Destroy The Planet Read online

  THE BROKEN EARTH SAGA

  DESTROY THE PLANET

  THE DEAD PLANET

  THE CONTESTED PLANET

  DESTROY THE PLANET

  THE BROKEN EARTH SAGA

  PREQUEL

  TJ RYAN

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or in any means – by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without prior written permission.

  Published by Dungeon Media Corp.

  www.dungeon.media

  Copyright © 2016 Dungeon Media

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BOOKS BY TJ RYAN

  CHAPTER ONE

  General Mayne looked up at the darkness of the night sky, at the myriad of stars within the curtain of black, twinkling like burning candles. This was the pinnacle of man’s history, this moment right here. Thousands of years of creation had brought them to this.

  The launch of the Huxley.

  “Sir?” his aide said to him.

  Mayne could hardly stand the little toadie sycophant. George Thimley was the second cousin of the daughter of the President’s first wife, or some such thing, and as they say it’s not who you are but who you know that counts. George was ungodly thin and hardly made a move without asking three different people what he should do, and he had a weak handshake to boot. None of those things made him suitable for being a General’s aide-de-camp, in Mayne’s opinion.

  But he was in line to be given his fourth star next month, and ticking off some touchhole relation to the President of the United Countries of Earth would only derail that from happening. So, he tolerated the mealy little man with his buzzed red hair and freckles. “What is it, Thimley?”

  “Sir, the launch is about to begin.”

  Mayne rubbed a heavy hand over his bald scalp. Once, when he was younger, he’d had a full head of thick blonde hair. Now even his eyebrows were bald. Curse of old age, he supposed. At sixty-eight he could still take on most of the young cadets who came through the Academy for training, but that didn’t mean much. The military was becoming a service organization. The world had been at peace for more than twenty years. No more war. No more hate. Only dedication to a single goal.

  Reach the stars.

  “Fine,” Mayne said to keep Thimley from rubbing the skin off his hands. Straightening his green military jacket with its rows of colored medals at the left breast, he nodded. “Let’s go watch history.”

  The devil of it was that they had to launch the vehicle at night. Something about the launch window and the relative distances between the Earth and its nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri. Mayne shrugged. Let the big brains figure that out. This was the year 3847, after all. Or at least, by the old Gregorian Calendar it would have been. Under the new calendar, started when The Western Bloc had agreed to let Europe and Russia enter their economic system, it was the year 139. Either way it was an age of technological wonders.

  Walking down the path that led to the observation platform where all the other assembled dignitaries were assembling, Mayne found one of those technological wonders waiting for him.

  The launch site had been built into the ground, so the observation platform was on the rim of a huge metallic bowl two sports stadiums across. Safety railings had been put in place to keep everyone back, not that anyone who knew anything about the Huxley would have to be reminded to stay back. Voices from speakers echoed and reverberated around the clearing between the control buildings as Mayne gazed out over the launch site, and the vehicle nestled into it down below.

  A new breed of starship. That’s what the big brains had promised, and that’s what they had delivered. A quarter mile long from end to end, the smooth black metal surface shone under the radiance of the floodlights. The blocky engines and long central section that led to the bloated triangle of the cockpit made the whole thing look some kind of enormous screwdriver. Or a vibrator, he thought to himself with a chuckle.

  “Ready for this?” A very statuesque woman standing next to him in the crowd tugged his sleeve for his attention. “I am recording the whole thing for my grandchildren.”

  Ming Hua was a beautiful Asian scientist. Mayne thought she was responsible for the liquid ion power cells the ship was powered by. She was half his age, and dark skinned, and very open about the possibilities she represented. Smart and fun and frisky. Just the way Mayne liked his friends to be.

  “I’m ready for this, to be sure,” he told her. “I’ve been ready for three weeks.”

  She laughed, a musical sound that made his blood stir, especially with her hand stroking his arm. “You know the way these things work, General. Every bolt must be in place. Every line must be right. We don’t want our brave explorers to die in a fiery explosion.”

  “We don’t want the Earth to blow up either,” Mayne reminded her. “If this ship were to explode right now, what would happen?”

  Her beautiful dark face paled. “There would be a crack in the Earth bigger than the Grand Canyon. It would split our planet in two.”

  “Well.” Mayne knew that, of course, but it never hurt to go over the basics. “Let’s hope nothing goes wrong with the launch, then.”

  Her hand moved from his arm to his back, and she slid up against him in a way that left no doubt about what she was after. “When the ship is in the sky, I will have the rest of the night to myself. Perhaps you could keep me company.”

  He smiled. That sounded perfect.

  Below them, the running lights on the Huxley came on, illuminating the sleek sides and the sturdy landing gear and the walkway that led down to the ramp where the crew would be boarding. Around Mayne, the crowd erupted in cheers.

  “Almost time,” Ming Hua purred.

  “General Mayne,” a man’s voice said through the excited murmur of the crowd. “We need to talk.”

  At first, Mayne thought it was Thimley again, and distant relative of the President or not he was ready to rip the kid a new one, then he saw it was someone else.

  “Not you,” Mayne grumbled. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you even get past security?”

  Professor Viktor Ravnak smiled. He was a tall man, with long lanky arms and legs that would have been right at home on a scarecrow, and a full head of frizzy graying hair. Mayne could have twisted the man into a pretzel. Most days, he wished he’d done that the first time he’d met the Professor.

  Ravnak motioned to a private area away from the crowd. “We should talk over here. We don’t want to upset the guests.”

  Mayne started to make a sarcastic comment about where Ravnak could stick his suggestions. Then he looked at Ming’s face, and around them at the crowd. Then he sighed. “No. We don’t want to upset the guests.”

  Promising to come back to Scientist Hua as soon as he could, Mayne followed Ravnak over to the archway between two of the surrounding buildings. It was darker here, and quieter, and as soon as they were around the corner and out of sight of the crowd, Mayne pushed the Professor up against the wall and shoved a thick finger in his face.

  “You do not come in here and tell me what to do, you skinny little nabob!” He then released the Professor, who slumped slightly down the wall.

  Pacing back and forth, Mayne rubbed a hand over his bald head. “What the hell do
you want, anyway?”

  Ravnak blinked at him. “What do I always want, General? I want you to listen. The President has stopped taking my calls. You’re the only one left who I can talk to.”

  “Then you got no one at all, Ravnak, because I’m not listening either.” Mayne was tired of this crazy man and his crazy theories. “There is no reason to have an emergency escape plan for the entire planet. None. There is no way you’re going to get funding to build your escape ships. You stupid, ignorant, blind little man. You used to be the most respected scientist on the planet. You had a personal fortune to live on and you were involved in every single decision the world government made. What happened to you? What happened to your fortune?”

  The professor smiled, and shook his head. “Too much to tell, in too little time. The important thing now, is that they’re coming.”

  “Who’s coming…? Oh. You’re still on your conspiracy theories, aren’t you?” Mayne leaned back to look around the corner again. The crew was loading the ship now. It would be launching in just a very few minutes. “I don’t have time for you, little man. Go peddle your nonsense somewhere else.”

  As he stalked off, Ravnak frantically called after him. “They’re coming, General. They’re coming and we won’t be able to stop them. They’ll destroy the Huxley, and they’ll burn the entire Earth!”

  Mayne tried to block the words out as he rejoined Ming Hua on the observation platform but they echoed in his mind nonetheless. They’re coming. They’ll burn the Earth.

  They’ll destroy the Huxley.

  It was impossible. This site was the most protected place on the planet. No one could get to it. No one could stop this launch. The Huxley would begin a new era of space exploration for the human race. Nothing would stop this.

  Then why was he suddenly sweating?

  What if Ravnak was right? What if there was a chance…just a chance…

  No. It was unthinkable.

  Aliens, from space. Aliens, coming to attack the Earth. Not just attack. Destroy.

  Hayden scowled while everyone else cheered the ignition of the Huxley’s engines. Lunacy. The aliens were not coming to destroy them.

  Humanity had already had contact with a few species of aliens. It had been decades ago, but two different species had landed on the planet and stayed for a single day, collecting specimens and giving humanity the very basics of their more advanced technology before leaving again. Three others were in communication with the Earth over vast distances. Just messages from the black.

  None of them were hostile.

  Being able to reach those aliens, to actually be numbered among the citizens of the universe, was the main reason humanity had built the Huxley in the first place. This was their chance to be more than what they had ever been before. Establish colonies on other planets. Dominate the stars in the same way that they had dominated the Earth.

  This was their chance, and Mayne swore on everything that anyone had ever considered holy that no one would take that chance from them. He wouldn’t let them.

  From the inside of his uniform jacket he took out his Link. The communication device was keyed to every standard and military frequency. He chose the one for Unified Space Command, the branch of the military that oversaw the satellite defense grid that had been set in place around the Huxley. The world might be at peace but that didn’t mean there weren’t individuals who wouldn’t mind blowing things up just to be in the history books.

  The Commander in charge of the satellites outfitted with their laser weapons answered Mayne’s call immediately, and it was the matter of just a few minutes to get half of them aimed at the sky. There. If anything came at them, from any direction, they’d be ready.

  In another minute, the gravity drives engaged on the ship, and it lifted several feet up in the air.

  Ming Hua cheered. Mayne tensed.

  Wavering blue rings of energy pulsed from underneath the Huxley as it pushed away from the launch surface.

  Mayne held his breath.

  With the wind that pushed them all back further from the protective railings, the ship set its nose to the stars. This next bit was going to be the exciting part.

  Slowly at first, and then faster and faster and faster, the Huxley sped off to the stars, followed by the sound of thunder that shook Mayne’s very bones. The Huxley was away. The first attempt by the Earth to reach for the distant stars was a success.

  Mayne allowed himself to relax. Ha. That fool Ravnak had been wrong again. There was nothing that could stop the human race from becoming the rulers of the whole damned universe. Nothing at all.

  “So,” Ming said to him, wrapping herself around his chest and leaning up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Are you ready to celebrate?”

  “Yes,” he told her with a leering grin. “Yes I am.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  He woke up the next day in a strange bed, laying in scented sheets with a luxuriously feminine body draped over his own. Her one thigh was pressing just right into his groin and making him wonder if they’d have time to repeat that amazing performance from last night before he went to work.

  Ming Hua stirred when he did, and soon her smiling almond eyes were blinking open. “Well. Good morning to you.”

  “Back at you, kid,” Mayne told her, kissing her forehead. “That was an amazing thing you did last night with the…uh…”

  “Yes?” she teased. “What did I do?”

  He kissed her cheek. “You know what you did.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” she murmured. “But if you want me to do it again then you must say it out loud for me.”

  “Tease.”

  “Say it.”

  “Ming…”

  From her bedside table, Mayne’s Link beeped loudly. It was the tone that marked priority transmissions. Something that wasn’t supposed to be ignored, even if you were in the shower or relieving yourself. Or, about to have mind-blowing sex with a frisky scientist trying to prove she was more than just a brain.

  “Ignore it,” Ming begged him, sliding her hands up his side.

  “Well,” Mayne told her, “I could do that, but then we’d have men in black suits at your doorstep demanding to know why I wasn’t answering the damned thing.”

  “That would be fun,” she said, rolling off so he could reach for the Link. “The more the merrier.” She winked at him.

  “Might be a little crowded,” he chuckled.

  She squeezed his thigh, then got out of bed and made sure he could watch her walking into the bathroom.

  Mayne groaned, wanting what she was flaunting very badly, but knowing that his duty had to come first. Picking up the Link, he keyed in his personal code and then accepted the call. “This had better be important.”

  “Um, yes sir, it is.” Thimley’s voice was weak and shaky. “They told me, um, they said it was, I mean…”

  “Thimley, so help me God, if you don’t spit out why you’re interrupting my morning right here and now I’m going to tear that noodle you call a spine out with my own two hands and beat some sense into you.”

  “Sorry, sorry sir.” Mayne could hear the toadie take a slow breath before rushing through his message. “They need you back at the launch site, sir.”

  “The launch site? Huxley’s launch site?” He sat up in the bed, looking down at the bruises that Ming had left on his chest. “What the hell could they possibly want me back there for? Everything’s done. Let the scientists stay there and monitor the data stream.”

  “Sir, they need you.”

  “Can you say one single sentence without calling me sir?” he demanded. “Look. You either tell me what they want me for or else you go find me someone who’s grown up enough to string more than two words together at a time.”

  “It’s the Huxley, sir.”

  Mayne ground his teeth together. “Yes, Thimley, I know that’s where the Huxley was launched from. What about it?”

  “No, sir, it’s the Huxley. It’s coming back.”

  He
was out of bed in an instant, hunting down his clothes.

  * * *

  The Huxley launch site was buzzing with activity again.

  Mayne was led to the main hub of the buildings, where the big brains had their monitoring equipment and the computers translated every bit of data that was being streamed back to Earth.

  Most of those screens were now flashing red.

  The lead researcher at the site was none other than Haverson Dix himself. Appointed by the President, vetted by every member of the Governing Council, the man was a living legend. So was Mayne, of course, but not on the level that Dix was. That was the way of the world of course. Peace made heroes of the scientists, not the soldiers.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Haverson.” Mayne stood on the raised entryway of the control room with Dix, watching the flurry of activity down below them as a few dozen people rushed from one control station to the next. “What’s this nonsense about the Huxley coming back.”

  “Not nonsense.” Dix was one of the oldest men that Mayne knew. One hundred and twenty-six was still a long way from dead, but most people chose to stay home and enjoy their last few decades in peace. Thin and frail with a long mane of pure white hair, Dix still carried himself with authority. “See for yourself.”

  He waved a hand toward the main screen below in the pit of activity. Dominating most of the back wall, the screen displayed a grid pattern of the entire solar system, with Earth at its center. Displayed with a red dot, the progress of the Huxley was clearly marked. There was no mistaking it. The ship was returning to Earth.

  “Why are they…” Mayne didn’t know what to think. “Have we had any communication from the crew?”

  “None,” Dix told him with a slow shake of his head. “We have no idea what’s going on.”

  “How long before they’re within visual range?”

  “Well, they’re inside of Venus’s orbit already, so we have visual on our deep range telescopes now.”