EarthUnder (The Meteorite Chronicles Book 1) (23 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Fierce Offensive

M
ina and I had begun our work, letting the surface population know that the Terans are here. That effort would have to simmer for a time while the Teran Elders put us to task stopping the Teranor leaders. Gary approached us with a group of Terans, a count of thirty determined looking individuals dressed in metallic, Encounter Skinsuits. Gary handed Encounter Suits to Jasmina and me, and wished us good luck and farewell. As we dressed in our Skinsuits, an ancient, white-haired Elder approached. Her skin was creviced with deep smile lines; she had eyes blue as a clear late evening sky, and as old as she appeared from a distance, her eyes were as young as a child’s. Her smile smacked of humor and wisdom, while her broad shoulders hinted at her inner strength. She pressed a hand over each of our heads, pushing us to take a knee. Thoughts and images streamed into our heads: the knowledge and power we would require to perform this task was installed. She lifted her hand and waved it in front of our eyes as if to sign her work completed. She looked up and flew into the Void.

Mina then led me to our recruits, where we then shared our training with them. She told me that it would come as needed and that if I let go and simply acted on instinct, the teaching would control my moves and decisions. My trust in Jasmina made this much easier to accept. As I searched my mind, I could find no apparent changes in thinking or memories. I felt like the lamb being told to play in front of the wolf, that his teeth had no bite. We were venturing into the wolf’s den but Jasmina assured, “We are the ones with teeth.”

It is always dark on half of the surface. The Mizlets had been dispatched, millions of them sent rushing to the surface to find and obliterate the masses of wicked creatures being unleashed on the sleeping populace of Earth. Like fireflies they flickered their way to the top of the Void and submerged into the Gray. Soon Earth would be engulfed by a silent war, which would follow the sun as it dipped to the horizon.

As the creatures began their night stalk, Mizlets would find and destroy them. Millions of Terans banded together to focus on each of the Teranor on the surface and begin the change. It was our time now; we had to emerge on the surface and begin the quest to find and capture each of the Teranor Imperials. There were seven of the leaders here on the planet, according to the Elder assessment of the Teranor invasion. In addition to Earth, there were Terans working to cognize if other Teran worlds might have invasion hordes present. The Elders shared that some worlds had been lost already. The knowledge of loss added a sense of urgency to our mission. Our team loaded into Vugs and blitzed for the surface.

As we moved through the Gray above the Void, Jasmina and Talleyrand were speaking back and forth while the remainder of our group listened to the conversation. Talleyrand was telling Mina that the Teranor leaders were not in positions of authority on the surface. They were blended in with the most common of residents, camouflaged as criminals and corrupt executives. Our first target was stationed as a convict in a prison complex. He would be the simplest to approach as we could use the Vug to access his cell through the floors and walls of the concrete structure and ghost the halls in and out. Our mission was to capture and contain, then remove the Teranor Imperial from the surface and deliver him to the Elders for treatment. The Vug put us inside a wall just across from the cell holding this first target.

Half of the team waited outside the cell while the rest of us entered the small concrete cubicle where the Teranor was standing facing us as we entered. We were ghosting, but he appeared to see us just the same. Obviously he was an Elder of the evil ones; his posture displayed that he was ready to resist. Two from the lead group moved in to take him when his chest swelled and they were thrust back through the wall. Four more charged at him and were sliced into four quarters. They lay lifeless on the floor as blood drained from their parts. There were two more from our team in the front row with Mina and me. The Teranor raised his hands to use another weapon from his arsenal when suddenly a fiery shaft of light appeared from behind us and in a flash the beam atomized the Teranor’s neck and head, leaving its body standing for a moment, a gaping trough cleft into his torso cauterized and sizzling from the heat of cells disintegrated by light.

Jasmina flipped around in surprise to face a young-looking team member trembling, obviously shaken by his actions. She said nothing, putting a hand to his shoulder to offer thanks and support. The two team members by our sides took the body, which was still standing there as if it didn’t believe it was dead yet. Other members recovered the bodies of our fallen companions and we moved back to the Vugs for the journey to the Void. As we traversed the Gray, we all felt the shock of loss. None of us had been prepared for the violence we encountered. Our team was rapidly coming up to speed on how ruthless evil can be when cornered. We were numbed by thoughts of life ending without warning. Much was learned in the blink of an eye. Hearts heavy with dread, the return to New Tera would be a torturous reunion. Deep inside I was relieved it wasn’t me that took the shot, but overjoyed that someone did. It was naïve of us to assume that the Teranor would not be prepared to aggressively attack. Our approach would need to be far more careful and more aggressive in future attempts, or our team would not last.

As the Vugs lowered to the gathering I could see and feel the sadness. The illumination of New Tera was dim and the faces of Terans were turned downward, the light of their eyes absent from view. As the bodies of the fallen ones were gently carried away, there were flashes of light and dark waves pulsing through the Void. Jasmina told me that the Mizlets were also losing numbers as they battled to stop the Teranor release of their insidious parasites. Jungles, forests, deserts, and ice caps had become a battlefield. As we prepared to depart again, replacements joined our team. My gut told me that they were meat for the slaughter after what we saw already. The words of George Fitzgerald, a wise old friend, spoke in my mind, “It can always be worse.” This time, I questioned his wisdom. He also frequently used to say, “Good always comes from bad.” It was hard to see through this pearl of wisdom.

As the Vugs lifted off again, I looked down at these people and pondered why the Elders felt it so important that we not take lives on the surface. They seemed as sad for the loss of the monster as they were for the lost members of our team. The Teran in me was not helping me understand this logic. Trying to figure this out would need to wait while we continued our mission.

Our next target was a noted Wall Street broker. He would be easy to locate but difficult to take. We had to assume that he would take fast action to destroy us and we all felt more prepared to take on this opponent. There were no plans. How do you plan for the unknown? We arrived below street level, early morning, just outside his office tower. We staged the Vugs and entered the building from four sides to hopefully box him in. The Elders conveyed to us that he was already here and waiting in his office. Mina could see him in his office and the floor was littered with his bodyguards. We left our team on the ground floor and Mina and I flew while ghosting to the top floor and the window of his office. Mina reached out with her arms and encapsulated the leader in a tensile energy case, then threw him out through the window. This monster was growling as he struggled within our trap; he threw fireballs in our direction that bounced off the lining of the case and struck back at him. I held my arms out to add power to Mina’s creation, and we lowered to the ground where our team waited to join us in the Vugs. It was a loud and violent journey back to the Void to deliver our first captive.

The Terans were there waiting for our arrival. They appeared mournful as we slowed to a stop and produced the first captive. They were gentle as they took him. He struggled to get free as Mina transferred her grip to the group waiting to take hold of this evil monster. I was curious about the pending process, but it was time to leave again on our next attempt at capture. The next target would be tricky since “she” was a mercenary in a war zone in central Africa. We know where to go to get close, but had no clue of how we would make everything fall together. As we rose up to sail away in the Void, the aura of our recent captive was glowing below, illuminating the masses surrounding him. As we soared off Mina saw in my thoughts that I didn’t understand the reverence with which the Terans received their new guest. She told me, “He is our brother. We feel compassion for him as he has taken the path of darkness and is lost.” She continued, “We hope to save him. Over the millennia Terans have learned ways to save the Teranor from their own destruction and we can bring them back from the dark place they covet.”

Now this made some sense, making it a lot easier for me to understand why we were not charging in, guns blazing, to take out our enemy. In the words of another human years ago, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” We weren’t trying to take out this enemy; we were working to save them. It wasn’t the Teranor doing harm to the planets and their inhabitants; it was the evil inside them. The evil had become so integrated into the Teranor that there was no good on the surface. They had become the purest embodiment of evil, their actions unstoppable.

We traveled by Vug through the Atlantic Ocean and eventually came to rest outside a jungle compound well hidden in a beautiful, lush green, mountainous area. Ghosting, our team began to approach the compound with care. There were Teranor wandering aimlessly outside the walls of the installation. Mina walked to one of them and put her hands on his shoulder. He had already been treated by the Terans as had the others. They seemed confused as they bounced about in the lush forest, heat and humidity making everything sticky wet. We walked, ghosting through the wall around the perimeter of the fortress. As we approached the central building Mina warned us with thought and gesture that our target was inside that structure. A few more careful steps and the one we were after leapt from the roof to land in front of us. Her eyes could not see us, but she knew we were there. When she lunged at Mina, I instinctively stopped her with a stunning blow of force from my outstretched arm. She was quick to recover and sprinted back towards our location when several of our team tackled her and held her down, using their energy to encase her for the ride back to the Elders.

We learned that each Teranor has perfected different abilities, as this one fought back using an energy beam from her hand. The beam sliced out through the hold on her and she began to aim for her captors. She seemed to target me and the two teammates next to me. As the beam came my way, I deflected it into the jungle and dove onto her arm to turn her hand towards her face. When she saw the beam moving her way she ceased emitting. Together with the other members, we carried the struggling leader into a Vug and not long after the encounter, we delivered our new prize to the gathering awaiting our arrival.

While we were there making our delivery, several of the Elders came to inform us that the remaining four Teranor leaders were gathered together in one location. Four of the Elders would be joining us on this final endeavor. Apparently their strength, skill, and wisdom were needed to deal with this many Teranor masters in one fell swoop. The power of this strategy felt good to me. I really wanted this to be over so that we could get to work on the other half of saving the planet: dealing with the enlightenment of Mankind about the pending death of our biosphere.

The final destination is Arcata, California, a fairly remote college town from which the Teranor recruit new Abecedarians during the four-year academic cycle. The Elders told us that in addition to running their operations from there, they have constructed a planet killer. This wicked device would induce a massive earthquake intended to break through the Earth’s mantle and inundate New Tera with an uncontrollable flow of sea water, potentially splitting the planet in two. The Teranor objective was to generate irreversible destruction to the surface while distracting Teran attention long enough to begin their invasion of the under-Earth world Terans called home. The Teranor knew that only this would work, and since we controlled Earth’s gravity, they had to allow us to live long enough for them to abscond with the resources. Their plan was to keep us too preoccupied to confront them. We had to take the masters now and by any means. These were strong words coming from an Elder. With these powerful members in our midst, the Vugs traveled at hyper speed. We arrived in Arcata almost instantly and emerged from the ground in full view of the town square. The Teranor masters were waiting there for us. It became clear to me that these evil masters must have abilities similar in strength and power to the Teran Elders. The Imperials had recruited an army of human disciples (Abecedarians), but we were ghosting so the humans had no clue of our numbers or location.

Battle began immediately as the evil ones threw everything they had at us. We stood our ground while our Elders deflected the entire onslaught sent our way. The humans scattered in confusion, most running for cover. Fires raged as beams cut through buildings and cars. Everything in the town square became a projectile as the Teranor tried to create enough chaos to cover an escape. A handful of our team jumped into action and tried to capture the leaders, but they were cut down by particle beams generated from one of the leaders. This one was obviously the most powerful and treacherous of the four. If there was a supreme leader, then he was the one. Mina and I joined one of our Elders in concentrating on this one while the remainder of our team assisted the other three Elders with the remaining Teranor leaders.

We closed in on this evil one as he moved swiftly and sent harm our way in many forms. He was able to hit us with a force like being struck by a heavy iron plate. We were dodging bullets and boards, evading fire and car bodies. Our adversary lowered his eyes onto Mina and thrust at her with his arms. I could see a plasma burst begin to emerge from his arms and I reacted instantly to protect my Jasmina. In a flash I cut the master’s arms from his shoulders and they fell twitching to the grass. He screamed in anger and frustration at his loss. He began to cry out a tone that built into a roar, beginning to shake the ground beneath our feet. Mina let fly her beautiful voice, forcing the scream back into his throat, where it exploded, rendering his voice silent forever. Still, he struggled to damage our group and destroy our effort. The Elder with us threw his arms around this Teranor leader and called to our Vug to come get them. They left the conflict, heading back to the Void. Mina and I joined the others to finish the battle. Only two remained; one of them died in the fight and the other would live, but he would spend eternity on one leg. This leader was quickly taken away by an Elder with three helpers to keep the Teranor subdued. We had tried to use a more civilized approach, but there was no chance for our plan to work.

Part of our team remained behind to help clear out the town square and to transition the human recruits back into society. Mina said this would be the easy part and that nobody would remember anything when the team left to return to New Tera. We entered our Vug and raced to catch the others before they met with the Teran gathering. At arrival, the Teranor were sitting in front of the Elders. Talleyrand was speaking to those still alive after our confrontation. The strongest of them began to gurgle, coughing blood and smiling as if to laugh. Just then the ground around us shook violently.

“Mina, it’s the planet killer,” I yelled as I turned to find her looking at me. This archaic Teranor weapon of planetary destruction is a tectonic disruptor. It operates utilizing seismic instigation. Once it was triggered, there was no stopping the planet’s reaction. The Terans closed their eyes and silently held back the damage as the harmonic vibration of the earthquake opened a crack in the Earth along the Pacific coast of North America. Water would pour into the Void, but the Terans were there in force and controlled this new window with their minds. They were prepared for this; the Elders had seen it coming. The Teranor had placed a failsafe device in their planet killer and had counted on the distraction to help them get free. There would be many more projects ahead for us to work on.

After the Mizlets finished traveling the globe destroying the infestation of extraterrestrial parasites, we would then need to search the planet for imbedded Teranor and any escaped parasites. We could hear screaming as the Elders began the lengthy process of removing the evil from these Teranor leaders. Once we had distracted their leadership, it was possible for the Terans to remove the sludge from the millions of Teranor, but the process would be much more extensive for the Elders to remove the dark energy and bring out the good in these leaders. For Mina and me, there was another serious project to re-activate: easing Man into understanding he is not alone in the universe. Gary was here and would help us come up with ideas for ways to make this happen. There was hope that his email had already started people questioning the age of the brain bone meteorite.

As I thought of issues yet to resolve on Earth’s surface, Mina and I both conceived of our hideaway at the same time. We decided that for a time we would escape reality and go back to our cabin in the mountains north of the Great Lakes to look into the fire pit and watch the sun rise and fall for some cycles, and to spend time thinking with one mind. Thus far, our time communicating has been rushed and frantic under wild conditions, and we both felt the need to do some meditating around the fire and to enjoy watching days come and go. The cabin was calling to us both, and Mina informed Talleyrand that we were heading to the surface for a few days.

Moving to say goodbye to Gary, we heard the agonizing screams of the Teranor leaders being treated to remove the deep-rooted, dark evil they had guarded for many years. As we approached Gary, he greeted us with a goodbye. He already knew we were leaving for a short time. I had forgotten that although it was still Gary, he now had the brain and spine of a beloved Elder from his transplant. Mina touched her elbow to mine; I could feel her suggesting that I turn my head to view Talleyrand coming to speak with me. He seemed more intense and less composed as he approached. There had been much to be dealt with in recent times, but his mind seemed to be focused on future days. His approach was filled with deliberate intent and his eyes were locked in a grip with mine. As he drew near he placed a hand on my shoulder, his gaze sad and his words coming very slowly. His silver hair hung like curtains framing his face, obscuring the light that usually glowed as one peered into the windows to his soul.

His voice, warm with love and sincerity, came to mind with the message, “I will be with you forever and in all ways.”

I felt he was the father that my human father could never be. My human father was a great man, but somehow he always seemed more like a stepfather. Talleyrand was a father figure for all Terans, but I felt a special connection with him beyond our brief time together. Thanking him for his mentorship and wisdom, we departed in our Vug for the surface and Mina’s home in the desert to visit her village and to see her housekeeper Magna for a time.