Hal Falling Skies Novels & Stories

Her eyes glistened with fear. “If something happens to you…” “It won’t,” he whispered back. “I’m not leaving you again.” Marek suddenly froze mid-step. “Wait.” “What?” Lucian asked. Marek pointed at the security camera feed. “Someone else is outside the penthouse door.” Elara’s breath hitched. “Adrian?” Marek squinted. “No… it’s a woman.” Selene narrowed her eyes. “A woman? The Hales don’t use women in extraction teams.”

--- ### The Ascent We ran toward the hook. The floor was disappearing. The beautiful white marble was falling away into a black abyss. I could see the thousands of pods in the warehouse below us—they were being crushed by the falling sky. Millions of people were being "Deleted" in their sleep. I didn't think. I jumped. My fingers caught the cold, rusted edge of the hook. It felt like ice. "Leo! Elara! Jump!" Leo grabbed Elara by the waist and threw her toward me. I caught her hand, my arm feeling like it was being pulled out of its socket. Then, Leo leaped. He caught the cable just as the Admin Wing collapsed into the void.

Half a rooftop. The other half hovered three feet higher than it should have been, sliced cleanly through by a seam of pale light. The skyline around us looked like someone had taken a city and shaken it mid-render. Buildings leaned at impossible angles. Windows flickered between intact and shattered. Cars below were frozen mid-motion, suspended above fractured streets. “Correction scenario one,” the failsafe’s voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. “Localized gravitational desynchronization. Collapse threshold: eight minutes.” Zara turned slowly in a full circle. “I hate timed challenges.”

Winter. As soon as I entered, I saw Dante with his people. Dante sat alone on the couch while Nina and Skye were before him. They didn’t look scared, but I couldn’t be sure about their condition. Dante was the first person who noticed me as he stood up. He waved his hand, looking at ease like he owned this place. “Hello there, Sweetheart.” “Winter!” Skye and Nina screamed at the same time, but I chose to ignore them and focus on Dante. He was still smiling, making my blood boil. I wanted to wipe that smile and punch his perfect face.

Before I can completely drown in the spiral, Marjorie pulls me back, offering her next words into the dead-silent cell. “They fell in rows,” she says, and her voice has dropped so far I have to lean into the iron to catch it. “Not all at once. Seven, then dark. Seven, then dark. I counted them going out, row on row, nine rows of seven, till the whole sky over this house was empty and running red.” Her breath shakes going in. “And Hale stood under them with her face turned up, watching them fall, not a mark on her, like it was a show put up for her pleasure. And Ember, you were there, too.” I can barely make my own voice work.

He fumbled in his pocket for a pill bottle—tranquilizers, the ones he kept for “emergencies.” His thumb hovered over the cap. Then a voice echoed from the intercom: “Landing in approximately five minutes.” He froze. In five minutes, Silas Hawke would either be a prisoner… Or a corpse. Or worse, publicly irrelevant. And the world… would keep spinning without him. CONCURRENTLY... In New York in the Farwell Group. Fallon adjusted the buttons of her blouse as she descended the final step of the staircase, still slightly drowsy from the restless night before. The memory of her conversation with Ethan echoed in her mind like a bitter aftertaste she couldn’t spit out.

Club Obsidian. Downtown Neo-Veridia. 11:00 PM. The bass dropped, shaking the floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the VIP skybox. Altair Hale sat on a black leather sofa, entirely alone. On the table in front of him sat a glass of sparkling water (untouched) and a holographic tablet (active). While the rest of the city’s elite gyrated to the music below, Altair was re-coding the firewall for the Asia-Pacific server.

Zayden jerked his head up A car was stopped right in front of him. He tried to swerve, but the wet, icy road betrayed him. The tires lost grip. The steering wheel spun under his hands. The vehicle skidded across the slick pavement Then everything flipped. Metal screamed. Glass shattered. The world turned upside down. And then... Silence. Cold. Dark. The snow outside continued falling, calm and steady… as his crumpled car lay still on the side of the road. *****

"Hailey, you think you’re the only good person in the world? If you’re so kind, why don’t you unbuckle yourself and get the inhaler yourself?" I whipped my head toward Layla, her body convulsing as she gasped for air. My jaw clenched. Without another thought, I yanked the hairpin from my head and slashed it across the belt. The fabric tore free. I pushed up from my seat, but before I could move further, the plane bucked savagely. My body lifted off the seat and slammed into the ceiling before crashing back down. Agony shot through my bones, my vision swimming with darkness.

I want some Ray. I've been planning to get more of him ever since I returned to my chambers, staring at their lovely red walls, the same color as sweet crimson honey. I bathed, acting as if I were to sleep, putting my change of clothes underneath my pillow. My lifesaver sits at the entrance of the door and I am ready to go. Yet Dante won't sleep. I've had enough. I need some Ray.