Free Sample!

Lemuria: Scorched Earth

“That would be madness!” Matt yelled unable to contain his frustration any longer. 

“Will you kindly show some restraint Captain,” General Calhoun scowled back at him in disapproval. 

But Matt wasn’t cowed in the slightest. “We have vital, priceless intel telling us specifically that we’d be stumbling into a trap. I bet they have raised every demon from the fiery depths of Hell to lay in wait for us!” Sven softly but firmly laid a hand on his partners forearm in an attempt to calm him. 

Colonel Guruli, better known as ‘Colonel Gorilla’, but only behind his back – the new Georgian Commander of the Mediterranean Division, after his predecessor’s death in the Battle of Ggantija, glared at Matt with contemptuous disdain… 

“General please – must we have this puppy yapping at the big dogs?” he sneered. 

“This ‘puppy’ is a war hero and quite possibly the only reason we are all able to be meeting here today,” Calhoun retorted in an ice-cold tone. 

Drastically chastened, he tried again in a more moderate tone: 

“We have combined our forces, and our numbers are now more than they have ever been. We must ride the crest of the wave. Strike while the iron is hot – and all that”. 

“Our new recruits need training, and the salvaged spaceships need repairing – but yes Colonel – I do see your point.” She was the consummate leader, able to balance and align all the variables and contingencies of any given situation within seconds.  

She took charge of the ‘War Council’ now, with Matt being the junior officer in a room filled with twelve men and women, (but mostly men). He should have been more subdued – but he wasn’t. His sister had risked her life warning them not to attack straight away but to rather consolidate their forces in Egypt and he would be damned if he would stand back idly while these trumped-up fools, lead them like lambs to the slaughter! 

“You would be…” But Sven interrupted him… 

“Perhaps we could do both”. They all turned to stare at the fighter Ace. “We can consolidate most of our forces at Giza, while the Captain here and I lead out our newly enhanced fleet of fighters to ‘go look see’. Possibly even give them a small taste of things to come…” 

Later, walking around the makeshift pavilions, Matt was still seething. 

“Now which of us has a death wish?”He grumbled 

Sven laughed. “No Matt. You still have that dubious honour. I merely suggested a cautious surveillance sortie and possibly a surgical strike. And then only if we judge the timing to be right”. 

But Matt was still angry. “Don’t you see those pompous lard arses would jump at the opportunity to sit back, while we volunteer to do their dirty work?” 

“I doubt you should be calling the Silver Fox a ‘lard arse’,” he cautioned, “but Matt, this is exactly how wars are fought. Always have been… You know – preserving the upper echelons of leadership, so that they can strategize the way forward, while the rest of as simple soldiers get to be heroes -”  

“Cannon fodder, you mean,” Matt interjected. 

This wasn’t what Matt needed to hear though, “plot our downfall you mean…” But he left it there. Their time together was too precious to be spent squabbling… 

It would be two days later, March 2, at exactly ‘oh-five-hundred hours’; when Matt and Sven led a squadron comprised of six spaceships and twelve Comets, out of Egypt and towards the Arabian Peninsula. Their destination: The ‘Empty Quarter’, near the town of Ubar, somewhere in the dry desert sands north of Oman, towards specific coordinates; and a place they knew only as The Lost City of Idam; or for the Esoterics – the ‘Atlantis of the Sands’! 

They flew in V-Formation: Sven in the lead; Matt in the Falcon to his right; Suzan in another spaceship to his left; followed by the Comets bringing up the rear flanks of an impressive eighteen strong squadron. The Rebel Command had given Sven command of almost their entire Air Force, leaving very few planes in reserve – eight Comets and some as yet badly damaged spacecraft. True to form – Sven couldn’t resist regaling the other pilots of his knowledge of ancient Myths and Legends… 

“Did you know that The Lost City of Idam is also known as ‘Atlantis of the Sands’ – a legendary city built by King Shaddad, ruler of the ‘Aad’, a race of giants?” When he heard only a few groans in response to his wisdom, he continued enthusiastically. “It was buried, not by the ocean, but by a cataclysmic sandstorm as punishment from God, when the Aads rejected the prophecy of Hud and continued invading the Canaanites…’ 

“The fact that it is now one of the main NWA bases might just confirm that the legend is true,” added Matt, lending his support to Sven. 

“You think it might be ‘the’ Atlantis?” Asked Suzan a bit sceptically. 

“Oh no – the real one is probably the one Matt and I found in Mauritania,” he checked himself then, “but who knows, it might well be under the Atlantic Ocean still”. 

‘Idam?’ Wasn’t that where the Nordic Mich-anus had told him he was taking his sister. If so, they would have to be clinical and precise as to what, when and how they attacked. He chose to keep this concern to himself for now as they had no way of knowing yet if they would even be presented with a chance to strike at the NWA base. 

It was just under three thousand clicks to their destination, and whilst checking their speed to allow the Comets to keep in formation, the fleet only began nearing their destination at 08H00. They were still over two hundred clicks out when Sven gave the order that would directly impact the future strength of the Rebel Alliance… 

“Matt! Suzan! You’re with me. The rest of the squadron is to hold back here. Do not enter within a two hundred click perimeter, unless Matt, Suzan or I order otherwise. Is this understood?” 

Eerie silence for a few seconds, before Lieutenant Lowrie in one of the Comets, spoke up – 

“You’re breaking away from our Mission Directives Major?” he didn’t sound pleased. 

“It’s a trap. The three of are heading in to flush them out… That is an order”.  

“Understood Major,” came the reply. 

The three of them flew by and circled the base at Ubar: It was an enormous modern construct resembling a four-leaf clover, with the ‘leaves’ being the size and appearance of football stadia and the stems being formed from a network of roads, bridges and lines of buildings. Nothing much at all could be seen of the old archaeological site, but they had all studied a site plan of the old site and had good idea what the area would’ve have looked like before being defaced by the NWA. 

“Do you see anything?” The fact that the entire area looked deserted was proof enough to Matt that this was in fact a giant trap! 

“I agree, this isn’t right,” Sven replied, reading his partners thoughts. “Let’s get out of h…” 

Dozens of discs began rising out of the desert sand as if by magic! Shedding their futuristic ‘cloaks of invisibility’, they now rose up to meet them, like giant flat sea pebbles levitating out of the desert sand… 

The three of them had reacted swiftly and were in full retreat, but the alien spacecraft had risen so quickly around them, that they were surrounded by at least twenty of them within a few seconds! 

“Can we make it back?” Matt asked – leaning heavily on Sven’s experience and instinct now. 

“No. We evade! Follow my lead…” And with that Sven pulled up on the stick and rocketed his ship up vertically, as fast he as he could. 

In aerial combat, the plane which attacked from a higher altitude had the advantage, and so with Matt and Suzan following close behind him, they attempted to gain as much altitude as possible in the precious few seconds they had before the enemy surrounded them. The G-Forces pinned them back in their seats and threatened to peel the skin from their bones as they achieved over eight times the speed of sound in the rarefied atmosphere. Struggling to hold on to consciousness now, Matt was vaguely aware of them penetrating the dome of the inner atmosphere to reveal the deeper blue colours of space in the stratosphere and the first few pricks of starlight beyond. And – ‘were those planets?’ 

“Oh shit… Sven they’re abo-ove us a-as we-ell,” he managed to slur. 

“Clever demons… Right follow me!”  

Sven pushed his stick down and forward before the overhead ships could spring their trap. His Phoenix now flipped and nose-dived back towards the distant surface of Earth. The pursuing ships, coming at them from below, looked like a silvery Oort Cloud of planetary fragments. Several of these fragments now had to take sudden evasive action to avoid being hit head-on by the three Rebel ships as they punched straight through them, like sharks through a shoal of sardines. In fact, the carefully laid out trap did have one flaw: If the surrounding alien craft used their plasma blasters, they’d risk destroying one another as well as the enemy. They therefore could only fire their directed lazer weapons at the three Rebels pilots who had no such considerations… They punched through the aliens with the full force of their plasma blasters, instantly exploding six of them and scattering the rest. To Matt it felt like they were smashing through a bright white and flashing crimson supernova, as the speed of the dive pinned him back against his seat with a force so crushing, he could barely breathe. 

The problem now was that the higher altitude ships and now joined in the chase and they had an entire fleet of over thirty alien craft hot on their tails, with free license now to fire everything they had at the Rebels… The three of them began spinning and veering sharply left and right as the intense flashes of plasma exploded in the spaces between them…  

“Not good! Split up!” This dreaded command was in fact a necessity as a smaller tighter grouping, provided a much easier target for the wide area plasma blasts to hit. 

Matt was frantically hurling his Falcon around in all directions as he instinctively evaded the immense firepower being directed at him. By now, sweat was running freely down his brow and stinging his eyes, but he dared not rub them as a split second’s distraction would mean death! The muscles and sinew in his hands and forearms ached with the constant toggling of the joystick; and just when he though the difficulty of this deadly game was nearing an impossible level, they began to fall within range of surface to air weapons as well… Suzan was hit… In his mind and in his dreams would ever be imprinted the last sound of her voice… 

“Guys I’m hit, I’m losing contr…Aaahhh!” 

“Suzannn!!” He screamed, then on some strange impulse – as if it were not his own – “Sven follow me…”