The Legend of Earth

Chapter 17



The Guard Commander and a squad of five other Juireans accompanied Adam and his team back to their barracks. On the way, Adam wasn’t sure if he should warn the Juirean that McCarthy may not take too kindly to be disarmed. He was hoping his distrust for the hulking Englishman wasn’t clouding his judgment. He knew Nigel would protest having his guns taken away, but would he really go all the way and try to take Hydon – and Adam, too?

Adam saw the logic in having the Humans disarmed. They had no need for them as long as the bunker was secure, and Hydon did say he could have them back if the bunker came under attack. Still, he didn’t feel comfortable without have at least a sidearm resting on his hip. All they had to do was just hold out long enough for the fleet to arrive and then everything would be fine.

Adam had left Chief Rutledge and Petty Officer Tindal in the barracks with Sherri and the two aliens. All of them seemed to get along fairly well and he’d seen marked improvement in all of their moods once they moved from the other barracks. They could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even though the surface of Juir was now a smoldering wasteland, they appeared to be safe and secure down in the bunker. And with the truce brokered between Adam and Hydon, within a few months, the Kracori would be on the run – from both Human and Juirean forces. The war would be over and they could all go home.

Adam sensed the tension the moment he entered the barracks. The three Humans were sitting on a pair of cots at the far end of the room, while Kaylor and Jym stood against the side wall. Behind them were the white sheets the aliens had draped around their cots. All of them wore solemn, serious expressions.

Riyad and Tobias sensed it too, but before they could react, four of McCarthy’s men appeared behind them, while two more burst through the sheets behind Kaylor and Jym, flash rifles level and ready.

The Guard Commander went for his MK sidearm, but even before it cleared the holster, the Humans behind them had smashed the stocks of their rifles into the heads of all the Juireans. They fell into a silent heap in the door to the barracks.

With Adam, Riyad and Tobias unarmed, the three of them simply raised their hands in surrender

McCarthy came forward to face Adam, a large grin on his face.

“This is crazy, McCarthy,” Adam said flatly, although he knew no amount of reasoning would stop the chain of events the Englishman had just set in motion.

“Maybe so Cain, but in the immortal words of Don Corleone, ‘He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’”

“This is going to get bloody.”

“That’s aces by me. Now get over there with the others.”

McCarthy’s men stripped the unconscious Juireans of their weapons and then did their best to place their new cache anywhere they could on their bodies – one can never have too much firepower.

“Is Hydon still in the command center?” McCarthy asked Adam.

“He was when we left. So it’s not just us you’re after? Now you’re just being stupid.”

Nigel told two of his men to stand guard over the prisoners and then left with the remaining four. Five men up against three hundred Juireans – McCarthy just might have a chance, Adam thought sardonically. For the time being, Adam would just wait it out and let the Juireans do their job. If McCarthy and his men got killed trying to take Hydon, well that would be a problem that just took care of itself….



The word had not yet spread through the bunker that the Humans should not be carrying weapons, so McCarthy’s small team was able to easily stroll through the main chamber of the bunker and to the command center without question. Not a single Juirean gave them more than their customary glance as they passed in the hallway. In five days, most of the occupants of the bunker had become accustomed to seeing the Human aliens among them, at least in the public spaces.

The command center was another matter altogether. While eavesdropping a few minutes before, McCarthy had acquired a lay of the land. Now he confidently walked straight in and approached Hydon – still at the command console – while his men stationed themselves at the doorway.

Hydon and Yol-fin saw McCarthy coming; they also noticed he was still armed. Momentarily confused, they hesitated raising the alarm. Nigel took the opportunity to rush up to Hydon and slip in behind him, clamping a massive arm around the alien’s chest. Nigel McCarthy stood nearly six-and-half-feet tall, but still the Juirean towered over him by a good eight inches. Hydon began to struggle, but his eyes grew wide when he found he could gain no ground against the Human’s incredible strength.

McCarthy let out a small laugh when he felt Hydon submit, an then he whispered in Hydon’s ear, “Now you know what your people have been up against. Pretty impressive, isn’t it, mate?”

Unrestrained, Yol-fin cried out, “Guards, protect the Elder!”

A dozen heads lifted from their consoles, the words of alarm not registering right away. Yet a few did react quicker, only to be the first to be cut them down by the brilliant bolts from the Human’s flash rifles, some before they could even lift from their chairs. A level-one bolt even caught Yol-fin center mass, cauterizing the hole it left before his body even struck the floor.

In a few seconds, the four Human gunmen had struck down all the aliens in the room except Hydon, but not before an alarm sounded. McCarthy flung the unarmed Juirean toward the corridor, where two of his men grabbed him by the arms. Several Juirean Guards were running down the corridor – but away from the command center. McCarthy smiled. They think we’re under attack from the outside. Let them keep thinking that.

“Stand back,” he said to his men, and they all moved farther back into the command center. Within seconds, the corridor was clear with all the aliens running toward to the main entrance to the bunker.

“Move out. Thomas and Sato, take point.”

At the end of the long corridor their luck ran out. Three Juirean Overlords – signified by their blue manes – were heading for the corridor, each followed by a yellow-haired counselor. The eyes of the Overlords grew wide when they saw Hydon held securely by his two Human guards.

McCarthy tried to think fast. “We’re moving Lord Hydon to a safer location,” he called out to the Overlords. They hesitated.

“No, they are not! I am being taken prisoner,” Hydon countered almost immediately.

“Alert security!” one of Overlords yelled, his voice echoing off the metal walls and ceiling of the chamber, only moments before a bolt from McCarthy’s own MK entered his body just below the neck. A flurry of other bolts sent the remaining five Juireans to the deck.

But now the dozens of other Juireans in the chamber were focused on McCarthy and the other Humans. The team moved out, hugging the side of the curving wall, heading toward the corridor leading to the barracks.

“Stand back!” McCarthy commanded, “or I will kill Lord Hydon.” He insisted on using the prefix ‘Lord’ to make his captive sound even more important, hopefully giving the troops second thoughts about opening fire.

“Disregard my welfare—” Hydon began to say, just before McCarthy smashed the butt of his MK into the side of the Elder’s mouth. Teeth broke and blood sprayed out, stunning the Juirean into silence.

The team continued to move closer to the corridor leading to the barracks, while a phalanx of Juirean Guards took up a position in front of them. When they reached the corridor, McCarthy scanned the hallway and found it empty. They moved inside.

McCarthy grabbed Hydon by the arm, freeing up the two men who had been holding him so they take up defensive stances; down on one knee, flash rifles held securely against their cheeks. Together, the team shuffled farther down the corridor, as dozens of Juireans began to fill the narrow opening with too many unguarded bodies.

“Open fire,” McCarthy said calmly, and his four marksmen began to send bolt after bolt into the mass of aliens. The Juireans in the front rows – those who weren’t killed immediately – tried to retreat, but where blocked by the crunch of other bodies from behind. Soon, over twenty Juireans lay dead, forming a very effective berm across the width of the hallway.

With two of McCarthy’s men providing suppressing fire, the other three – with Hydon – scrambled down the length of the hallway. Once at the entrance to the barracks, others from the team provided cover for the forward two as they ran for cover. Answering bolts were now coursing down the corridor, but all the Humans made it to the barracks safely.

Adam made a quick count as McCarthy’s men reentered the room. Damn, they all made it back – and with Hydon.

There was a second exit from the barracks leading to the mess hall. All the various barracks in the complex were located next to this huge room. Across the mess hall were other corridors leading to the bunker’s life support facilities and workshops – and to the room where the small submarine-like craft was located.

A few aliens were in the main mess hall – not Juireans – when the Humans entered. These creatures wore the uniforms of cooks and attendants, so they were not part of the defense force called to action when the alarms sounded. McCarthy’s men sent accurate bolts of blue energy into their bodies without hesitation.

With McCarthy leading the way, Adam and his people were shoved along behind him by the members of the Englishman’s team. Hydon was now with the last group, used as a shield for when the Juireans burst into the mess hall, however, they were all through and into another hallway before the Juireans managed to form a following party. Moments later McCarthy entered the room with the boring pod.

On the floor around the long, fifteen meter tall craft were four dead Juirean Guards. Baker stepped out from the entrance of the craft, coming face-to-face with McCarthy. “Sorry, we couldn’t wait any longer. We had to take them out.”

“Well done, Zack. Now everyone, get on board.”

Just then a barrage of electric-blue bolts streaked into the room. Even though level-two bolts were more of an annoyance than a threat to Humans, level-ones were deadly; three of McCarthy’s men went down from level-one bolts to the back.

McCarthy’s remaining force of seven armed Humans was still enough to keep the prisoners under guard and Hydon subdued. The Juirean Elder still had not fully recovered the blow to the mouth and was groggy, his head wobbling as he was thrown into one of the hard plastic seats lining the fuselage of the craft.

The boring pod did indeed look like a small submersible, long and rounded in the front. Yet running along its sides were wide tracks like those found on heavy equipment – bulldozers and such – and along the rounded front were several large laser arrays. The interior was one single compartment, with the pilot seat located in front of a large monitor. There were no windows in the compartment, either in the front or along the sides.

Once everyone was inside, McCarthy dogged the hatch and moved to the pilot’s seat. He took a moment to scan the controls and then looked back into the compartment. Spotting Kaylor, he moved back into the compartment and grabbed the alien by his shirt, pulling him into the pilot’s seat. “Can you drive this thing?”

“I don’t know,” Kaylor said as he looked over the controls.

McCarthy placed the MK to Kaylor’s head. “You better figure it out quick. You’re no use to me unless you can.”

Kaylor was familiar with just about every control panel currently in use by the Juireans. He pressed a button, which he knew would activate the generators, and immediately his monitor lit up showing an image of the shiny metal wall the craft was facing.

“Good,” said McCarthy. “Now get us out of here.”

“What do you mean? We’re underground!”

“This thing is called a boring pod. It’s supposed to be able to move through rock,” McCarthy explained. “So start boring!”

Kaylor saw a bank of six uniform control buttons all colored green. There was Juirean writing under them, and from the little Juirean he could read, he believed they said something like heat or melt control. He flicked them all on and was rewarded by a brilliant flash from the monitor as the laser arrays beamed out a massive blast of intense heat. Within seconds, the wall before them had melted, opening up a circular tunnel that grew longer as the lasers continued to send out torrents of intense light. Red molten lava began to flow prodigiously into the chamber where they sat, filling it with an ever-deepening layer of fiery, viscous liquid and incinerating all the Juireans who had followed the Humans into the room.

Kaylor gripped the steering control arm and pressed forward. The craft lunged forward and into the tunnel, which was still being formed by the constant beams from the lasers. The interior compartment of the pod was now filled with a deafening roar as the tracks lining the pod began to scrape against the solid rock sides of the tunnel. A waterfall of lava could be seen flowing down the forward wall of the tunnel and disappearing under the craft. Kaylor experimented with a knob on the side of the monitor and the image switched to a rear view. The lava was flying up behind them like the plume from a jet ski and sticking to a wall that had already formed behind them. They were now inside a bubble within the rock, moving forward at what seemed to be a respectable speed.

Kaylor glanced over his shoulder; McCarthy was still there, looking at the monitor, which Kaylor had switched back to the forward view. “Where to? I have no idea where we’re going.”

“See if you can find a navigation function of some kind.”

Kaylor was already pressing buttons and turning knobs. Finally, the screen was replaced with a green-lined representation of the surrounding bedrock, showing layers indicating the various thickness and makeup of the strata they were moving through. Another adjustment and the view expanded.

In the center of the screen was their present location, with an orange line trailing out behind them, clearly showing where the tunnel met up with the underground bunker. Adam could see the monitor past Sherri’s head, as all the others in the compartment were fixated on the screen. When Kaylor moved the perspective out a little further he could now see the edge of the Kacoran Plain. The line they were presently on was about half way down inside the mountain – and they were heading straight for the edge. Adam could just imagine them break through the side of the cliff and plunging half a mile down to the boulder-strewn base of the mountain….

McCarthy saw the possibility, too. He pointed to a place at the base of the mountain. “Steer us down here.”

Kaylor experimented a little more with the controls, first making the path of the craft climb some toward the surface. The controls seemed to be counterintuitive, but soon Kaylor had them figured out and Adam could feel the pod take a steeper angle in its forward track. Looking at the distance they’d already traveled from the bunker, and compared to where they were headed, it should only be about half an hour before the tiny craft would be popping out at the base of the Kacoran Plain.