Battle for the Earth (10 page)

Lee had not been quite as fortunate. As he had manoeuvred to target the bridge on the third Annunaki cruiser, he had been spotted and had run into a hailstorm of pulse weapons fire. The escorting ESG assault ships flanking his cruiser were being destroyed and the Annunaki cruiser had now released its full complement of fifty assault vessels, all of which were now bearing down on Lee and what was left of his twenty-five escort vessels.

**

Back on Earth, in San Francisco Bay, Thourus and his attack force of seventy-five assault craft burst though the still waters and rocketed vertically at maximum thrust on a direct course for the third Annunaki cruiser that was giving Lee such a hard time.

The TAG assault craft caught the Annunaki cruiser completely by surprise, unleashing a terrifying tsunami of concentrated pulse fire to the Earth-side flank of the massive ship. In this instance size didn’t matter: the whole cruiser erupted in front of them with debris cascading in every direction.

Thourus now began to concentrate on the Annunaki assault vessels that were mauling Lee’s cruiser and escorts. Again the element of surprise was on his side. His TAG assault wings swept in like angels of death on the stunned Annunaki assault craft left reeling from seeing the loss of their cruiser. Lee broke off from his initial course in an effort to evade the Annunaki assault ships and let the TAG pilots have their hour of glory.

The experienced TAG pilots were in their element, and with the Annunaki vessels in disarray, the pickings were easy. Most of the Annunaki craft were now making a break for it, heading in all directions only to be chased down by a TAG craft and atomised.

However, two of the Annunaki ships that had managed to make a break towards the dark side of moon were making good their escape, skimming the lunar surface and, using craters for cover, they remained undetected.

The rest of the surviving Annunaki assault ships made for the other side of Earth and the relative safety of the three battle cruisers there. In all only twenty-one of the sixty-five craft made it, along with the badly damaged cruiser.

**

Wesell had turned his cruiser to give chase to the Annunaki ship that had made a break for it. He could see that Lee had got himself out of the fix he was in and was busy licking his wounds.

Suddenly the proximity detector on Wesell’s bridge snapped into life advising of an impending collision. It was the Annunaki cruiser he had left to be finished off by the assault escorts. Somehow it had raised enough power to lurch itself at Wesell’s cruiser and was now on a collision course in a frantic attempt to even the score.

Wesell screamed commands to his bridge crew, but to no avail. The Annunaki ship was on them. The two ships bonded together and fell in an almighty death-throe. Together they lit up space as implosion followed explosion, a sight that transfixed everyone in view, and one, if you were lucky, you would only see once in a lifetime.

**

Lee couldn’t believe his eyes as he stood watching the spectacle which had so swiftly gone from a frenzied fight to a slow-motion dance, and now seemed to be going on forever.

Then suddenly there was nothing. Where five huge cruisers and numerous assault vessels had been, there was just empty space. A deathly quiet was returning, the fog of battle subsided, and a huge price had been paid by both sides.

**

Twenty-two assault vessels had been lost in the battle, along with Wesell’s cruiser. Lee and the surviving twenty-eight assault craft were slowly heading around the far side of the moon towards the dark side and the Blue Star Base. It should have been a glorious return, but the loss of a cruiser had been a bitter pill to swallow.

**

As Lee’s cruiser came to rest under the mag shield above the base, ACM Androids were already scurrying over the hull of the huge ship like ants on an anthill. There were a lot of repairs to be done, Lee’s ship had certainly taken a pounding.

All the craft were now safe under the cloak of invisibility above the base; Jumouk was debriefing Lee and could almost physically feel his pain. Lee blamed himself for the loss of so many ESG ships; he also felt responsible for the loss of the cruiser. If only he had gone in like Wesell, all guns blazing.

Jumouk interrupted his train of thought.

‘Lee, what ifs and maybes won’t change what happened. At the end of the day the overall result was a good one for us. At least now we are on a more comparable footing, but I have the feeling our luck might just be running out.’

Lee looked quizzically at him.

‘How do you mean, Jumouk?’

‘Well,’ continued Jumouk, ‘if I was commanding the Annunaki forces, I think by now I would suspect the moon was not all it appeared to be.’

Jumouk was right.

Even as they spoke Tannacha was receiving word from the two Annunaki craft lurking in the craters on the dark side of the moon. Apparently the ESG fleet had just disappeared on the dark side of the moon, as if by magic. Tannacha didn’t take long to put two and two together.

‘Shit! They have got a shield of some sort.’

This outburst was more typical of Tannacha.

‘Call all my commanders and have them meet me in my war room.’

**

22

The word had gone out and all Tannacha’s leading commanders were on their way to the war room on board the
Nephilimis.
In all there were six commanders left, the rest having perished in differing ways, mainly at the hands of the ESG.

Tannacha had ordered the
Serpitus,
the damaged Annunaki cruiser, to land at Perth Airport, Western Australia, a main Annunaki base, and have the necessary repairs carried out. He preferred to use airports as bases, as they served well and were almost purpose-built for the Annunaki craft, from the smaller shuttles to the massive battle cruisers and everything in between.

As the huge cruiser landed it dwarfed the Perth International Tower and placed it in the cruiser’s shadow. Salis, second in command aboard the
Serpitus,
was anxiously giving final commands as the cruiser came to rest. Normally it would have been Nalater the commander giving instruction to the helm, but he was now on board the
Nephilimis
in a meeting with Tannacha and the other commanders.

As soon as the cruiser had come to rest, a small army of Annunaki maintenance technicians set to work. It was going to be a big job. The
Serpitus
had suffered a lot of damage, and most of the main systems had been affected.

**

The security surrounding the base was extremely tight after the devastating attack at Heathrow. There was a minimum of ten Annunaki assault ships patrolling the air space around the base at any given time. Ground troops had been strategically place around the base to thwart any ground or air intrusions. Salis was confident in the security protecting his cruiser, but still had his own crew on high alert, just in case.

**

Bailey’s Crossroads, Fairfax County. Terry had been watching the increased activity in space and around Earth. Earth Central had also done its fair share of Annunaki harassment, mainly in North America, and although the Dropas pods at Bailey’s Crossroads had been discovered and eventually taken out by the Annunaki, the base at Earth Central was still safe and Terry had only lost seven of his ESG assault vessels out of the fifty he started with.

Terry had watched and probed the Annunaki as they had moved their base to Dulles International Airport in line with the rest of the continents and Tannacha’s orders. Security had again been tight, and Terry had up until now only limited success. However, after consultations with Jumouk a new strategy had been devised.

**

Any future attacks on North America would now come from Sub Sea One, and Earth Central would now command attacks on Earth’s other four continents. The logic behind this was simple: to keep the risk of Earth Central’s discovery to a minimum.

Terry now had his eye on the cruiser that had just landed in Western Australia. It would certainly be a feather in his cap if he could eradicate that threat.

The good thing about Earth Central’s position at Bailey’s Crossroads was when the ESG assault ships screamed out of the magnetic shield. They were only visible for a few second before disappearing into the depths of the North Atlantic ocean and on to their targets.

Up to now Terry had used this to his full advantage with lightning strikes at soft Annunaki targets. Hitting Perth Airport, Western Australia was going to be considerably more of a challenge for a lot of different reasons. Terry would need to ponder this long and hard if he was to come up with a plan that had any chance of success.

The sun was just starting to break over the eastern horizon. A brand new day at Bailey’s Crossroads.

Suddenly three wings of ESG assault craft appeared from nowhere, leaving Bailey’s Crossroads and heading east at high velocity. They broke the surface of the North Atlantic at Tom’s Canyon, dived to a thousand feet below the calm seas and headed south in the general direction of Bermuda.

The eighteen craft spread out in a large V formation, with Terry taking the lead and his right-hand man Grant Ashdown at the rear covering their six. Grant had been in the air force with Terry, and had been a natural choice for Terry’s second in command when Terry was made commander of Earth Central by Lee.

**

The ESG craft settled into a well-disciplined plan of action. Everyone had a job to do and they all knew the plan inside out, from the route there to the method of attack and everybody’s escape route.

Grant was bringing up the rear of the wing and watching his wing comrades veer left and right, up and down, hugging the underwater landscape like fleas on a dog. To their right-hand side lay the wreck of the
Nola
which sank in December 1863 after grounding on a reef just northeast of Bermuda. All that was left now was a couple of steam boilers and two paddle-wheel frames strewn on their sides.

Old wrecks were often used as handy landmarks by the ESG. It was so easy when configuring routes quickly, and the wrecks were easy for everyone to remember. There was also the security aspect. Intercepted coordinates could give a game plan away to the Annunaki, whereas a name here and there was a lot more difficult to follow.

Grant knew the next wreck of significance would be the
Mary Celestia
- not to be confused with the
Mary Celeste.
The
Mary Celestia
had sunk in 1864. A paddle steamer and a Confederate gun runner, she came to grief south-east of Bermuda on a reef, allegedly through the captain’s misjudgement.

This wreck was important because the wing would swing left here heading south-east towards the next wreck of importance, the
Comet,
which was sunk in May 1861 after colliding with a schooner during a fierce storm.

As the wing glided on its way, Grant wondered why Terry had been so ready to take up this particular method of navigating the world’s oceans. Then he remembered. It was down to some Android. What was its name again? Thourus. That was it. An Android that likes shipwrecks. How does that work? Does it have feelings or curiosity?

The wing had now swung south-east and was heading for the
Comet.
Grant hadn’t really seen or had any real contact with the Androids or at any rate those Androids that flew spaceships. He had dealings with the Androids defending the pods round Earth Central but they just seemed ordinary - not special in any kind of fantastic way. What made the TAG different?

Still, Terry knew what he was doing and this way of navigating was working really well, easy to use, and with no interceptions as yet.

All of a sudden Grant had a feeling, a bad feeling. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end, and it reminded him of the early days of the Iraqi war where he had served as a young pilot and learned to trust his instinct. The feeling was almost paranoid, like someone was watching him or had got the upper hand on him.

He immediately checked his instruments and ran a scan, looking out his view windows into the depths around him. Neither the scan or the visual sweep was showing anything out of the ordinary. All the same, something still didn’t feel right.

Suddenly, like a flash of inspiration it hit him. The current! It felt more like a wake - like the rise and fall of mountainous swells a rowing boat experiences as a large ship passes slowly by.

‘Terry, Terry, did you feel that?’

‘Feel what?’ Terry responded.

‘That wash or whatever it was.’

‘You’re imagining things, Grant. It can happen down here. Trust me, I know.’

‘No, seriously. It was a huge wake, I’m sure it came from behind me, but there’s nothing on the proximity detectors, and I definitely can’t see any sign of anything.’

‘It’s probably just been caused by seabed movement. Don’t worry about it, Grant, the proximity screens are clear and we are good to go, buddy.’

Still uneasy, Grant nevertheless accepted the explanation from Terry and acknowledged his last transmission. However, right up until they reached the
Comet
he had one eye on the proximity detector and one eye on his rear-view screen.

As the
Comet
flashed passed on the left-hand side of the wing, Terry implemented a slight change in course, heading towards the next wreck, the U-860. This lay south-east of St Helens, and Terry knew that about one-third of the journey was now behind them.