EARTH'S LAST WAR (CHILDREN OF DESTINY Book 1)

by Glenn Van Dyke

  “Fish? How?”

  “The emergency kits on the rafts had a small tackle kit inside.”

  Ash moved to the fire, returning a moment later with a filleted fish. “Trout!—Phillip!” Steven’s mind raced to the consequences of anyone else following them down the river. “Ash, we have to stop the crew from thinking that it’s safe to follow us!” A stabbing pain shot between his temples, doubling him over.

  “Take it easy,” Ashlyn said, reassuring him, “I saw to it already. We turned the transponder off. I overheard you explaining the pings to Novacek. It was a good precaution.

  Come on now, I want you to eat a little of this,” said Ashlyn, again handing the plate to him.

  After having eaten only four or five small bites, Steven laid the plate down and took her hand. “Thanks, Ash. Thanks for taking care of me.”

  Kissing the tip of her finger, Ash then touched it to his lips.

  Three days later Brummon awakened. Steven gave him two additional days to get oriented and make sure he was fit for travel, before again getting the team underway.

  With only two rafts, they were uncomfortably crowded, carrying six people in one and four plus the equipment in the other.

  As for the picture that Tomlinson had found by the falls, ever since Steven had seen it, excitement coursed through his veins. For the most part, the picture had simply been a copy of the map they’d found earlier. There was only one difference. It was subtle, yet astounding. Instead of Steven’s intended destination being represented by a tree in flames, it was now represented by the symbol of a double tetrahedron.

  Steven believed he understood the meaning, and that rather than the symbols being contradictory, they were complimentary, building upon the message being conveyed. Moreover—if he was interpreting the meaning correctly, it was incredulous.

  ***

  For the next nine days, they drifted uneventfully. It was a pleasant surprise when they turned a bend in the river and saw the exit. They drifted out into the early, evening glow of a nighttime sky. After weeks of darkness, the light from the three moons hovering on the horizon was breathtaking.

  Brummon hopped out of the raft first and waded to shore where he proceeded to kiss the ground. His emotional response spoke for all of them, and they cheered him on.

  Steven ordered Richardson and Tomlinson to scout the area, verifying they were alone and safe.

  As for the rest of the team, a few did stretching exercises, while the others seemed more intent upon setting up camp.

  “So, what’s up next?” asked Ashlyn as she saw him studying the stars.

  “We’re on foot the rest of the way. We’ll be heading southeast, to a pass that goes between the two largest mountains. They should be visible at first light.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “It’s only a couple of hours after sunset, so we’ll make camp here and get a sunrise start.”

  “Do I have permission to take a bath, sir?” Ash asked.

  “A bath?—I guess so, as long as you take Paris and Maria with you,” said Steven.

  “That works for me! I’m sure they’ll want one too. When the recon team returns, we’ll go downstream a hundred meters. I can trust that you won’t hide behind a bush and watch, right?”

  “I don’t know, watching three women bathing together …” quipped Steven, “that’s awfully tempting.”

  Ashlyn, standing next to Steven, kiddingly bumped him with her shoulder, “That’s what I thought.”

  ***

  Two hours later and unable to sleep, Steven left camp for a quiet walk along the river. His troubled thoughts fell to times past. Three hundred meters south of camp, he stopped to sit upon a large, round boulder along the water’s edge. Overhead, the large triad of moons cast their reflections over the sparkling ripples, coloring the river a dark wine. It was a beautiful, but sorrowful reminder of just how far away from home he was.

  Though he had been pondering for weeks how Renee had experienced her vision, and thereby his fate, he’d come no closer to finding an explanation. Now, as he contemplated never seeing his wife and daughter again, the sorrow in his heart, escaped. As tears welled, he pictured Sandee’s sweet, dimpled smile and the sparkle in Renee’s eyes. His heart broke. He had no choice but to assume that his family was forever lost to him.

  Staring at the night sky, Steven wondered which of the distant specks of light was Earth’s sun. He reached up, seemingly touching the stars with his fingers. His former life seemed so close and yet that life was now across an impenetrable void. He felt small and alone.

  “All I ask is for a tall ship-” said Steven softly to himself.

  “And a strong wind at my back,” said Ashlyn, her gentle voice shattering his reflective agony.

  Like an angelic figure, Ashlyn took a step forward out of the shadows. The light glimmering off her bare shoulders sensually alluded to the beauty that lay hidden beneath the loosely wrapped silver, thermal blanket. When the blanket fell open, the moonlight highlighted Ashlyn’s curves in a parade of silver crescents. The shadows themselves seemed to exist only to accentuate her femininity.

  Dragging the blanket along the ground behind her, as a willing slave to Steven’s desire, Ashlyn’s long, slender legs carried her gracefully across the warm sand and into his waiting arms. Her seducing eyes closed, their lips slowly, tenderly touched. The ever-present tingle exploded throughout them with the volatility of a forest fire, begging they surrender to the erotic sensuality embodied within the flames. As Steven’s lips kissed the taut tendons in the hollow of Ashlyn’s neck, her nimble fingers removed his clothing.

  The journey down the river had kept them apart for weeks. Now, alone, their gnawing passions were unleashed. Within each of them their auras stretched outwards and like lovers performing a ritualistic, mating dance, the two became one. The dance was one of unbridled passion, one of lust.

  “It’s time for you to experience more of what I can do,” said Ash.

  His passions were already searing him, and it was unfathomable to think that she had more to offer him.

  Coaxing him to lie down on the thermal blanket that she’d spread beneath them, she stood over him, her feet straddling his waist. Steven’s visage was that of long trim legs, plumped folds, a flat belly and jutting breasts. It was a sight of bountiful temptations.

  More goosebumps, thought Steven ogling the fleshy lips between her thighs. I loovvve her goosebumps.

  As his hands ran slowly up her legs, along the inside of her soft thighs—his hand cupped her, his thumb sliding between her lips, spreading them apart. She gasped shrilly as he touched her clit. It swelled, hardening in response.

  Ashlyn trembled to his stroking touch.

  Kneading her own breasts, Ashlyn let the eroticism in her sensual movements seduce Steven’s passions. The raw abandon of her lust aroused him, mesmerized him. His mouth watered as she stretched and squeezed her nipples.

  He could feel that Ashlyn had lowered a veil, a veil that had kept him sane—but now, she was sending wave after wave of lusting energy racing into his caressing fingers, driving him into the depths of a desperate, insatiable passion that he’d never felt before. He wanted to scream.

  Unable to restrain himself any longer, his body trembling with need—aching to touch her, his tongue wanting to taste her, he urged her to kneel upon the sand.

  A slave to her own desires as much as she was to his, she knelt, straddling his face. Her shaven lips encircled his mouth like a hand quieting a scream.

  With his tongue spreading wide her folds, he licked her clit. She screamed. She wriggled, her writhing body pressing herself harder into him. With wanton abandon, she panted, gasping for air as his tongue darted into her, wiggling and licking.

  Her sweet taste and softness was rapturous.

  After an eternity of time, knowing fully the depths of his anxious longing, she knew it was time to let him see what she could do.

  Upon her hands and knees, she hung
over him like a canopy bed, letting her breasts cover his ears. Her sensual, naturally perfumed cleavage intoxicated him.

  Playfully rocking, Ash swept his face, letting him bask in the tenderness of her breasts. Teasing him, she brushed her nipples against his cheeks, his lips, around his eyes. He tried playfully to capture them with his lips—she evaded him with skillful guise. Bobbing and swaying, she taunted him.

  His body was screaming, his mind an inferno of lusting abandon. He had never felt such need, such desire and such passion. He felt like he would go insane if he could not release himself instantly, and yet, she kept pushing him onward, further along the path of insatiable desire.

  His hands unable to resist the swaying temptations, attacked her breasts like a voraciously, starved glutton—stretching them, kneading them. As he sucked her nipples—suddenly, the fugue created a deep craving, a tickling sensation within him. He began sucking harder, his squeezing hands forcing her breast to fill his mouth.

  Suddenly, in reaction to his frantic sucking, Ash too felt a new sensation, an inner contentment awakened as new neural networks opened within her mind.

  Steven’s heart was ablaze, a natural response to seeing Ashlyn’s ragged, jumping response to the wag of his tongue. Her bouncing breasts telling him how pleasant it was for her.

  Ash was shaking like an autumn leaf readying to fall; she was desperate to feel him throbbing inside her, while he suckled.

  Reaching beneath her, she grabbed Steven’s shaft, and positioned him at the entrance to her pussy. He almost bit her nipple as she suddenly impaled herself deeply upon him, squishing his balls hard. A shrill scream escaped her. Her breath hung, her nails dug deep, leaving the scars of her passion upon his chest. Her back arched, pushing his cock deeper into her, and forcing her breasts deep into his mouth.

  Sitting atop him, Ashlyn moved with steady precision. With each slide, she’d rise high upon her knees, her back arching so that his cock would push against her clit. Then without hesitation, she would descend, throwing her full weight downwards, squishing his balls flat. Her motions were quick, sharp and precise.

  And yet, never once did Steven’s hands release their grasp upon her breasts—though tidal-waves of jiggling ripples escaped his control.

  Her movements soon grew shorter, quicker, her back arching sharper as the climb of passions rose. With each rocking rise, her hands, her nails, seducing erotically, clawed his muscled chest.

  And yet, as amazing as the experience was, it was inside Ashlyn where the real miracle was taking place. Each rising and descending slide upon his cock began with an iron-hard squeeze, followed by a fluttering, rippling contraction as she slid along his length, and then finished with another, iron-hard squeeze. It was like nothing Steven had experienced before, and he wanted it to last forever. It was searing, intense, painfully erotic and screamingly lustful.

  While his mind was entrapped to the rippling, squeezing movements of her pussy—his eyes were locked upon the frantically rippling breasts that were whipping his face. The beat was hypnotic, the taste unforgettable.

  Together, they moved as lovers who had shared their innermost thoughts and then spent a lifetime training to fulfill them. It took them to levels above that of pleasure and pain, carrying them beyond all previous human experience and hovering on the brink of an insatiable, erotic dementia. In a matter of hours, they were granted the outpouring of a thousand lifetimes worth of fevered passion. It was a night of which even the gods would be jealous.

  As Steven lay gasping beneath her, his face buried deep in the cleavage of her glistening breasts, he opened his eyes to see a last lingering drop of sweat fall from her—into his parted lips, bringing him a last taste of her. It was yet another moment he branded deep into memory.

  They held one another with a sense of awe and wonder at the incredulous experience, saying nothing for fear they might wake and realize that the mystical magic had been but a dream.

  An hour later, rising, Ash took Steven’s hand and led him to the river. Wading out, they swam and playfully splashed, letting the cool waters renew their energy. Neither of them had ever felt so happy, so content and so complete.

  Wrapping his arms around her, they stood gazing at the three magnificent moons that were lowering on the horizon. Looking down over Ashlyn’s shoulder, he noticed that her necklace was missing.

  “Ash, where’s your necklace?”

  “I lost it when we went over the falls. I looked for it, but-”

  “I’m sorry.” Steven squeezed her comfortingly. “I know how important it was to you.”

  “It’s all right. Sometimes, things happen for a reason.”

  “Ash, while-”

  “The craving? I felt it too. I also felt another change in us back in the forest, when I was—”

  “I guess we should have expected more changes to occur,” said Steven. “Victor had wanted to tell me about us, biologically. I’d stopped him.

  I think Tynabo did all this to us. We each have something the other needs and craves. It’s complementary.”

  After a few minutes of silence, Ashlyn spoke, “What do you think we’ll find when we reach the symbol on the map that we’re going to?”

  Steven answered reflectively, “Our past, and maybe, our future.”

  ***

  “Commander, we have a massive force of ground units on a direct approach from the south, 6 klicks out,” advised Stratton.

  “Spread out the full perimeter defense. Heaviest concentration to the south.”

  Phillip scampered up. “Gordon?”

  “I want you to go inside, Phillip.”

  “Can I see what they look like?”

  “No, it’s too dangerous. Please Phillip, just go inside, now! I promised your father that I’d keep you safe.”

  “Okay,” he said walking off.

  Novacek felt sorry for the boy. Ever since the signal from his father’s beacon had stopped transmitting ten days ago, Phillip had sat watching the tunnel. Phillip knew that his father couldn’t return from down river, but it clearly emphasized what precious little else he had to hold onto.

  “Gordon?” said Phillip just before reentering the tunnel to the cavern.

  “Yes, Phillip?” Novacek said turning round to face him once more.

  “How come you’re not stuttering anymore?”

  No one was more surprised than Novacek. He hadn’t noticed. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember stuttering since his encounter with the spiders. “You’re right! I guess you might say—I’ve been freed.” Novacek couldn’t share the truth with him. To tell him that he had begun stuttering only after he’d been bound and forced to watch his wife being raped and tortured—how even after they’d snapped her neck, they still took turns atop her. The beating they’d given him afterwards had seemed a blessing, for he had wanted nothing more than to die with her. His heart had been crushed from his powerlessness to help her. It was from that moment on his speech had been broken.

  “Sir, the ground units are closing,” Stratton updated.

  “Sorry Phillip, you’ve got to go below. Now!”

  Returning to his binoculars, Novacek studied the convoy’s firepower. The armada had thirty or more ground transports and at least a dozen heavy assault vehicles. Drawing up the rear were three vehicles with large weapons mounted on top.

  “Give the order that under no circumstance are we to fire the first shot. If they fire however, have our rifles return fire, concentrating on the heavy assault vehicles first. Warn everyone that if the heavy assault vehicles come to a stop, they have to get into their holes. The incoming firepower will be devastating. When the enemy eventually ceases fire, tell the teams to retaliate immediately.”

  Novacek noticed Phillip sneakily watching from behind a boulder to his left. “Phillip Steven Sherrah, I told you to go below! That’s an order!”

  “Okay!” Jumping down, he walked sour-faced into the cave.

  To the comm operator by his side, “Warn the teams to
be ready for a southern, frontal assault with possible hand-to-hand combat. Also, send a message inside to clear the center of the cavern. Have everyone stay along the walls.”

  The comm operator swallowed as he came to grips with what lay ahead.

  “It’s alright Ensign, I’m scared too.”

  A boulder thirty meters below Novacek exploded. The sniper above returned fire upon the fighter flying overhead. With the hit, the fighter went into a dive, heading toward the ground in flames.

  By the time Novacek grabbed the field glasses, four of the assault vehicles below were in flames. The remaining vehicles were scattering, seeking cover. For the snipers, the slow speed of the vehicles made it no harder than knocking bottles off a fence. The transport vehicles came to a stop; the alien troops unloaded, taking up defensive positions.

  Novacek studied the scene, “They’re testing us, sacrificing their own forces to test our defenses.”

  Nine assault vehicles were eliminated before the laser-turrets on the heavy vehicles came to bear on the mountain. A wide, laser beam erupted from each of the three, long-range vehicles. It struck the top of the mountain with an electrifying energy, shattering massive boulders. Debris rained down from above, forcing the lower positioned personnel to take cover. Heavy boulders loosened and came bounding down around them. When Novacek finally dared check on the enemy troop movement, he found that they were rapidly closing the distance under the cover fire of their guns.

  When the barrage finally stopped, Novacek knew it meant the enemy forces had entered the forest. Most of Novacek’s personnel weren’t trained for hand-to-hand combat, but even so, they came out of hiding and held their own against the first advancing line.

  Successive waves slowly began forcing the crew to retreat, forming a defensive line among the boulders, but it too soon began to thin as the enemy kept advancing. A sizzle from high above rang out. At least one rifle was still operational. Novacek waited only a moment to see if the other was going to join in. It didn’t.