Free Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) by TM Catron

 
    The ship. She needed to run from the ship.  
    A man yelled from her right. She turned toward the sound, wanting to avoid another collision. Another shadow moved toward her, this one towering over the others running past. Rooted to the ground, Mina stared as the thing took shape in front of her, her eyes following the shadow up to a height above any normal human. Its features were a blur in the smoky haze. A piercing scream sounded somewhere near the shadow and was quickly silenced, as if it had been cut off. Something wet splashed Mina’s face. She reached up and wiped it away, her fingers coming away red.
    Fear jarred her out of her daze, and she turned and ran.

    “Could have been a solar storm,” Nelson pointed out as he opened a brown-wrapped MRE field ration package. The four civilians sat together in the mess tent, inspecting their supper. He narrowed his eyes at the package and sniffed. It resembled the kind of canned dog food that claimed to have real chunks of meat. “What’d you get, Carter?”
    “Chicken fajita.”
    “Me, too.”
    “A large solar storm might do it.” Carter took a bite and grimaced. “Do you know if any were predicted?”
    Schmidt joined them, sitting down in a camp chair next to Alvarez.
    “Solar storms could damage power grids, but not small electronics. Anyway, seems like a big coincidence, don’t you think?” Lincoln poked at his pork rib ration. “What do you think the alien towers are for? Networking? Communication? They could have something to do with the outage.”
    “Don’t solar storms cause the northern lights?” Schmidt asked. He tore open his pasta ration and stuffed some in his mouth. Alvarez gaped. “It doesn’t taste as bad as it looks,” he said.
    Lincoln answered him. “A geomagnetic storm, actually. It happens when a solar flare or coronal mass ejection from the sun sends solar winds our way. They interact with Earth’s magnetosphere.”
    “What’s the magnetosphere?”
    Lincoln leaned over and used the end of his plastic fork to draw a small circle in the dust between his feet. “Pretend this is Earth, with North and South Poles.” He labeled the circle “E” and drew a bisecting line for the poles. Then he drew lines connecting the two poles in sweeping arcs, one arc closer to Earth than the other. “This is the magnetosphere. It’s controlled by our planet’s magnetic field. On the sun side, it’s always compressed by normal solar radiation. When something stronger, like a solar wind, hits it, it gets closer to the Earth’s surface, causing polar auroras. If the shockwave is strong enough, it will compress the magnetosphere close enough to Earth to cause electrical disturbances. A severe geomagnetic storm could potentially cause widespread blackouts, but it hasn’t happened in our lifetime.” Lincoln turned his attention back to the others. “It’s just too big a coincidence. Aliens make contact and electronics fry from a catastrophic geomagnetic storm? What are the odds they’re separate events?”
    “Interesting question,” said Alvarez. “But they haven’t exactly made contact yet.”
    “When they do,” said Schmidt with youthful enthusiasm, “we’ll send ’em packing.”
    Leaving Schmidt behind in the mess tent after supper, the team took advantage of the camp’s current turmoil to plan their night venture into the mineshaft. Since the LED flashlights had died, Carter volunteered to create three or four torches. As long as Nash stayed out of the way, they could spend as long as they wanted exploring the tunnels.
    “One problem, Lincoln,” said Carter. “After the blackout, do you think you can find the entrance to the mine in the dark? Before we light the torches?”
    “The moon’s almost full, and we have clear skies. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble finding our way.”
    They walked by a fire as someone extinguished it. The camp would be dark soon. Lincoln and Carter parted at their respective tents. To