Escape to Earth 1: Running From Fate

by Saxon Andrew

  “You don’t think that they…”

  “I really hope they haven’t but they uncovered the fundamental relationship between the void and gravity a year ago and they received enough funding with the prize to research further.”

  The group on the beach gathered around Lukas and listened to what he was saying. “Please don’t let it be…”

  The two Swiss Scientists appeared on the screen and Joseph said, “We have sent a satellite into space with this launch to conduct an experiment. We are currently orienting so that it is aimed above the plane of the solar system.”

  Lukas started shaking his head as Franz said, “We are going to activate a circuit in a moment and we believe that our satellite will disappear from its orbit and reappear outside our solar system in less than two seconds.”

  Lukas said, “Contact Stoney and tell him to get the Gold Stars on the simulators, NOW!” He turned to Jinks, “Send the alert to the first Gold Stars and have them power up their ships immediately. Get one of them over to Kathy’s home and pick her up. If they have to force her to come, do it!”

  Salud looked at Lukas and shook her head. She heard another countdown in the back ground and looked up at the visual of the Swiss Satellite where it was hanging in space. She looked at Lukas, “Can’t we shoot it down?”

  “If we do, the probe will see it and it will precipitate the invasion. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.” Everyone looked at the TV as the countdown hit zero and the small satellite disappeared. Lukas said, “It’s happened too fast. A city, maybe more, is about to die.”

  Jinks looked at the TV and shook his head, “The freaking Swiss! Who would have ever believed they would come up with it first?” He activated his wrist unit and said, “All Gold Star Pilots will report to the island immediately for arming. Do not delay but do not reveal yourselves. Island shutdown will be in place in ten minutes.” He turned the dial on his unit and said, “Julie, I need you to find Kathy and bring her here! Stun her if necessary but get her and her baby to the island pronto.”

  “Will do.”

  • • •

  Julie arrived at Kathy’s apartment and found she wasn’t home. She said, “Can you get a fix on her cell signal?”

  “Stand by a moment.” Julie waited and forced herself to be calm. The meditation classes helped her focus on her body and not allow her adrenaline to take control. “I have it. She’s in a park two miles from here.”

  “Get us there. Go vertical if necessary.”

  The sleek SUV roared down the hill and jumped an intersection as it continued at high speed toward the park. Several police units gave chase but were stopped by traffic when the SUV jumped over lanes of traffic. “She’s over near the pond.”

  “Why didn’t you just go vertical the whole way?”

  “The Fellowship Probe would have detected the gravity unit. Jumping over large numbers of cars masked the unit’s emissions.”

  “That was good judgment. Julie saw the young woman ahead sitting in the grass with her young baby. The SUV slid up to her and Julie jumped out of the driver’s door. “Kathy!”

  Kathy saw the SUV slide to a stop six feet from her and she grabbed her baby and pulled him into her arms. She saw Julie jump out and say, “Kathy!” She nodded and the woman said, “Lukas has asked me to come and pick you and your baby up.” Kathy’s face showed her shock and Julie said, “He told me to bring you by force if necessary but I don’t want to do that. He also told me to deliver a message.”

  “What is that?” Kathy said in a trembling voice.

  “He said that he saved you from your attackers and he needs you to come with me to save you from some new ones.”

  Kathy stared at Julie clutching her baby who was starting to cry as he felt his mother’s fear. “My car is across the park.”

  “Trust me on this, Kathy; you won’t be needing that car.” Kathy stood up, ran around the car, and jumped in the passenger’s seat, “Where’s the seatbelt?”

  “There isn’t one. Where is the baby’s father? I should pick him up as well.”

  “There is no father.” Julie stared at Kathy and she looked out the windshield, “He left me six months after Christopher was born. He just couldn’t accept he wasn’t…”

  “Hold on, we’re making a run for the harbor.”

  Kathy felt the seat wrap around her and mold to her shape. Suddenly, the dashboard began changing shape and she saw a large display appear in the center. She saw numerous red dots moving on it, “What are those?”

  “That’s the local gendarmes trying to give me about a hundred driving citations.” Julie looked at Kathy, “They aren’t for excellence in driving.”

  Kathy watched Julie jump four lanes of traffic and turn a corner at an impossible speed, “You should be recognized for still being in one piece.” Julie made a sharp turn and Kathy saw a boat ramp directly ahead of them. “Uhhh, you need to slow down!”

  “Kathy, if you haven’t figured out by now that this isn’t a normal automobile, you’re going to know for sure in two seconds.” The SUV went into the boat ramp at more than a hundred miles an hour and jumped over two boats being pulled up on their trailers. It hit the water with a huge splash and disappeared.

  Kathy watched as the SUV changed shape. The windshield lost its upright position and curved around the front of the new shape. The speed it began moving through the water was impossible. She looked at the display and saw more than a hundred green lines moving in the same direction. She looked at Julie, “Are they like you?”

  “They are.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’re going to where Lukas is waiting to give us our orders.” Julie looked at Kathy, “Earth is about to be invaded by a species from another place in our galaxy. They’ll be launching nuclear missiles shortly and Lukas didn’t want to see you die if Boston were to be hit.”

  “Why would they hit Boston?”

  “That’s where he originally hid.”

  “He’s not from here, is he?” Julie stared at her control panel and shook her head. Kathy looked straight ahead and sighed, “I’ve always known he was something different.”

  Julie said, “Go to maximum speed!” The teardrop shaped craft accelerated at a blinding speed and Julie said, “Lukas is something else.” Kathy saw the numbers of green lines on the center display was growing by the second. She held Chris and felt his heartbeat; it was slow and steady. She leaned back and saw him smiling. She knew that her son had somehow figured out he was going home.

  • • •

  Every Fellowship Starship heard the distinctive alarm go off announcing the use of a stardrive inside the primitive planet’s star system. They all activated their skip drives and armed their weapons. The Sensor Commander on the Welken Flagship yelled, “The Johan have launched a huge missile that went into the void immediately!”

  “Get us moving! Go to full speed!” The vast gathering of warships entered the void but saw the single bright dot moving far ahead of them. The unmanned missile could fly at four times the speed of a manned warship through the void without being concerned at killing the crew with particle destruction. The Johan missile increased its lead and every Fellowship Warship chasing it knew that it would arrive at the planet first. The Myot and Welken Fleet Leaders were furious that they hadn’t thought of using an unmanned missile to land the first hit. The huge gathering of warships broke into normal space and saw that it was too late. A city on the planet’s surface was glowing brightly from the nuclear explosion that vaporized it. They all heard the Sentinel announce, “The Johan have fulfilled the covenant and are now the rightful possessors of this planet. All other Fellowship civilizations will leave and not enter this system for three years.”

  The Myot and Welken Fleet Leaders contacted their leaders as they turned and moved away from the planet. This was not something they were going to allow to happen. The Welken Royal looked at the Myot Ruler and said, “The Johan r
eally pulled one over on us.”

  “Yes, but what are we going to do about it? We can’t allow the Johan access to the petroleum on that planet.”

  “We can still take possession.”

  “But no one knows where the Johan home world is located.”

  “They are going to have to send ships here to transport the oil. We’ll follow the skip trace and attack their planet. We’ll then possess everything they currently own which will include that planet. If they don’t send ships, we’ll follow the ones at the planet until we find them.”

  “They could start making alliances with other civilizations.”

  “Let them. We can take them all on and still win. Are you in this with me?”

  “You know I am.”

  “This is a long way from being over. We can’t enter the planetary system but we can implement a blockade and keep them from using that planet’s resources.”

  The hundreds of thousands of Fellowship Warship entered the void and saw the skip traces of the Johan fleet moving in toward the planet. Many of the civilizations leaving were saying that at least the Myot or Welken didn’t take possession. They were right about that…for the moment.

  • • •

  Julie heard, “Message coming in from Central Command.”

  “Put it on the screen.”

  Julie saw Lukas appear and heard him say, “Julie, take Kathy and her baby to the Learning Center and tell Stoney that I want her put on a simulator immediately.”

  “She’s had no training, Sir.”

  “I don’t care if she hasn’t. I want her to be able to fly a ship if escape is called for. Now do it.”

  Julie tilted her head and pressed a button on her panel, “Julie, I’m busy at the moment.”

  “Lukas has ordered me to bring Kathy to you and for you to put her on a simulator.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “As a heart attack.”

  Stoney lowered his head and said, “It makes sense. We’re going to need him later. Bring them directly to me. Contact me when you arrive.”

  Julie looked at Kathy, “Why is your baby so important?”

  Kathy took a deep breath and blew it out, “Lukas is the baby’s father.”

  Julie stared at her for a long moment and smiled, “Now it all makes sense. Hold on, I’m going to full speed.”

  “I thought you were going full speed.”

  “I didn’t want to cause enough turbulence to harm the coral. Coral won’t matter if we don’t stop this invasion. I’m going to drop you off and leave you with Stoney. He’s a good man and he’ll take care of you.” Kathy nodded as the ship’s forward speed pushed her back into her chair. She felt her fear start to rise but her baby’s smile calmed her down.

  • • •

  Lukas yelled over his wrist unit, “Get the local into the main building and have them start gathering the disruptor modules for insertion into the pods.”

  The local workers were summoned to the main building and the huge monitor on the wall was playing the local news program. They saw a massive fire burning and under the picture they saw, Tehran Destroyed by Nuclear Blast from Space. The satellite view from space showed the once giant city was burning. Everything within fifty miles of the center of Tehran had been knocked flat and set on fire by the nuclear shockwave that blew out when the Johan missile hit. They listened and heard that hundreds of thousands of space ships had appeared between Earth and the moon but had disappeared soon afterwards.

  The workers started yelling as the first wave of Gold Star Pods arrived and moved into the huge building. Jinks blew a blast horn and everyone grew instantly silent. “I need all of you to take the modules and start inserting them into the front row of ships.”

  The workers started demanding to know what was going on. Jinks blew the horn again and yelled, “Our planet is being attacked by a civilization from outer space. These ships in front of you are the only thing we have to stop them.”

  The oldest worker yelled, “You’ve lied to us about what we’ve been building.”

  Jinks looked at George and nodded, “Yes, we have.”

  “Then tell me why we should help you at all, Señor?”

  Julio jumped up on a table and yelled, “Are you blind, George?” George looked at Julio with a sneer and Julio pointed at the screen, “That city tells me that whoever is coming doesn’t care about whether we live or die!” Julio looked at Jinks, “What are you going to do with these things we’ve helped build?”

  The silence was thick enough to hear Jinks breaths. “These ships are the only thing we have to prevent your families and loved ones from facing what happened to that city. More are going to die if we don’t get these pods ready to meet this invader.”

  Julio looked at the workers and yelled, “I’VE SEEN THE HEARTS TO THOSE THAT GAVE US WORK!” Julio paused, “If you haven’t, it’s because you didn’t look.”

  George looked at Julio and said, “Do you believe in them, Julio?”

  Julio looked at Jinks, “I believe in him. That’s all I need.”

  George stared at Julio and shook his head, “Grab the modules and start getting them aligned!” The workers looked at each other and saw George and Julio run over to the stacked modules and run back to the line of forty ships in the front row of pods that were arriving by the hundreds. The workers broke away from the huge monitor and ran to the disruptor modules. Jinks looked at Julio and smiled. The scooter was worth every cent he had spent on it. The workers worked fast but did not rush the alignment process. No ship was cleared unless the ship’s computer verified the alignment was accurate.

  • • •

  Lukas said, “What’s going on, Willow?”

  “It appears the Johan have won the right to take possession of Earth. Twenty of their Dreadnaught Class Battleships have emerged into normal space outside Earth’s gravity well and are moving on the planet. They’re launching attack craft as we speak and they are headed toward their initial targets.”

  Lukas said, “Damn, we’re not in time to stop them.”

  Salud, Trevor, Amanda, and Jinks gathered around Lukas as he stared at the images Willow was providing on another monitor with his passive scans of the satellites orbiting above Earth. They saw thousands of small ships leaving the twenty giant warships. Lukas shook his head and Salud said, “What did you mean we weren’t in time?”

  Lukas pointed at the small craft moving at high speed toward Earth, “The Johan are following standard procedure. The probe out here by the fellowship has been collecting targeting data since it arrived. No one would be given that data except for the civilization that takes possession. Those small ships have been given targets on Earth’s surface and they’re on their way to the ones they’ve each been assigned. If we had been ready, we could have gone after the battleships before they launched their attack ships and prevented what’s about to happen.”

  Trevor stared at the images, “Can’t we go after those small ships with the ones we have ready?”

  Lukas looked at Trevor, “Each of those twenty battleships launched a little over a thousand ships each. We only have twelve hundred pilots that have been simulator trained to fly a pod. They’ll be outnumbered twenty to one. Not only that, but if those ships are attacked by local ships, they are ordered to start bombarding every major city until we call off our defense. There is no possible way for us to take out that many attack ships.”

  Salud sighed, “What do you think they’re going after?”

  “The first wave will go after every military installation on the planet. The second will have the location of every center of government on the planet.”

  Jinks looked at Lukas, “What do you mean every center of government?”

  “Those attack craft are going to hit every national, state, and local building where elected or chosen representatives meet. It is likely that most of those buildings are currently occupied by the leaders of the people tryin
g to come up with an emergency plan to save lives. The disruptors used by those attack craft will vaporize those buildings and everyone in them.”

  Jinks looked back at the monitor and shook his head, “That’s pretty cold blooded.”

  Lukas nodded, “The process has been developed over centuries of invading helpless planets. Remove the leadership and most of the resistance dies with them.”

  Salud looked at Lukas, “There’s something you’re not saying.”

  Lukas took a breath and said, “They’re also going after the centers of religion. The Vatican, Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and any other holy site will be hit.” Lukas looked at the group, “Once those targets have been removed, they will wait for a response from the planet’s defenses. If the ships in orbit are attacked, they will recall the attack craft and move around the planet nuking cities at random telling all the people on the surface that they’re doing it in retaliation for being attacked.”

  “Why would they recall the small ships?”

  Lukas looked at Amanda, “They wouldn’t want to accidently damage any of them with a nuclear blast.” Lukas looked back at the monitor, “That is when we’ll take them.”

  Jinks looked at the giant ship on the main monitor with its force field glowing bright white, “Do you honestly think we can?”

  Lukas pointed at the first row of ships that were having their disruptors quickly armed, “Trevor, if we can’t, then there’s no choice but to take these ships and escape to a habitable planet and try to rebuild another society that can take them on one day in the future.”

  Salud crossed her arms, “Do you think we might be a target?”

  “I set our project up here because there is not a large population center. These are cars that aren’t anywhere they can be used against the Johan. I suspect we’ll be ignored by the first wave of attackers. However, if any of them come this way, Willow will activate the main force field.”

  “Won’t that bring rain?”

  Lukas smiled sardonically, “Indeed it will.” Lukas looked up at the monitor showing the twenty battleships, “Willow, are our military friends planning a welcoming party for our guests?”