White Sands Read Online Free PDF

times during the flight and was not adapting well to the artificial habitat. Dr. Hoffman had made it a point to get time in NTC’s simulated environment for at least thirty minutes a day, but even that hadn’t prepared him for the real thing. He was just relieved all the technology was performing properly. If the artificial-gravity centrifuge hadn’t worked, then the ship’s biomes would be worthless and his crew of fifty handpicked personnel from around the world wouldn’t last more than a week. Dr. Hoffman knew how fragile the systems were and, presuming the ship could slip past the aliens, they still had six months of flight before they would reach Mars.
    Dr. Hoffman reached over for Amy’s hand, stopping just shy of touching her. “Are you going to be okay?”
    She faked a smile and then gagged, dry heaving into a tube that sucked the liquid into an opening below her seat.
    Modern technology, Dr. Hoffman thought, trying not to grin. It had cured cancer, created artificial intelligence, and taken humanity to the stars, but could it save them from an alien race? He’d gambled fifty trillion of NTC’s bankroll on the construction of the biospheres, the Secundu Casu, the Sun Spot , the Van Allen ,and the facility on Mars with the hope that it would.
    So far it was money well spent, Dr. Hoffman mused.
    “What are you hearing over the net?” he asked Tim.
    The bald man shifted his skinny tie uncomfortably. His small body shook noticeably. “We lost contact with HQ shortly after we left the stratosphere. It doesn’t make any sense . . .”
    Dr. Hoffman cleared his throat. “Makes perfect sense.”
    Tim shifted his tie again. “What do you mean, sir?”
    “The Organics have activated the same magnetic disturbance that caused the solar storms of 2055. I don’t imagine we’ll be hearing from anyone on Earth ever again.”
    Amy threw up in her tube.
    Dr. Hoffman focused on the blue screen. The feed had panned to an orbital shot of the planet. Somewhere beneath the cloud cover, Earth’s defenses were going dark. He could almost feel the terror gripping thousands of air force pilots as they lost control of their billion-dollar aircrafts and billions of citizens on the ground as they watched the ships rain down on their cities. But, the experience would be nothing compared to what those lucky enough to survive the first stage of the invasion would feel when they saw the black alien ships descend.
    Yet, Dr. Hoffman felt no remorse. He had gone to great lengths to ensure the human race’s survival. The death of billions to save a population large enough to reproduce was, in his scientific opinion, worth the sacrifice.
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    Michael peeled back his eyelids but couldn’t manage to keep them cracked for more than a few seconds. His head was filled with a fog that he just couldn’t lift. His ears, his back, his legs; everything felt like it was being stabbed with tiny needles.
    His body was on fire.
    What had happened?
    Reaching blindly in front of him, he attempted to crawl across the ground and felt soft grains of sand filter through his fingertips.
    The desert.
    The last thing he remembered was kissing Paula on the cheek before he left with the boys.
    Panic replaced pain as he thought of Jeff and David.
    Where are they?
    Forcing his eyes open, he stared into a cloud of smoke and remembered the X90s. He remembered the explosions and the wing sailing through the air.
    Michael stumbled frantically across the sand calling their names. “Jeff! David! Where are you?”
    The pounding in his ears made it impossible to hear a response. He continued pushing himself forward, desperately searching for them. He ignored the stabbing pain racing through his body. He didn’t even want to see what his legs looked like. The smell of burning flesh told him enough.
    After several seconds, the pounding in his ears lessened and the sound of muffled coughing broke through the hissing sand.
    Thank god .
    He froze, trying to get a