Earthfall Read Online Free PDF Page A

underground. He slowly closed the door behind him, latching it quietly.
    “Command: lights, twenty percent,” he said. Though his voice was as soft and quiet as he could make it, it still sounded harsh and loud inside the apartment’s stillness. The AI executed his command, and the overhead lights slowly brightened until the small living room was bathed in a pale amber glow. For a moment, Andrews just stood in place, looking around the small apartment. Though it was tiny, it was practically a palace compared to an SCEV, and he luxuriated in the surfeit of open space. He stepped around the decidedly no-frills couch to the kitchenette and tugged open the door of the small refrigerator. He smiled when he saw four bottles inside. Rachel had managed to score them from one of Harmony’s brewmasters, another engineer who worked in the Core. She probably had to work double shifts for a week to pay for the veritable liquid gold, but that was the kind of woman she was. The end of the world had ensured that there would never be such as thing as a free beer, which meant she would have to pay for the goods with labor. Andrews ran a hand through his dark blond hair and considered the bottles greedily. He desperately wanted one right now, but there was a time for everything. Though it took a surprising amount of self-control, Andrews refrained.
    Instead, he headed for the small partition on the far side of the apartment, the bedroom, which occupied a space less than six feet wide by eight feet deep. Andrews stopped at the bedroom’s narrow entrance and listened. The AI had left the lights switched off here, and in the pitch-black darkness that dominated the tiny bedroom, he heard Rachel breathing. Slow, even, and deep. He stood still and waited for his eyes to adjust. After a time he could make out her slumbering figure, barely a silhouette beneath the linens. He continued to watch her sleep, her face turned away from him, her dark hair spilling across the pillow like a waterfall of shadow. Her work uniform lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed, and he bent over and picked it up. Smoothing out a few wrinkles, he opened the microscopic closet set into the wall and hung the single-piece uniform on a hanger. He did the same with his own duty uniform, then carefully crawled into bed and stretched out beside his wife. Despite his best efforts, she stirred; after all, who wouldn’t if they felt someone slinking into their bed when their husband was away?
    “Mike?” she asked, voice blurry from what Andrews guessed was too much work and too little sleep. Before he could say anything, Rachel bolted upright in the bed with a gasp, reaching for him with one hand. She felt his face in the darkness, and he kissed her fingertips.
    “Miss me?”
    “Mike! Oh, God—” Her embrace almost crushed the breath from him, and Andrews laughed at the ferocity of it. Thirty-three days was a long time for a man to be away from his wife, and it was good to see she felt the same way.
    “Easy there. Don’t break the merchandise, hon.”
    “I’m so sorry!” There was genuine regret in her voice, which puzzled Andrews.
    “It’s no big deal.”
    She laughed and pulled away from him long enough to take his face in her hands. “No, no … not about that. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at Receiving. I must have slept through the pages. I worked the overnight shift as well as the morning shift, and I just stretched out for a quick nap, but—”
    Andrews put a finger to her lips. “Rachel, it’s no big deal. So I had to walk another couple of hundred feet to see you. Not a problem. Really.” He kissed her gently. “Anyway. Did you miss me, or is there something else we need to talk about?”
    “I don’t want to talk,” Rachel said, pulling him close. She wrapped her legs around him and gripped his shoulders with an intent that Andrews was well familiar with.

3

    T he command center of Harmony Base was a high-tech affair, a dimly lit room