Battle- Earth by Mark Harrison

Author:Mark Harrison [Harrison, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozark Publishing
Published: 2019-02-08T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

There was something wrong, but it wasn’t Felix’s computer, nor was it his satellites orbiting Earth. There was something wrong with the message. It was as if it was hitting a wall, as if it was being intercepted by something. Whatever it was, his distress calls weren’t getting through.

Felix looked at his computer with a frustrated expression. In all his days designing and building communication satellites and software, he had never seen anything like this. To diagnose the problem, he tried sending the signal to another star system. When that failed, he tried sending a message to something a little closer, to one of the pathfinders NASA had landed on Pluto. That message got through. The pathfinder on Pluto acknowledged receipt of the message. So the satellites could send messages, but they couldn’t send them very far. They could only send them to the edge of our solar system.

Felix hypothesized that something out there had to be interfering with the signal, something very big and very powerful. But it was just a theory until he could prove it. And there was only one way he would be able to prove it. He’d need to get access to a giant radio tower here on Earth. He’d need to scan the outer edges of our solar system for interference. His puny little nano satellites wouldn’t be capable of doing that.

He got up from his desk and made his way to the yacht’s mini fridge. It was empty. His water desalinator wasn’t working, so he had no drinking water. He slammed the fridge door shut and kicked it.

“Piece of shit,” he said. “What the fuck do I do?”

He considered his options. He could fix the water desalinator. That would buy him a couple more days out here. But the main generator on the yacht was losing power. It’s charge wouldn’t hold like it used to. It was solar powered, as all the Eco-Neg VI BlueStar batteries were, but that model of battery was notoriously bad at keeping a charge. BlueStar had to do a massive recall of the battery ten years ago. It cost Felix forty-billion dollars.

With the water desalinator broken, the generator on the way out, and the lack of food, Felix was left with only one option. One option that two days ago would have seemed crazy. But now it intrigued him. He’d have to return to the mainland. He’d have to finally stop hiding out in the middle of the Gulf.

The only problem was he didn’t know where to go. The shore was still crawling with motherships and just because he made it to the land, didn’t mean that his food problems would be solved. Once he got ashore, he’d immediately have to look for food. Most houses, buildings, stores had likely been already looted.

Once he found food, he could start looking for a radio tower. If he could get to a radio tower, he could find out what is out there. Once he understood what was blocking the messages, he could resume sending the distress calls.

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