption suite, including those used by Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA, CNSA, and a handful of others.

I send a message to the ESA, but there’s no reply.

Four hours later, there’s still no reply.

“What next?” Emma asks. “Wide broadcast?”

“Not yet. Military could pick it up.”

“Or militias.”

She thinks the worst has happened. She might be right.

Emma’s voice is reflective and somber. “You think we did this?”

“What?”

“You think our actions out there—the fly-by of the artifact and attacking it—you think it made the artifacts accelerate the Long Winter? Is this part of their counterstrike—freezing Earth?”

I’ve thought about that, but haven’t had the courage to voice it. I’m glad I don’t know if it’s true. If so, it would gut me. I made the calls out there. If my decisions caused this ice age, and the death of billions… I don’t know if I could ever recover from it.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

She seems to read my mind.

“We had to do what we did out there, James.”

That makes it a little better. But not much.

I’ve already been tried once for endangering the world. Tried and convicted. Unjustly. Then they sent me into space to save them. I did my best. And I just might have done what they locked me away for.





We bed down in the middle of the module, shoulder-to-shoulder, staring up at the porthole and the stars beyond. I’m usually the one to pull the shade. Tonight, I peer out, then start taking stock of every last item in the module. My mind mentally assembles the pieces in 3D. I see a rough rendering of what I need, the device that will carry us home.

“What’re you thinking about?” Emma asks softly.

“Nothing.”