Hey all, my novel The Day Trip was selected by a distributor for my publishers. Here is Chapter 1 to my adventure novel for all readers. Traditionally published, book three on the way. Hope you enjoy. URL link at bottom. Has a bit of everything in it. Would love some female feedback.
Chapter 1
A green, five-foot- six tall Armazoid named Gremlon stared out the front of his dropship window. He was an average interstellar pilot away from home on a ship mainly used for troop transport. Moderate sized and dull, the ship had two atomic engines at the back capable of propelling them through universe quicker than the blink of our eye. They were on Planet Sygonia, which is approximately eight point nine trillion light years from Planet Earth—very far away.
“Where are they?” Gremlon snapped. “They should have called in by now.”
The situation was tense. Comlon, his co-pilot, looked onto the radio stand on the avionics compartment of the ship waiting for the call. Ibregorg, the only other crewman aboard, looked pointlessly into the foliage for anything that could appear and pose a threat to their position. The dense shrubs surrounding the ship made it hard to see into the distance.
“This is Strike Force One calling Armazon three-one-six.”
Gremlon jumped to attention and saw Comlon sit straighter in his chair.
“That’s them,” Gremlon yelped. “Answer it!”
“Go ahead, Strike Force One,” Comlon stated. “What is your status and estimated time of arrival?”
There was a short pause.
“ETA four minutes, Armazon three-one-six.”
“Power up!” Gremlon said. “We are out of here.”
Comlon fired up the atomic engines, and three minutes later watched as the strike force team came from the huge shrubs and bushes, chased by the tribal inhabitants of Sygonia. The gangplank was down—all the troops had to do was run fast and get on board. Alas, they were being shot down one by one by the vengeful Sygonians.
Gremlon watched as the sprinting group slowly dwindled as they got closer and closer to the awaiting dropship, the foliage around them swaying with the force from the engines. He stared in disbelief. Colleagues he had known for years were perishing right in front of him. Nowhere in the universe had they come up against such an invincible force of creatures. Apparently, the Armazoids couldn’t contend with their tribal nature and ability to unite and strategize.
“Come on!” Gremlon gasped. “Come on!”
Only one Armazoid from the strike force remained. He sprinted out towards the safety of the dropship, grasping the weapon he did not have time to recharge and use. Gremlon watched as this last remaining member of the strike team was shot in the back. The body froze, as the blood from his body ran out of his back. Eyes wide open, staring at the Armazoid Dropship, he slammed into the ground, knees first.
Gremlon started running towards him.
“Cover me!” he shouted over his shoulder.
“What?” Comlon gasped. “We haven’t got time.”
Comlon watched as Gremlon dived out the back of the ship. Comlon had his back and opened fire onto the incoming Sygonians—there was no comrades left standing that he could possibly hit—while Gremlon dove onto the ground near the soldier.
The soldier was panting from pain. His voice almost a whisper, he said, “It is in my pouch.”
Gremlon knew he wasn’t going to make it. He pulled a small disk out the pouch of his dying comrade. He looked down as the green blood ran out of the body. He didn’t have the time to say goodbye, which added to the anger he felt.
“Gremlon!” Comlon screamed at the top of his voice.
Gremlon leapt up, sprinting back to open hanger of the dropship. He and Comlon shut the hanger door and ran to the control room. The atomic engines were at full power and ready to roll. Gremlon grabbed onto the stick in front of him, lifting the ship of the ground. He pushed the two power throttles forward.
“Hold on!” he screamed. The nose of the dropship leveled out as it reached cruising altitude. He looked down at the blips on the radar, showing several dots following their own. The Sygonian ships were chasing after them.
“Get the burners on,” Gremlon yelled. “They are right behind us!”
“Won’t be a minute,” Comlon replied. “They’re still powering up.”
Gremlon looked down onto the computer screen. The rays from the chasing Sygonian ships fired onto them as they powered away from the planet. He tried to dodge them.
“Ready!” Comlon yelled.
But before he could activate them, one of the rays hit the engines. There was a small explosion at the back, but the dropship continued to move upwards. Gremlon looked down at his screen as the afterburners continued to fire up. Finally, a blue ray zoomed from the back, blasting the ship forward—luckily they were still working. The Sygonian spaceships could only watch as the Armazoids craft disappeared into the depths of space.
Gremlon lay back in his seat as the silver light of the stars passed the main front window.
“That was close,” he said, relieved. “You guys okay?”
The two Armazoids nodded, stunned by the sudden fire fight they had just got into. They were lucky to be alive.
“Let’s assess the damage,” Gremlon ordered. “To see if we can make it back to base with this data.”
Comlon and Ibregorg stood up to take stock of the state of their ship. Gremlon stayed on the helm, but looked up when his two crew-men came back quickly.
“It should be okay until we get back to the ship,” Comlon said. “Hopefully.”
He sat down in the co-pilot seat of the dropship and looked out as they sped through the galaxy. He noticed a huge yellow star in the center of their present galaxy.
“How far have we travelled?” he asked.
“About seven point nine trillion,” Gremlon replied.
“All that for this!” Comlon said remorsefully, gesturing to the small disk with the valuable data in Gremlon’s hand. “I knew Iennae and Blapau for years. It should have been me on that raid.”
“Hey,” Gremlon snapped, looking Comlon straight in the eyes.
Comlon looked at Gremlon, his eyes wide.
“Don’t you ever let me hear you say that again,” Gremlon yelled. “Those two signed up to defend our motherland, our home, our Armazon. Their deaths will not be in vain, I can promise you that!”
The back of the dropship went unusually quiet. Suddenly, an explosion from the back rocked the ship. The nose of the ship lowered. Gremlon grabbed onto the stick, pulling back. It was a struggle, but it pulled out. Alarms were screaming at him to act.
“Now what?” Comlon asked.
Gremlon looked up at his computer. He watched as the left atomic engine started to shut down. They would never be able to make it to the mothership. Light smoke started entering the cabin of the ship. There was a sudden surge. He continued looking at his computer as both the engines flared up.
“Declare an emergency,” Gremlon said.
The ship started to slow down as Comlon switched on the radio.
On the main ship still light years from them, Circo, the leader of the first attack force, stood in the control room, trillions of miles away.
“This is Comlon,” the radio mumbled.
Circo stormed over to it. The signal was weak.
“Comlon, this is Circo. Can you hear me?” he asked. There was a short break.
“Yes, only just,” Comlon replied. “We have been hit and are unable to reach base.”
“Comlon—” started Circo. The radio went completely dead.
***
Gremlon looked up as the smoke filling the cockpit grew thicker. The radio was dead, and the ship had sustained too much damage. He scanned the radar, looking for a place or a planet to ditch the craft. Sparks flew out of the radio. But something caught Gremlon’s eye as the ship banked to the left. He saw a medium-sized planet coming into view. He stared through the windshield at the lumps of blue and a funny looking green color that covered the planet. It was their only option.
“There,” he yelled. “There!”
“I heard you the first time,” Comlon replied.
Gremlon was pointing at Planet Earth. He looked at the curious planet as it grew in their view screens. He turned the ship and headed directly towards it. Sparks continued to rain down from the ceiling as the instruments and system gauges started to fail one after the other. The planet filled their view as they continued to slow down with the loss of engine power. The nose of the ship heated up as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Gremlon pulled the control stick back, straining the craft’s hydraulic system to try to slow the descent. The two other Armazoids could only sit and watch as the flames sped over the ship, adding to the heat from the burning engines, and the craft gently rocked from side to side. The orange flames and plasma trails disappeared from the ship. Dense, jet-black smoke poured from the back of the engine. Comlon looked out of the window as they continued quickly dropping from the sky.
“What is this place?” Gremlon demanded.
“I, I don’t know,” Comlon replied.
“How high are we?” Gremlon asked.
“We are just over five thousand feet above it. We’ve got maybe two minutes of glide time before we crash,” Comlon replied.
Something else caught Gremlon’s eyes. He looked to his left to see two black jets pulling up next to them as they continued descending towards the ground.
“What the hell are they?” Gremlon asked.
The two other Armazoids walked up to the window and looked out as the ground continued to get closer and closer.
One of the black jets pulled in front of the dropship, gently rocking its wings. Gremlon followed the black jet over the land. He looked out to see a long strip in front of them, approaching as they passed through five thousand feet.
“Sit down,” Gremlon ordered. “This is going to be rough this landing.”
The two other Armazoids sat down as Gremlon reached out and pulled down the landing gear lever. The landing gear came down as the airstrip came closer and closer to them. The wind drag it created helped slow the ship for the landing. The two black jets continued accompanying them towards the threshold of the runway as they descended. Gremlon grasped hold of the control stick and pulled the nose up as the back gear slammed into the ground. The black fumes continued piling out of the aircraft. The speed brakes opened on the top of the wings as the nose gear touched down onto the runway of the huge military airstrip. The end of the runway was getting near, and the dropship had started to slow down, but they were still going too fast. Gremlon felt the nose wheel start to creak. He held on tight as it touched down, skidding along the rest of the runway. The scraping echoed around the cabin as the ship. Luckily it helped to slow them down to a stop.
The onlookers at a military base in Yenisei in northern Russia, around 300 miles from the Siberian border, gawked as the alien spacecraft stood on the runway, nose gear collapsed. No signs of life could be seen.
Gremlon slowly lifted his head up and peeked out of the window, which already had a dusting of snow settling on it. He didn’t know what to expect. The life forms slowly started walking towards them, armed well.
“What the hell are those things?” he asked in a shocked and confused voice.
Comlon walked to the front of the ship. Still shaken from the crash, he stared at the gray uniforms and wide hats. The weather outside was freezing, and snow started to obstruct the view of the beings moving toward them.
Gremlon pulled himself together. “Prepare to disembark—now!” Gremlon ordered.
As the Armazoids prepared to leave the ship, the life forms completely surrounded them. Gremlon looked down at his computer. He pushed the tiny emergency button, which signaled their location to the mother ship light years away from their current position. He also took the time to assess the area outside him via his computer readouts. They reported very high levels of carbon dioxide and very low temperatures.
“Suits,” he ordered. “Carbon dioxide out there and lots of it.”
“We’re going out there?” Comlon asked in a shocked voice
“Got a better idea?” Gremlon replied, looking into his eyes
The group got into their suits, looking at one another apprehensively as they prepared to go outside.
“Hide the data,” Gremlon ordered, waving the disk in Comlon’s face.
“What?” Comlon asked.
“Just do it.”
Comlon took the disk and hid it in a flap under the floor. They armed themselves, ready to fight to the death. Gremlon looked at his two comrades as he pulled the red lever. The bay doors slowly hissed open. The smoke poured in from the outside. It was extremely cold.
“Here goes,” Gremlon said.
Gremlon walked out first, uncertain of what to do first. There was another group of natives approaching dressed all in white.
“What do we do?” Comlon frantically whispered to Gremlon, clearly panicking.
Gremlon didn’t say a word.
“Now!” Comlon yelled.
“Wait,” Gremlon shrieked, trying to prevent the fight.
Comlon fired onto the men, followed closely by Ibregorg. Their purple rays zapped through the air, mostly slamming harmlessly into the snow, but one hit a man dressed in gray. The men in gray began to run and shout, finding cover and firing back at the Armazoids.
“Shit,” Gremlon yelled as he dove behind the ship’s cargo door.
He watched from his position of relative safety as Comlon and Ibregorg, his only two remaining crewmen, fell to the ground, riddled with bullets. He knew he would have to surrender, but the fate of Planet Armazon rested in his hands and on that disk.
Gremlon dropped his weapon onto the floor. He stood up slowly, looking at the people as they walked slowly towards him, clutching their weapons. Two of the men placed him in a strong plastic bag. Gremlon felt his body being tightly compressed as he was lifted and placed on a metal table. He struggled to get out, but the straps were too tight. He trembled as he wondered where on earth he was going.
***
Volkov Radoslav, the Russian Premier, woke to a banging on his door. His eyes slowly opened to the heavy knocks. His head burned from the warmth of the heaters. He sat up slowly and rubbed his eyes. He got out of the bed and walked across the red carpet toward the front door of his room. He found himself looking at his assistant, Stanislav.
“Sorry to wake you, sir, but there has been an incident,” Stanislav said quietly.
Volkov paused for a long moment before speaking. “Okay. A minute please.”
He dressed slowly, wondering what on earth had happened for him to be woken up so early in the morning. The sun had started to come up over the horizon of Moscow. Volkov walked out of his bedroom and down to his office. He sat down as three of his military top generals waited to speak to him. He looked at his white coffee cup on his desk as he sat down and noticed the lack of steam.
“Okay, bring me up to speed on the situation,” Volkov demanded.
One of the generals stepped forward. “Sir,” he said quietly, “an alien spacecraft has crashed at our Yenisei air base.”
Volkov didn’t say a word. He wondered if he was still asleep and if this was just a dream running through his head.
“An alien spacecraft,” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. Crash-landed a few hours ago. We only just got the message.”
There was a silence in his office. He looked up at the clock.
“Did anyone see what damaged the ship?” he asked.
“No, sir,” his general said. “It flew in from the north already smoking and crashed at our air force base there. We managed to guide it in.”
“Did any living thing emerge from the craft?” Volkov asked.
“Yes sir,” The general replied. “Three of them.”
“Did they offer any resistance?” Volkov asked.
“Yes. Two were shot and we have one at Area 52,” the general said.
“Has he tried any type of communication with you?” Volkov asked.
“No, sir,” his general replied, “but we are working at it.”
“Okay,” Volkov said. “I want a media blackout on this. No one is to know—only us.”
“Understood, sir.”
https://www.amazon.com/Day-Trip-Stephen-W-Cheshire-ebook/dp/B0BFD2S946/r...
