Return To The Center Of The Earth

by Return To The Center Of The Earth (epub)

  But then he guessed that as the messages took so long and needed to be super-compressed, and then bounced across hundreds of relays, then huge messages were never going to cut it. Emergencies only, he thought.

  They slowed as they approached the exit. And then the red glow became their entire world. Most simply stood and stared, with others gaping, open mouthed, at what they beheld.

  “Holy crap.” Harris sucked in a deep breath of the hot air and then let it out with a hiss. The primordial-looking forest was a land of giants. Everything was oversized, with some of the tree trunks being as wide around as a house.

  He noticed in their leafy canopies that spread wide and actually merged together creating a dense umbrella-like cover that they moved and were teemed with hidden life. All manner of chirps, squeaks, and clicks emanated from deep inside, with now and then something taking flight, gliding, or leaping from one tree to another. There was also the far-away boom of an animal trumpeting as if coming from the throat of an elephant the size of an office block.

  There were gossamer vapors of a humid heat mist curling through the tree trunks and limbs, and he looked upward and squinted. The sky was like a cauldron of boiling-red liquid that made the very air seem red.

  He remembered from Mike Monroe’s notes that the theory was there were miles’ thickness of volcanic glass shielding them from the worst effects of the seething liquid that generated this world’s heat and light. It was a sobering thought that just a few miles over their heads was untold trillions of tons of molten metal and magma being held back by a thin transparent skin.

  He turned away from it. Harris was chosen to lead this mission because he had the skills, and also nerves of steel. But right now, he felt creeping self-doubt and that made a tingle of fear run up his spine.

  “Ho. Lee. Shit.” Bull shook his head. “It is real.”

  “And at last before me I behold the hot red from my nightmares.” Harris turned to Mike and Jane and raised an eyebrow.

  “Very prophetic; who said that?” Jane asked.

  “I did, just then.” Harris chuckled and turned back to the glaring vista.

  “Well I’ll be damned; they were right.” Hitch grinned. “It is goddamn red.”

  “And hot,” Bull said. “Reminds me of the Congo. Same sort of jungle too.” He squinted. “Except this looks bigger and meaner.”

  Harris stared out at the jungle for a moment, and then carefully walked forward out from under the lip of the cave mouth. He turned, looked up at the rock above them and squinted. “Nothing. Looks like your giant wasp critters are gone.”

  Mike came forward, put a hand over his brows and also looked up. “Maybe when the war party came, they killed them all. Overwhelmed them.”

  Harris walked back up to the cave entrance. “Shame, wanted to see ‘em.” He then pulled out a small box and switched it on. He angled it around, until he got a fix on what he was looking for. “Well I’ll be damned; found them.” He looked up and then indicated a place along the cliff face and toward the coast. “That way.”

  “What is that thing?” Jane asked.

  “Well, we were lucky to get a heads-up on the Russian mission before they left. One of our deep cover operatives managed to get one of their team to carry a tracking tab. And we’re homing in on it.”

  “You bribed them?” Jane asked.

  Harris chuckled. “Nope, got him blind drunk, and then our female operative inserted it under his skin.” He grinned. “I said he was carrying it. I didn’t say he knew he was.”

  “Ouch.” Jane frowned and then looked out at the jungle. “If they came from the Krubera then they should have come from that direction.” She pointed out toward the towering trees.

  “Maybe they came a different way; trying to avoid some of the landmines they stepped on last time,” Harris said.

  “The last time?” Mike asked. “What last time?”

  Harris turned. “You do know they dragged poor old Katya Babikov with them, don’t you?”

  “You’re kidding? She’s in her seventies… and with multiple cancers.” Jane scowled. “Those bastards.”

  “That they are.” Harris looked at her. “Anyway, they’re in that direction now. And if they’re that way, then that’s the way we’re going.”

  Jane peered along the cliff face. That wasn’t a direction she knew and so they had no idea what lay ahead. She had thought that seeing as they had Katya with them they would have retraced her steps, and Harris could have simply met the Russians somewhere midway.

  She let her eyes move along the massive wall of rock; the column mountain ran for another half-mile and then there was the beginning of a small line of flat-topped mountains. Following that just through the rising heat mist she thought could just make out a distant coastline.

  She and the team had removed their helmets and replaced them with foreign legion-style hats that had a brim and also covered their neck and ears: a form of wrap-around sunglasses like goggles.

  Harris pushed his goggles up and then lifted a small set of binoculars to his eyes. He panned it along the far coastline for a moment and then handed them to Jane.

  “No sign of our friends, but what do you make of those things a few miles out on the waterline?”

  She took the glasses and focused on the objects. “Could be something washed into the shallows. Or could be some sort of animal. Or maybe boats,” Jane said after a while. “But whose?”

  He turned and grinned. “Maybe it’s how your lobster people arrived.”

  “Maybe,” Mike said. “We never ascertained whether they lived in the water or totally on the land. We were a bit preoccupied with getting the hell away from them.”

  “Probably in the water, if they’re like, you know, lobsters and stuff,” Bull announced.

  “Not necessarily.” Alistair frowned into the distance. “On the surface we have many terrestrial crustaceans. Ones like the giant coconut crab, the Birgus latro, also known as the robber crab. It is the largest land-living arthropod in the world and grows to three feet across. Plus they’re fantastically strong. They can tear open a coconut.”

  Alistair opened his hands wide. “They’re big and tough, and have one of the thickest exoskeletons on the planet. They also have branchiostegal lungs, which are used instead of the vestigial gills for breathing. In fact, in their adult form, they’d drown in water. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah, stop talking, Professor.” Harris rolled his eyes. “A simple: yes, they could live on land, woulda been just fine.” He then pointed. “That coastline is in the direction we want to go, so guess we’ll find out what those things are soon enough.” Harris circled a finger in the air. “Load ‘em up and move ‘em out, people.”

  “Harris.” Mike took a quick look back over his shoulder. “Should we guard the cave?”

  “Against what? Who?” He raised his eyebrows, but then shook his head. “At this point there is no threat. Best not to split our forces.” He raised his chin. “You two good to go?”

  “Okay, and yeah we’re good,” Mike replied.

  Jane stayed silent.

  CHAPTER 11

  Center of the Earth – 10-miles North East of the Monroe Team

  Dmitry Varanov, the Russian expedition leader, raised a hand to stop his team. He turned about slowly and then looked up at the seething, red ceiling above them.

  Right here, must be by now, he thought and then clicked his fingers to one of his men. “Mr. Chekov, take a position fix. This will be it.”

  Leonid Chekov nodded and immediately set to unfolding the positioning pad and its pulser. The device fired a signal pulse through the layers of the Earth, all the way through the mantle and crust, and then continued up to the orbiting Sokolov, Bird of Prey, satellite system.

  In turn, the Sokolov would immediately return the pulse and give them a position in relation to the surface that was accurate to within ten feet. Brilliant technology, Dmitry thought, and more advanced than anything the Americans had.

>   As he waited, he surveyed his surroundings and his jaw set. He loathed it here: dripping foliage that seemed to exhale heat and humidity like the breath of a dragon, and everything they encountered seemed alien, from the oversized vegetation to the colossal geology, the waterways, and even the weird smells. And the worst was the animals that were like something conjured from a mad artist’s insect nightmare.

  He’d seen gargantuan creatures like moving skyscrapers pushing aside mighty trees on elephantine legs. Also flying things as large as jetliners that had stiff and veined bat-like wings. And once they encountered a living hole in the ground, fifty feet across, and lined with inward-pointing teeth as if some monstrous worm lay hidden there just waiting for some blundering thing to fall into its red maw.

  Dmitry also hated that there was no nighttime, and therefore no respite from the constant hellish light and heat. Plus the continual glaring red light affected his and his team’s mood: everyone was sleep-deprived, on edge, and understandably so.

  When he was young his mother used to tell him about good and evil, heaven and hell, and how good people ascended to a blue paradise in the sky, and the bad people’s souls were sent down to a hot, red Hell.

  He now knew this was where they went, and perhaps each of these nightmarish creatures they encountered were actually the souls of wrongdoers, their true face finally exposed, as they were banished from the Earth’s surface.

  And here I am as well. But am I just passing through, or trapped like those others’ souls for eternity? Dmitry wondered morosely.

  He held up a hand and saw on its back the familiar faded military tattoo of a snarling wolf holding a dagger in its mouth, and underneath, the motto: Death or Victory.

  At least for now I’m still human, he thought and exhaled. He squared his shoulders before turning. “Well?” he demanded of his man.

  Chekov read the returned pulse information as it presented as a grid map on the tiny screen he had laid out. He began to nod as he looked up.

  “This is it. Estonia, directly under Ämari Air Base.” He began to pack the positioning equipment away.

  Dmitry squinted as he looked up toward the fiery ceiling above them. It swirled and raged like liquid anger with its furious heat. And thousands of miles above that, their goal.

  In Estonia, and right on Russia’s doorstep, the Americans had constructed an airbase. It had been tolerated in the past, as it was a lesser-grade, low-traffic airfield complex and could only service lighter craft and helicopters.

  But that was now due to change. The new American president had approved a multibillion dollar budget to increase the base’s size and capabilities so it could accommodate a tactical fighter aircraft parking apron and taxiway to support the new F-35 strike fighters, and worse, bombers.

  Dmitry ground his teeth. If that wasn’t enough of a provocation, they were also planning Special Operations Command training and barrack facilities at the base. It had now turned from a minor political irritant, to a major military headache.

  Attacking the base overtly or even by one of its proxies would provoke significant economic sanctions plus possible military retaliation. Neither, Russia was ready for. Something more clandestine was required and that was where he and his team came in.

  Dmitry turned and smiled at the frail old woman. Even though she wore a hat with a veil over the front to shield her from the blazing red heat, and perhaps hide her visage from the group, he knew she watched him.

  Dmitry went and knelt beside her. She didn’t move a muscle as he placed his hand over hers that were folded in her lap.

  “Have you got everything you need?” Dmitry asked softly.

  He could just make out her features underneath the veil and was sure her eyes shifted toward him. She remained still and mute.

  “You’re very brave.” He squeezed her hand that felt like a small bundle of sticks wrapped in parchment. He smiled into the veil. “And we appreciate you being here to help and guide us.” He waited another moment, but there was no response.

  Dmitry couldn’t really blame her. The government officialdom had basically threatened her with solitary confinement and restriction of her medicines to force her to come with them. And any reward she may experience on return would only be if she or any of them survived.

  So far she had refused to be a burden on them, and he felt ashamed they had brought her, a woman that reminded him of his grandmother, on this perilous expedition.

  He lowered his head to look under the brim of her hat. “And so Katya, this is where your hard work and advice pays off.”

  The old woman just sat still as stone. Dmitry gave her hand one last squeeze and rose to his feet. He turned to nod to his team, who watched him like hawks. There were nine of them, including Katya, and himself. He had brought together military specialists, engineers, and scientists.

  Leonid Chekov, a military engineer, was his second-in-command, plus there was Mila Golobev, Nadia Zima, and Oleg Krupin as his scientists. They brought with them a mix of geology, biology, and medical expertise. And then there were his soldiers: Pavel, Viktor, and Sasha, as his brute force.

  Together they had all already been in the center world many weeks and had mastered the tough scale down into the Krubera cave as they followed the instructions of the old woman.

  Katya had been allowed to climb down some of the easier drops herself, but most times she had to be strapped to the back of one of the bigger soldiers like a child.

  Her eyes had been saucers of fear on their way down. But other than the darkness, and the sheer drops, they had encountered nothing of the goblin-like creatures she described that plagued her own trip.

  Maybe they had just been ghosts conjured by a tired and tortured mind and never really existed at all, Dmitry wondered.

  But then on arriving via the fantastical gravity well, and then blowing a hole in the collapsed cave entrance, he had been left speechless: the world here was astounding, and amazing, and horrifying all at once. His scientists had been spellbound, no more so than Mila, the young evolutionary biologist who just in her first few minutes had a hundred theories as to how this world began and how the denizens had evolved.

  And now they were ready to begin phase one of their true mission.

  Dmitry clapped his hands together and then rubbed them. “And so, we execute our mission objective.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Viktor, Sasha, prepare the HERP.”

  The two men immediately set about constructing the base generation unit, and then added a long tubelike structure over a tightly packed coil. The High Energy Resonance Pulser, or HERP, would direct a compressed-energy resonance beam upward, like a laser, but instead of focused light, it would deliver focused vibrations.

  Dmitry watched his men construct the weapon. So much power for something so small, he thought.

  He knew that vibratory or sonic-directed energy weapons had been in use for decades and spanned the infrasonic, ultrasonic, and audible ranges. The key was in the ability to produce directed resonance, and an infrasonic pulse generator could induce that electromagnetically.

  Lower-grade weapons, already in use for crowd control in France and China, were successfully able to target a person’s inner organs by resonating in their chest area or in their head. If the power level is low, the person may experience migraine, stomach cramps or palpitations as their organs were vibrated. But increasing the power level would turn their organs to jelly: total destruction at a cellular level.

  And now Russia had taken it to the next level and increased the power a thousand-fold while also improving the targeting ability and its compression technology. The result was a militarized infrasonic generator that could theoretically be as destructive as a nuclear weapon. In computer simulations it worked perfectly. And it was his job to take it from the laboratory to the battlefield.

  The men finished and sat back on their haunches, waiting. Dmitry stared upward for a moment. He would not even know if it worked until his command told him of t
he results.

  There was no need to delay any further. Dmitry nodded.

  “Fire.”

  Sasha pressed the button and an electronic whine filled the air and a glow emanated from within the stout canon-like pipe. The air around the pulser began to shimmer as the beam of highly agitated air moved upward, entering the glowing red sky and then racing through the thousands of miles of solid stone to the surface, all the way to Estonia and the American base.

  “Pulse delivered, sir,” Sasha said.

  “Good.” Dmitry nodded. “And so, we wait.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Ämari US Air Base, Harjumaa, Estonia

  Major Fred Lawrence stood with his hands on his hips and surveyed the state of his base. Tomorrow, U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Agustin was paying a visit to inspect the new infrastructure and deterrence air fleet.

  The long, newly widened and significantly reinforced runway now held twenty-four strike fighters all lined up. In addition, there were new maintenance shops, and below ground in reinforced bunkers were the barracks and repair workshops.

  As far as he was concerned the upgrade wasn’t a minute too soon. Just across the border was a massive geopolitical adversary, and one that was growing increasingly belligerent by the day, conducting probing intrusions into Estonian airspace, launching cyber-attacks on their radar systems, and even trying to plant agents as laborers onto the build sites.

  Well, now he had some muscle to stand up to them and stop them from rolling right into Europe. It would keep Russia in check, so the US could focus on other adversaries flexing up further south.

  Lawrence waved, acknowledging the chopper pilot: he’d do a last swing over the site to make sure everything was shipshape. The general would do the same, and if there anything out of place, he’d prefer to see it first.

  Lawrence jumped into the cockpit, placed the earphones over his head and nodded to the pilot who immediately lifted off. They rose at a forty-five degree angle and firstly headed north. They’d do a few loops around the base, in ever-widening rings. He didn’t really expect to find any issues, but he wanted the general’s visit to go off without a hitch.