The Legend of Earth

Chapter 33



RM1 Caleb Cobb had been camped out in the radio shack for almost thirty-six hours. He had napped a little, but adrenalin was now keeping him going. Ever since warning the Earth of the impending attack, there had been a constant stream of incoming and outgoing messages. Sure, there was a four-hour delay, but this type of constant contact made them all feel more attached to their far-distant home.

Caleb queued up the latest message – just a routine update on the latest deployments – and began listening, when suddenly the link went dead. The speaker had been in mid-sentence when it occurred.

Panicked, Caleb quickly ran through his checklist; everything on his end was functioning properly. He replayed the message. Same thing, it just ended abruptly.

Caleb felt a cold shiver rack his body; his breathing grew short and he began to sweat. Vincent Holder, another of the radiomen in the shack at the time, had also heard the message and watched Caleb’s frantic efforts to decipher the problem. But when his senior petty officer looked over at him with wild, panicked eyes, Vincent knew what had happened.

Four hours ago, the planet Earth had been destroyed.