Earth Shout: Book 3 in the Earth Song Series

by Nick Cook

  ‘You’re saying we could use Ariel as a submarine too?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely, although you would need to add impellers to the design. Of course, if this were a fully antigravity ship – with deflector plates for its propulsion system like my ship uses – you wouldn’t even need that.’

  ‘Sounds like a conversation for another time,’ Alice said.

  ‘I’m afraid not. That level of technology is beyond your species for the moment at least. And that prime directive of mine won’t let me just hand it over to you. Anyway, let’s concentrate on what your new toy can do.’

  Alice nodded. ‘Let’s try out some gentle manoeuvres.’

  Much to the relief of my stomach, Alice pushed the egg control on its mount whilst applying only a tiny amount of throttle. Ariel slid forward like a hot knife through butter. She rotated the egg towards the right and the ship turned gently in that direction. Lucy kept pace, tracking Ariel a hundred metres beneath us.

  ‘Oh, now that’s just silky smooth,’ Alice said with a wide smile.

  ‘I suggest you try out the lateral controls now,’ Lucy said. ‘That will be a brand-new experience for you too.’

  ‘Why not?’ Alice replied. She gradually slid the egg across to the left and Ariel immediately slid to the right. Only the gentlest tug of gravity pushed my body into the side of my seat.

  ‘That’s incredible,’ I said as my nausea began to subside, overtaken by awe. ‘To think that this technology has been kept secret from humanity by the Overseers. It’s criminal.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Alice replied. ‘Imagine if this had been in the hands of NASA. We would have been able to colonise Mars and the suitable moons of our solar system decades ago.’

  ‘The Overseers have certainly been responsible for holding your species back,’ Lucy said. ‘You should have been far further ahead as a space-faring race than you currently are.’

  ‘Well, that’s something I intend to put right,’ Alice said. ‘As soon as we can, I plan to make sure this technology is used for the benefit of all of humanity, not just a few who are desperate to maintain their hold on power.’

  I nodded. ‘Well said.’

  ‘And heartfelt on my part,’ Alice went on. ‘So what do you say we begin testing out that thesis right now, Lauren? How about a quick jaunt into orbit?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Niki said over the comm link.

  Alice winked at me. ‘I should have known you’d be still listening in.’

  ‘Of course I am. I know you far too well. Just think of me as your conscience sitting on your shoulder, reminding you to keep safe.’

  I snorted. ‘Your very own Jiminy Cricket in other words, Alice.’

  She laughed. ‘OK, fair enough, Niki.’

  ‘Um, guys, I hate to butt in, but I’m detecting something that needs my urgent attention,’ Lucy said.

  I tensed in my chair and got ready to select the teardrop icon.

  Alice peered at the readouts on the glass screen in front of her. ‘Is there a problem with our REV drive? I’m not seeing it…’

  ‘No! Sorry, I didn’t mean to panic you. I just checked in with some US military satellites that I tinkered with a little when I was last in orbit. I’ve had them keeping an eye out for any interesting UFO activity.’

  ‘And you’ve spotted something?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes – a Tic Tac is currently cruising through the skies over Illinois. I’ll escort you back down to Eden and then I’ll go and check it out to see if I can make contact with the aliens piloting it.’

  A first-contact situation… This was the sort of thing I’d been dreaming of since I was a small girl, not least after having seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind at a very impressionable age. That movie had left an enduring impression on me. And as astonishing as Lucy was, and Sentinel before her, they were still artificial intelligences. What Lucy was talking about was a sentient biological life form.

  I turned my head towards Alice. She was drawing her top teeth over her lip and gazing at me.

  ‘You want to tag along too, right?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, but this is just meant to be a test flight.’

  Jodie’s voice came through the radio. ‘Don’t for one minute think—’ Her voiced hissed to silence.

  Alice lowered her hand from the control panel. ‘Well, clumsy me. I seemed to have turned our radio off.’

  I grinned at her. ‘Oops!’

  ‘Lucy, is there any reason we can’t follow you?’

  ‘None at all, but this is a test flight, so let’s try to at least honour the spirit of what you’ve agreed with the others. We’ll keep your speed below Mach 5. And if you don’t mind, Alice, I’ve slaved Ariel’s flight systems to my own. As skilled a pilot as you are, you need more flight time to gain a full feeling for flying Ariel before you’re ready to fly a mission like this solo.’

  ‘Understood and agreed.’

  ‘Then get ready for the rush of your lives as I take over your ship,’ Lucy replied.

  I cast a silent prayer to the patron saint of test pilots and did my best to maintain a calm face as Alice released her hands from the controls.

  Data suddenly filled the curved screens, scrolling past rapidly. Then the control yoke and throttle began to move by themselves. Just like that we were blurring towards the horizon at an impossible speed, Lucy racing ahead of us like a guiding star.

  Chapter Six

  The cockpit screens suddenly went blank as we exited the airspace over Eden, just as always happened in other craft we flew. That was important to maintain the secret location of the underground base. The logic was that if we didn’t know where it was, this information couldn’t be interrogated out of us if we were ever captured. Alice was an obvious exception to this rule as she’d had the base built. But she wasn’t in the frontline…normally, at least.

  With a lack of visual clues and the grease-smooth flight characteristic of the REV drive, it felt as if we were sitting in a darkened room, apart from the gentle hum coming from the floor. The only hint that we were flying at eye-blistering speed was the HUD flight information on Alice’s curved glass screen, currently showing Mach 2.5.

  There was strong new car smell to Ariel that had been scratching at my nose. Not unpleasant, but a distinct whiff of metal, hydraulic fluid and plastic. No doubt that would recede after a few further flights, as new car smells always did.

  Alice closed down a diagnostic overlay that she’d projected on to the main cabin walls whilst Lucy flew Ariel for her.

  ‘How’s it looking?’ I asked Alice.

  ‘Jodie will be ecstatic when she sees these figures. Everything is operating exactly as we hoped.’

  ‘Maybe after she finishes laying into you when we get back, hey?’

  Alice pulled a face. ‘Oh, don’t you worry, Lauren. I’ll do my best to hide away from Jodie until she cools down. Thankfully Eden is a big enough place to do exactly that. There are a few hidden rooms that she doesn’t even know about.’

  ‘Good plan,’ Lucy’s voice said. ‘Jodie is someone you don’t want to upset.’

  ‘Tell me about it – and I’m meant to be her boss,’ Alice replied. ‘Mind you, it often it feels the other way round.’

  I smiled. ‘Jodie’s certainly pretty fierce when she wants to be.’ I glanced at the distance read-out that had reached well over a thousand miles. ‘So, Lucy, what’s our ETA now?’

  ‘We’re about five minutes out.’

  ‘In that case let’s power up the external cameras again,’ Alice said. ‘Delphi, please restore the transparency feed to the cockpit.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ a synthesised female voice replied.

  At once the cockpit was flooded with light as the cabin’s wall screens shimmered into life.

  With the view restored the astonishing speed we were moving at really hit home.

  Through breaks in the clouds, I could see a vast patchwork of cornfields stretching away in every direction around us.
The views of them raced by as we hurtled through the sky, tower clouds like vast mountain ranges whipping past us. Just ahead, Lucy’s shining micro mind craft had precisely matched her velocity to Ariel’s, so much so that we could have been fixed together by an invisible metal pole.

  Alice peered at her screen. ‘I’m seeing a faint radar click about ten miles out, Lucy.’

  ‘Yes, I’m detecting it too. That’s our Tic Tac and it seems to be in a holding position.’

  ‘Hang on, if we can see it on our radar, can’t everyone else too?’ I asked.

  ‘Absolutely. You can guarantee there’ll already be fighter jets scrambling to intercept it,’ Lucy replied. ‘So we need to keep this first contact brief and get out of here before anyone else arrives.’

  ‘OK, as time is short, how are we going to handle this?’ I asked.

  ‘I suggest we hold off at a safe distance so our actions aren’t mistaken as hostile,’ Lucy said. ‘After all, the last time you ran into one of these guys they were being shot at by one of the Overseers’ TR-3B Astra fleet.’

  ‘Then I suggest we close to no nearer than a mile and attempt to make contact remotely,’ Alice said.

  ‘That sounds good to me,’ I said.

  Still under Lucy’s control, the throttle moved back by itself. Ariel and Lucy’s ship hurtled to a sudden stop. In any other aircraft our brains would have smashed into the fronts of our skulls. But thanks to this ship’s REV drive the G-forces that we should have experienced were reduced by eighty-nine per cent. It felt like braking hard in a car.

  ‘I have a steady radar contact a mile ahead of us,’ Alice said, peering at her screen.

  ‘Me too,’ Lucy replied. ‘Here’s an enhanced view from my optical display. I’m going to share it with you on your cockpit’s screens.’

  A pop-up window appeared on the wall in front of us. My heart leapt as I saw what was within it: a magnified view of a Tic Tac craft. The ship glistened in the sun like a giant white polished pill. It was almost completely featureless apart from a couple of spikes that stuck out of the bottom. It somehow looked wrong hanging there, as if it didn’t belong in our world.

  Alice was gawping too. ‘Well, isn’t that quite the sight? Is this like the other Tic Tacs you encountered over Peru, Lauren?’

  ‘Exactly the same from what I can see.’

  ‘Most fascinating.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll find this interesting too,’ Lucy said. ‘My sensors are telling me that the ship has a full antigravity drive system. That means we are definitely dealing with a very advanced species.’

  ‘I think we could have worked that part out for ourselves,’ I said.

  ‘Good point,’ Lucy replied.

  ‘Regardless of that, let’s open up a radio channel and see if we can establish contact,’ Alice said.

  ‘You can certainly try,’ Lucy said. ‘But I’ve already been bombarding the ship with communication protocols across the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. And so far I’ve received not so much as a squeak back. Of course, you may get more lucky.’

  ‘Lauren, you’re the closest thing we have to a first-contact expert on-board,’ Alice said. ‘Can you handle this?’

  ‘I can give it a go,’ I replied.

  ‘Then I’m opening a channel for you now. Just press the green button on your seat’s armrest when you’re ready to speak.’

  I located the button and pushed it. ‘Hi, unidentified craft. The first thing we want you to know is –’ I glanced to Alice, looking for inspiration, but she just shrugged at me – ‘we, um, come in peace.’

  Alice didn’t quite roll her eyes at me, but only just. This was a hugely historic moment and there was me coming up with a bloody cliché.

  A distinct lack of anything came back over the comm channel and who could blame them. They probably hadn’t even bothered to look up from the crossword or whatever it was they were doing.

  ‘Keep going,’ Lucy’s voice said. ‘I just registered a small electrical surge within that craft. That suggests they heard you at the very least.’

  I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Can you please tell us why you’re here?’

  Again, there was no audible response.

  ‘Are you registering anything else, Lucy?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Just a constant energy signature now, nothing more. But that does suggest Lauren has got their attention.’

  ‘Maybe they can’t understand our language?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, it’s definitely not that,’ Lucy replied. ‘Any species advanced enough to have a craft like a Tic Tac will also have the technology to interpret human language – and a thousand others.’

  ‘So we’re like a salesman ringing the doorbell and those guys are just pretending to not be in?’ I asked.

  ‘More likely the Overseers have tried to sucker them in with a similar approach previously,’ Alice said.

  ‘That’s very likely knowing just how devious that organisation can be,’ I said. ‘So how about the old shields-down Star Trek approach instead?’

  ‘The last time I looked we didn’t have shields,’ Alice pointed out.

  ‘I know, but what I mean is we could approach the Tic Tac with our own systems running at minimal power.’

  ‘Oh, I see what you’re driving at,’ Alice said. ‘Keeping our power at low levels shows them that we’re not initiating any energy weapons.’

  ‘Let me try approaching first,’ Lucy said. ‘You hang back here just in case they misinterpret my advances towards them as hostile.’

  ‘OK, but the first hint of trouble and we all head straight back to Eden,’ Alice said. ‘I’m in enough trouble as it is. Niki would be furious if he knew what we were about to try.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m handing primary control of Ariel back to you, Alice. That way you can make a fast exit if necessary and I’ll catch up with you.’

  ‘Understood,’ Alice replied. She took hold of the egg-shaped controller, her other hand poised over the throttle.

  ‘You have control,’ Lucy said.

  There was a slight movement downwards before Alice compensated for it. ‘I have control,’ Alice repeated back.

  ‘OK, I’m going in. Wish me luck,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Keeping everything crossed for you here,’ I replied.

  With a gentle surge Lucy’s star-shaped craft began to slowly roll end over end as she headed towards the Tic Tac.

  The AI gradually closed the distance between herself and the other craft until she came to a dead stop less than a hundred metres away. Then she began to orbit round it, like a circling sheep dog who had cornered a stray.

  ‘OK, I’m using more obscure communication protocols now, including mathematical formulae and even the value of pi to see if we can get a response,’ Lucy’s voice said.

  Over the next few minutes the Tic Tac remained stock still as though it wasn’t even aware of Lucy despite her close proximity. What were the crew in that thing making of all this?

  A warbling alarm came from Alice’s control panel and a red square box appeared over our cockpit screens to the starboard side.

  Alice peered at the glass screen. ‘Oh shoot, it looks as if we’ve got military company and…’ She blinked hard. ‘Approaching speed is Mach 8.’

  ‘There’s only one thing that can move that fast – a TR-3B Astra,’ I said.

  ‘Looking at the masked radar signatures, I think you’re right,’ Lucy said. ‘Guys, you need to get out of here and fast. Whatever propulsion system they are using, it’s even more powerful than Ariel’s vectoring thrusters.’

  ‘But what about you?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re almost certainly tracking the Tic Tac craft, which doesn’t seem that concerned about hiding its radar signature. So I’ll engage full-stealth mode and I suggest you do the same. Then I’ll hang around here to see what happens. I’ll catch you up back at Eden.’

  ‘Understood and good luck,’ Alice replied. She glanced at her monitor. ‘Time to engage o
ur chameleon cloak.’ She pressed a button on the panel.

  A muffled bang came from somewhere beneath us.

  Alice stared at her readouts. ‘Darn it, we have an overload in the power feed to the exterior-cloaking screens.’

  ‘You mean we can’t hide ourselves?’ I asked.

  ‘Not until we get it fixed. Delphi, initiate immediate power bypass for chameleon system.’

  ‘Initiated,’ Delphi relied. ‘Three minutes until rerouting complete.’

  Alice frowned at her glass screen as she scanned the displayed information. ‘At the speed that bandit is coming in at, we’re going to need to forget that ceiling of ten thousand feet if we’re going to escape it.’

  ‘Whatever you’re going to do, you’ve got less than thirty seconds until they arrive,’ Lucy said.

  ‘On it already,’ Alice replied. She raised the egg control upwards and pushed the throttle all the way forward. One moment we were hovering in the skies over the Illinois prairies, the next we were shooting straight upwards at a speed that was enough to steal my breath away.

  ‘Mach 6.2, our maximum speed,’ Alice called out.

  Even though there was less than one G of acceleration, thanks to the REV drive, my hands still clawed my flight seat’s armrests. But there was also a flip side too. My eyes drank in the astonishing view that only astronauts had previously seen on their way into orbit as the Earth started to curve away beneath us. My lifelong dream of becoming an astronaut was about to be realised. I just wished it was in happier circumstances when our lives weren’t suddenly on the line.

  Alice shook her head in amazement as she took in the view. ‘Well, Ariel can certainly shift her tush.’

  ‘Oh bloody hell!’ Lucy’s voice said over the comm channel.

  ‘What’s wrong now?’ I asked.

  ‘It turns out it wasn’t one TR-3B Astra, but three flying in close formation. They seem to have some sort of tech to alter their radar profiles. And, to make things even trickier, somehow they’ve detected my presence with a kind of energy-scanning system. They are throwing that beam around like a bloody searchlight. I’m locked into a game of chase with one of them, and I’m finding it hard to shake it off.’