“You don’t want to know,” said Rogers.
“No, really, what’s going on?”
“Bolormaa, she’s not dead, and she’s talking about the end of days for the planet.”
Jones laughed for a moment, thinking it was a joke. He soon stopped when he noticed Taylor kept a straight face throughout. No one said a word as they waited and listened, as if expecting something to happen.
“She is bullshitting, surely?” Jones asked.
Taylor shrugged. He didn’t know anymore, but the one thing he did know, was that if it was within her power, she was quite capable of being such a despicable monster. She had no care for life of any kind but her own. None of them knew what to do. It was too vague a piece of information, and they didn’t know how to react or even what to think. They fell silent for a moment. The message light on Rogers’ Mappad lit up, and that worried them. Before he could answer, lights and ring tones rang out as messages and calls started pouring in to everyone around them.
“This can’t be good,” said Jones.
Rogers answered the call. It was Vega, but the transmission was weak and kept cutting in and out with a lot of interference.
“Captain, are…able...Colonel Taylor?”
“He is with me now, Sir. What is going on?”
“I…seen anything…it…”
“What is happening?”
Panicked voices were rising all around them, and clearly something awful was afoot. Then there was a flash in the sky, and they looked east. Three huge mushroom clouds erupted in the distance. Flash after flash repeated in almost every direction.
“Sir, what the hell is going on?”
“Reports of thousands of explo…world. She…”
The signal crackled and hissed, fading away for a moment.
“There was no bombing, nothing from the sky,” said Jones.
“Whatever this is, it didn’t come from the sky. It was already here,” replied Rogers just as the Admiral came back.
“Continuous biological attacks…dirty bombs…”
“No, it can’t be,” Jones gasped.
“How bad is it, Admiral?”
Taylor was turning around and looking in every direction. Huge dust clouds were being thrown up into the atmosphere, and the light of the sun was already being dimmed.
“Get out now…predict…all…on Earth will die.”
Rogers went white in terror. He knew exactly what was happening, but never imagined for a moment that it would ever become a reality.
“Get offworld…leave…now!”
The signal cut out, and panic was already setting in with all those around them.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“The end, Colonel,” replied Rogers in a stunned tone.
“What do you mean the end?”
Jones grabbed Rogers and shook him when he did not get a response.
“What do you mean the end?” he demanded once more.
“The end of life as we know it.”
“How?”
“Thousands of large-scale dirty bombs, far beyond the yield of any nuclear weapon man has ever known, all ignited as one.”
“But they can’t cover the whole planet?”
“They don’t have to,” said Taylor.
He knew the theory. He remembered it well. Back from an age when it seemed not so long ago that such a possibility could result from human wars alone, let alone foreign invaders.
Rogers’ Mappad was flashing constantly, and he was passing through messages and speed-reading. He was shaking his head and almost choking as he read. It was bad.
“What do we do?”
“There is…nothing we can do,” said Rogers morbidly.
“What do you mean nothing?”
He looked to Taylor for answers, but he looked no more hopeful than Rogers did.
“I am serious, what the hell does he mean, nothing?”
“He means that it’s over. We run…or…”
“We die,” said Turan, finishing his sentence for him.
“That can’t be right, can it?” Jones went back to Rogers for answers, “Don’t tell me that’s the story. It can’t be. It just can’t. That’s insane. I don’t believe it.”
“I am sorry,” he replied as if he had nothing more to add.
“Who the hell would try and destroy a planet? How is it even possible?”
“It is not the first time someone has tried it.”
“No, but it never actually happened, did it?”
“It came pretty close,” replied Taylor as he looked back to the mushroom clouds. There were ten of them now. It was as if their location was amongst a safe haven as the world fell apart around them, but he knew that wouldn’t last.
“So what do we do, how do we fix this?”
“We don’t, Jones. Maybe there would be a way years down the line. But if we stay here, we die.”
“Why? What would happen to us?”
“Assuming a blast doesn’t strike us directly, or the radiation poison hits us. The Earth is going to be engulfed with an ash cloud that will kill most if not all life on the planet.”
“All of it?” he asked in amazement.
“All,” replied Taylor.
“Look, I wish I had answers beyond that, and I know how crazy this sounds. It is something we knew was always a possibility, we just never believed anyone would actually do it, and if they did, we imagined there would be some warning. Missile defence systems can protect against much of this, but these are no missiles, these were already on the ground.”
“All that we did, and it comes to this,” said Taylor.
He felt lost. It was a punch in the gut that he had never seen coming. No warning, no time to respond or take countermeasures. There was no saving the day now. He looked at the mushroom clouds and began to shudder in fear and despair. The clouds themselves were like nothing he had seen before. They glowed a vibrant green. Whatever it was, it would not be good.
“What do we do?”
“We have to get out of here now, Jones. A full evacuation has been ordered. Anyone who can get off world is to do so immediately. I am already seeing reports of what is happening to those caught up in the effects of those weapons, and it isn’t pleasant.”
“Define not pleasant!” Sommer said.
“As in, a quick, but painful death,” said Rogers.
“You are saying the world is becoming a death trap?” Jones asked.
“That is precisely what I am saying.”
“Well, there must be something can we do?”
“We can get the hell out of here. It is every man and woman for themselves. We get out of here, or we die with the rest.”
Their team was already assembling all around them in readiness to go or fight, wherever was necessary.
“Where do we go? The Resolution is still in orbit on the far side of the planet,” said Sommer.
“We need another way out,” said Taylor.
“Like what? You see anything around here that can fly?”
“No, Jones, but anything that moves is better than nothing. Follow me!” Taylor yelled.
He rushed on without another word, and they were forced to follow him, having no idea of where they were going or how they were going to get out alive. But they did it anyway, because they trusted in him, and they had no other choice. The troops around them were panicking. Some were rushing to vehicles nearby, even shuttles and small aircraft, but most were already lifting off the ground.
Taylor wasn’t heading for those. He was going to the same knife-edge peak where Bolormaa had reached out to him. He clambered up the rough scramble of a climb, but didn’t even slow as he reached the top, much to the amazement of those following. He knew what was the other side, and he wasn’t willing to slow down as a result. It looked as if he had taken a leap off a cliff, but both Jones and Rogers had enough faith in him to follow suit without question.
They tumbled over the peak and rolled as they followed after
Taylor, and finally hit the ground running, soon realising where they were. Racing through the lines of wrecked donor vehicles and towards the hangar where those able to be salvaged were being worked on. The crews whose job it was were already gone, and it looked as though they had taken many of the vehicles with them.
There were two trucks side by side at the entrance of the hangar. Taylor leapt up onto the first and found its power source was missing from under the hood. He leapt over to the other. It looked relatively intact. He climbed into the driving seat, hit the accelerator, and pulled it out into the open ground.
“We can’t all fit in one!” Rogers climbed up onto the running boards on the passenger side, but Taylor already had a plan and was out of the driver’s door. He grabbed a fixed bar from the side of the truck and connected it to a mounting point on the towing eye of the truck. The rest of the two platoons they had with them got to his position.
“Come on!”
That was all he needed to say. They knew precisely what he was trying to do. Sommer climbed into the cab of the other truck and lifted off the e-brake. The others surrounded the truck and began to push. The combined weight of their efforts moved the twin axle transport vehicle in no time at all, and Taylor coupled it up to the lead vehicle.
“Load up, people. Let’s get the fuck out of here!” he roared.
He climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, and realised how long it had been since he had driven anything with wheels. It looked a hundred years old but was still going strong. Jones banged on the panel beside the cockpit.
“All in, lets go, go, go!”
Taylor didn’t need any more encouragement. He put his foot down, and the electric motors on all four wheels gripped hard. The truck jolted forward, rocking those in the back. They were soon up to fifty kilometres an hour and still accelerating. It was a bumpy dirt road, but he wasn’t willing to slow down.
“Where are you going? It’s not like you can drive your way out of this,” said Rogers who had taken position in the passenger seat.
“The Attila, she’s being repaired just few klicks away.”
“Not in any info I have seen,” said Rogers.
“Not on any lists at all.”
“Then how the hell do you know?”
“Because I know a guy, and he just so happens to be willing to give us a lift. He told me himself.”
“What’s he doing out in the middle of nowhere?”
“Probably staying away from all this stupid shit, if he has any sense.”
They soared on through the hot desert like conditions. They were travelling way faster than was safe, especially towing the other vehicle, but Taylor didn’t even contemplate lifting off the gas. The whole thing was a surreal experience for all of them. Neither of them were armed or armoured. All the while they could see the ominous clouds surging through the skies towards them from every direction, as if homing in on them.
“We don’t have long now,” said Rogers.
Taylor nodded in agreement. He was feeling giddy and nauseous. He couldn’t tell if it were the hangover, the stress, or the environmental effects of what was going on. Jones leaned in through the window. He was still standing on the running boards where he had leapt on back at the depot.
“This is really it, isn’t it? The end of the world as we know it.”
Taylor didn’t want to admit it; it made him sick to the stomach even thinking about it.
“It’ll be the end of us, too, if we can’t make it out of here stat,” added Rogers.
“How long do we have?”
Rogers was studying the skies as if trying to predict it, knowing he had little else information to work on. They looked at the road ahead. There was nothing but hundreds of kilometres of straight road.
“You sure you know what you are doing, Colonel?”
“Not really, Jones, but it’s not like anyone else had any great ideas, did they?”
“Over a billion people, how many do you think will make it out alive?”
It was a tough question that nobody wanted to answer, or really had the answer to.
“Captain?’ Jones asked again to labour the point.
“With how fast this has gone down, I’d be surprised if more than ten million make it out.”
Nobody responded. The horror of it all didn’t bear thinking about. Instead, they turned to their own personal scenario and a way to get out of it.
“It’s getting awfully tight.” Jones was watching the green clouds close in on them.
Taylor suddenly yanked the wheel aside with no warning, and Jones held on for dear life as everyone in the back was thrown to one side. They passed in between two large rock formations that were spread almost half a klick apart, and there, directly ahead of them was the Attila. As if a beacon of light in the worst storm they had ever known. It was well hidden amongst the tall rock formations. The ramp was lowered, and several crew awaited them while others were making final checks of the craft. The trucks stormed towards them, and the sunlight was fading quickly now as the dust clouds filled the skies.
They got within fifty metres when Taylor slammed on the brakes. They didn’t stop half as fast as he had expected, as the wheels slid on the soft ground and the weight of the vehicle behind pushed them on. Finally, they rocked to a halt a few metres short of the ramp. The crewmembers leapt aside in fear for their lives. All but Captain Roworth. He was standing on the ramp as if he had been expecting them.
“I didn’t think you were going to make it. You cut it awfully fine, Colonel!’ he yelled.
Taylor leapt from the vehicle. He was first to approach the Captain and shook his hand.
“I didn’t know that you’d wait.”
“There are not many ways out of this area with a ship capable of breaking orbit, and having a jump drive. So how bad is it? We lost all transmission signal about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Bad, worse than bad,” he said.
Roworth could see from the look in his eyes what he meant.
“Captain, we’ve got about three minutes to get the hell out of here before we are stuck here for good,” said Rogers.
“Don’t you worry; once this ramp is shut, the Attila is completely environmentally sealed.
“I’m not worried about that. That residue, the fog, we have no idea what it contains, and before I lost signal, I saw a few reports of ships rapidly losing engine power and altitude trying to push through.”
“Then let’s get inside and go, now!” Roworth ordered.
They didn’t need any more encouragement. For a moment they could forget they were even on Earth. For many of them it had been a long time, and with the fading light and green clouds drawing in, it didn’t resemble what they knew to be the human homeworld. Roworth himself waited at the doorway for them all to climb aboard, and so did Taylor so that he could get one last look at his beloved world before it was finally lost to him.
Roworth was clearly searching for some words of comfort, but there were none that would suffice.
“After all that we have done, it was for nothing,” said Jones.
“It was not for nothing,” insisted Rogers.
Taylor didn’t respond, but it was clear he felt the same way as Jones.
“Follow me, Gentlemen,” said Roworth.
They were led to the bridge. The Captain laid down his orders on the internal comms network as he approached. Finally, they reached it and stepped aboard. They could see nothing but the green clouds before them, as if it were too late.
“Get us in the air, now!”
The Captain didn’t need to say another word as the pilot put all power down. They lifted off, surging forward at a rapid speed at just a few metres from the ground. Most of them didn’t understand what he was doing, but had no option but to rely on him now. They were picking up pace quickly as they accelerated in a flat line, and it rapidly became clear why he was doing it. Suddenly, he pulled back on one stick, and the nose of the ship rose. They soared towards the atmos
phere, and the hole that was rapidly closing between the gas and dust that was forming.
“Everything you’ve got, use it!” Roworth ordered.
That would certainly cost them down the line, but none of it would matter if they couldn’t make it out alive. The pilot pressed several keys, and the ship lurched as it rocketed forward at an even faster pace. The gap they were aiming for was half a klick wide now and closing even faster.
“Come on, come one,” muttered Taylor.
The gap seemed to be closing even quicker now, but they rocketed through at the final moment and were through the atmosphere in no time at all. Many of them breathed a sigh of relief, but as they looked back at the rear view screens, they fully understood how bad the situation was. The Earth had been consumed. No longer did it appear the water and earth covered beauty, but a green gas giant.
“My god,” said Jones.
“God played no part here,” said Rogers.
But a klaxon began to sound, and that was never a good sound. They looked back to their fore. They were now heading right for the Leviathan. Dozens of other human ships were all around them, and all moving towards the enemy fleet as though passing into the mouth of the beast.
“Get us out of here! Jump now!”
“Colonel, we can’t. Jump navigation is being jammed.”
“Then jump blind. Do it now!”
He knew his luck would only hold for so long with such a risky action, but he was willing to take it, as opposed to facing the alternative.
“I am sorry, Sir, but I can’t.”
“What do you mean, can’t? I’ve done it before, and we can do it again.”
But Roworth was shaking his head.
“No, Colonel, it is not a choice we can make. I don’t know how they are doing it, but we can’t open a jump gate. Not to set coordinates, not to anywhere!”
Taylor felt his heart sink as he collapsed back against one of the consoles and slumped down.
“What do we do, what the hell do we do?” Jones asked.
Taylor’s head and eyes were down. He didn’t want to have to look at any of them and tell them. He didn’t know how he could tell them.
“Colonel, what are your orders?” Roworth asked.
Taylor knew he couldn’t burrow his head in the sand any longer. He looked up. Every man and woman on the bridge was looking to him for answers. He was still in shock and despairing over all that had happened. The sheer scale of the loss of life had barely even sunken in yet. But beyond this sadness, one more emotion was beginning to pour through his body, a bitter will to survive.
Battle Beyond Earth - Box Set (Books 6-9) Page 64