Earth Liberation
Audiobook · Earth Liberation: The Novel (Part I)
Chapter 6
Blizhka, the Republic of Moravia
July 16, 2078
Angela Rothrock didn’t notice the first attack of the pangolins. She and Eric - two aviation school students, on vacation - were on the trackway in the middle of the White Carpathian mountain forests. They didn't even hear the echo of the strikes that razed the towns of Prague, Vienna and Brno to the ground. But connection and navigation had completely disappeared. Angela and Eriс didn’t like it, so they changed their route and headed to the nearest settlement to clear up the situation.
Eric freaked out immediately. He headed to Brno on foot. Angela decided to stay. What’s the use of going there? Dublin must be destroyed as well, and after her mother’s death she had nobody left in Dublin. It was more secure to stay there, in the depth of the country.
But she didn't get the chance to stay. On the same day the armoured vehicles reached the village, and the commanding officer called everyone to service. So, Angela was mobilized. Now she was safeguarding a power station camouflaged in the forest, as a foot soldier.
Dressed in her civilian clothes with hand-made army chevrons, armed with an old tommy gun, this red-haired girl was sitting on a tree stump and observing Blizhka in a bored manner. The ancient village was surrounded by gardens and golden fields; a Baroque bell-tower rose above the roof tiles. There were rows of military tents spread in the fields.
Since the militaries had arranged the connection, Blizhka became the assembly point for the remnants of the Moravian army. Every few hours new infantries, tanks, armoured vehicles, even mechanoids arrived. There were lots of troops, but their management was a total mess. The structures changed twice a day, so that Angela didn’t know for sure what unit her troop belonged to.
The Moravian president Komarek gave orders by himself. The officers didn’t like it, and they didn’t hesitate to discuss it even in the presence of the soldiers. They thought the troops should be re-dispersed, as they'd heard some general Mauritz in America had done, but the president had another point of view. Meanwhile, the officership had no general opinion, and Angela was bored. The pangolins didn’t come out, and all that seemed not to be a war, but an ill-structured role-playing game.
The locket that was hanging around Angela’s neck suddenly became warmer and heavier. She touched it through her shirt. It was strange. It felt like the locket had stuck to her body, and something hot transpierced the skin and ran across her veins, filling her body with energy. Angela must have been scared, but she didn’t feel fear. To the contrary, she felt vigour and inspiration…
She didn’t have time to feel surprised, when the shooting began.
The ack-acks were on fire. They were shooting somewhere in the sky, but Angela's view was obscured by the heads of old beech trees.
A shadow fell on the ground. Lightning struck the guns, one by one. It thundered deafeningly.
A black pyramid was descending from the sky. The air under it was trembling. Thick barrels on turning turrets were sticking out from the pyramid. Angela saw that one of the barrels was turning towards her, and before she knew it, she was running.
Behind her back a lightning struck the radio station. She didn’t hear the sound of the strike, she just felt pain in her ears, fell on the ground and was covered with branches.
Angela stood up at once. She hadn’t fainted or been shell shocked - she was just slightly deafened. She didn’t feel fear. The forest was burning, the smell of ozone was very strong. Angela unlocked her tommy gun and ran towards the village, crouching down from time to time. She had no real idea where to go; she was directed by a feeling.
The pyramid was already standing on the ground in the middle of a wheat field and was slowly moving down the ramps. One more row of trap doors opened above the tier of turrets, and blue cubes were flying out. They were not bursting, but rolling, then they stopped and began to glow blue. Are these cubes landmines? Some instinct made Angela stay away from them.
Meanwhile the ramps were set on the ground and gigantic mechanical pangolins began to descend from the pyramid. Like in the cartoons about dinosaurs - biped T-Rexes, four-footed diplodocuses, and small quick raptors among them. Someone was shooting them from tommy guns and scatterguns, but it didn't harm the mechanoids. Cannons and tanks fired at the turrets and missed. The pyramid destroyed them immediately with lightning. The shell bursts didn’t leave any marks on its black sides. People were struggling at random, though even Angela with her lack of experience realized that it was desperate. It was useless to search for her troop, and she had to escape alone…
The next tank drove from the gardens near Blizhka, fired the turret and hit the target - destroyed it on the first attempt! Angela screamed with delight, but it was short lived. A T-Rex and two raptors ran towards the tank to destroy it. The combat lasted no more than two seconds. The tank fired directly at the T-Rex and knocked it down, but the raptors jumped on the armour and tried to open it.
Something made Angela turn back. She saw a raptor of human scale running towards her across the field. It had guns instead of arms. She fired immediately, but the mechanoid only reeled and then went on running. Angela discarded the useless gun and dove into a field the moment before the raptor fired at her from both stocks. She crawled away as fast as she could. The wheat was covering her over, but the raptor smelt something and was keeping up.
Angela heard its soft steps and crawled around to avoid them. A grenade launcher banged nearby, and shortly afterwards, the grenade burst behind Angela. Someone fired at her raptor but missed, a sound of ripping was heard and there were no more shots. Angela turned and crawled towards the grenadier.
The body of a soldier, turned to chunks, was lying in a pool of blood. The grenade launcher and a bag of grenades were lying next to it; the wheat behind it was burnt out. Angela saw a corpse for the first time in her life, but wasn’t shocked. Everything was surreal like a game, and she was on firm ground, as if she had been playing that game all her life. She took the grenade launcher, loaded it, jumped up, turned, shot at random - and hit the target. The raptor burst into pieces of flesh and metal.
Deafened by the shot, Angela took the bag with grenades and ran towards the village. It would be easier to hide among the houses and wait until the pyramid disappeared. The locket was showing through her sport shirt, steaming with perspiration. It was glowing white-blue.
The battle was over. The lightning and the mechanoids had destroyed all the humans' heavy armaments. Surviving combatants were running around in the fields, panic stricken and pursued by the raptors. Now and then, some raptor stopped by a blue, illuminated box and performed some manipulations on it. Then the lights when off and the box clapped loudly. Is the box a charger of some sort?
From time to time, the bangs of grenade explosions were heard, but it was clear that the battle was lost.
There was no one near Angela. She went to the roadway and ran along the side ditch. An armoured vehicle was driving towards her, followed by a steel T-Rex. The vehicle was shooting from a bullet pump, but it was useless.
Angela launched a grenade into the T-Rex’s head and hit it. The Decapitated monster gave two shots, while falling. Angela’s flash-like reaction let her dodge the attack. She reloaded she grenade launcher and burst the mechanoid into pieces with the second shot.
The armoured vehicle pulled up sharp. Komarek, wearing combat fatigues, looked out of the trap door.
"Sem, sem!" he shouted. "Rychle!
Angela didn’t know Czech, but she got the message. She threw the grenade launcher over her back and climbed inside, into the semi-darkness that was permeated with the smell of engine oil. The vehicle vroomed on.
The president of Moravia pointed at her locket, which was glowing through the sport shirt. His finger was shaking.
"Tak to je pravda?"
"Nerozumím".
Angela slumped on the bench. She began to realize what had just happened. The president changed over to English: "So, it’s true?" He made an unusual figure with his fingers and made some gestures.
"What do you mean?" Komarek became gloomy. "So, you are not from the Order"
"What fucking Order?"
"You don’t have the right to wear it". The president pointed at the locket again, and Angela brassily pushed off his hand.
"What? Who do you think you are? My mother gave me it, got it?"
"Your mother?" Komarek thought quietly for a moment. "Oh, it’s clear. I’m sorry. In the Order they told us about the lost amulets…". But he shook his head. "No, I can’t believe that...It’s not just a legend, it works! It really works!"
"What are you talking about, mister president?"
Komarek seemed tired. "Okay, have a rest. I have much to tell you. Though it’s strange, because officially your Order status is higher…". He looked at Angela like if he had just noticed her. "What’s your name, sister?"