The Phoenix Descent Read online

  ALSO BY CHUCK GROSSART

  The Gemini Effect

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Chuck Grossart

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503945753

  ISBN-10: 1503945758

  Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects

  To Goofy, Tiger, and Boo.

  And a certain brown-eyed girl who still makes my heart skip a beat.

  CONTENTS

  Start Reading

  Statement by the president of the United States

  PROLOGUE: THE RISE

  The skies over northeastern Ukraine

  White House Situation Room

  PART I: HOME

  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

  PART II: BADLANDS

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  PART III: PHOENIX

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  PART IV: DESCENT

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXCERPT: THE GEMINI EFFECT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Johannes Mattis

  Director, Life Science and Technology Division

  Phoenix BioLabs, LLC

  May 23, 2021

  “. . . the most remarkable life-forms on our planet. Some are incredibly specialized, and to be honest, a little terrifying from a human standpoint. Take, for example, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, an entomopathogenic fungus that infects one particular species of carpenter ant. It forces the ant to leave its home, attach itself to the underside of a leaf, and become a breeding ground for more spores, which eventually erupt from a pod that sprouts from the ant’s head.”

  “That sounds painful.”

  [Laughing] “I suppose so, but the ant is dead by that point. It’s really quite amazing, though. The fungi kingdom continues to surprise us, especially when we find species thriving where life—as we’ve previously defined it—shouldn’t exist. In the early nineties, a robot sent into the ruined Chernobyl reactor found a black growth on the walls of the containment unit—a radiotrophic fungus—using melanin, the same melanin pigment we find in our skin, to convert gamma radiation into energy, in much the same way a plant uses photosynthesis. In fact, the anabolic pathways are similar enough that we believe this species may be able to use energy from sunlight, as well, which would be a remarkable discovery. What I’m saying is, the possibilities are endless—with the right amount of funding, we could learn how to harness, or alter, the functions these simple organisms perform, opening up entirely new bioengineering applications for the betterment of the human condition . . .”

  Statement by the president of the United States

  Associated Press

  May 15, 2025

  “My fellow Americans, we’ve accomplished great things throughout the history of our manned spaceflight program, but it has not been without risk, and at times it has incurred a great cost. Tonight, it my sad duty to report to you that we have paid that terrible price once again. Two days ago, mission control in Houston lost all contact with Resolute, and in the professional judgment of our experts at NASA, we must assume our first manned mission to Mars has failed. The courageous crew of Resolute, whom we’ve all grown to know over the past year as we followed their preparations for their journey—Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Hunter Webb, mission commander, from Broomfield, Colorado; Navy Commander Caitlyn Wagner, pilot, from Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Lucas Hoover, mission specialist, from Grove City, Ohio—will now take their place beside the astronauts of Apollo I, Challenger, and Columbia, brave souls who have all made the ultimate sacrifice in our quest to explore the vastness of space . . .”

  PROLOGUE: THE RISE

  Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, Southeastern Belarus

  June 18, 2025

  Sub-Lieutenant Gennady Krasov knew he was a dead man.

  No matter what happened, he would never be able to leave this stinking, godforsaken place. He lay beneath one of his regiment’s abandoned armored troop carriers, scanning the forest before him. Only one incendiary round was left in his rocket launcher, which he gripped tightly in his right hand. To his left lay his rifle, for all the good it would do. Bullets slowed their advance, but couldn’t stop them.

  He would need only one round, though, to save himself from the horrors that befell his troops. He would count his remaining shots carefully to save one last bullet.

  Eight days passed since he and the rest of the 23rd Air Assault regiment parachuted in, beginning what was supposed to be a quick three-day mission to establish a perimeter, advance southward, and, along with their sister regiment, the 104th Air Assault, kill anything that got in their way. Simple. They did it before, in Chechnya, in Ukraine, and even in the Baltics, but nothing about this mission was simple. It was suicide.

  The bastards who blew apart the protective enclosure covering the Chernobyl reactor managed to release God knows how much radioactivity in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. His dosimeter badge turned black in less than a day. He was as good as dead—and so were his troops—as soon as they hit the ground. Sacrificed. Russia’s finest, thrown away in a failed cause against an enemy they had no chance of defeating.

  But the radiation was the least of their worries.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught motion to his left, in the trees. He stared, but saw nothing more. Still, his heart began to race, because it would soon be their time again.

  The dawn was brightening, revealing a scarred battlefield as horrid as any he had ever witnessed. Artillery and rocket fire had scoured this sector, bl
owing the forest to bits. Around him, shredded trees stood as stripped monuments to a battle lost. He used a scope taken from a dead man’s sniper rifle to observe the forest in front of him. No movement, yet. The things were less active during the nighttime hours. They moved with the daylight.

  The forest was unnaturally quiet. The steady thud of artillery, and the scream of inbound shells, was absent. Even the skies were empty, the thunder of jet engines long since vanished.

  They had all pulled back.

  He was truly alone.

  The air hung heavy with the scent of a battlefield—burnt powder, burnt bodies. But there was something else, a heavy, cloying scent, filthy, reminding him of the shore of a stagnant lake, or a feed yard in his boyhood home outside of St. Petersburg. It was their scent. The Riy.

  Eight days ago, his regiment landed among a ragged Ukrainian infantry unit, and as he and his fellow soldiers gathered their parachutes, they learned the nature of their enemy. Riy, the Ukrainians called them, their word for swarm.

  Monsters were what they were. Black things, faceless and terrifying, shuffling through the forests. Spreading quickly. Unstoppable. They used to be men, but not anymore. Whatever the terrorists did to the Chernobyl reactor unleashed something straight from the depths of hell.

  There. Motion to his left. Not shadows this time, he was sure of it. He brought the sniper scope to his eye again and peered through the trees.

  They were coming.

  One. No, two.

  And there would be more.

  He gripped his rocket launcher tightly, scooted it in front of him. The incendiary warhead would take down a few of them—fire, it seemed, was the only way to kill the beasts—but after that, he knew he was a goner. The forests were full of Riy, and there was no way he could escape. Anyway, he would be dead soon from the radiation, a slow, painful death, retching out his innards and choking on his own blood. Paradise, though, compared to what the Riy would do to him.

  He glanced at his rifle. One saved round in his mouth was all he would need. He wouldn’t become one of them, a decision made after seeing firsthand what the Riy could do to a man, and what that man became.

  When they found the Ukrainian soldier propped against a tree, he was far along in the infection process—the first time any of them had seen the transformation up close.

  The stricken Ukrainian stared at them wide-eyed, unable to move or speak, as the black mist coursed through his veins. He had inhaled some of it, obviously, and was doomed from the moment it entered his lungs.

  They stood and watched the man succumb to the infection—out of morbid curiosity more than anything else—as the slimy mass covered his uniform and every spot of exposed skin until only one eye was visible. Within that eye they saw fear, desperation, and a terrible yearning for help. The man darted his eye to each of their faces, imploring them to do something, to save him from whatever was devouring his body.

  When he pulled his sidearm, he saw relief in the man’s eye. The pistol’s crack could barely be heard over the roar of an overhead attack jet unleashing a salvo of rockets a short distance away.

  The man was dead, but whatever was within him was not.

  When the black, tar-like goo covered the Ukrainian’s lifeless, open eye, the body began to move. He and his troops pumped the thing full of bullets, but it still managed to stand, twitching from the impacts but otherwise unaffected, small wisps of black mist seeping from the bullet holes.

  He ordered his troops to back off, get some distance, and then fired an incendiary round from his rocket launcher right at the newborn Riy. The forest floor burst into flame as the warhead exploded, and within the fire, what was once a Ukrainian soldier finally died.

  They learned the black substance spread quickly, immobilizing its victim once inhaled, eventually erupting through the skin, covering every inch in a squirming black mass. All the while the victims were awake, and aware, but unable to save themselves. Shooting them had no effect, as bullets can’t kill corrupted flesh animated by some sort of mindless parasite.

  Only fire can.

  He laid his scope on the ground, removed his helmet, and placed his blue beret atop his head. He was a member of the Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska, the airborne troops, and he would not die without putting up a fight. He grasped the rocket launcher in his left hand, and with his right grabbed his rifle. He sprinted from cover toward a tree about ten meters away. The Riy had no eyes—they couldn’t see him moving, and he was still too far away for them to sense his motion. If they did, they would open what used to be a mouth and expel a cloud of the black mist. He saw many of his troops get too close in the heat of battle, only to disappear in the deathly clouds.

  No, it would not happen to him. With God as his witness, he would not die like that.

  He could see others now, as the sunlight revealed more and more of the forest. The first two were getting close—now only twenty meters away—but beyond them were more than he cared to count. The forest was full of them.

  He could hear the Riy shuffle across the ground—not really taking steps, but more like dragging their feet. And he could hear himself breathing. Hear the beat of his own heart, hammering away in his chest. The feedlot stench assaulted his senses. It was getting stronger, thicker, with each breath.

  The first two turned in his direction. He hadn’t moved a finger, yet they still came, possibly sensing his body heat. It didn’t matter.

  Fifteen meters. Ten.

  He must do it now, before it was too late.

  He raised the rocket launcher to his shoulder, rested his cheek against the tube, and closed one eye. He would put his last incendiary round into the large group of Riy behind these two, and take down as many as he could. Then he would take his own life.

  He thought of his sister, Valyusha, and his young nephew, Pyotr. It saddened him to know that they would probably never be told the truth of what happened here.

  He placed his finger on the trigger, concentrated on his sight picture, and took a deep breath, inhaling the spores from a cloud of black mist that enveloped him from behind.

  The skies over northeastern Ukraine

  Pilot/commander Major Yedor Bodrov glanced at his navigator/weapons operator, Captain Artem Subbotin, sitting to his right and slumped forward toward his instruments. Bodrov had flown with the man numerous times before, and found him to be a competent aviator. Subbotin was fixated on his readouts—cross-checking settings, confirming distances, verifying configurations. Bodrov knew he could have drawn a less qualified man for this strike and was thankful he wouldn’t have to do both of their jobs. He sucked a mouthful of rubbery air from his mask and felt his pulse quicken. Even on training runs, his heart would beat a little faster as he neared a target, but this time it was for real.

  “Pilot, weapon release point in fifteen kilometers,” Subbotin stated. “Permission to arm the weapon.”

  Major Bodrov’s orders were clear, straight from General Bulgakov himself. He required no further clearance to prosecute his target. “You have permission to arm the weapon.”

  “Weapon armed,” Captain Subbotin said. “Place weapon release mode to automatic.”

  “Weapon release mode to automatic,” Bodrov replied, flicking the proper switch. The words seemed to stick to his tongue. His mouth was dry, and he found it difficult to swallow. He had dropped live ordnance before—in combat—but this was different.

  His strike fighter was now flying itself, programmed to begin the pull-up and release sequence with no further manual input. Outside his cockpit, forested countryside flashed by, still mostly hidden in the predawn shadows beneath a brightening sky. His Fullback rose and descended as its terrain-following radar guided it over the uneven landscape. The system rarely malfunctioned, but he held his hand lightly on the control stick, just in case.

  There were rumors about what was going on in Ukraine, but nothing official was provided through his command chain. When the weapons arrived in the dead of night at their air base, h
e and his squadron mates knew the situation must be dire. They planned the strike quickly, with nary a second to consider the ramifications of what they were being called to do.

  “Weapon release in five kilometers, ten seconds until pull-up,” Subbotin said.

  “Copy, ten seconds.” Bodrov knew other crews were counting down the seconds just as they were. Ten jets were involved in this strike, with their targets scattered across northeastern Ukraine and southern Belarus. They were forming a barrier, a circle around the contested area. What was left in the circle would fall to his compatriots in the Northern Fleet, and the fury they would unleash from beneath the waves.

  “Five seconds, afterburners coming on.”

  “Copy, five seconds,” Bodrov replied. As the engines’ roar filled the cockpit, he watched Subbotin cross-check his settings one last time before sitting straight in his seat and resting his helmet firmly against the headrest. Bodrov did the same and tightened his leg and abdomen muscles in anticipation of the pull-up.

  “Three, two, one . . . mark.”

  The strike fighter entered a programmed seven-g climb, invisible hands compressing both crew members’ bodies against their ejection seats as they momentarily experienced the sensation of weighing seven times their normal body weight. Bodrov’s G suit inflated, squeezing his legs and torso, and he grunted against the sudden g onset. The Fullback screamed into the Ukrainian sky, blanketing the terrain below in its afterburners’ thunder. Once the jet attained the proper release attitude, all became calm. The roar lessened, and the vibrations ceased. It was a moment of peace before they would release all hell below.

  “Weapon release in three, two, one,” Subbotin counted down. “Weapon away.”

  A finned, cylindrical object separated from the sky-blue underbelly of the Fullback, beginning its ballistic trajectory toward its target. In ten seconds, a drogue chute would deploy, slowing the bomb’s descent and allowing the crew to escape.

  Bodrov took control and grabbed the stick, his fighter rocketing nearly straight up. Pulling back until they were inverted, he fixed his gaze on the horizon and rolled wings level. As they slammed through Mach 1, racing toward the rising sun and away from the impending blast, Bodrov couldn’t help but feel remorse for the ground troops still down there.