The Cave

By Rick Perry

In the year 2506, little Jarod Andersons worldworldswere full of wonder and excitement. Until the aliens came. They came, and in one clean sweep, they killed twenty-one million human beings, including Jarods family.

Now, twenty-four years later, Jarod returns to the red planet as the leader of the best, most elite fighting force ever known to man. Jarod and his team have come to save mankind from extinction and avenge their families at the same time.

The catch? After planting the bomb that would kill all life on the planet, they must cross half of Mars underground through unknown caverns and tunnels to their rescue ship waiting on the other side.

They are battling to stay alive to reach their ride home. Or die like everything else on the surface of the planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491805961

Rick Perry

Rick Perry is a retired English teacher, coach, and administrator with an avid interest in books, movies, sports, politics, education, and current events. After 35 years experience in both public and private education, he is eager to spend time writing and sharing his thoughts and opinions on a wide variety of subjects. Rick has been married to his wife Patti for thirty-one years and they have two children, Scott and Caitlin. His first novel The What If Project was written during the 2016 NaNoWriMo event. The book is now available in hardcover, paperback, and multiple ebook formats. He has also released a collection of poetry entitled A Head Full of Random Thoughts. Recently, he published a series of short stories called At the Drive-In: Small Town Tales, and its sequel Return to Eastlake.

Book preview

THE

CAVE

RICK PERRY

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AuthorHouse™ UK Ltd.

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403 USA

www.authorhouse.co.uk

Phone: [phone]

© 2013 by Rick Perry. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/11/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0595-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0278-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0596-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven A

Chapter Seven B

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen A

Chapter Thirteen B

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

A very special thanks to C. V. Minter. a wonderful lawyer, friend, and the person who helped push me to finally complete this book! Her right hand, Laura—who I’m sure had a lot to do with this—has my thanks and gratitude.

My wonderful, and loving, best friend of twenty-three years. Without her… God only knows.

And last—but by no means least—a special dedication to my mother, Lillian Perry-Homan. I hope you can finally find happiness…

And a very, very special and heart filled thanks to Authorhouse—they turned a great book into a masterpiece! ‘Nuff’ said…

PROLOGUE

In The Beginning

Jarod Anderson, at six years old, had only one wish. He wanted to follow in his father’s and his older brother’s footsteps. His brother and father had fought in the twenty-five-year war. But both had been brutally beaten and killed.

For Jarod, life was a paradise. Trips to the interplanetary amusement centre which hung in space, between Earth and Mars. And even at this moment in time, Jarod had the whole world—or worlds, in this case—as his oyster. Oblivious to what was about to happen, he was too busy play-fighting with his older brother, Jake.

Jarod, with no sense of patience, was shooting at his brother with an imaginary laser pistol. The boy played ‘good guy, bad guy’ with his older brother, Jake, at every chance he had. In this case, they were playing ‘Spaceman against Space Monster’. They played many forms of ‘good guy, bad guy’ scenarios. But this one was Jarod’s favourite. He loved science and monsters, outer space and science-fiction. In fact, he lived for the mysterious and the unexplainable.

It was the year 2509 AD, and life for the young boy was still new; so interesting and exciting, as it can only be through the eyes and the innocence of a six-year-old. And with the technology and capabilities of the 26th century, he had wonderful and perfect opportunities to satisfy his curiosities.

Jarod and his family (his mother, father and his older brother) lived on Mars Colony Number Five. As a matter of fact, they were all born there, including his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. And, although they had been to Earth—many times, in fact—Mars was their home. It was Jarod’s home.

2

Memories

Near the end of the twenty-first century the effects of global warming and the natural expansion and enlargement of the sun had, except for a very small percentage, melted the southern and northern polar caps. The results were devastating! Over sixty percent of the inhabited world lay deep underwater. Many species of animals started dying off.

Mankind had, long before this ‘beginning of the end’, lost his ability to influence nature as he had done in the past. The Third World War, or The Great Oil War of 2022—depending on who you asked when it started, and what it was called—had depleted mankind’s ability to control his own destiny. Never mind the destiny of the life or world around him! Quite literally, overnight, the world became a much less accessible place as it ever had ever been before, in all of recorded history! Almost all the oil reserves of the world were destroyed. The remaining five or ten percent, funny as it may seem now, were used to fuel the war. And life, as the human beings had come to know it, had stopped.

As if that wasn’t enough, a volcanic eruption, a hundred times more devastating than any ever recorded before in human history, had blanked out ninety percent of the world’s sunlight, causing an average drop of twenty degrees in the world’s climate. These factors led to a chain reaction that—without the immediate and controlled efforts of a united world—would have, without a doubt, destroyed the Earth as it was then known!

The melting of the polar caps was by no means a quick occurrence. All in all, it took almost three hundred years. The volcanic destruction, strangely enough, did nothing to recreate the polar caps. The polar regions of Earth had, and continued to have, the cleanest, clearest weather of any remaining land masses. Therefore they didn’t benefit from the cooling temperatures of the rest of the world. They remained non-existent.

Without oil to run the world, the remaining pockets of population were forced to find new ways to run their machines. This crisis was the catalyst that finally, after hundreds of centuries of war, brought the human race together. Humans stopped killing humans, and great minds were forced to work—TRULY—as one…

Different countries made new and wonderful advances in science and technology. And by the year 2107 AD, exactly seventy-five years after the oil war had started, all the tools necessary to save the human race had not only been invented but were in daily use—on Earth, and on Mars…

The U.S.A.’s first black president, did all he could in the time given him. But, even he could not stop the corruption and destruction that would follow!

3

In 2069 AD, a team of American scientists perfected ‘Laser Transportation.’ This involved a solar-charged motor that created a laser in an area, for example under a rocket, which heated up the air in that controlled area by hundreds of thousands of degrees, propelling the vehicle at any speed desired. These engines powered vehicles from rockets to bikes, and cost next to nothing to run and to maintain.

At, or around the same time, other countries made equally stunning discoveries. Russia and China, with the help of the ‘American engines’, had successfully created an atmosphere on the neighbouring planet Mars, along with three very small oceans. They had even begun populating its land masses and its oceans with the dying creatures of Earth.

At first, the animals—both water and land alike—couldn’t adjust. They started dying off again. But the scientist discovered that this was due to the difference in gravity, not the climate. They built a device that made the gravity on Mars stronger and successfully matched Earth’s gravity to within one billionth of a pound. After this, everything seemed to fall into place; very easily into place. Almost too easily…

By the beginning of the twenty-fourth century, the USA, Russia, China—all the great countries, and the small ones—in fact, no longer existed, at least not separately. Now the whole of the populated planet Earth was known as ‘The United New World Order’. It consisted of all the countries of the world living under one power, one government, one rule. Ten men and women controlled the UNWO. But even they had rules. Even they could only act out of the interests of all mankind.

In the years to come, in the near future, the human race thrived. There was only one flag for the entire planet. It consisted of the red and white strips of the North American flag; but its blue field portrayed no stars, as it did hundreds of years ago. Instead, it portrayed a beautiful three-dimensional planet Earth, with a blood-red planet Mars in its upper left corner. Both planets seeming to melt into the deep, rich, and shining metallic blue background that had always been a part of the flag.

4

By 2305 AD there were a total of twelve individual colonies on Mars, with a total population of 862 million people. This was quite a large accomplishment. Considering the population on Earth of 2.3 billion, it made up twenty-five percent of the whole human race. And five years later, in 2310 AD, the twelve colonies were divided up around the whole planet. New discoveries were made every day. Colony Number Seven had discovered the underground caves and tunnels, the underground labyrinths, exactly one Earth year before they came. One Earth year before Jarod lost all that he loved.

The scientific research team from Colony Seven had made the discovery of the caves. They had found an entrance and followed it in as deep as their equipment allowed. They found unknown minerals, unknown plants, and unknown animals (some extremely dangerous). So it was no surprise when their ship’s pilot, the only survivor of this first attack, explained how everyone was so excited about the day’s possibilities, so absorbed in the caves themselves, that they failed to notice the alien spaceship on their computer screens. Caught totally unaware, like the mouse by the hawk…

5

These aliens wanted nothing less than to take over the planet. They made that very clear when they ruthlessly attacked, unprovoked. With one clean sweep, using some new sort of laser cannon never before seen by man, they vaporised 21 million people! In the blink of an eye, Colony Seven was exterminated! The pilot was lucky enough to be in his rocket transporter, in route to colony eight, when the attack took place. Or so he said. Without so much as a verbal warning, or a visual confrontation, the alien spacecraft obliterated all life in its cannon’s range. It vaporised twenty-one million people in a tenth of a second!

No-one knew who or what these creatures were; a ship such as theirs had never been seen before. Unlike any human-built ship, it had an octagon shape with bright, white lights above and below, and round dome-like, protrusions, covering every surface available. These protrusions also had lights. But they were red, and had no visible order to themselves at all. They seemed to be at random areas on the dome’s surfaces: some directly in the middle, top parts, but others showing no apparent pattern at all. And, of course, it would have been nice to know what sort of life-form had attacked them. And given the chance, they would have tried. But this was 2310 AD. This was the human race they were dealing with. And what was a human if not a warrior? Besides; after such an unprovoked attack, that was the least of mankind’s concerns…

The aliens had attacked ruthlessly, quickly. Without any warning whatsoever. And, as such, so did the humans. They blasted the ship, like the target on a giant video screen, with everything they had. First destroying its defence shields, its forcefield, then bringing the mighty spacecraft down in a great big fireball, full of flames and smoke, over the mountains of the ‘Great Martian Mountain Range’. The spacecraft crashed into the peaks of Mount Zuvius. Spiralling downwards until it hit the north-side peaks of the mountain.

At 8,291 metres high, Mount Zuvius (named after its discoverer, Doctor Plazlo Zuvius) was the third highest existing mountain on the planet Mars. It was situated in the middle of the great Martian Mountain range, exactly above what was believed to be the centre point, as well as the deepest point in the underground labyrinths. Nobody had ever reached the centre of the caves. They were too long, only discovered a few years before, and ran too deep into the planet’s surface. Not to mention the deadly creatures that dwelled there.

Every attempt so far had resulted in violent and painful deaths or unexplained disappearances. But the geographic points on the maps, plus the fifty to sixty percent of the labyrinths that had mostly not been explored, suggested this to be fact. To say nothing of the strange happenings thereafter…

It should be noted that the exploration teams were there to do one thing: to explore. They didn’t have the weapons or the training to deal with the unbelievable savagery and the sheer numbers of creatures they undoubtably confronted everyday. Creatures that, until then, were unknown to the human race. Some still yet to be discovered—not to mention confronted…

Surveillance vehicles, rescue vehicles and other military and civilian vehicles were the first on the screen. The first humans to watch, record, and later tell what happened next. What happened after the spacecraft crashed into the mountain. And these eyewitness accounts left a lot of room for speculation…

Most eyewitnesses said that after the ship hit the mountain, it did not explode. They said that at first, as the smoke smothered the flames, doors flew open all over the machine. The spacecraft was the size of a small city, with otherwise perfect symmetry. Alien shapes of all sizes, colours, and imaginable forms, ran screaming—if the sounds emitted from their lips could be called screaming—from the ship in all directions. The eyewitnesses said that most of these alien creatures made it to the safety of the caves and labyrinths and their surrounding tunnels long before their spaceship actually exploded. As a matter of fact, most of the eyewitnesses swore to it. But the small atomic explosion (when it finally did explode), caused by the ship’s engines, made it extremely hard to believe that anything within a hundred mile radius could possibly have survived. Such an explosion should have killed everything within this area, not to mention the resulting radioactive fallout.

No! insisted the scientists and experts. No! insisted the politicians and lawmakers of Earth and Mars. No! they insisted, believing nothing could have survived in those mountains. We are the human race, they preached. We are the all-powerful force! And today we proved our dominance! And with that said, the discussion was ended; the whole problem was totally eradicated (at least in the eyes of the government).

It was as if being human beings meant certain safety—immortality, even. Mankind’s ability to survive everything, that it has, every time, for thousands of years, has made the human being blind to his own mortality. So as far as the world’s leaders were concerned, it was a closed book.

And despite thousands of eyewitness reports over a timespan of 190 years, there were reports of different types of creatures and reports of killings. Despite unexplainable deaths and disappearances, the governments of both worlds buried their files on ‘The Alien Spaceship Disaster’ (TASD).

By the year 2509 AD, almost two hundred years later, the TASD was all but forgotten…

6

Zap, zap, zap! I got you, space-monster! Jarod twisted and twirled into the air, holding an imaginary gun and firing it upon his brother, as he shouted I’ve got you now! Die, evil space-monster! His intelligence was only slightly overshadowed by his innocence. Oh! Ouch, you got me! I’m dead. And Jake made an almost too perfect expression of a dying monster, finally dropping onto his back and closing his eyes. As Jarod hovered over him, surely to check if he was really dead, Jake grabbed him on his sides and started tickling him, shouting Roar—got ya! Got ya, killer!. And they both fell onto the ground, holding their stomachs through bursts of tear-filled laughter. They laughed until they had cramps. They truly loved each other as only two brothers could…

At nineteen years of age, Jake had already made a name for himself in the space academy. Out of fourteen hundred pilots, Jake was among the top three. He was destined to be a great starship captain one day, just like his father and grandfather. And Jake strived for these goals. He worked as hard as he could to be the best. And he was pretty sure that he would reach these goals in the not-too-distant future, especially after surviving so much torture, and finally escaping from the aliens. But Jake’s little brother Jarod meant more to him than anything, including this job (although he would not admit this to himself). Jake loved his little brother over everything. Sure, he had a girlfriend, a promising career and wonderful parents. All of this he cherished with the whole of his heart. But Jarod and he were inseparable in ways others could not understand. Jarod worshipped the ground on which Jake walked. And Jake wanted to share with his little brother all the love and knowledge, all the beauty and excitement, that their two worlds had to offer. And, needless to say, they spent every available moment together.

Okay, game over… Jake spurted out in between his bouts of laughter. Time out, Jay. Isn’t it time for the bus?.

Oh yeah!, Jarod shouted. He had almost forgotten. Today is amusement park day, I can’t forget that! And with that said, he carried his toys up to his room and very methodically put them away. He had been taught to finish anything he had started, and it served him well. Even at the young age of six, he had the disciplinary responsibility afforded few adults six times his age. He already possessed the qualities which would ultimately claim his superiority among his fellow peers. So much, in fact, that he would be robbed of his adolescence and be thrusted from childhood, directly into mankind’s concerns; directly into manhood, and thus, into a leader people would be willing to die for. A leader with a heart of gold so pure, that all who met him would follow him—blindly, if needed—to the bitter end.

Of course, not yet. He was, after all, still only six. But today, fate awaited him. He didn’t know it yet. He couldn’t know it yet. But the events of this day would do more to change his future than anyone could begin to imagine. Today his life would change… forever. In fact, his life as he knew it was already dead. The clock of fate would spare little Jarod Anderson no pain whatsoever.

7

The school’s transportation vehicle had arrived, parked in front of Jarod’s house, and its driver was engaged in heavy conversation with Jake. They were old friends and enjoyed each other’s company. They also worked together for the space agency.

The school’s transportation vehicle was a twin-engine rocket, capable of interplanetary travel. It had to be because the interplanetary amusement centre sat directly in the middle of the planets Earth and Mars, just outside of the asteroid belt that was between Mars and Jupiter. It generated its own oxygen, gravity, electricity and its own food and water, making it totally independent of the two worlds it was built for.

Okay, my friend? said Jake’s friend as he jumped back behind the wheel.

Yeah. I’ll take care of it, Tony! Jake yelled up to him. But you take care of my little bro!

They had time for a quick thumbs-up before Jarod appeared. He had changed into military-camouflaged fighting wear, which looked a bit ridiculous on his six-year-old frame. He also had his backpack, his hand-computer, and his identification reservoir.

So! I see you’re all set, little brother! Jake saw to it that his brother was safely aboard, with all he could possibly need with him. As the vehicle began to taxi away, and Jarod started waving frantically goodbye, the tears welled up in Jake’s eyes. Two thousand yards out, the two brothers waved frantically. Neither one of them could have known that they would never see the other again… .

Jake watched as the school transporter quickly moved away. It was about fifty thousand miles away when he decided that they were out of view, and turned away. They were out of each other’s view already, a mere mile out.

It was at this moment that a nuclear missile exploded twenty miles above Colony Five. Every living soul in or around Mars Colonies Four, Five and Six had been killed! Vaporised! And the attack had only just begun!

Jarod had been looking back at the brown speck he believed was his brother, grinning and waving. But his thoughts had been on the fun he was going to have! The rides! The…

Tony? There was real fear in Jarod’s voice. Wh… what just happened? He saw more as the smoke rose. My brother! My parents! The Colony! It’s gone, it’s all gone!

But Tony had his own job to worry about. He had to get these kids to safety, and that meant Earth. Behind them the red planet, once known as Mars, erupted in the loud and colourful sounds of battle. It probably wouldn’t exist in another few years… maybe even a few days!

Jarod barely noticed the other children around him. Children he would grow to love and respect in the future. He didn’t notice anything, at that moment, as his body went into shock.

All little six-year-old Jarod knew was that his family were dead. His friends! His home! Gone! His mother, his father, and even Jake! In the blink of an eye, little Jarod Steven Anderson, six years old, had lost everything he had ever known. This experience naturally took Jarod’s small innocent mind a few moments to fully sink in, but when it did… when Jarod fully understood that his family were all dead, that his WORLD was dead, the shock took control. And Jarod silently cried.

CHAPTER ONE

The Chase

Twenty-four Years Later . . .

1

The Martian sunrise was a breathtaking sight, very similar to Earth’s sunrise, except for the colours. Instead of blue it was more red and orange. But today’s sunrise was suddenly blocked out… blocked out by a large, cylindrical, metal object. The object slowed its decent until, under the clouds, it revealed its obvious spaceship-type form: it consisted of a cigar-shaped inner area. The area where the crew were housed. This was surrounded by a globe-shaped number of rings, inside a yet larger set of rings, and this was surrounded by yet another, larger, set of rings. The material making up this ship appeared to be some sort of futuristic blue metal with a hint of shining silver appearing when the light hit it just right. The only odd thing about the ship was at its top: a black V-shaped protrusion seemingly supporting an equally dark black cross. One end of the ‘V’ supported one end of the cross’ horizontal arm, and the other end supported by the other side of the ‘V’. But, because of the ship’s height, these strange shapes were invisible from the ground.

The ship touched gently down upon the Martian soil. The three landing gears, appearing apparently out of nowhere, easily adjusted the ship into a level position on this unlevelled surface. As for the ship’s occupants, things had only just begun. Things that could and would most likely determine the fate of the entire human race.

Jarod Anderson, the ship’s commander, looked nervous as he observed their surroundings through the forward scanner. As leader of this mission, his thirty years gave him no justice; he looked more like a man in his forties, but only in his face. His body, although slender, packed a good amount of high-quality muscle. And he was well-trained in many forms of military combat, much stronger than he looked. A gift he was blessed with, that had on more than one occasion saved his life. His enemies were often not aware of Jarod`s strength until it was too late. And only Curtis was stronger. But nobody could be compared to Curtis. Yes; Jarod Anderson was the best human being to lead this mission. You could almost say he was bred for this mission, having lost his own family to the very same creatures he was sent here to destroy. Doing his duty as a soldier to save the human race, and, at the same time, avenging his family; he blanked out any fear, and focused everything on the task at hand.

He was definitely a very handsome man; he just had the scars of a man who had lived through and seen too much. Like the nasty scar above his right eye, a scar that at this very moment he was scratching. An absent-minded thing he occasionally did when he was worried or nervous. He scratched it and wondered how it had ever come this far…

1 A: Memories

His first memory was the cold-blooded slaying of his parents and older brother. It was the year 2509 AD. For young Jarod, only six, life was wonderful! Living with his family, growing up with his older brother as his idol… life could not have been better. Trips to the inter-planetary amusement centre and trips to Earth filled his life with excitement, curiosity and wonder. And then they came… and within two minutes little Jarod’s life, as he knew it, ended. They came with weapons he couldn’t begin to understand, and began systematically to eradicate all life from the planet Mars. A bloody and ruthless war began. Jarod’s last memories of his family were of Jake, as his ship was leaving the orbit of Mars. He had managed to escape as the war began. Now, twenty-four years later, he was back to even the score…

Most of the people on this mission he had met on that last return flight from Mars. There was Curtis Mills, the giant full-blooded Indian and Jarod’s best friend. Jeri Kirkland, his fiancé, Tracey Martell, and Ann Marie Emerson… Emerson… Emer…

Emergency, emergency! the voice came from the on-board computer. Prepare for immediate suit-up, armament and evacuation! it screamed. Five minutes and counting— This awoke Jarod from his thoughts.

Can’t anyone shut that damned thing off? screamed Eric. Now, Eric was an extraordinary man; at twenty-eight years of age his fighting skills were better than all of the other men, save Curtis. He was by all means a lethal weapon. Short and muscular with a short blond military-type haircut, he fit the bill of every man’s marine. Eric and John Glover were both here as combat officers, and experts in their chosen fields—Eric’s being nuclear fusion, John’s being quantum physics.

There was a little talking and complaining as