Earth Shout: Book 3 in the Earth Song Series

by Nick Cook

A light drizzle was falling, leaving ghostly silver streaks in my helmet’s night-vision image-intensifier system.

  Ever since we’d left the cabin, I’d kept trying to imagine how I would feel if I were in the Grey’s situation. If it was still alive, it had to be terrified out of its wits. And how would it react to us if we managed to find it?

  A flash of torchlight appeared about a mile dead ahead of us.

  ‘OK, everyone, stop, I see something on the road up there,’ Mike said over the comm link.

  We all pulled up. Ruby took her Nikon sniper scope out of her backpack, flipped her visor up and peered through it. ‘Yep, it’s a roadblock. There are two Humvees and just to add to the fun they’re mounted with fifty-calibre M2 machine guns. There are some heavily armed soldiers on the ground too.’

  ‘Then it sounds as if we’re on the right track,’ Jack said.

  I focused on my HUD screen. ‘According to the map we’re less than three miles away from the source of that magnetic pulse.’

  ‘Well, we’re obviously not going to reach it along this road,’ Mike said. He gestured to a small animal track leading up a wood-covered ridge. ‘What do you all say to a bit of dirt biking?’

  ‘OK, but take it easy,’ I said. ‘The rest of us aren’t as experienced as you are.’

  Mike beamed at me through his visor. ‘You’ve got it.’ He turned his bike to the side and led the way along the track into the woods.

  At low speed the electric motorbikes were so quiet I could actually hear the raindrops splashing on to my helmet as we made our way up the slope that glistened under the steady fall of rain. The cover of trees and the lack of any moon should have meant the scene was pitch-black to my eyes. But thankfully the high-quality Sky Dreamer tech built into our helmets was once again doing a great job, illuminating what would have otherwise been impenetrable darkness.

  The rain was falling faster now and the Zeros were slipping more frequently on the wet stones poking up through the soil. To counter this, Mike began to lead us in a zigzagging pattern across the slope. Whilst Mike looked as if he was taking this in this stride, the rest of us had fallen quiet, all concentrating hard so as not to fall off and land on our bums.

  At last the ground began to level out beneath my wheels and I breathed a sigh of relief as we reached the summit of the ridge.

  ‘Let’s take a moment, guys,’ I said over the intercom.

  As we all pulled up to catch our breath, both mental and physical, I took the chance to gaze back down the slope we’d just ridden up. The Humvee roadblock was visible far below us through a gap in the trees.

  I consulted the map on my HUD. ‘It looks as if we can follow the top of this ridge and should end up overlooking the lake. Hopefully that’s where we’ll find the Tic Tac, not to mention our alien friend. I think we need to assume the Overseers are going to have soldiers out patrolling these woods to keep the area secure.’

  ‘Oh, you can count on it,’ Ruby said. ‘That’s exactly what I would do if I was in charge of guarding that area.’

  I cracked open my visor to help defog the Perspex. ‘If these woods are crawling with Overseers soldiers, maybe we should proceed on foot from here?’

  Ruby nodded. ‘Absolutely, boss. As quiet as these bikes are, someone hiding in these woods will hear us approaching and could easily ambush us.’

  ‘And I have idea to help us,’ I said.

  I toggled the comm channel with the eye control for my HUD. ‘Lucy, are you there?’

  ‘But of course, darling,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been listening to your progress like a radio play. It really could do with a backing track. Something like “Born to Be Wild” could work well.’

  Jack chuckled. ‘Nice choice.’

  ‘Well, that aside,’ I continued, ‘maybe now’s the time for you to find somewhere to hide yourself and the X101 closer to us. With you in range I’ll be able to make use of the Empyrean Key’s functions, which would be incredibly useful right now.’

  ‘You’re planning to use the twilight zone to sneak us past those soldiers, aren’t you?’ Jack said.

  I smiled at him. ‘Mind reader.’

  Ruby looked between us with a puzzled expression. ‘The what already?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see for yourself when Lucy gets here, but get ready for a real head rush,’ Mike said.

  ‘Right…’ Ruby replied with a frown.

  We crept on foot in the shimmering altered world, along the edge of the ridge from a clearing where Lucy had landed – together with the X101. They were both fully cloaked and whilst they might have been invisible in our particle-based world, in the twilight zone both stood out as shining objects.

  We headed away from them without our disguises, which we’d ditched in the X101 – since there was no need for them when we were invisible. The ground oscillated to our steps like ripples on a pond. The solid tree trunks around us wavered as if they’d been turned to rubber. But as always, it was us that had gone through the most disturbing transformation of all in this waveform version of our reality. The only constant was our eyes, round which our bodies blurred as if someone had grabbed hold of us and was shaking us at high speed. There was no need for our helmets’ night-vision system either, so we’d left them back with the bikes. In this reality everything glowed, making it easy to navigate.

  ‘This twilight zone of yours is crazy,’ Ruby said, staggering slightly as she walked towards Lucy like a drunk leaving a pub at closing time.

  ‘Maybe it is, but we’ll be totally invisible to any soldiers we run into from now on,’ I replied.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, that’s great and everything, but it’s seriously messing with my head.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get used to it eventually,’ Mike told Ruby. ‘We all went through what you did, but it almost feels normal to me now.’

  ‘I certainly hope so. Right now I feel like barfing.’ She gestured back towards Lucy’s micro mind ship. ‘Lauren, do you really think it was a good idea to bring her in so close to whatever is going on in the valley around that lake?’

  Before I could reply, Lucy jumped in.

  ‘Ahem, I’m more than capable of looking after myself,’ she said through our earbuds. ‘Besides, you gain a significant tactical advantage with having me in close proximity, of which you’re already making good use.’

  ‘That may be true, but I can’t help feeling that we’re heading into the lion’s den,’ Jack said.

  ‘It’s a calculated risk,’ I replied. ‘But I still think the odds are on our side, not least because we can sneak in right under their noses within the twilight zone.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, for all our sakes,’ Mike said.

  The small track we’d been following began to open out as we approached the end of the ridge. I started to catch glimpses of the valley beyond between the trees and anticipation began to strengthen inside me. Then, like the curtains on a stage being pulled back for a sudden reveal, the woodland opened out. Now we had a clear, uninterrupted view, aside from the falling curtains of rain. No one said anything for a moment, our attention locked on what was below us.

  I held the Empyrean Key in my blurring hand to better take in what I was seeing and selected the particle icon, dropping us back into our reality. In a heartbeat the wavering mirage around us was replaced by a reassuringly solid world.

  Ruby shot me a grateful look as she steadied herself on a now very solid tree trunk.

  Below us, nestling in the crook of the valley, was a small lake. Its surface shone with diamond reflections thanks to the banks of stadium lights that had been mounted on tall poles on the far shore. The air caught in my chest as I spotted what they were illuminating.

  A huge gouge had been ploughed through the trees in a path of splintered destruction. My eyes tracked along it to a large house that had been partly demolished by a crashed Tic Tac, which still had steam venting from it, earth piled up around its nose where it had finally come to rest. Teams of people in hazmat suits around th
e ship were just visible, crawling over the downed UFO like tiny white ants.

  ‘Oh my god, so those bastards did manage to shoot it down,’ I said.

  ‘And what do you think happened to the people in that house?’ Mike said in a small voice.

  ‘Nothing good if the Overseers are already down there – if they weren’t killed outright by the impact.’

  Mike drew his lips back and nodded.

  ‘Is that the same UFO you encountered with Alice, Lauren?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘I can’t be sure, but it certainly looks similar. Whatever, we need to rescue our alien friend, if it’s still alive.’

  ‘Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the bloody fire,’ Mike said. ‘But why would the little guy want to risk coming back here?’

  ‘Maybe it’s hoping that its alien buddies will launch a search and rescue mission?’ Ruby said. ‘It would make tactical sense – that’s the first place I’d start looking if it were me.’

  ‘If so, I imagine that’s exactly what the Overseers are hoping for too,’ Jack said. ‘Using a fly to catch a spider.’

  ‘Well, let’s get down there and see if we can get to our little friend before they do,’ I said.

  I activated the carrier tone in my earbud and at once the icons appeared again around the Empyrean Key in my hand. I selected the wave icon for the twilight zone and Ruby shuddered as we dropped into the shimmering ghost world once more.

  We slowly began to work our way down the slope towards the lake, the adrenaline buzzing through my system only growing. A minute soon turned into thirty. I was just starting to think I’d maybe been overly cautious to travel via the alternative world when Ruby nudged me and pointed ahead of us.

  The glowing forms of three soldiers in full-body armour and carrying carbines were only fifty metres out to our left. Ruby already had her Glock in her hand, raised and ready to take a shot.

  I shook my head. ‘Ruby, don’t forget they can’t see or even hear us.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ A blurry smile filled her face.

  Despite that fact, by force of habit we all crept past them. I wasn’t able to swallow until we were well clear.

  ‘Wow, that was seriously unreal,’ Ruby said after we’d put a good few hundred metres between us and the patrol.

  ‘OK, I have to admit it was a good call after all to bring Lucy up to the front line,’ Jack said.

  ‘Lauren’s far too modest to say so, but she did tell you so,’ Lucy said over the comm channel.

  I gave him my best freaky twilight-zone grin.

  Jack snorted. ‘Yep, maybe she did.’

  We continued to make steady progress towards the lake, having to sidestep round two further patrols. Then at last we were approaching the edge of the lake, a kaleidoscope of dancing light in the twilight zone. Beyond it, the shocking destruction the Tic Tac had caused became truly obvious for the first time. The house itself had been chopped in half, like a giant knife had sliced through it. Internal rooms on the upper floor were now open to the lashing rain. The roof had partly collapsed in on itself and a bed hung over the edge of the buckled rooms. In front of the house two burned-out cars had been thrown aside like toys by the impact of the crash.

  It was far too easy to picture the utter terror of the family living in that house as their world was torn apart by something beyond their imagination. After all, home was where you were meant to be safe.

  We all just stood there, soaking in the devastation, no one saying a word.

  ‘Hey, what’s that?’ Mike said, finally breaking the silence. He was pointing along the shoreline.

  I spotted a number of bouncing torch beams as a group of soldiers ran directly towards us.

  For an awful moment I thought we’d been spotted, despite being in the twilight zone. I was about to shout orders for everyone to fall back when I noticed what the soldiers were pursuing.

  A small humanoid shape was dragging its right leg as it tried to evade the soldiers, continually glancing backwards at its pursuers. It was wearing a body-hugging two-tone suit, purple with a gold top half, almost like a Star Trek uniform. The alien itself had an oversized head compared to a human’s and its large black eyes were almost shockingly big. Certainly everything about it screamed other-worldly as it splashed along the shoreline, its feet sending spray flying.

  ‘Holy crap,’ Jack said as we all stared at it.

  The Grey looked straight at us and then specifically at me, even though we were very much still in the twilight zone.

  The world seemed to freeze as a cascade of images appeared in my head… I saw the Grey back at the log cabin. A man I recognised as Jerry was pointing a hunting rifle directly at the alien. Then the view shifted to some sort of strange cockpit with a holographic viewing screen. On it the view of a house loomed into view as the Grey fought to control the Tic Tac craft. A split second before the impact, the image dissolved away. Now the view was from same cockpit, but at a very different time, showing Lucy’s micro mind ship and our X101 hovering a short way off on the viewing screen.

  The sound of gunfire and then shearing pain blotted everything out as something tore through my flesh. Suddenly I could barely breathe…

  I gasped as the world came flooding back in and I saw black blood erupting from the Grey’s chest. He toppled forward – somehow I knew it was a he now – and his head crashed into rock as he hit the ground hard.

  The sting of knifelike pain was fading fast from my chest. Confusion whirled through my mind. It hadn’t been me who’d been shot; it had been the Grey.

  A soldier with a raised carbine was grinning until Alvarez slapped the man’s weapon down and glared at him.

  With a sense of overwhelming powerlessness I watched Alvarez reach the Grey and stoop down over him. He pulled his glove from his hand and pressed his finger to the Grey’s neck as Alvarez’s squad converged on his position.

  ‘Those damned bastards,’ Jack hissed under his breath.

  Unaware of our close proximity, Alvarez sat back on his haunches and pulled out a radio. ‘The subject has sustained serious injuries and we’re bringing it to the medical tent right now. Be on standby.’

  ‘Roger that,’ a woman at the other end replied.

  He stood and his eyes locked on to the soldier who’d taken the shot. ‘When I say hold your damned fire, I fucking mean it!’ He raised his own pistol and, without so much as blinking, shot the guy through the forehead. The back of the man’s head exploded in an eruption of blood and brains and he slumped to the ground. The rest of the squad exchanged shocked looks, but no one said anything.

  ‘We should try to grab the alien whilst we still can,’ Mike whispered.

  ‘But there are too many of them,’ Ruby replied. ‘We need to pick our moment.’

  Alvarez nudged the Grey with his foot. The alien let out a catlike howl of pain.

  A pulse of anger surged through me, snapping my mind back into pure, determined focus. I had to fight every instinct not to drop us back into our world and shoot Alvarez in the head too. But I was in charge of this mission and my team needed me to keep it together.

  ‘OK, let’s get out of here before I do something stupid,’ I finally said.

  The team nodded and we all retreated into the woods.

  Mike clasped his hands round the back of his neck. ‘We’ve bloody failed.’

  ‘There was nothing we could do,’ Ruby said. ‘Probably time to head back to Eden and beg for Alice’s forgiveness.’

  ‘Bloody hell, no way,’ I said. ‘We’re not going to abandon that Grey. He’s not dead yet.’ It wasn’t just raw emotion speaking. I felt linked to the alien; I could feel he was still alive – as if the Grey had become an extension of me, or me him. I couldn’t be quite sure.

  ‘Well, it looked in a pretty bad way to me,’ Jack said.

  ‘He is, but he’s still alive,’ I told him.

  ‘You sound as if you know that for a fact?’

  ‘I do. I’m guessing that none of y
ou saw any images in your minds when the Grey looked directly at us?’

  They all shook their heads.

  ‘But you obviously did?’ Jack asked.

  I nodded. ‘A succession of sequences, including that Grey’s run-in with Jerry, crashing the Tic Tac, even the encounter with Alice and me in Ariel – which confirms it was the same ship.’

  ‘But how could you have seen that?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Telepathy,’ Lucy said over the comm link. ‘The few records I can access about this species say that is meant to be one of their abilities. And for some reason that Grey chose you to communicate with, Lauren.’

  ‘Is that why I still feel linked to it somehow?’ I asked.

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘OK then, this feeling is real. And whilst that Grey is alive, there is still a chance to save him.’

  ‘But how are we going to spring an alien from the clutches of Alvarez?’ Jack said.

  I turned to him. ‘I don’t know, but we have to, Jack. Like Ruby said earlier, we just need to time our move.’

  Ruby nodded with a look of approval on her face. ‘Now you’re thinking like a soldier, Lauren. So let’s take the fight to them, but on our terms.’

  ‘Oh great, Ruby, so you’re as batshit crazy as Lauren is,’ Jack said as another squad of soldiers appeared, carrying a stretcher between them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alvarez’s tightly knit squad of soldiers clustered round the Grey, two of them carrying the alien on a stretcher.

  I directed the team to trail them a short distance behind, through the glimmering version of the rain in the twilight zone. In full-body armour and helmets, the soldiers moved along the shoreline, circling back towards the Tic Tac crash site. I stared at their backs, my mind whirling as I tried to come up with something resembling a coherent plan that wouldn’t end up with us all getting killed. But how could we rescue an alien creature that had just been badly injured?

  ‘Any ideas about what we do next?’ I asked the team.

  Ruby turned towards me. ‘The obvious thing is to take them by surprise. Maybe shoot them whilst we’re still invisible?’