Earth Yell: Book 5 in the Earth Song Series

by Nick Cook

  ‘But you can’t throw your life away like this,’ I whispered.

  ‘I’m dead anyway, Lauren, and I’m sorry. Goodbye my friends. Delphi, initiate Ariel’s emergency escape procedure to one klick. Override order, authorisation Overlord.’

  ‘Authorisation Overlord, command accepted,’ Delphi calmly announced from the cockpit.

  I felt Ariel surge away, its thrusters humming with full power. I turned and ran back up into the cockpit to see that Erin had dropped into the pilot’s seat.

  ‘Stop Ariel, we have to go back for Tom, Erin,’ I said.

  She held up her hands. I could see the joystick and throttle moving by itself. ‘I can’t,’ she replied, tears in her eyes. ‘Tom has temporarily locked me out with that override command.’

  ‘But there has to be a way! Lucy, is there anything you can do?’

  Her avatar appeared in a video window, her face tense. ‘I’m so sorry, Lauren. All those safety protocols that were built in after Red’s shenanigans mean I can’t override Delphi when an executive order has been issued.’

  ‘You mean there’s absolutely nothing we can do to save Tom?’

  Lucy simply shook her head, her expression ashen.

  Ariel was gaining speed as Delphi manoeuvred us away. The rocky pillar crumbled downwards into the ravine, burying Artemis under tons of rock.

  Then a huge pulse briefly rocked Ariel as an explosion boiled up from the canyon with a flash of light. A second pulse of light, stronger than the first, lit up the ocean bed. Then just for a split second our virtual cockpit went dark and our lights flickered. A moment later, with a high- pitched whine, the view was rebooted and we could see outside again.

  ‘Some sort of magnetic pulse, probably Artemis’s fusion reactor letting go,’ Ruby said, staring at her CIC screen.

  ‘I’m afraid Artemis has been destroyed,’ Lucy said, her voice catching on the last syllable. ‘It might be little comfort right now, but the destroyer does seem to have bought Tom’s bluff and has stopped launching missiles.’

  So even at the end, Tom had succeeded in trying to save the rest of us.

  I clenched my hands into fists, driving my fingernails into my palms hard enough to draw blood. As I slumped into my seat, my heart shattered into a million pieces.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tom is dead… The thought kept looping through my head. Nothing made sense anymore.

  I was only dimly aware of what was happening around me. The retreating view of the pillar of rock as it crumbled down into the ravine, while Erin, even with her broken ankle, manoeuvred us away from the site at high speed. The bellow of Ariel’s pumps evacuating the water that had managed to get into the cockpit before the ramp had closed. Jack, giving our new pilot a shot of adrenaline. Ruby, frantically scanning her screens for any sign of a further attack.

  Tom is dead…

  Then Mike was kneeling before me and looking into my eyes. ‘Lauren, what are your orders?’

  What were my orders? To turn Ariel round and get away from here as fast as possible. To stand on the shore of Cuba and scream at the sea for taking my friend’s life in such a callous manner? To curl up in bed with Jack’s arms wrapped around me and sob my heart out?

  Mike gently took my hands in his and peered into my eyes. ‘Lauren, look we’re all in shock but we need to do something.’

  Do something?

  My mind felt locked up, the shock of the suddenness of Tom’s death so overwhelming that my mind had frozen like a crashed computer.

  I looked across at Erin, her foot twisted at an awful angle to her leg and tears streaming down her face, but who was still flying the rivets off Ariel now she’d regained control from Delphi. As she headed us away from the pillar of rocks that had become Tom’s tombstone, I hated myself. I couldn’t regret giving the order to save Erin’s life but the price we paid for it would haunt me forever.

  But Tom’s life hadn’t been the only casualty. Daryl’s life had been snuffed out just like that and one look at Erin’s face told me she was grappling with the death of a close friend, just like I was.

  I needed to be better than this.

  ‘Lauren, tell us what to do?’ Mike repeated.

  I gazed back at him numbly.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Lauren, will you bloody pull yourself together? We need our commander right now,’ Ruby snapped.

  Her words cut through the log jam of thoughts in my head.

  Everyone around me was doing their jobs and I needed to do mine. It was exactly what Tom would have said if he’d still been here. A kick up the bum when I needed it most.

  I wiped the back of my hand across my cheeks, leaving them streaked with the tears that I hadn’t even known I’d been crying. Time to reboot myself. I would have to grieve later. Just like Erin and the rest of the team.

  I sucked in a deep, shaky breath. ‘Okay…’

  Jack shot me such a look of compassion that it nearly set me off again. Every person in the cockpit, even Ruby, was watching me with genuine concern.

  I exhaled and met my team’s gazes in full. ‘Okay, our mission objective remains the same. We still need to get to the underwater formation. So, let’s go and kick arse, because that’s exactly what Tom would want us to do.’

  ‘And she’s back,’ Mike said.

  The lives of everyone onboard this craft depended on what I decided to do next and also those of Niki and his crew, still slugging it out with the destroyer back on the surface.

  I turned on my comm channel to talk to Thor. ‘Niki, please report in. What’s your situation?’

  We heard the background clatter of minigun fire as his voice came on. ‘Shielding down to thirty percent, but the good news is that that destroyer has stopped launching those damned torpedoes, as you probably noticed.’

  I knew then that Tom would have been pleased that his sacrifice hadn’t been in vain. Now I needed to play my part to honour what he’d done.

  I breathed out slowly. ‘Niki, you need to disengage from combat with that destroyer and pull back to a safe distance for now, whilst we head over to investigate the site,’ I said. ‘But it might be an idea to call for more backup.’

  ‘Already done. We have a squadron of six Pangolins on the way,’ Niki replied. ‘They should be with us within sixty minutes.’

  ‘Good, now get yourself safe because…’ My voice trailed away. There was so much I wanted to tell Niki about how Tom’s sacrifice had bought us valuable time. But even thinking about Tom brought a stabbing pain to my chest.

  ‘We will. Good luck, Lauren,’ Niki said, filling in the pause for me.

  I turned my attention to Ruby. ‘Right, rather than just go storming in there, because God knows what other surprises they have waiting for us, I suggest it’s time to try out your new underwater WASPs and scout out the area first.’

  ‘Good plan, Commander,’ Ruby replied, all brisk and businesslike again. ‘Delphi, launch WASP swarm.’

  ‘Launching WASP swarm now,’ Delphi repeated.

  Ruby flicked a few buttons and twelve small video windows appeared on the virtual cockpit. They showed the live camera feeds of the WASP drones mounted in their racks in the loading bay. Water gurgled up around them as Delphi flooded the compartment.

  Then a hatch opened beneath them and one by one, trailing a data cable that spooled out from a dozen reels, the drones dropped out through the hatch and into the sea. They rapidly split apart like dandelion seeds caught in the breeze, each heading for the lip of the valley about a klick away from us.

  I turned to the rest of the crew and had to avoid Jack’s soft gaze, which threatened to unlock the grief that I was doing my best to keep at bay.

  ‘Okay, whilst we’re waiting to see what the swarm discovers, I suggest we land on the seabed,’ I said. ‘That way there’ll be no chance of one of those bloody underwater mics picking up our thrusters and realising there’s still a craft down here.’

  ‘Now that sounds like a good plan to me,’ Ja
ck said.

  I nodded, still avoiding his gaze. ‘Erin, please take us down to land on the seabed.’

  With a deft nudge of the controls she sent us down into a gentle dive, landing with the barest shake onto the bottom.

  The laser fire from the destroyer had ceased above us, indicating that Niki had now pulled back to a safe distance. At least that was one thing I could relax about.

  As the rest of us watched the live feeds from the WASPs heading towards the target, Jack had a moment to check on Erin.

  ‘Okay, let me have a look at that busted ankle of yours,’ he said.

  But Erin shook her head. ’No, even looking at it will make me pass out. As good as Delphi’s flight routines are, a human pilot is better in this sort of situation. So for now just some more painkillers will do nicely. Afterwards, I’ll happily hand everything back over to Delphi and you can do whatever you want to my ankle. Deal?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, properly meeting her eyes.

  She nodded. ‘It will help take my mind off Daryl. But I just want you to know that if I could, I’d swap positions with Tom in a heartbeat so he’d still be here with you now.’

  That had me fighting down a stone in my throat. I nodded, hoping tears wouldn’t betray me. ‘Okay. Deal,’ I eventually said.

  ‘You should know that once I get an idea into my head I’m pretty stubborn,’ Erin continued.

  ‘That reminds me of a certain someone I know,’ Mike said, giving me a smile.

  Even though my heart was broken, his words brought a smile to my own lips. ‘You better believe it.’

  It took every ounce of self-discipline to force myself to concentrate on the video feeds as we all waited to see what the WASPS had discovered. In any other circumstances I would seriously have considered asking Jack for a sedative, but just like Erin, I needed to stay sharp.

  Jack pointed up towards the surface. ‘Wow will you look at how many there are now?’

  I looked at the feed he was gesturing towards to see hundreds, maybe a thousand even, of whales of every species, circling slowly around the circumference of the valley ahead.

  ‘There’s no way that’s normal behaviour. Whales don’t gather in those numbers,’ Mike said.

  I watched, mesmerised, and nodded. ‘Leon mentioned something about running into a lot of whale activity in the area and I think we may have just found the reason why. They’re obviously drawn to this area for some reason. But any idea why exactly, anyone?’

  Lucy’s avatar popped up on the screen. She gave me a quick look, then cleared her throat. ‘My money would be on it having everything to do with the active micro mind sending out a broadcast carrier signal on the same frequency that the whales use to communicate.’

  ‘So going on the fact that the whales have gathered here at all, that suggests the micro mind is still here?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I think it’s increasingly likely,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Well, we’re about to get our first proper look at the site,’ Ruby said. ‘One of my WASPs has almost reached the edge of the valley, so maybe we’ll see for ourselves any moment now.’

  She transferred the feed from her CIC to the virtual cockpit for us all to watch.

  The drone had reached the edge of the rocky ridge, which suddenly fell away to reveal a large valley. There was a combination of gasps and whistles as we all took in the view.

  Laid out at the bottom of the valley were a least a dozen stone pyramids and dotted between them were large cylindrical stone buildings. There were also tall columns that finished in a point. But as incredible as that sight was, what took it completely over the edge into something truly mind-bending was that the structures had pulses of light dotted all over them.

  Jack shook his head. ‘Jesus, that place is lit up like a Christmas tree. This is like a far bigger version of what we found at the Richat Structure.’

  Lucy’s gaze lingered on mine for a moment. I could tell there was so much she wanted to say to me about what had happened to Tom. But instead of addressing that particular elephant in the cockpit, she directed her energy to answering Jack’s point.

  ‘Even though neither myself nor Poseidon recognises this site yet, we’re both certain that this is Angelus technology. Frustratingly, I feel I know the answer to exactly what this is and it’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s moments like this I feel like I suffer from the AI equivalent of amnesia. But what I can tell you is that there is definitely an active micro mind down there powering all those systems.’

  ‘In that case, Ruby, can you direct all the WASPs towards the source of that quake?’ I said. ‘But take it slow because I don’t want to give away their presence to any more of those underwater mics.’

  ‘All over it, Commander,’ Ruby replied.

  The views from the drones now showed different aspects of the structure as they started to descend towards it.

  As the drone dropped towards the valley floor it soon became obvious that the pyramids were massive, easily at least six hundred metres high. But unlike the last Angelus pyramid that we’d encountered back at the Richat Structure, these were covered by a thick carpet of lichen and were made from stone rather than crystal.

  Several of the WASPs reached the edge of the site and began heading down what looked very much like streets. But the structures that towered over them looked distinctly strange, more like lightning conductors than anything.

  As the drone proceeded along the street, it began to open out and then at last we caught our first view of what sat at the heart of this Angelus megastructure.

  Immediately Ruby killed the forward momentum on the drones. ‘What the holy fuck is that?’ she said, voicing the thought for all of us.

  On several of the video feeds we now had a view of a wide plaza that was at least two kilometres wide and sizewise, put Cuba’s Revolution Square to shame. But it was what was going on within it that really snagged our attention.

  Human made structures were everywhere, from banks of what looked like missile launchers, to some sort of large white underwater habitation on tall hydraulic legs, its portholes blazing with light.

  ’Whatever that thing is, the area looks heavily defended with what I’m guessing are torpedo launcher emplacements,’ Ruby said.

  ‘So can you neutralise them with your drones if we head in to take that base out?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure I can, even if I station all of my WASPs around each one. My concern is that Ariel’s defences might be quickly overwhelmed.’

  Mike gave me a hesitant look and then I understood why when he spoke.

  ‘Look, I know this is a painful subject to bring up, but I have a pretty good idea what Tom would say if he was still with us.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said in a small voice.

  ‘That we should gather as much intelligence as we can and then put together a plan, rather than go in all guns blazing.’

  I felt that pain in my chest stick its claws into me again. But grieving for my lost friend would have to wait until the right time to look it in the face.

  ‘You’re right, Mike, and thank you for the reminder.’

  He smiled at me.

  ‘Ruby, can you send just a single WASP unit in for a closer look at that underwater base?’

  ‘Absolutely, Commander.’ She selected an icon and a single video feed from the WASP unit nearest the plaza filled the virtual cockpit. ‘Okay, Delphi, give me control of WASP unit nine.’

  ‘You have control,’ Delphi announced.

  Ruby took hold of the joystick. With a small amount of throttle she began to propel the small drone forward, keeping it so low to the seabed that it almost scraped through the silt.

  The structures either side of the craft fell away and then it was out in the plaza with a distinct lack of cover.

  ‘Come on little fella, you can make it,’ Mike whispered to himself, but loud enough for us to hear.

  Our drone flying at little more than walking speed meant the underwater base seemed p
ermanently stuck in the distance. But slowly, metre by metre, the WASP closed in on what had to be an Overseer facility.

  I noticed as a pile of shattered crystal appeared in the silt ahead of the drone. For one awful moment I thought the Overseers had destroyed the micro mind. But then I saw that the profile was far too slim.

  ‘That’s a Guardian that’s been shot down isn’t it, Lucy?’ I said.

  She frowned. ‘I’m afraid so, Lauren. And it’s not just one of them either.’ Highlight boxes were appearing all across the square now, each marking a pile of crystal remains. ‘It seems the Overseers have been doing their best to destroy the AIs that were defending this facility. That would also explain why it’s taken them so much time to recover this particular micro mind.’

  Mike scowled. ‘Those absolute bastards. We’re talking sentient entities here.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Lucy replied, grim-faced.

  The WASP slid past the remains of the Guardian and headed on towards one of the large supporting legs of a torpedo launcher. As it neared we all got a clearer view of the weapon system. It seemed to be on a rotating mount, but it was only as we passed that I noticed something more significant.

  ‘Hang on, is anyone else picking up on the fact that the torpedo battery is pointing inwards towards that underwater base?’

  Lucy nodded. ‘You have a point there, Lauren. After analysing the feeds from the rest of the swarm it seems that all the torpedoes are doing the same.’

  ‘You don’t think they’re targeting their own base after taking out all those Guardians?’ Mike said.

  ‘Maybe they have already recovered the micro mind and it’s in that base, so it’s some sort of security measure in case it tries to escape?’ Jack said.

  My heart sped up at the idea. ‘Hopefully we’ll learn the answer to that riddle before long, and if the micro mind is in there, that’s another reason not to go storming in.’

  ‘Absolutely, Commander,’ Ruby said.

  The WASP was now drawing closer to the base and from its low angle, thanks to Ruby hugging the floor with it, we had a view of the belly of the raised structure. At one end was a rectangular opening, through which we could see water lapping on the surface of a pool. On that sat Alvarez’s white sub. A walled metal room with curved beams was visible above it.