Depth Charge - red earth

Chapter 7

"Wow," marvelled Becky as she stood next to Ryan. "I can't believe this place actually exists."

"It's like I said. Whoever that girl was, she wanted someone to find this place, but not everyone. She knew something."

"Yeah, but what?"

Stacey pointed towards the rows of books. "The answer ... is in there. Start reading folks."

Victor stared at Leonard and Heather from across the table.

"Oh, don't be so upset, Victor. It's not like you didn't know that something was causing those deaths?"

"I wasn't expecting something so ..."

"Terrifying?" asked Leonard with a quirky smile.

Victor increased the severity of his stare. "I was going to say, life threatening! How many of those things do you think are hiding underneath the surface of this planet?"

Leonard shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't you toy with me, Leonard; if you have any information that will help stop these things, you better not withhold it from me, or you will regret it."

"Relax, Victor. I'm not here to work against you."

"Alright then, tell me what you have found out about that ... creature."

Leonard raised his eyebrows, as Heather too, reflected an excitement in her expression. "It's really quite astounding. We've taken samples from its various layers and examined the different body parts. They seem to have the ability to tunnel and dig quite proficiently. Their outer skin is almost armour plated. We ran a piece through our re-synthesizer and were able to develop one of the hardest, but lightest materials known on the planet."

"We've already began developing the material into products like shields for armed personnel, and vehicles," offered Heather.

Victor crossed his arms, "Is that so?"

Leonard ignored the sarcastic comment, and continued on. "We can learn an awful lot from these alien like creatures."

"The only things I want to know about these creatures are what they want, and how to destroy them."

"Well the answer to one of your questions is an easy one; they want to eat our crops."

"That doesn't answer the real questions. What are they doing here, how long have they been here, and why did they attack humans?"

"I suppose they attacked a few humans because food was scarce in those areas. For years, they must have been surviving on our scraps and refuse. They likely thrive on the underground heat from the volcanic activity, so you can safely assume that you will find them near the lava tubes. I would kindly remind you of the Governor's request to detain them first, but just in case you do have to kill one or two of them ... what weapons do you have at your disposal?"

"All the standard weapons, Nano Second Pulse Guns, Ice Blasters, controlled explosives, and Tig Archers. What do think will be most effective, Leonard?"

"Probably all of them, but mostly the Ice Blasters; I don't think they like cold too much."

"It's quite possible that they may have a natural enemy as well."

"But what on Mars would be a natural enemy to them?"

"Um, that's what we don't know ... yet."

Inside the ancient bunker, Ryan, Becky, Greg, Alice, and Stacey had been going through volumes of information. Occasionally they would find something so profound that they had to share it with the rest of the group.

"This is incredible," remarked Greg as he held what looked like a military record. On the front was an emblem and underneath was written 'Marines Special Ops'. "According to this account, a particular group of Marines ..."

"What are Marines?" asked Alice.

Greg shrugged his shoulders. "I guess they were some sort of elite specialists group who dealt with high risk missions. By the look of this emblem, they were highly specialised in water combat." Not too much of a need for that here he thought, and then continued, "This account indicated that they were instrumental in ensuring the evacuation of humans from ... Earth? The water planet! That's got to be where we came from," proposed Greg.

Ryan shook his head. He was still sceptical about the theory of humans originating from the water planet.

"Why do you think they had to evacuate? What could have happened there?" asked Alice.

Becky pulled out another similar styled navy blue binder and opened it on the table for all to see. "I think they were escaping from these," she announced.

Everyone stood bewildered as they looked at Becky flip the pages over. The binder was full of pictures that had been taken from camera's that must have been fixed to buildings, and military vehicles. There were many underwater photos included in the binder. Water was everywhere, leaving little doubts in their minds; including Ryan's, that humans did indeed originate from the water planet - Earth.

Strange hideous creatures were in most of the pictures. Shining bioluminescent colours mixed with sharp fangs and strange designs. Seeing some pictures of the creatures attacking what looked like a large warship made the reality of the documentation sink into their minds.

"They were attacked," said Alice with a sad voice.

"But what are those things attacking them? Where did they come from?" asked Becky.

Greg shook his head. "Whatever the answers are to those questions, they must've been expecting the attack because they seemed to have had a backup plan to escape."

"Do you think they were ... aliens?" asked Alice.

"You've seen too many alien movies, Alice. Surely this was some sort of outbreak; a mutation?" suggested Becky.

Greg shook his head as he scanned the documentation quickly with his eyes, "No, this was too ... purposeful."

"So how does this explain what we saw happen on the surface? If it was a creature, it was nothing like we see in these pictures. Do you think that one of them was on one of the escape ships when they left?"

"Again, Alice, you surely watch too many alien movies." replied Greg.

"I think you are all asking the wrong questions," spoke Stacey who had been reading and taking pictures throughout their conversations.

"Well which questions should we be asking, Stacey?" asked Ryan.

Stacey faced them with here strange goggles still fixed in front of her eyes. "The question you should all be asking is why all of this information is here in this one room? Who put it here?" The group stood still without answer. "This is more than just a random room, it's a library. But it's more than a library. Some of this information would have been very hard to obtain, yet someone thought it necessary to collect it in what they knew to be a secure location."

Greg flipped another page on his binder. "According to this, the marines had a special mission to protect a person named Bill and his family. Do you think Bill did this?"

Stacey smiled, "Close, but not quite. The other room that was found at the excavation site in the city was likely Bill Langford's. I noticed his name on a reasonable amount of paraphernalia, before the military took over and shut me out. No, this is his daughters doing; Selena. It was one of her journals that I got from the other site; the same journal that had the map to lead us here." Stacey showed the group a variety of similar journals that she had found.

Ryan picked up one and opened to colourful pictures of more strange creatures. "There are more creatures pictured here, and they don't look water based like the ones that attacked them."

Stacey nodded, "for some reason she seems to have carefully documented every type of species that she was aware of. Planet Earth must have been swarming with thousands of these creatures, but not all of them seem to have presented a threat."

"But why do all this? What is the answer?" asked Becky.

Stacey scratched her head. "The answer's in here folks. Hopefully it will be a straight one. Keep reading."