War of the Worlds: Vanguard

By D G Leigh

Sequel to H G Wells' classic The War of the Worlds.

It's been two decades since Mars' failed conquest of Earth.
The journalist and his wife, Carrie, have a son. A criminal selling poems and nursery rhymes contraband on the streets of Artilleryman's glistening subterranean metropolis, New London.

Pursued by a disillusioned gunslinging-curate, Pockets evades capture only to stumble across darker secrets buried below the citadel. Teaming up with Tuppence and Zero the young trio plan to escape to the surface, fatefully on the conjunction of our two planets.

The Martians haven't forgotten us.
Revengeful, they've been busy scheming humanity's downfall.
Poised to launch a second attack.

Phase one: Using the advantage of space, an orbiting weapons platform bombards Antarctica and Greenland's ice sheets with a constant harmonic hum. Oscillating molecules generate heat, melting millenniums of frozen layers causing our oceans to significantly rise. Swallowing most of the world's capital cities. Displacing fifty-five per cent of the planet's population. Unimaginable pandemonium ensues. All without setting a single mechanical foot on Earth's germ-infested surface.

Phase two: The first colossus floating sea-cylinder containing military logistics and processing factories splash lands. A mobile fortress using an ocean as its moat. New Martian amphibious handling machines wade ashore.

Mankind hasn't united against this universal threat.
We've bickered amongst ourselves.
Our greatest flaw shall be our demise.
* * * * * *
Formally released in 2017 as “The Massacre of Mankind” now re-edited and extended.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bright Ideas Inc
• Release date: Apr 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463698259

D G Leigh

David grew up by the sea in a medium size fishing village.He filled his childhood days beach-combing, exploring nature and wandering around museums. Those early years gave him the love he has for the great outdoors and those motionless exhibition ignited his thirst for inhaling the real world.At eighteen he threw his rucksack across his shoulders. Over the following decade he encompassed the globe. Sometimes travelling alone through remote and dangerous places. These were his pirate years. Riding horseback on foreign shores waiting for the next escapade to tap him on the shoulder. Meeting many wonderful people from every corner of planet and haphazardly faced death on numerous occasions.He now resides in London with his wife and son.

Book preview

Prologue

No one would've believed that four billion years ago the planet Mars had been on a parallel path to truly be Earth's sister world. The devilish red sphere that we now observe was once a shining blue pearl oasis in the vast vacuum of space. Far in advance of Earth's natural development. Extensive oceans teeming with life gently lapped untainted shores of fertile and diverse continents.

Countless millennia after their original aquatic air-breathing brethren boldly crept forth upon the land. Fourteen monumental asteroids impacted Mars with such ferociousness that the planet was left permanently lopsided.

Superheated Mars' crust melted, a catalysis that started an irreversible doomsday catastrophe. Half the Southern hemisphere became a boiling pot of magma. All remaining surface water vaporised. The basic key ingredient for sustaining all life incinerated.

Once the outer mantle temperature exceeded its liquid metal core Mars' convection shut down. Its protective global magnetic field lost forever. Solar storms stripped the planet of its fragile exposed atmosphere. Her fractured skies ablaze with escaping ions, the universe never fails to put on a mesmerising show. Condemning this once beautiful celestial body to its now bitterly cold barren eternity.

Evolved lifeforms decimated. The fortunate perished instantly. Scattered survivors fought disease, starvation and eventually cannibalism. Forced to slithered back deep within the bowels of their dying world never to be heard of again until aeons later when huge jets of luminous gas erupted from Mars announced their plans for conquest.

Their first attack against Earth failed. Slain by the minutest organisms upon our planet after all man's devices had proven useless, bacteria. The simple common cold, a discomfort for an ordinary gentleman but has fatal consequences for an invader from outer space.

Directly the Martians arrived our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Irrevocably doomed. Ignorant that they were rotting inside their towering killing machines.

Defeated, a final message transmitted back to their homeworld contained just one word. Contamination.

* * * * * *

Licence

The War of the Worlds

Vanguard

Written by D G Leigh

Published by Bright Ideas Inc

Copyright 2016 D G Leigh

Formally released 2017 as The Massacre of Mankind

Re-edited and extended 2019 V1.0

Original tripod concept Pinguin Con Pulgares

Cover model Zentai Deviantart

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Apologises from the author

Anton Dohrn seamount

wasn't discovered until the end of the 1950s.

Space-elevator mechanics:-

Purely for pacing, transit time to geostationary orbit instead of taking days has been reduced to a rocketing thirty minutes. Also a wee bit of tinkering with gravitational influences

(the universe needed tweaking, thank me later).

* * * * * *

Aftermath: Appendix I

A summary of key events

--- ONE ---

A French and German coalition attacked crippled Briton. We thought the returning flotilla of ships steaming across the channel carried our refugees. That our European neighbours transported aid for our untold wounded, support to rebuild. We were so wrong. Their cargo - opportunity. There's no greater hunger than man's quest for power and territories. Choosing this opportune moment to secure a beachhead.

Unchallenged their battleships sailed directly into our ports. The population demoralized and weary offered no resistance. Willingly, they entered internment camps that issued hot food and shelter. The majority thankful for protection from keen foreign soldiers, unlike our troops that had fled powerless and frightened among civilians during the slaughter.

This continental army came to fight, an absurd notion of a Martian army, the Scots more likely had given the Brits a good spanking. They hadn't borne witness the true extent of the Martians' awful machines that wielded that unearthly heat-ray, a death that no living creature should suffer. No comprehension of how this merciless foe brutality targets indiscriminately upon men, women and children.

Confidently the Europeans joked that les goddams, backward and inbred alike, had gone raving mad. Believed that their beloved British Isles was sinking as the tide naturally came in. Foolishly took every boat and floatable craft from shore to flee. Many coastal towns had missing front doors from where desperate folk had ripped them off hinges for use as life-rafts. How the foreigners laughed, made merriment around campfires at our expense. Teased and humiliated fettered soldiers by throwing buckets of water over their heads. Swim little duck, swim.

Soon accounts of the invaders' strength and weaponry reached French high command, not taken lightly, orders were immediately given to secure and confiscate Martian technology at all costs. A few cylinders plus three motionless tripod guardians that straddled the mouth of the Thames were toppled onto barges. Towed back to Cherbourg for analysis. Reversed engineered what they could but were unable to replicate a unique Martian alloy, Marsuminium.

Mankind's third greatest leap forward since the discovery of fire and the wheel. A new era of steam-power fused with alien technology had dawned.

--- TWO ---

The plan for our capital and sovereignty short-lived. Not completely eradicated the carnivorous Martian weed soaked into our soil, poisoned fertile farmlands. Nothing new grew. A permanent residue of their total lack of empathy towards our existence. The ghastly blood red creeper spread as far west as Cardigan Bay made Wales uninhabitable. The industrial canal network that had brought so much wealth and prosperity now efficiently carried this choking blight as far as Manchester. The spine of Briton diseased and rotten.

One hundred miles farther north Hadrian's Wall became the back-marker for England's resettlement. It's defences fortified and a fuel-filled trench the breadth from coast to coast burnt permanently to scorch any inquisitive vines.

Scotland welcomed those that carried on travelling across her border. The Isle of Anglesey, Devon and the Isle of Man escaped airborne toxic spores. The rest of contaminated Briton became inhospitable. In some iron-rich clay areas the resilient weed re-sprouted, unaffected by bacteria, grew forest-like. Barbed feelers poised to snare unsuspecting victims.

Ireland declared independence from England - The Confederate of Ireland. Refugees laden ships heading towards Dublin given warning shots across their bows changed course for Belfast or Scotland's western shores. The Isle of Man became a go-between. Privateers charged extortionately for night landing on secluded stretches of Ireland's coastline. When that became too dangerous passengers were forced to swim the treacherous final two hundred yards, not all made it.

Civil war ensued as the predominate English migrates of Northern Ireland fought valiantly against the significantly larger numbers of the south's true indigenous clans. A stand-off that lasted almost two years.

For inclusion with advancements in technology, non-weaponizable of course, the Irish signed a treaty that allowed the France and Germany alliance forward bases to mount incursions against mainland Britain. Vigorously searched for artefacts left derelict after Mars' failed conquest. Retrieval of Marsuminium their primary mission, no assistance to be given to survivors.

Part of the Freelands accord rid the north of rebels. Legions of alien-hybrid-steam-tanks swiftly broke the deadlock. At the same time provided a proving ground for testing their experimental landships. Ireland's terrain and the routing of normal men was nothing in comparison to the unnatural encounters that awaited the European soldiers once in England.

The wild infestation of red weed actually turned out to be our best defence, better than any manufactured obstacles we could've laid. It regrew in a matter of mere days, stronger and thicker than before. At the start, Ironclad caterpillar bulldozers crushed the vines while hypnotic blue gas incendiary devices tried to torched what was left. These few besieged months were called the failure of flames. I've heard strange tales that the weed exhibited a degree of cunning. Unshackled tracks, ripped open riveted seams, sneaked inside and tore apart operators at the controls. How could they ever slay a monster that has no head or heart, its mass spread out over an entire nation? You might as well fight the wind.

No declaration of war was ever issued. The Freelands convinced concerned world leaders that the British army had refused to enter into peaceful dialogue and was entrenched, withholding vital information that could potentially defeat a second worldwide Martian invasion. It has never been established why England, London to be more precise, had been the sole focal point of an alien attack? Perhaps during what must've been an extensive study of our planet London seemed to be the hub? At that time we ruled almost one-quarter of the globe.

Only Norway offered assistance to what remained of the once solvent United Kingdom. Allowed stricken families safe settlement in their country until the Freelands blockaded the North Sea passage essentially cutting England off from the rest of the world.

* * * * * *

Aftermath: Appendix II

Artilleryman's brave new world

--- ONE ---

He was the one that led the stand against the opportunists. An admirable man that people naturally rallied behind.