Hammerhead Read online

  Table of Contents

  HAMMERHEAD

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  EPILOGUE

  HAMMERHEAD

  A NOVEL BY

  JASON ANDREW BOND

  Copyright © 2011 Jason Andrew Bond

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover photo copyright © 2011 Aaron Kohr, www.dreamstime.com

  Hammerhead logo copyright © 2011 Todd Krummenacher

  Cover photo alterations Todd Krummenacher

  For more about the author, future novels, and events please visit:

  www.JasonAndrewBond.com

  Acknowledgments

  I want to offer sincere thanks to all those who helped me make my first novel a reality and have continued to support me as I move forward on new projects. I am grateful to my wife for her support and sincere honesty. I offer my mother thanks for all the flights in small airplanes and showing me how to “go for it” in life. My father’s medical expertise was invaluable for this novel, as was his overall review. To my sister Jennifer, I extend my sincerest thanks for all the hours she put into reviewing my work. The technical expertise and insight she afforded me was invaluable. Sincere thanks is also due to Pat Johnson for her equally helpful review and editing. I must also thank Dennis ‘Mac’ McElroy for his invaluable fighter jet and flight expertise. There are many more who answered questions related to guns, drugs, etc. Their assistance is greatly appreciated. Hammerhead is a far better novel thanks to all these people’s wisdom and support.

  The talent and selfless effort Todd Krummenacher put into the cover art has brought a beauty and presence to Hammerhead well beyond my expectations. I am in his debt for it. I owe my extended family thanks as well for all their help during the many hundreds of hours Hammerhead took to write and edit. I want to offer special thanks to Eli for allowing me to tag along with him to Comic-Con and for putting up with all my short stories. Also, thanks is due to my writing instructors from Baldwin to Lyons. Without their mentorship, I never could have started down this long road.

  Final thanks goes to my son for helping me wake up from my trance and chase my dreams. When I think of his future, my highest hope is that he will be brave enough to listen to his heart; in that hope, I have learned to listen to mine.

  Convention dictates that I should select one person to dedicate this novel to. With so many wonderful people in my life, this is difficult. In the end, I have decided on someone who did not have a great deal to do with the creation of Hammerhead itself. His influence on my life goes back to younger days. I have often wondered where I would be now without his friendship…

  For Jay

  Thanks for loaning me the Interceptor.

  To the Reader

  Before you begin reading Hammerhead, I would like to offer you sincerest thanks. I appreciate your time as a reader more than I can express. It is my ambition to create something of quality that is entertaining and satisfying. In pursuit of that goal, I have focused on Elmore Leonard’s advice, “to leave out all the parts that readers skip.”

  It has been five years since I had my initial vision for this novel: a man standing on a mountain ridge watching a ship crash into the desert. Since that moment, I have spent hundreds of hours writing and editing. Now, the time has come to save the file one last time and let the story stand on its own. New projects are calling. Letting go is more difficult than I could have believed. I must trust that, in my hours of work, I have created something that you will enjoy. But, of course, I must let you be the final judge.

  I do have one request. As I am currently a self-published writer, word of mouth is the main engine I must rely on. In light of this, I humbly ask that, if you should find Hammerhead to your liking, please tell others about it.

  For my part, I will continue to strive to create the best stories I am capable of.

  PROLOGUE

  Stacy Zack sat in the freighter’s command chair, her arms and legs strapped down and her head lashed to the headrest. Her hands and feet had gone numb from the tightness of the restraints, and crusts of blood rimmed the straps at her wrists where she had wrenched at them. To her right, blurring at the edge of her vision, she could see legs with a dark pool extending around the boots. Behind her someone choked on wetness every few breaths.

  “David? Matt?” she said into the dark expanse of the bridge.

  As before, she heard only the resonant vibration from the heart of the ship.

  Looking over the control panel, she saw all the decades of the freighter’s service worn into the switches and bezels. A cracked display continued its countdown with only a few seconds remaining. She pulled at the straps again, and pain burned into her shoulders.

  “I can’t die here,” she said, “not now.”

  She looked above the console, out the bridge windows, to where the curved Earth filled the lower half of the long bank of glass. The sunlight glowing off the Pacific Ocean washed out the stars, leaving only blackness hanging above the planet. The blue ocean, laced with white storms, reminded her of the stained-glass windows of her father’s church.

  That’s where they’ll have my funeral.

  She envisioned her coffin sitting at the head of the sanctuary, blades of colored sunlight falling across the polished black lid and brass fittings. Her father, mother, and sister would sit in the front pew, beyond the sunlight. But there would be no body. She would be reduced to ash in the atmosphere above their heads. They would have no proof she had died, and might live for years with false hope. Tears welled in her eyes and ran down her face. She did not sob, but allowed her grief out in silence.

  The numbers ran out on the display and retro rockets fired. The freighter thrummed and lurched. Her restraints pressed on her as the ship slowed.

  A feminine voice came through the bridge speakers: “Crash landing procedure initiated. Atmospheric contact is imminent. Please make your way to the nearest evacuation pod.”

  Stacy gripped the command chair’s armrests.

  The Earth tilted up in the windows and began to expand. Then, as the ship prepared to go belly in on the atmosphere, the rockets kicked the nose up. The Earth fell out of the windows, and Stacy had one final view of the stars.

  After a few moments, individual gas molecules began tinking and popping on the hull. These increased in frequency until they grew to a roar, and the windows burned in orange fire.

  CHAPTER 1

  In the darkness before dawn, Jeffrey Holt walked across the tarmac of Las Vegas International Airport carrying a cooler and a stainless steel coffee mug. His transport sat out on
the tarmac, a gunmetal tadpole of a ship, heavy in the center with large windows, high stubby wings, and a long rear stabilizer. A breeze trailed in from the west, and the fading stars spanned the mountain ridges, uninterrupted. It all meant one thing to Jeffrey: a good morning to fly.

  Someone had propped a ladder up against the transport. As Jeffrey approached he saw a maintenance tech on top of the transport, head first in the jet intake. The tech slid out of the intake, stood, and came down the ladder. He had his back to Jeffrey as he folded some tools into a pouch.

  “Working early this morning?” Jeffrey asked, bending over and setting his lunch cooler down.

  The tech’s arm jerked and his eyes targeted Jeffrey. “Jeez old man, you scared the hell out of me.”

  Old man is it?

  Jeffrey stood up. At six foot six, his shoulders came even with the bridge of the tech’s nose. The tech dropped his eyes to Jeffrey’s chest and then back up.

  A peppering of gray in the tech’s hair and the lines around his eyes suggested experience, but his gaze flicked from one thing to the next like a sparrow searching for grubs. A good mechanic should have a hawkish stare. This one didn’t. Unfocused mechanics made stupid mistakes, such as leaving a loose screw in an intake or improperly securing a wiring harness. Jeffrey looked up to where the tech had been standing on his transport.

  “Who are you?” he asked the tech.

  “I’m with Huntington Aircraft.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “The guys in the office told me you leave pretty early, and I had some PM’s I didn’t want to leave for the weekend. Boss told me you’re gone pretty much all day, every day.”

  Jeffrey looked the tech over. His jumpsuit had creases across the arms, chest, and legs from the original packaging, the “Huntington Aircraft” shoulder patch, and a name badge, which read “Arlo”.

  “Just start with Huntington?”

  The tech looked at the creases in his jumpsuit and then back to Jeffrey.

  Had there been a flash of hostility in his eyes just then?

  “Yeah, just started, but I’ve got a lot of experience.”

  “Nothing personal, but I only want Javier Martinez working on my transport. I’ve made that clear to the folks in the office.”

  “They told me you might be upset,” Arlo said, “but I only greased some Zerks. I’m a good tech you know.”

  “I don’t know,” Jeffrey said. “I want my transport handled right.”

  “Pal,” Arlo said, picking up his tool pouch, “I’m good at my job. If you have a problem with something, tell the boss.” He tilted the ladder off the side of the transport and hefted it under his arm. Then he turned and walked away, saying, “Thing’s a pile of crap anyway.”

  Jeffrey picked up his lunch cooler and looked at the transport. Dents and scrapes marred its aluminum surface. A hairline crack ran down the side window. Below the window, worn lettering read:

  US D par me t of Orb tal Reclam tion.

  “It’s definitely a pile of crap, Arlo,” Jeffrey said to himself, “but it still gets me to work.” He pressed his thumb on a plate, and a green bar of light scanned it. The rear ramp popped open and lowered to the tarmac.

  He set his cooler and mug on the ramp and looked up to the top of the transport.

  Zerk greasing?

  He took his sat-phone out of his pocket, scrolled through the contacts, and tapped the number for Huntington Aircraft. The phone went to voicemail after several rings, and he said, “This is Jeffrey Holt. What’s the story on this ‘Arlo’ you’ve got working for you? I’ve said before, I only want Javier working on my transport. Call me.”

  He hung up the phone, pocketed it, and looked back up.

  I don’t have time for this.

  Picking up his cooler and mug, he walked up the ramp and bent to enter the cockpit. He toggled a switch on the bulkhead, and the ramp lifted and closed.

  Placing his cooler to the side, he settled into the pilot’s seat and pressed a button. The seat shifted forward, bringing him up to the controls and instruments. He balanced his coffee mug on the console, fired up the engines, and went through his preflight.

  Everything seems to be running well, so maybe Arlo’s okay.

  Jeffrey had his doubts though. He had known very few good mechanics.

  Pulling back on the controls, he lifted the transport off the tarmac and aimed it at the northern desert. He slid the throttle forward, and the transport accelerated, pushing him back into the seat. When he reached his cruising altitude, he looked over the panel of circular gauges. They all read within range, yet something felt wrong. He tapped on the air intake pressure gauge. It read a few ticks lower than usual, but everything else appeared to be normal.

  Just let it go.

  As he looked out on the morning sky, cold and blue over the mountains, he couldn’t let it go. He closed his eyes and listened to the transport. He tapped his finger with the rhythm of the twin engines. Then he realized what was bothering him. Somewhere above the rhythm ran a thin whine. Jeffrey turned, reached up, and smacked the roofline with the palm of his hand. The whine remained. He tilted his head aiming his ears at the sound.

  Looking out the windows, he considered what to do. Turn around and have it looked at, or just head on? To his left, the night’s last star—Jupiter—hung over the western horizon. To his right, the rising sun caught chips in the windshield causing them to sparkle a deep orange. He had already flown over halfway to the landing strip, and he had to be on-site this morning. He’d have the whine dealt with later.

  Careful not to bump the flight yoke, he shifted his weight, trying to relieve the ache in his lower back. He lifted his coffee mug from its balanced place on the console and watched steam rise from its vent. He sipped from the cup, trying to forget the whine, but it did seem to be getting louder.

  Was it? Or was he just reading into it too much?

  Damn Arlo and his Zerks.

  Jeffrey’s wife had often complained that he overanalyzed life. At times, during their thirty five years of marriage, she had half joked that she should leave him because he could not simply accept things as they were. She finally had left him the previous winter for the great hereafter. The memory welled up a sad burn in his chest, and he forced it back down where it seemed to exist permanently, in the center of his rib cage, tucked up under his heart.

  As he closed in on thirty miles to his destination, he set his mug aside and took hold of the steering yoke. The engines hummed along and he reached out and switched off the autopilot. A bang like a gunshot overwhelmed the sound of the engines followed by a piercing shriek. Then the engines fell silent. Warning indicators lit up across the console, and Jeffrey felt the flipping sensation of weightlessness. The transport tipped down and fell toward a mountain ridge.

  His harness held his weightless body to the seat as he watched the mountain rise up at him. He froze. As a Marine he had served six years of heavy combat. During those years, even when he had to wipe his hand across the inside of his windscreen to clear it of blood and bits of bone and fly without a navigator, he had never frozen. Now he had. The void of his mind took in the ridge filling the windscreen and the feeling of weightlessness tickling his guts and throat. A pocket of air shook the ship, and his mug launched weightless off the console. It clipped a corner, popping the lid off, and hot coffee splattered across Jeffrey’s face and chest.

  Jeffrey’s body jolted with the heat of the coffee, and he came to life, reaching out and hitting a switch, which purged the fuel system. He pulled back on the stick, but without thrust the stubby wings wouldn’t generate lift. The transport stalled, and the nose dropped again. The mountains came at him faster now, and he could make out detail in the shadows of boulders. He waited for the light to indicate a primed fuel system. When it blinked green, he thumbed the ‘engine on’ toggle hard enough to crack the clear plastic stem. The mountainside filled the transport’s window now. He would pin in halfway down the slope. He jammed his f
inger on the firing button. The engine razzed hard and shuddered. He jammed his thumb on the firing button again, and the engine roared. The transport launched at full acceleration toward the mountain, shoving Jeffrey into his seat. He yanked the throttle back.

  Too close and too steep to pull up over the mountain, Jeffrey stamped on the foot pedals, slipping the transport onto its side. Then he wrenched the flight yoke back. The transport’s frame groaned. Jeffrey gritted his teeth and growled under the G force, but the transport pulled true and, with only a few hundred feet to spare, the mountain slid away. He leveled off and brought the transport down to fly slow and close to the desert floor.

  He wiped the coffee off his face with the palm of his hand.

  “What the hell,” he said, looking back up to the rear ceiling. The twin engine design used bulletproof turbines. Failures were unheard of. With two… having both shut off at once should be impossible. Jeffrey remembered that touch of hostility on Arlo’s face.

  He thought about landing at the base of the mountain and radioing for help. The transport sputtered, but seemed to want to keep going. He didn’t feel like spending eight hours in the desert waiting for help when in ten minutes he could be sitting at his desk. He still had work to do. Pushing the throttle forward, he brought the transport up over the mountain he had almost crashed into. The engine hesitated a moment and then accelerated. He continued on across the desert. He kept his attention focused on the transport now, ready to land if he sensed any trouble from the engines.

  He flew over another ridge of mountains, and the landing strip came into view: a one-time inland sea between two ranges of craggy mountains. The valley floor, a flat sheet of salt-encrusted dirt, ran east to west ten miles wide and roughly fifty miles long. The eastern side of the valley floor still lay in shadow. Beginning in the shadows and running out into the sunlight lay long, ripped craters made by the crash landings of hundreds of ships. Thanks to Jeffrey’s long hours of work, no wreckage remained.