Earth Cry

by Nick Cook

  Earth Cry

  Book 2 in the Earth Song Series

  Nick Cook

  About Nick Cook

  Somewhere back in the mists of time, Nick was born in the great sprawling metropolis of London. He grew up in a family where art was always a huge influence. Tapping into this, Nick finished college with a fine art degree tucked into his back pocket. Faced with the prospect of actually trying to make a living from his talents, he plunged into the emerging video game industry back in the eighties. It was the start of a long career and he produced graphics for many of the top-selling games on the early home computers, including Aliens and Enduro Racer. Those pioneering games may look crude now, but back then they were considered to be cutting edge. As the industry exploded into the one we know today, Nick’s career went supernova. He worked on titles such as X-Com, and set up two studios, which produced Warzone 2100 and the Conflict: Desert Storm series. He has around forty published titles to his name.

  As great as the video game industry is, a little voice kept nagging inside Nick’s head, and at the end of 2006 he was finally ready to pursue his other passion as a full-time career: writing. Many years later, he completed his first trilogy, Cloud Riders. And the rest, as they say, is history.

  Nick has many interests, from space exploration and astronomy to travelling the world. He has flown light aircraft and microlights, an experience he used as research for Cloud Riders. He’s always loved to cook, but then you’d expect it with his surname. His writing in many ways reflects his own curiosity about the world around him. He loves to let his imagination run riot to pose the question: What if?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Afterword

  In memory of Tommy Donbavand, a wonderful author, friend and a true inspiration to me and so many others.

  Copyright 2019 © Nicholas P Cook

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published worldwide by Voice from the Clouds Ltd.

  www.voicefromtheclouds.com

  Chapter One

  My life was made up of a tapestry of memories, yet some shone far brighter than others. Like when my Aunt Lucy had taken me on a surprise holiday to Disney World Florida. We’d ridden a simulator, sitting on a hydraulic rig that moved according to the action happening on the huge IMAX screen in front of us. I could so clearly remember how we’d followed the flight of a bird as it had soared through the air, pitching in our seats. Every moment had thrilled me. It had felt like the closest thing to flying – certainly every journey in passenger jets had paled in comparison. Until now. That magical experience was being totally eclipsed by what I was experiencing in this X101.

  I sat with Jack, Mike and Tom in this experimental electric-powered stealth aircraft owned by Sky Dreamer Corp. It wasn’t the almost silent propulsion system that made this trip so exceptional, although that was impressive in its own right.

  A moment ago, a very calming view of a sunset had filled the screens mounted into the cockpit walls of the X101 – the computer equivalent of a screensaver. That serene view had been negated over the last thirty minutes by the booming crackle of thunder outside the craft and turbulence that bounced us around in our seats like stones in a can.

  Then Tom had said, ‘Delphi, show live external view,’ to the X101’s AI system and our cosy cabin had been instantly transformed.

  Now Jack, Mike and I stared around us, slack-jawed at the almost seamless 360-degree view of the towering thunderstorm we were flying within. My mind scrambled to absorb the almost perfect illusion of our seats hanging in mid-air as the towering clouds slipped past, lit by internal flashes of sheet lightning. I had to fight the temptation to squeal like I’d done as a ten-year-old on that Disney ride all those years ago. This really did feel as if I was flying like a bird.

  In contrast to my elation, Mike had paled and squeezed his eyes shut as he clutched a sick bag to his mouth. It was his third one since we’d fled Orkney.

  It had been a long trip. The Learjet we’d left Scotland in had deposited us ten hours later at some secret runway in a desert in searing heat. From there we’d boarded this second X101 – to wherever it was we were going.

  Mike groaned. ‘You could have bloody warned us before you toggled the outside view on, Tom.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Tom replied.

  ‘Maybe you should blank the walls again for Mike’s sake,’ I said.

  ‘But he’s got his eyes shut now anyway,’ Jack said. ‘And this is all pretty neat. Besides, if we get torn apart by the storm, I’d rather see my end coming.’

  ‘You’re so not helping me here, mate,’ Mike muttered.

  ‘There’s really nothing to worry about,’ Tom replied. ‘This craft is made of Kevlar and carbon fibre – combined with some incredibly strong experimental alloys. An X101 can take a whole lot more than this storm.’

  The muscles in Mike’s face cabled as he clenched his jaw together even harder. ‘Right…’

  I sat forward in my seat towards Mike opposite me. ‘Keep your eyes closed and try breathing into your bag. That should help a bit.’

  Mike screwed his eyes tighter and his sick bag started to inflate and deflate as he breathed into it.

  ‘I’m sorry that you’re suffering, Mike,’ I added, ‘but I wish Tom had turned on the external cameras before now. This is seriously epic.’

  ‘That would have been impossible, I’m afraid,’ Tom replied. ‘I’m only allowed to turn on the external view since we are so near to our destination – all part of the security systems.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Even I’m not allowed to know the exact location of this Sky Dreamer secret facility.’

  ‘Why Sky Dreamer Corp’s paranoia?’ I asked.

  ‘It carries out critical research and if the Overseers ever learnt of this facility, it would make life exceptionally difficult for everyone concerned. Plus, what you don’t know can’t be tortured out of you.’

  And there it was again: yet another reality check of this crazy-serious situation. I’d managed to drop not only myself into this, but also Jack Harper, an archaeologist and former military trauma surgeon, and Mike Palmer, geologist and theoretical physicist.

  The X101 shook again with another rattle of turbulence.

  I noticed the beads of sweat blossoming on Mike’s forehead. With the scent of body odour mixed into the lovely hint of sick floating around the cabin, I made a mental note to bring some air freshener the next time we flew together.

  I leant forward and patted Mike’s arm. ‘Hang in there.’

  ‘Doing my best.’

  Tom tipped his head towards the ceiling. ‘Delphi, turn on HUD instrumentation.’

  Instantly the forward section of the cabin displayed flight-instrumentation graphics over the images of the storm clouds rolling past us.

  ‘Oh, that’s neat,’ Jack said.

  I quickly took i
n all the new information in front of me. We were currently travelling at an altitude of 20,000 feet with ‘four miles to target’ counting down on the display.

  ‘Aha,’ Jack said, pointing at what should have been the floor of cockpit but was instead the images of clouds. Through the gaps in the storm I saw glimpses of a jungle landscape far below.

  ‘So wherever the secret destination is,’ I said, ‘it has to be somewhere tropical – near the equator?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s as much as I know,’ Tom replied. ‘Let’s not speculate any further.’

  A chime came from a hidden speaker and Delphi’s synthesised female voice rang out. ‘Attention, severe turbulence ahead.’ Tom had selected her calming tones in preference to the male version we’d had earlier in the flight, thinking it would help Mike to relax.

  ‘Prepare for engagement of safety restraints,’ Delphi said.

  Before I could ask what that meant, a metal hoop rose from the back of our seats, curving over our shoulders and clamping us into our seats like harnesses for an extreme rollercoaster.

  Mike’s eyes snapped open as he took in what had grabbed him, then widened at the view still around us. ‘Shit!’ He squeezed his eyes shut again.

  ‘No need for concern, everyone,’ Tom said. ‘Just relax and let the X101 take the strain. It was built to handle this sort of thing in its stride.’

  Jack leant towards me. ‘But what about us humans, hey?’ he whispered.

  ‘Damn you, I heard that,’ Mike said.

  ‘Sorry, buddy,’ Jack replied, winking at me.

  A huge fist of wind slapped the X101 and we bucked in the sky.

  It was just as well Mike didn’t have his eyes open. Despite his reassuring words, for the first time Tom looked concerned too.

  ‘OK, everyone, as the weather is so severe, we’ll have to make a very rapid descent,’ he said. ‘Delphi, engage Zeta approach pattern.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ the craft’s AI replied.

  On the cockpit screens either side of us, the wings of the craft started to rotate to a forty-five-degree angle. The nose of the X101 immediately dropped and we began to descend fast, rushing towards an opening in the clouds. As we streaked through the gap, the cabin vibrated and shook us within our harnesses as the airframe creaked and groaned around us.

  ‘Is this too late to become religious?’ Mike said through his clenched jaw.

  ‘It’s never too late,’ Jack replied.

  ‘Two miles to target,’ Delphi announced as we dropped like a meteorite towards the jungle.

  ‘Shouldn’t you take the controls or something, Tom?’ I asked.

  ‘Trust me, the AI running this craft reacts at least four times faster than the best pilot could manage in these difficult conditions.’

  ‘So trust the damned programme with our lives?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Tom replied with a forced smile.

  The thunder clouds blazed over our heads as rain swirled past, drumming on the outside of the X101 like thousands of ball bearings. Beneath us an endless tree-green expanse became visible and a green rectangular box appeared on the front screen that framed an area of the jungle canopy.

  ‘What does that green indicator mean?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s our destination marker – not long to go now,’ Tom replied.

  ‘But there’s nothing there except trees,’ Jack said.

  Tom raised his eyebrows at him. ‘Wouldn’t that be embarrassing if I’d managed to programme the wrong destination and we were about to become a smouldering crater in the ground?’

  ‘Seriously not helping now,’ Mike said, his eyes still closed.

  A bolt of lightning lanced down from the clouds, striking a tree that towered over its neighbours. It burst instantly into flames.

  ‘Thunder and lightning, very, very frightening,’ Jack sang badly to the tune of the old Queen song.

  ‘Bastard,’ Mike muttered.

  The sheets of rain thickened for a moment, obscuring the view. We heard the electric motors whining for the first time as the cockpit shuddered violently and the nose tipped almost vertically towards the ground. The rectangular destination marker was now almost the size of the front screen, yet still filled with nothing but jungle.

  Jack traded a frown with me and I had to resist the urge to grab his hand.

  Tom caught our expressions. ‘Trust the tech.’

  ‘Fuck that,’ Mike said, grinding his words out between clenched teeth.

  The X101 rocketed down, raindrops streaming past the external cameras that fed the view.

  ‘Altitude two thousand feet,’ Delphi said with an infuriating calmness.

  The wings pivoted again until they pointed straight up from the main fuselage, the motors screaming as hurricane-force winds buffeted the craft.

  ‘Altitude one thousand feet…’

  Slowly, way too slowly it seemed to me, the nose of the X101 started to rise and at last the velocity of our aircraft began to drop, yet the jungle was still rushing up to meet us.

  ‘Altitude five hundred feet…’

  ‘Oh crap,’ Jack whispered.

  And then it happened. We hit the tree canopy and branches whipped past the cockpit. My stomach rose to my throat, bile bitter in the back of my mouth.

  ‘Fuck!’ Mike shouted as his eyes sprang open and he stared at what was happening around us. His hands clawed at the seat arms so hard I was surprised he didn’t break them right off.

  But then the branches disappeared.

  ‘Altitude two hundred feet…’ the computer voice said.

  ‘Just how tall are these damned trees?’ Jack said.

  Tom gave us a ridiculously calm look.

  I glanced down and saw a gaping hole of nothingness below. We dropped inside and the lights on the nose of the X101 turned on.

  Jack, Mike and I stared at the strata of rock sliding past the virtual surroundings.

  ‘We’re in some sort of tunnel, Tom?’ I asked.

  He smiled at me. ‘Absolutely. I did promise you that we weren’t going to crash.’

  ‘You could have bloody well explained yourself a bit better,’ Mike replied as he wiped fresh vomit from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Yes, sorry, maybe I should have. It’s certainly quite the rush the first time you are introduced to Eden.’

  ‘Eden?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you’ll see it for yourselves shortly.’ Tom smiled. ‘Then you’ll understand the choice of name.’

  The sound of the storm muted as we descended into the vertical shaft. On the HUD of the X101 our air speed fell to ten knots and then five.

  We dropped out of the tunnel into a large dark cavern and the X101’s light beams skimmed over the walls. A moment later dozens of huge spotlights blazed into life from the rocky ceiling and the view was transformed.

  We were in a natural cavern at least a hundred metres wide with no other obvious tunnels leading out of it apart from the shaft down which we’d descended. Beneath us was an aqua-blue lake ringed by a narrow shoreline that sloped up to meet the walls.

  Mike’s eyes widened. ‘This is a sinkhole, right?’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ Tom replied. ‘Natural erosion formed this cavern from the rainfall that has seeped through the ground.’

  Two large white round cylinders started to descend from the belly of the X101.

  ‘Floats,’ Tom said, answering the silent questions in our eyes. ‘Among the X101’s many other remarkable capabilities, it’s also an amphibious craft.’

  ‘Is there anything this ship can’t do?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Not much, although a coffee machine would be nice.’

  With a soft whine the X101 settled on to the surface of the lake, sending out gentle ripples over the mirrored surface. Its stubby wings rotated in opposite directions, turning the X101 on the spot. Then the wings returned to level, engines pointing forward, and the aircraft surged gently towards the shore.

  My mind was still scrambling to process w
hat I’d thought was us plummeting to our deaths, together with this new surreal experience, when we stepped out through the open cockpit door on to the rocky shore. Directly overhead, I could see a framed round view of the jungle canopy high overhead through the shaft above. Flashes of lightning illuminated the brooding storm sky.

  ‘Home, sweet home,’ Tom said.

  ‘This is Eden?’ I asked, looking around at the otherwise empty cavern.

  ‘Not quite – but soon,’ Tom replied.

  He stepped forward and placed his hand on a slightly extruding lump on the wall. A faint red glowed beneath his palm from the rock.

  ‘Agent Tom Hester identified,’ a female synthesised voice said, echoing around the chamber like some sort of omnipotent AI god.

  Tom took a half step back as a gentle vibration passed through the chamber, sending further ripples across the surface of the lake. And then a whole section of the rock face before us started to slide upwards to reveal a huge highly polished steel door. It looked like something straight out of a bank vault. Massive clamps holding it closed hissed open and the door swung out towards us.

  Jack, Mike and I gawped at the brightly lit corridor sloping down the other side of it.

  ‘This is like a Bond villain’s lair,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, it’s quite the opposite,’ Tom replied. ‘Let’s just say that when one of the world’s richest corporations creates a special project with a visionary leader at the helm, it goes all in. So if you’d like to please follow me.’

  I traded what the hell looks with the others as we followed Tom into the sloping corridor. We’d only taken a few steps when a loud noise came from behind us. I turned to see the vault-like door swing shut with the unmistakable hiss of a vacuum, making my ears pop.