by Nick Cook
Earth Shout
Book 3 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?
Copyright 2020 © 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
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
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Links
Author Notes
For all the talented creators of the visionary sci-fi movies from the 50s and 60s. They helped to sow those first seeds of wonder that I carry within me to this very day.
Chapter One
It seemed as if at least half the population of Eden had crammed into the huge underground cinema to watch the launch. Every one of the thousand seats had been filled. The rest of the crowd thronged the walkways, some standing, many sitting on the steps. Despite the almost party atmosphere, there was an underlying concern visible in many of the faces around me and we were all collectively holding our breath. The next ten minutes were going to be critical for the survival of our planet.
I sat in the front row with Jodie and Mike on one side of me. They were squeezing each other’s hands as we watched the live streamed broadcast from Cape Canaveral. The fact that it was a night-time launch only added to the drama of the event.
Jack sat on the other side of me, drumming his hand on his leg to each tick of the countdown. Meanwhile, I was doing my best to resist biting my fingernails.
Ruby, the latest member of our team and a skilled sniper, sat away from our group with her security buddies in their grey uniforms. Laughter kept punctuating the tense atmosphere as Ruby shared some joke with them. And judging by the way she kept glancing across at me, it was probably at my expense.
She hadn’t come out and said she had a problem with me in charge, but it certainly came across in her attitude. Every opportunity she got, she seemed to choose her mates in the security team rather than be anywhere near me. With a considerable number of ex-soldiers in their ranks, they were obviously her natural tribe as opposed to a bunch of civilians. Though Jack was an exception, no doubt because he was ex-military too. I still had no idea how I was going to win Ruby round.
In front of the audience on the five-storey-high IMAX screen, spotlights bathed the huge SpaceX rocket that Sky Dreamer Corp. had partnered with for the launch of our precious payload. The cover story was that this launch was part of a mesh internet grid that would be used by future missions. But of course the truth was very different. SpaceX’s Starship rocket actually contained TREENO, The REines Experimental Neutrino Observatory. This consisted of a large cluster of CubeSats that were going to be essential to us speeding up detection of any future waking micro minds. An ancient race of aliens called the Angelus had visited Earth in its early past, hiding a series of tetrahedron crystals. These were the micro minds, fragments of an AI consciousness that we now called Lucy. She believed that when we finally found all these micro minds, they would help our world defend itself against the coming threat of an alien invasion. But how Lucy’s micro minds could defend us from them, even she didn’t know – and wouldn’t until we’d found the last fragment of her consciousness. That was why this launch was such a big deal.
‘Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…’ the male commentator began, his voice booming out in the theatre.
Vented liquid oxygen began to billow freely from the rocket as it got ready to launch.
I sat up straighter as the countdown reached ten seconds. You could almost taste the tension in the room. A thousand people leant a fraction further towards the screen.
I turned to Mike and Jodie. ‘Good luck, guys.’
‘Thanks,’ Jodie said, looking sick.
Mike chewed the quick of his thumbnail. ‘If that rocket blows up…’
‘It won’t,’ I replied. ‘SpaceX launches are usually as reliable as clockwork.’
‘Usually,’ Jodie replied worriedly.
I patted her arm. Then I cast a look over at Alice sitting in her wheelchair to one side of the IMAX screen. Despite the drama of what was about to happen she had a distinctly distracted look, as if she was somewhere else in her head. That probably had everything to do with Tom still being out of contact.
Tom was in charge of intelligence gathering at Eden. I’d first met him on a car ferry heading for Orkney. At the time he was wearing a full-blown disguise, pretending to be an old Scottish guy who had a taste for whiskey. He had gone AWOL after a deep-cover mission and none of us knew where he was. Alice in particular seemed to be taking his disappearance very badly. I’d learnt from Niki, our head of security, that Alice and Tom went way back.
‘Five, four, three, two, one… We have go for launch.’
The impressive surround-sound speakers thundered as the Raptor engines roared into life, ear-splittingly loud. I could feel the vibrations passing through my abdomen. Yellow and golden fire billowed out of the base of the SpaceX rocket. Then, just like that, the rocket began to lift off from the launch pad on an expanding blossom of fire and cloud.
Cheers erupted in the theatre, hundreds of instant celebrations. Jodie threw her arms round Mike and kissed him. In stark contrast, Jack high-fived me. But we hollered with the best of them as th
e rocket cleared the tower and started to rise into the sky. I caught Alice allowing herself the briefest smile as the rocket’s Raptor engines turned night into day over the Cape Canaveral launch pad.
The camera cut to a long shot as the rocket streaked upwards on its needle of light. The ongoing commentary was barely audible over the continuing whoops that filled the room.
Jack leant in towards me as the clapping faded away. ‘Isn’t that a spectacular sight?’
‘It really is,’ I replied. But despite my sense of awe, there was also a constant worry gnawing away at my insides. Another longer countdown was ticking down in Eden, on dozens of displays that had been mounted around the underground base. They were intended to keep all our minds tightly focused on the time we had left until the arrival of the Kimprak, the alien species who would destroy all life on Earth if we didn’t find a way to stop then. We had roughly four years left until they arrived in our solar system.
I noticed Alice had disappeared. Was she thinking about the longer countdown too? In my case at least part of the reason was personal and had everything to do with the man that I was sitting next to, Jack.
‘Max-Q,’ the commentator announced.
‘That means the maximum pressure is on the launch vehicle,’ Jodie said. ‘When there’s the biggest danger of the rocket blowing up.’ She squeezed Mike’s hand so hard it left red welts on his fingers.
I gradually felt the tension slacken in my jaw as the critical seconds ticked passed.
Then one of the flight control team over the live feed from Cape Canaveral said, way too calmly, ‘We have confirmed booster separation and second-stage ignition.’
Light flared around the pinprick rocket being tracked on a highly magnified camera. It showed the SpaceX Super Heavy booster separating from Starship and beginning its return to Earth.
The thunderous applause became deafening and the looks on the faces around me were exultant. But the longer I stayed here, the more I felt like a spectator. If I was to hazard a guess, that was probably exactly how Alice had been feeling just before she’d left.
I bent my head towards Jack. ‘I’m heading up top to the jungle to look at the stars.’
Jack gave me a surprised look. ‘Not going to the party in the Rock Garden? Leroy got you some Highland Park especially.’
‘No, I just need a bit of fresh air.’
‘Oh, OK…’
Something passed through Jack’s expression that I couldn’t quite read. I turned away rather than trying to explain myself. I didn’t want to get into it right then. Yes, he had a lot to do with my current downer, but I wouldn’t tell him that. I began squeezing my way through the people sat on the steps.
The room behind me erupted with more cheers as the commentator called out something else. The doors swung closed behind me, cutting off the sound of the celebration. I headed away to attempt to find some peace from my own troubled mind among the stars.
I barely noticed the impossibly loud clicking of the jungle insects or even the stifling humidity as I peered through the eyepiece of my Takahashi refractor telescope. I was standing on top of a small hill in the middle of a clearing in the jungle. The thing that had been gnawing away at me had loosened its claws. Astronomy always helped clear my head, somehow putting everything into perspective.
I’d hit flow state, totally absorbed and oblivious to everything else except the star I was looking at through the eyepiece. It was Tau Ceti, a very unremarkable spectral G8.5 V star. Apart from being Earth’s nearest neighbour, it was also a G-type main sequence star that was similar in heat output to our sun. But now Tau Ceti was significant for all the wrong reasons.
I shivered despite the heat of the jungle night air.
‘So there you are,’ Jack’s voice said from behind me.
I looked up to see him approaching from the edge of the jungle clearing. He had a beer in one hand and a water bottle in the other.
‘You really are missing a great party down in the Rock Garden.’
I raised my chin towards him. ‘Sorry, I just wasn’t in the mood.’
‘Yeah, you said. But you must have enjoyed watching the live stream?
‘That was certainly great fun.’
‘It was. But nothing can beat being there in person at Cape Canaveral. If everything comes good for us, then maybe one day I’ll take to you see a launch there.’
I tried to ignore the if part of his statement. ‘In another life maybe.’
‘Yeah, I hear you…’ Jack raked his hand through his mane of blond Viking hair. ‘So what are you looking at with that fancy telescope of yours anyway?’
‘Take a guess.’
Jack’s gaze narrowed on me. ‘Tau Ceti by any chance?’
I nodded. ‘Either you’ve been studying up on your astronomy or…’ I drew my shoulders together.
‘Or maybe I already know you way too well.’ A smile crept across Jack’s face.
My heart did a little leap, as if I’d just been given a mild electric shock. It wasn’t the first time Jack had had that effect on me. ‘Maybe you do…’ I stepped aside and waved towards the telescope. ‘Fancy taking a look?’
‘Sure.’ Jack bent his head to the eyepiece and his forehead ridged. ‘Is that it? I was expecting something a bit more dramatic.’
‘Tau Ceti is an almost totally boring star apart from the fact it hosts an M-class planet, or I should say it did until it was harvested by the Kimprak. But what really chills my blood is knowing that somewhere in the interstellar space between our planet and Tau Ceti is a Kimprak ship heading straight towards us.’
Jack looked up from the telescope and nodded. ‘Getting thousands of miles closer to Earth every single day.’
I shook my head. ‘If only their progress was that small. I’m afraid with their ship’s solar sail now accelerating their craft to near an eighth of the speed of light, make that more like twelve thousand million miles per day.’
‘Holy crap, that’s nosebleed fast,’ Jack replied.
‘Tell me about it. The pressure has more than started to get to me, especially as it’s been a good six months since we detected the last micro mind waking up back in Peru. Plus we still haven’t heard anything from Tom. I can’t help thinking that he must have fallen into the hands of the Overseers.’
‘Me too. But as Alice keeps reminding us, this isn’t the first time that Tom has gone AWOL on a mission when he’s had to drop into deep cover.’
‘Maybe, but whatever she says, can’t you also tell how worried she is?’
Jack sighed. ‘I know… She always changes the subject whenever his name is brought up.’
‘And she’s been like a woman possessed, throwing herself into getting Ariel to a flight-worthy stage. Alice may have an incredible work ethic, but I also reckon she’s done it partly to keep herself distracted.’
‘Well, let’s not give up on Tom just yet. We both know how skilled he is as a field agent. That guy is as slippery as a well-greased snake.’
I smiled faintly at the mental image. ‘I guess so.’
‘Look, even if you’re determined to be on a downer here, don’t forget there is so much to be positive about, especially the launch of the first batch of TREENO CubeSats.’ Jack took a sip of his beer and raised the metal water bottle towards me.
‘Hey, I’m all for keeping hydrated in the jungle, but you really could have got me one of those cold beers too,’ I said, taking the bottle from him.
He flashed me that heart-warming grin of his. ‘You’d better taste the water before you saying anything else, Lauren.’
I unscrewed the top and took a cautious sip. A hit of pure single-malt Scottish whiskey tanged the tip of my tongue. ‘Oh my god, the good stuff – Highland Park single malt. You, Jack, are a saint.’
‘If you say so.’ He gazed harder into my eyes. ‘So, apart from the end of the world growing ever closer, are you doing OK?’
I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
Jack shook his head.
‘As my grandpa used to say, fine works great for the weather, but less so for people. So I’ll repeat the question. How are you really, Lauren?’
Those laser-blue eyes of his burned into mine and my heartbeat notched up several gears. Could this be the conversation that we’d skirted round for months – the one about how we really felt about each other? ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at…?’
He turned his body towards me. ‘I’ve got the feeling you’ve been avoiding me ever since we got back from the Machu Picchu mission.’
I stared at him, feeling like the proverbial bunny caught in headlights. So much for me thinking I’d been subtle about keeping my distance.
‘I…’ My words fell away and I shrugged again. How could I even begin this conversation? My heart twisted as I saw hurt creep into his eyes.
‘Yeah, I get it,’ Jack said. ‘We need to concentrate on our work. And we can’t afford to get tangled up in anything that might take our focus away from that.’
His statement basically mirrored my thinking, but it still felt as if somebody had just taken a rock hammer to my heart and smashed it into a bloody pulp. I took another sip of whiskey as I tried to find the right words to navigate us through this mess.
‘Another thing to add to our lives after this, if we ever get to live them,’ I said, not quite believing the string of words that had just come out of my mouth.
Jack raised his beer to my whiskey water bottle. ‘Amen to that. So here’s to being great friends. So you’ll stop avoiding me from now on, right?’
