The Originator Wars: Universe in Danger: A Lost Fleet Novel

by Raymond L. Weil

  Anderson handed his weapon to one of the other soldiers in exchange for a shotgun. He then stepped over to the downed Trellixians and fired a single slug into their visors. “Damn lizards!” he shouted, as he turned toward Mark.

  “We thought you three were dead,” Mark said, stepping out from behind the boulder he’d been firing from, immensely pleased to see the sergeant. “You didn’t show up at the rendezvous coordinates.”

  “We got cut off by some Trellixian ground troops and had to take the long way around,” Anderson replied. He was a twenty-year veteran and knew how to stay alive. He looked over where Corporal Sampson’s body lay, shaking his head. “The corporal was a good soldier. I hate that we lost him.”

  “We better get out of here,” Lisa said as she walked up to gaze at the dead enemy. She took a few photographs and then turned toward Mark. “The aircraft that dropped this squad could return at any moment.”

  “She’s right,” Mark said to the others. “Private Donly, disarm those other two Claymores. We may need them later.”

  “It’s been a tough day,” said Sergeant Anderson as one of the privates who had come with him covered Corporal Sampson’s body. “A lot of good men and women died today.”

  “We need to get the information we gathered back to the alternate command post,” Mark said.

  “I don’t see what good it’ll do,” Anderson replied with a grimace. “We don’t have anything left to fight with now that the base has been destroyed.”

  Mark nodded. Sergeant Anderson was right. There were probably a few scattered military units still fighting across the world, plus millions of unarmed civilians who had taken to the countryside and the mountains after the first attacks. The Trellixians would be hunting them down and eliminating the humans wherever they were found. Any type of organized resistance was just about over. The enemy had won, and Earth was theirs.

  -

  It took another two days for them to reach their destination. They’d been careful to stay off the main trails and roads and had even taken the precaution of immersing themselves in streams when they heard the approach of alien aircraft, to prevent detection from thermal scans. The sun had already set, and they were using their night-vision optics to travel when Mark called a halt.

  “We’re nearly there,” Mark said, as he paused to allow them to catch their breaths. The others had never been to this location before, as his immediate commanding officer had brought only him to this secretive site. He suspected there might be a small research facility hidden deep beneath the mountains somewhere.

  “Any idea what might be waiting for us?” asked Sergeant Anderson.

  “No,” Mark replied. “I’ve only been here once before, and that was with Colonel Branson.”

  “What about you, Captain?” asked Anderson, looking over at the military analyst.

  “I’m not certain,” Lisa replied with a frown. “I’ve heard rumors, but they sounded so fantastic I didn’t believe them.”

  “What type of rumors?”

  “I don’t really want to say,” Lisa replied, looking over at the sergeant. “We’ll know what’s going on when we get there.”

  “Captain Reynolds is right,” Mark said. He was beginning to think Captain Reynolds was more than just a military analyst. He wondered just how much she wasn’t telling them.

  After a brief rest they resumed walking again, only this time they were ascending the steep slope of a low mountain. For several hours they struggled upward, avoiding loose boulders and areas where rockslides had occurred in the past. Reaching a huge rock that stood at the base of a high cliff, Mark stepped around it and squirmed into a small cave. The others followed closely behind.

  “We need to stack those rocks up to conceal the entrance,” he told the others, pointing to a loose pile of nearby stones.

  “Let’s get to it,” ordered Sergeant Anderson, as he bent down and picked up a large one, carrying it to the small entrance. The others quickly followed suit, and it wasn’t long until the passageway was blocked. To anyone passing by, it wouldn’t be obvious the stones were concealing the entrance to the small cave.

  Stepping back, Mark pointed a light at their handiwork, satisfied that no one would find this place. Indicating for the others to follow him, he proceeded down the narrow cave for a number of meters, shining his flashlight before him, until the tunnel opened up into a small cavern roughly twenty meters across and six or seven high. Walking over to one wall, he searched carefully for a hidden recess in the stone and then, inserting his hand, he pressed a tiny concealed button. Instantly a section of the wall slid open, revealing a tunnel with a small, monorail-like car.

  “What the hell?” muttered Sergeant Anderson.

  “We’re supposed to take this vehicle to our destination,” Mark explained. He had no idea where it would bring them, but Colonel Branson had told Mark that it would take them to a place of safety. More than that the colonel had refused to say, only telling Mark the eventual destination was classified.

  As they stepped into the waiting vehicle, the wall behind them slid shut, hiding the small cavern from view. Mark activated the controls as the colonel had shown him and then leaned back in one of the comfortable padded seats. Almost instantly the car moved and rapidly accelerated.

  “Someone spent a lot of time and money to build this,” commented Sergeant Anderson, as he watched the walls of the tunnel flash by.

  “I wonder what’s waiting for us when this car stops?” said Private Donly.

  “We’ll know when we get there,” replied Captain Reynolds, leaning back in her seat with her assault rifle across her lap.

  For nearly twenty minutes, the air-conditioned car slid forward and down, going deep beneath Earth’s surface. Mark had no idea where the car was taking them. His orders had been to observe the battle with his squad and to make sure Captain Reynolds survived. He was then to return to this car and activate it. He’d originally thought the car might be connected to the large base he had seen so recently destroyed, but now he was convinced it led elsewhere.

  “This wasn’t easy to build,” commented Private Donly. “This has to lead to something more than just a small research facility.”

  Sergeant Anderson looked over at Captain Reynolds. She had said very little since they’d entered the vehicle. “Still no idea what’s going on, Captain?”

  “Possibly,” she admitted, glancing over at the sergeant. “If my suspicions are correct, we’re all due for a major surprise shortly.”

  “You’re not just a military analyst, are you?” asked Mark as he looked over at the captain.

  “No,” she admitted, looking briefly down at the floor and then back up at Mark. “It was important that I see one of the Trellixian battlecruisers up close and take readings with some special equipment I brought along. If we hope to survive, what we learned from observing that battle might be crucial.”

  Mark nodded. He was right about something more going on. Now he just wanted to find out what it was.

  At last the car slowed. Mark sat up straighter, curious to see their destination. The car came to a stop in front of a small platform, and a section of rock wall slid open. With surprise, Mark saw his immediate superior, Colonel Branson, standing there with several other men, as well as a squad of heavily armed marines.

  Mark climbed from the car, followed by the others—all with confusion on their faces except for Captain Reynolds. They stopped and gave a quick salute in front of the colonel. Maybe now they would hear some explanations.

  “At ease, Major Dolan,” Colonel Branson commanded. “Welcome to your new home!”

  “Lisa, we’re glad you made it,” said one of the other men with the colonel. “We were very worried about your safety.”

  “I was in good hands, Professor Wilkins,” Lisa responded, surprised to see her old friend and mentor. “Major Dolan carried out his assignment very professionally.”

  Mark turned to gaze at Captain Reynolds questioningly.

  �
��I guess I owe you an explanation,” Lisa said, her eyes focusing on Mark. “I’m not only a captain in the reserves. I’m actually a nuclear physicist with a number of advanced degrees in space sciences. Professor Wilkins and I have worked together on many projects over the years, though I’m not quite certain what’s going on now. I haven’t seen him in months.”

  “I think you’ll find this very interesting,” Professor Wilkins said with a mysterious smile. “Why don’t you come with me while the colonel debriefs the others? We have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  -

  Hours later Captain Dolan sat in front of Colonel Branson, preparing to undergo his debriefing. The others were being questioned by another officer. Mark had been shown to a small set of comfortable quarters and allowed to clean up and rest before eating a decent meal and being brought in front of the colonel.

  “I suppose you have a lot of questions,” began Branson, giving Mark a measuring look.

  “Some,” answered Mark, shifting his weight in the well-padded chair he was seated in. “Where am I, and what exactly is going on? Why was it so important to observe that battle? It was gruesome, and we lost a lot of good people at that base. Our forces never stood a chance once that battlecruiser showed up.”

  Branson nodded and looked over at Mark from across his desk. “Those are the very questions I would start with, if I were in your place. First off, you’re in a highly secret complex deep beneath the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Special shielding and the tremendous depth of this installation should protect us from Trellixian detection. One very large civilian complex and two smaller military complexes are all connected by deep underground tunnels.”

  “How did this get built?” Mark interrupted. He’d thought, after everything he had witnessed above over the last three months, that the human race was all but finished. The big military complex he’d watched being destroyed only a couple days earlier was the last one he knew of that contained any type of advanced military technology.

  Colonel Branson took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “Back in early July 1947, a UFO crashed on a ranch northwest of Roswell, New Mexico.”

  “Roswell!” Mark said, feeling even more confused. “I thought that was just a weather balloon.”

  “That’s what everyone was told,” Branson responded. “In reality it was a small interstellar spacecraft from a star system the Trellixians had only recently attacked. The ship was never designed for trips of more than a few light-years, and its systems were taxed to the limit just to make it to Earth. Their life support was failing, and the ship was experiencing numerous mechanical problems when it tried to land. Unfortunately for the crew, it crashed, killing all but two.”

  “Two survived?” Mark could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

  “Yes, two did. One died within a week of the crash, and the other lived at Area 51 for twenty-two years.”

  “We had a real live alien for all that time, and no one knew about it?” Mark remained dumbfounded.

  “We kept it a secret, after we learned what happened to their home world. Can you imagine the panic such a revelation would have caused?”

  “What did we do?”

  “We started to prepare,” Colonel Branson replied. “We formed a secret military alliance with a number of key countries across the globe, to do everything we could to prepare Earth for the coming of the Trellixians. Unfortunately our science was so far behind that we couldn’t do much initially. With the help of the alien survivor, we were able to reverse engineer some of their systems, particularly their computers.”

  “That explains the rapid advancement of our computer technology in the late twentieth century,” Mark said in sudden realization.

  “Yes, that and several other areas as well,” Branson added.

  Getting up, Colonel Branson walked across the small office, putting his hands behind his back before turning around to face Mark once again. “We knew we didn’t have time to adequately prepare Earth to mount an effective defense to hold back the coming Trellixian invasion. The science and technology just weren’t there. We did manage to improve some weapon systems and build the big base up above that the Trellixians smashed so thoroughly, but we didn’t put all our eggs in just one basket.”

  Mark leaned forward, his curiosity piqued.

  “The civilian complex here is truly amazing. It’s a cylinder nearly fourteen kilometers long and three wide with a ceiling nearly a kilometer above. It’s located beneath a chain of rugged mountains and lies nearly seven kilometers beneath the ground. It was built with technology we gleaned from the crashed Roswell ship. We used massive heat beams to vaporize the rocks and create the chambers we needed to build our facilities in. Also a series of labs, living quarters, and recreation areas were set in the walls of the complex, providing us the maximum amount of living space. The huge open spaces of the complex were determined to be needed, in case we had to spend much time underground. Some of the world’s best scientists and technicians have been gathered into this complex, as has a select group of other civilians. We have nearly two hundred and eighty thousand nonmilitary personnel in the civilian complex.”

  Mark leaned back in his chair, surprised and amazed at what Colonel Branson was describing. The work done was breathtaking and that so many people had been safeguarded here was unbelievable. He could hardly wait to see this habitat, this underground world. For the first time in a number of days, he began to feel hope.

  “There are also two smaller military complexes. We plan to continue harassing operations against the Trellixians from the two bases. We’ve built a number of deep underground subway tunnels, shielded from Trellixian detection, to allow us to move about large parts of the country virtually undetected. We’ll be supplying new weapons we’ve developed to surviving civilian populations on the surface. When the Trellixians attacked, we were nearly ready to put a new rifle into production—the scientists call it a pulse rifle. It fires a thin stream of energy which will cut through a solid sheet of steel like it’s butter. We have an assembly line set up in the civilian complex, and the first one thousand pulse rifles should be ready within four weeks.”

  “Sounds like something our troops could have used,” Mark replied bitterly, remembering how they had been unable to penetrate the suits of armor the Trellixian ground troops wore with their conventional weapons.

  “If we’d been given more time…” replied Branson, nodding his head in agreement. “The two military complexes are located short distances from the civilian complex. Each contains six thousand highly trained troops plus support personnel. The troops will be used for quick surgical strikes against the Trellixians, once our forces are equipped and trained with the new weapons.”

  “What are our chances against the Trellixians?” Mark asked. They would still be facing almost insurmountable odds.

  “If we can arm the civilian population and disperse it as much as possible, we can wage a guerrilla war against the Trellixians for years. Some of our troops will be assigned to training civilian militias. With the resources of our three complexes, we can make our world untenable for them. Our scientists are the best the world has to offer and are working intently on finding something we can use against our enemy. Given time, we may find what we need, but our job will be to disrupt the enemy as much as possible and to ensure that as large a section of the civilian population survives as possible.”

  Mark was silent for a long moment. “That may be all well and good, sir, but the Trellixians have their battlecruisers, and as long as those are in orbit around Earth, I don’t see what we can do. They also have that new weapon they used, and I’m not sure even these complexes you have been telling me about would be safe from it. Captain Reynolds thought it might be an antimatter weapon.”

  “Come over here, Major,” ordered Colonel Branson.

  Mark did as ordered, wondering what the colonel wanted.

  “I’m about to show you our biggest secret, something we’ve been working on for year
s.” Colonel Branson then turned and pressed a button on the wall. Instantly part of the wall slid open, revealing a large window. “Look.”

  Mark stepped forward and glanced out the window. He stood frozen scarcely believing what he was seeing. “Are those what I think they are?”

  “Yes,” replied Branson, looking down at the busy scene below.

  He and the colonel were high up, overlooking a large cavern. It held a huge construction facility with five large objects lying in their berths. Each was a massive cylinder with a curved bow and flared stern.

  “Those are spaceships, one thousand meters in length and two hundred meters in diameter,” Branson informed Mark with a large smile on his face.

  Mark was speechless as he gazed at the huge constructions. It was obvious they still had a ways to go before they were finished. Several of the vessels had armor missing on their hulls, and each was covered in a spiderweb lattice of scaffolding. Construction workers swarmed over the vessels, and the bright arcs of welders flashed everywhere.

  “How?” he finally managed to blurt out.

  “As I told you earlier, we reverse engineered many of the systems from the ship in the Roswell crash and had the help of the one survivor, Catelli, the ship’s engineer.”

  “How soon before they’re done?” Mark still felt stunned at what he was seeing. It was hard to believe that, very shortly, the human race might have its own interstellar spaceships.

  “Two more years,” Branson replied. “We’d hoped to have them finished before the Trellixians showed up, but that didn’t happen.”

  “What’s to become of me, sir?” Mark asked. “What’s my next assignment?”

  “I’m going to assign you to one of those ships,” Branson answered with a slight smile. “I want you to learn how they function from bow to stern, and, in two years, you’ll be helping to drive the Trellixians from our world.”