Charred Earth 3: This Alien Earth

By TJ Hudson

The oddly named man Char has chosen to confront the demon from his, and the world's, past. He is going to do so with an unlikely group. Char is not sure he can call them friends; especially the enigmatic woman known only as Leaf 6.
Unknown to them, events have been set in motion that fundamentally change the entire planet. What started out as a journey of discovery soon ends up as a mission to save all life on Earth.

The third book in the Charred Earth trilogy.

A Novella of 24,300 words. This is a speculative science fiction story with action and future technology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TJ Hudson
• Release date: Feb 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301808175

TJ Hudson

TJ Hudson lives in Yorkshire, UK. Although his body resides there his mind can often be found wandering away to who knows where.He decided it was about time these meanderings into the land of imagination were written down, and just maybe make some sense of it all.To find out more visit tjhudson.net.

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Charred Earth Book 3:

This Alien Earth

By TJ Hudson

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 TJ Hudson

TJ Hudson's Smashwords Author Page

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Though this book does not contain DRM, if you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for supporting and respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue

It's Been a Long Time

Old Man's Babbling

Charitable Excursion

Supervolcano

The Earth No More

About TJ Hudson

Other Books by TJ Hudson

Thank you Monteena and John

Charred Earth Book 3:

This Alien Earth

Prologue

The space-ships silently drifted into their assigned positions all around the planet. Occasional puffs of gas from their manoeuvring thrusters were the only signs that distinguished them from any nearby floating space debris. Without any noise their gun ports opened, and then in perfect synchronisation they all fired.

The fleet of ships unleashed a furious energy on to the unsuspecting people of planet Earth below. A hundred cities were vaporised in the space of a minute, only a fraction of their respective populations survived.

The commander of the drop station looked over the read outs and saw that everything was going perfectly. He was a Lord of the Coremann, from the House of Smiff and he took pleasure in the destruction that was being wrought below. The Lord had earlier sent down a scout force, with whom contact had been lost (the Earthlings were paying a dear price for that). He had reported the loss back to his liege Lords and they in turn informed the Coremann invasion forces to ready themselves.

The Coremann space attack fleet stopped firing and let their guns cool; radiating heat into the dead of space. Their manoeuvring thrusters blasted out hot gas again to send them to their next positions of attack. The crews let their ships drift through frictionless void of space, letting their space hulks blend in with the debris and junk orbiting the Earth. They were still being cautious, though many of the Knights on board the ships saw no reason for such caution any more, especially after unleashing hell on the world below.

Unknown to the aggressive fleet however, they had been over confident and had made their move too soon with too little information. They were not alone in orbit around the Earth. There were other factions hiding in the vastness of space. The other factions saw the attack and watched on. They knew how foolish the Coremenn had been.

Despite being many thousands of years old, the weapon platforms still worked; as had been demonstrated earlier when, the now android, Charlotte had used one to destroy the special house she used to be.

The weapon platforms were in orbit around the Earth and the Coremann attack on the surface below had brought them to life. The Coremann ships gave away their positions when they opened fire. The massive bursts of energy had been impossible to ignore.

Sensors had detected the attack and then woken up the automatic weapon platforms. Targeting sub-routines searched for their quarry and found them in short time. For the second time in a matter of moments a second simultaneous attack occurred. Most of the Coremann orbital-attack ships were destroyed instantly, the rest were mopped up soon after.

The Lord on the Coremann drop station watched on. For a moment he panicked and scolded himself for allowing such weakness into his being. He thought the weapon platforms would target his station next, and the rest of their forces. No further attack occurred though, he smiled and thought to himself; well then, the ground invasion will just have to work a little harder.

He instructed the rest of the Coremann fleet to find and destroy the weapon platforms. He looked out of his view port into the black void, those damn AI's didn't tell us about those weapon platforms.

It's been a Long Time

Char looked back out across the temporary settlement. He was amazed at how quickly it had been set up and how orderly the local population had been when it came to moving in. Most of them had just had their homes and livelihoods destroyed and some had lost family and friends. The Street where they had all lived, Mill Street, was now a ruin.

A thought darkened Char's mood; first the House and now the Street, both destroyed after he spent time in them. He thought of the city of Kammridge and hoped he was just being a bit superstitious.

The small group he now found himself a part of were about sixty yards ahead of him; they were all heading to Kammridge. It would be Char's second visit to the local city. He hoped it would be uneventful, unlike his first trip there.

He went to turn round to catch back up with them, but paused mid-turn. Char saw a searing bright point of light in the distance. He squinted and could see it was a pillar of white energy that touched the ground far beyond the horizon. Char looked up and saw that the beam of light stretched into the upper atmosphere. And then it was gone.

Char tried to take in the magnitude of what he had witnessed but he had no time to. Instead he heard Leaf 6 screaming behind him, 'We've only got a few seconds, get to whatever cover you can!'

He spun round and saw that his three companions had already ran from the path towards a shallow ditch in the ground, they dived onto the floor and started crawling. Leaf 6 was in the lead and directing them. Eliza was behind her, following Leaf's every command.

Charlotte the android was further behind and looking back at Char's surroundings. She then called out to him and pointed, 'That tree there, get behind it!'

The urgency of the situation hit him like a bolt. The distant flash he had seen had to be an attack from space. Despite being many miles away, the blast wave would still be powerful. He had no time to catch up to the others, not even Charlotte was fast enough to cover the distance in the time they had.

Only moments had passed but he knew each one was vital. The wind picked up around him. Char ran off the path and dived for the tree trunk. Once there he crouched behind it and hoped.

For a surreal few seconds there was only the sound of the wind rustling the leaves in the canopy above. He was able to see Charlotte's eyes on her featureless face; they looked at each other briefly. Char gave a brief wave, shrugged and then put his hands behind his head and his head between his knees.

The blast wave was not as bad as he feared, which was not too much consolation as Char had been half expecting a raging fireball. Instead, a violent front of pressurised air roared past them. It sent small objects of all types flying. The forest creaked and groaned around them. He heard several dull cracking sounds as some of the older trees were split by