False Invasion

  False Invasion

  Book 4 of The Maze

  by

  George Willson

  Text copyright 2017, 2019 by George Willson

  www.georgewillson.com

  Cover photography gathered from Pexels.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  First edition, September 2017

  Revision, December 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Tasha and the girls

  who I willingly allow to invade

  whenever they wish.

  Also in The Maze:

  City Of Phase

  The Kursas

  The Off-Worlders

  Ancient Visitors

  The Terraformers

  The Secret Of The Woods

  Also by George Willson:

  Vengeance

  Atari Speaks

  The Fempiror Chronicles series:

  The Awakening

  Mutation Genesis

  Razer Hunt

  The Elixir

  What You Need To Know…

  The Maze is a series about people who travel through time. While it has a release order for the sake of the main characters, the individual stories are self-contained and can be read in any order. It assumes the reader is aware of the following.

  The Maze describes both the place where the travelers live as well as the machine that performs the time travel.

  The travelers enter an elevator which opens at its destination, and once the travelers exit the elevators, the doors close and disappear only reappearing when it is time to depart. The travelers do not know when it will be time to leave; the doors simply appear and open.

  It is unknown where or when the physical location of the Maze exists. The most they know is that it can only travel to its own past.

  Travelers in the Maze tend to be at a low point in their lives at home when the elevator doors appear before them welcoming them to walk through. While this is intended to be a choice, most feel that it was their only option at the time. It is believed that the Maze is some kind of redemptive tool and once they are “ready,” the Maze will take them back home.

  The Guide is a consciousness carried in the mind of one of the travelers. It provides a consistent set of memories of every adventure it has taken as well as a wealth of information that the carrier can access. The Guide also translates languages foreign to the travelers via a mental link.

  Blake Williams is from Earth in the year 2521. He is the current carrier of The Guide. He was on the run from the law after escaping a debtors camp when the doors appeared to him.

  Perry Newman is from Earth in the year 1983. He had been beaten after attempting to sell illegally acquired weapons to pay back drug money when the doors appeared to him.

  Michelle Palmer is from Earth in the year 2004. She was depressed and had had too much to drink in her apartment when the doors appeared to her.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Keersh,” Perry Newman said as he looked at the flat screen monitor that sat on the wall of the main living area of the Maze.

  “It would appear that way,” Blake Williams said.

  They both stood behind a couch that faced the monitor on which sat Michelle Palmer who had her arms folded as she considered the name of the planet to which they were traveling. The elevator, which set at the end of the living area had dinged only moments before and sat open waiting for them to enter it. The year on the monitor as well read “5447.”

  Everyone was ready to leave at this point, and they had intended to do so after a quick glance at the monitor for their destination and verification that what they were wearing would work in the environment they were entering. Blake dressed much as he usually did with navy trousers, a tan shirt, and a gray overcoat with pockets large enough to comfortably hold the tools he often carried. Perry was in jeans and a T-shirt: this time it was black with what appeared to be a mock advertisement to visit “beautiful Gallifrey.” Michelle wore a loose fitting light blue blouse and jeans, but she had not yet slipped her shoes on over her socks since she was sitting on the couch with her feet curled under her. Present on the left breast of each of their shirts was a logo in the shape of a spiraling clock which served as a communicator, GPS, and biometrics indicator for each of them.

  Keersh was a place familiar to all of them. It was the first planet Michelle had visited when she arrived in the Maze, and it was a place they all knew that they would return to again at some point due to a record found on the planet with all of their names.

  “Is this the moment we’ve been waiting for?” Michelle asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Blake said. “First of all, if we were going to come onto a ship in flight, there would be no planetary location. Second, the record of the Mirificus was dated for 5347, so this is going to be something else on Keersh a hundred years after they landed.”

  “As usual, we’ll have no idea till we get there,” Perry said.

  “Of course not,” Michelle said.

  “Temperature is as nice as it will be in another 1400 years when we turn up there again,” Blake said. “Are we ready?”

  Michelle slipped off the couch and put her shoes on. “Ready,” she said.

  “Whenever you are,” Perry said with a mock salute.

  They all walked to the elevator, and Blake pushed the button. The usual rumbling of a moving elevator sounded from outside the structure as they waited.

  “Is it too late to ask that we not be plopped down in some forbidden area and immediately arrested?” Perry asked.

  “Yes,” replied Blake.

  “Drat,” Perry said.

  The doors opened onto an empty alley between two brick buildings. They stepped out into a bright day with their exit shadowed between the buildings as they found themselves on a rock-paved area. The doors closed and disappeared behind them, and they perceived the sounds of a lot of people nearby. The end of the alley only showed another building giving them the impression that it was not so much an alley as they had come in behind a building and they needed to walk around it to get to the front.

  “Is it too late to hope those sounds aren’t some kind of massacre?” Perry asked as they walked toward the gap between the buildings that led toward the sound.

  “Yes,” Blake replied.

  “Drat,” Perry said again.

  They turned the corner and saw a crowd of regular, human people all looking one direction and cheering. Music played on instruments that none of them had ever seen before, and while it sounded different, it was clear that it followed the same basic rules that music has followed for centuries, so it sounded “right.”

  They exited the alley into the sunlight and found themselves at the back of a massive gathering of people, all facing a central platform which was set against a building so that only one side could be addressed. A banner over the top of the platform read, “One Hundredth Anniversary of Landing Day.”

  The place where the celebration was held was a wide open town square between a circle of simple, brick buildings on more rock paved roads. The crowd stretched from one side of the open area to the other with people standing on rooftops for as far as an open view would allow. Some were dancing to the music while others just talked to each other. Overall, they had emerged in a place that did not appear remotely forbidden, and other than their manner of dress being different from the locals slightly, they would not look out of place by dropping in. It was a welcome change.

  The stage was at least fifty yards away and appeared to be constructed of wood. In ad
dition to the banner over the top, there was a podium center stage and some official-looking people milling around in the back, as if waiting for their moment. They did not doubt that they would be able to hear what was going on, since the band was amplified and very audible over the din of people. Once the speaker stepped up, they figured he or she would be equally distinct. They could not make out the appearance of any of the people on stage due to the distance, however.

  There was a contingent of security surrounding the stage on all sides, so law and order was definitely maintained, but there were no violent outbursts that they could see. It was a gathering of very content citizens on the surface.

  “Makes you wonder what the catch is,” Perry noted. Blake and Michelle only nodded in response.

  The band’s music concluded, and the crowd cheered their approval. Someone stepped up to the podium microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer enthusiastically said, his voice clear as day over the roar of the crowd. “Put your hands together and raise your voices for our main attraction, President Garaldu Rhysman!” As the crowd crescendoed to a deafening level, another man, dressed in a single-piece black outfit stepped to the microphone.

  “My friends! My fellow citizens! My fellow survivors and colonists!” President Rhysman began, “Today, we begin our celebration week where we remember the coming of our forefathers to this world.” The crowd cheered their approval. Once they died back down, he continued. “It was a journey fraught with drama and turmoil. Disaster and delay. Bravery and sacrifice. And of course, the incredible scientific prowess that allowed us to turn a barren rock of a planet into the beautiful paradise we see before us today.” The crowd cheered once more.

  “This week, we are going to remember each phase of the journey from mere colonists to homesteaders to warriors to the peaceful society we enjoy today in our glorious city of Domus. Each day will be devoted to a part of that journey. Today, we celebrate the main event. The one thing without which none of us would be here. That which brought our grandparents and great-grandparents (and even further back for some) to this place and created a world with an atmosphere that we could shape into whatever we needed.

  “I speak, of course, of the Mirificus. The colony ship that set out from the planet Earth on March 15, 5337. It was supposed to be a ten-year journey to a world in the Kepler system, but circumstances took a toll for the worse, and we landed here. Our navigation system was ruined. Our ship was crippled. Escape pods launched. Heroes of old landed the ship in pieces, but the people and the terraformer were saved, and that is what makes a living planet from a dead one.

  “My friends, we are alone out here. All attempts to contact Earth failed, but we survived. Not only that, but we thrived. We beat the odds and are stronger now than we should have been. We know that when we got here, we faced obstacles that we would never have on Kepler. Earth supply ships would have helped us there. We had acquired the rights to the system permitting us to colonize. Here, we had to overcome, and we are stronger for it. Someday, Earth will find us again, but we have conquered the odds. We are one people who have shown the best of the human spirit, and I am proud to be one of you.”

  The crowd roared their approval once more. Even the trio could not resist the infectious atmosphere and applauded along with them.

  “I bring before you today the current head of the Mirificus Society who loves and maintains our holiest of places. Science may have given this planet life, but we have maintained it by keeping the Terraformer safe, secure, and off-limits to all but the fewest of qualified people. Their ancestors trained these people, and they teach the next generation to maintain the Terraformer to keep this world intact. I give you, Mr. Harold Andersoppen.”

  The crowd cheered once more. Harold Andersoppen was apparently just as much a celebrity as the President himself. The President stepped back and allowed a skinny man of medium height with a wisp of a beard to step to the mic for his moment in the public eye. He raised his hands over the crowd in what looked like a gesture of praise or acceptance thereof. As the crowd wound down, he lowered his hands and leaned into the mic.

  “My friends,” Harold said. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to preside over our holiest of places. It is a duty I do not take lightly, but reverently and solemnly. I know more than anyone else how important its operation is to our very existence. The god of this world may as well be in that room. It is said that God created the Earth and everything else in the universe. Well, the terraformer took this world and made it a home for us. It continues its operation after a hundred years to this day. As long as it continues, so shall we.

  “Let us not forget how fragile our lives are, though. Let us thank the creator for bringing us here and giving us that with created this world for us. We are blessed in so many ways, and I am humbled every day knowing how close we all came to never existing. Today, we celebrate the terraformer and the Mirificus. Throughout the day, the grounds to the remains of the Mirificus will be opened, and although we cannot permit anyone to enter the chamber of the terraformer, you will be within only a few yards of that sacred machine. As you pass by it, you can feel the power it still exerts on this world which is eager to return to its former state and know that nature is being balanced before your eyes.”

  “That’s not exactly true,” Blake said off hand to Perry and Michelle. “Terraformers always functioned for a couple of decades before the terraforming process completes. After that, they’re no longer needed. It’s odd this one would run for a hundred years.”

  Someone directly in front of them shushed him for Harold to continue.

  “We give praise to our creator and father for the gift of life that he gave to us,” Harold said. “We thank him for this holy gift of the Terraformer and the life it gives every day. We remember all those who have gone before us and enjoy a special place with you, father, having lost their lives defending it in your service. We will never forget-”

  At that moment, a loud sound rumbled across the gathering from the sky. A ship, flaming from its engines roared overhead and disappeared over the buildings.

  “Dear God,” Harold said in dismay. “It’s heading toward the Mirificus. Everyone pray that it misses its target. This could be the start of another invasion. One meant to wipe us out for good.”

  Blake, Perry, and Michelle looked at each other in surprise as people started moving out of the town in the direction of the crashing ship.

  “Another invasion?” Michelle asked. “No one ever said there was an invasion, first or second.”

  “In 1500 years, it would be ancient history,” Blake said.

  “We should follow it,” Perry said.

  Everyone agreed, and so they followed the crowd through the city streets and onto an open field, paved only with a single roadway. The crowds completely ignored this as they walked together toward the smoking wreckage that had narrowly missed hitting the hull of a massive ship that was hundreds of feet high and thousands of feet long largely covered in vegetation and dirt. One portion of this ship was still in pristine condition and was heavily guarded. They knew that as they drew close, they would learn more about this place, but based on Harold Andersoppen’s exclamation in the microphone, they know this ship was what remained of the Mirificus, and that pristine shrine had to be where the Terraformer still lived.

  Add to that that no one had yet been arrested for trespassing making this visit better already.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Like an exodus, thousands of people left the town square celebration to look at the smoking wreckage of the ship that had interrupted the festivities to crash next to the object of their affection. The head of the group that maintained the device in the ship had already said something about invasion and sabotage, but unless that crashing ship was unmanned, deliberate sabotage seemed unlikely based on its flight path.

  The distance from the center of Domus to the wreck was about two miles, so walking there in such a large group could have taken up to a
n hour. Rather than walk in the back of the pack and risk missing anything, Blake maintained a brisk pace and weaved in between people to walk near the front of the crowds with Perry and Michelle almost jogging to keep up. It was clear that if they ended up at the back, they would have no idea what happened at this site, but if they could be one of the first, they had a chance of being on top of the situation.

  The crashed ship was in flames though they only appeared to be coming from the engines. It was probably a hundred feet long, half that wide, and about twenty feet high with rear engines, and short wings with smaller engines attached that were destroyed on impact. The front of the craft looked it was where the bridge rested and had broken off the ship when it hit.

  By the time they arrived, several beings had emerged from the ship from an open door near the rear. One lay on the ground with another leaning over it. Three others stood with their arms raised being held at gunpoint by the guards of the Merificus shrine. The beings from the ship were between six and seven feet tall with dirt brown skin that looked loose on their frames. Their face looked like most other faces with clearly delineated eyes, a nose similar to humans, and a mouth, but their bald heads had no defined ears though bones in their skull jutted out like knuckles against their heads. They had four arms with their shoulders set slightly further out of their bodies in two very clear shoulder sockets: an upper and lower. The upper set of shoulders set about even with their eyes and the lower set just below where a human’s shoulders would be, and their arms were about the same relative length as a human’s. The six fingers of their hands were splayed out widely creating almost a circular pattern of fingers from a central point. They had two legs with boots that showed that their toes were likely splayed out similar to how their hands looked.

  “I am trying to save his life,” the one on the ground insisted as the trio walked up about as close as the crowd got.