Blue Sky Falling

'Return of the Dragons' Series

Book 2

Act 1

Chapter 1

Late in the 21st century.

Running north from Iceland to Svalbard, a fault line separates the North American Tectonic Plate and the Eurasian Plate. For millions of years these two massive pieces of the Earth's crust have been pushing against each other with immeasurable forces, causing regular quakes, and pushing up some sections of sea floor to form rocky outcrops both above and below the surface.

On the other side of the world on one cold and overcast day, a volcanic eruption on the seabed off the coast of Korea, relieved the pressure that had built up on the Eurasia Plate, allowing it to separate slightly 374 kilometres northeast of Iceland. This separation in turn, caused one of the rocky outcrops on the fault line, to split open and reveal a deep dark cavern below.

A few hours after the earthquake had subsided, a small reptilian creature poked its yellowish green head up out of the darkness and into the light of day. Its body was of similar size to the average dog but its legs splayed out from its sides like those of a monitor lizard but unlike a monitor, the creatures head was round and bulbous, much like its eyes. Two scrawny twisted horns adorned its head and flimsy triangular dorsal plates ran down the length of its back and to the end of its long swishing tail.

Perhaps the oddest things about the small creature were two green, bat like wings just below its shoulders. The beast sniffed the air, stretched out its wings, crouched down and leapt into the air, heading off in a southerly direction.

'


'

Trying to get a good night's sleep was impossible for Blue Dias, and that fact was reflected in odd dreams. He dreamt he was back onboard the MTV Star Cruiser; he was on his way to his cabin but when he arrived, his bed had been taken over by his father Luis who snored loudly.

"Get out of my bed Dad; it's my turn to sleep!"

But instead of leaving, his father just poked Blue in his right side with a sharp stick and went back to sleep. As soon as Blue walked out the door, he found himself in his other cabin, this time on the tanker ship currently beached in West Sumatra. There he found his mother April and youngest sister Saffron sleeping in his bunk. When he tried to remove them, his sister also poked him with a very sharp stick, so he left again.

The next time, Blue entered his old bedroom deep underground in the Railgun complex; but his bed contained his other sister Abigail and his friend Calla, both also snoring merrily away.

"Come on you two; it's my turn to rest."

As he tried to awaken them, Calla suddenly spun around with a sharp knife in her hand and stabbed Blue deep in his right side.

Taking a deep gasp of air, Blue awoke with a start, soon realising where he really was. He lay on the side of an old road; he was cold, he was wet, and there was a rock under his right side.

"Oww" Blue stated as he struggled to his feet.

He shivered as he rubbed his head, wondering just how long he had been unconscious, when he suddenly realised he could not remember which direction he had been walking. In the dark both directions looked the same and he certainly did not want to go back the way he had come.

It had been two days now but he still felt certain he would soon find the Bull Ant eventually. This was because Maximilian DeGroot was obsessed with the fact that Blue and his sister were direct descendants of Hiccup and Astrid; Dragon Riders of Berk. After fifteen minutes of stumbling along the road, the clouds parted revealing a Half Moon hanging low in the sky.

"Dammit!" Blue cursed realising he was going the wrong way.

He turned back while continuing to curse, for he was still angry with himself for not being more cautious. Even in towns and settlements along the Canadian/US border, Blue and his companions had been warned about the Mountain Compound and the survivalist settlement to be found there. Many of the people he had met had talked to Blue about 'The Place in the North.' He was told only certain kinds of people could safely go and trade there, while still being sure they would be permitted to leave again. It was not a secretive place, so the Bull Ant crew were able to learn all about its reputation. And so before they passed by the area of its location, they all agreed to give the place a wide berth; unfortunately though, they did not go wide enough.

Even now as he stumbled, half freezing down the lonely road and after all the time that had passed, Blue could still not stop himself from re-living what had happened in the last month, when the people from the mountain survivalist's compound had found the Bull Ant. It was Blues fault and he knew it. If only he hadn't been so curious and had driven past further to the south. If only he hadn't taken the opportunity to find out more by flying their camera drone in the area, alerting the people who would become their captors, to the presence of strangers.

If only he'd been more careful.

It had happened at night, an hour after sunset when everyone on the Bull Ant was tired; a group of at least a dozen armed people surrounded the camp site and pounced. Calla, Blue, Abigail and DeGroot were all held at gunpoint while the Bull Ant was searched. Blue assumed their transport would be stripped of anything useful but in the end, the raiders wanted to travel light and only took a few dry food survival packs. It was what they did next that really surprised Blue.

First they brought out the camera drone and smashed it into tiny pieces, and then they turned to DeGroot.

"Consider yourself lucky we're leaving your transport and equipment un-touched; now take full advantage of this opportunity, leave this area and never come back" the group's leader ordered. "If I ever see you again, we'll destroy everything.

"Oh yes sir, understood sir, thank you sir, we will leave at once sir" DeGroot was truly a grand master of grovelling.

The man took a step closer and leaned into DeGroot's face.

"Not them... just... you."

And with that, the raiders disappeared into the night with Blue and the two girls leaving Maximilian DeGroot alone.

'


'

At the same time, deep underground on the other side of the planet, the staff and residents of the Railgun Complex in West Sumatra were, as the saying goes, working their tails off. After sixteen long years, they finally had the supplies and equipment they needed to commence building of the first colony in space, as a supplement to the colony on the planet Mars.

Fifty five years ago, history tells of two massive asteroids colliding in the Asteroid Belt. One of these asteroids was nothing more than a huge nameless lump of rock, dust and ice floating in space and minding its own business, until the orbit of another asteroid named Sholf-4 decided to cross the others path as they both made their way around the sun.

Being a massive M-type or metal asteroid some one hundred and fifty kilometres across, Sholf-4 managed to totally obliterate the rocky asteroid (posthumously named Victim by an astronomer with a droll sense of humour), even though the later body was over three times as large. The collision also altered the orbit of Sholf-4, sending it elliptically around the Sun, regularly crossing the orbital path of the Earth.

With a cloud of rock and debris over two thousand seven hundred kilometres long trailing along behind it, Sholf-4 brought nothing but calamity and destruction to the Earth. This blue planet, home to all complex life in the solar system, would use its greater gravitational pull to steal parts of the Sholf-4 cloud every time the two bodies came into close proximity. These rocks would in turn orbit the Earth until they were inevitably drawn in the planet itself.

Most would just burn out in the upper atmosphere, some exploded mid air, sending a destructive shockwave out over an area the size of a small European country, but a few made it all the way down. Depending on where they landed, hundreds, thousands or even millions of people could be killed. Life had been that way for humanity for over half a century now.

The evacuation of the Earth had only partially succeeded with just a little more than two thousand people being sent to colonise Mars, but now the work to save as many as possible had begun anew with the sending of people and supplies to begin a new home in the same place the trouble started; the Asteroid Belt.

'


'

Neville Sage always looked imposing and threatening, but standing on the bridge of his attack fleets flagship, took him up to a whole new level of menace. The one time Naval Commander and head of Mars security now exiled to Earth, had given himself the title of General so there could be no mistake as to who was now in charge. Sage had recently assassinated his former boss Prime Governor Redding; the old man had gone mad for revenge after hearing about the recent death of his grandson, turning him from a power hungry despot, into a dangerous liability for all those who had supported him in the past.

Redding had began to rant about de-populating the Earth and becoming the new Emperor of both Earth and Mars before ordering the execution of all his former partners in crime, so Sage decided to take the initiative and take over Redding's operation by killing him instead.

Now Sage stood ready to set sail west from San Diego to Sumatra with a small fleet of ships. When he arrived, he intended to take over the Railgun Complex and use the people there as hostages to force Blue's father Luis Dias to hand over the Mars Transfer Vehicle 'Star Cruiser', thus enabling he and his militia to travel back to Mars Base One and take over control. Sage would not be satisfied until he had firstly succeeded in escaping from the doomed Earth, and secondly made the people who exiled him suffer for what they'd done.

"Excuse me Sir" one of Sage's minions interrupted his musings.

"What is it Rake?"

"We've just brought Adisa and Branson on board" Carson Rake informed his boss.

"Good; give the Professor the smallest cabin you can find, and lock up Branson in the brig" Sage ordered.

"Adisa asked to see you; he wants to know what you're going to do with Henry Dias."

"The only thing I want you to tell Adisa, is that I don't want to see him until I call for him" Sage insisted.

Upon leaving the bridge, Rake went back down to the main deck where four of his men held the two prisoners.

"Sorry Professor but he doesn't want to see you" Rake said.

"I'm not surprised" Professor Adisa grinned "Sage hates it when I remind him of how he failed to shoot down Blue and Calla's space craft."

"Maybe you shouldn't poke the bear sir" Reed Branson offered.

"Perhaps not, but I don't want him feeling comfortable" Linton Adisa noted.

"That kind of talk could get you killed" Rake said as he dragged the Professor away.

"Not as long as he needs me as a hostage" the old man replied.

Reed Branson's ship the One and All, had brought Professor Linton Adisa and Henry Dias to the south western United States so they could look for answers to questions they had held for many years about the Mars Project. Instead they soon became prisoners of Prime Governor Redding and then upon his death, prisoners of General Neville Sage, who intended to use Branson and Adisa as bargaining leverage when they reached Sumatra.

So now with both prisoners locked away, Sage gave the order for the small fleet of ships to cast off and moved slowly out of San Diego harbour.

'


'

Hello everyone :D

I happy to be back with the continuing story of Blue Dias and his friends. Some of you may remember, after my last Snoggletog story I said I would not publish any future stories until they were finished first. This was because of my (mild) heart attack at the end of 2017 but the good news is, I am much better now and although no one knows the future, I feel it is now safe for me to start this new story without the risk of dropping dead in the middle of it.

I'm doing a lot more exercise type stuff away from the computer but I still do a bit of writing on most days so I expect to put out at least two chapters per month, maybe three. Hope you all remember how Red Sky Rising ended but if not, I suppose you could always check out the last few chapters as a reminder.

Lastly (for now) I want to give a shout out to my regular reviewers from the last book Stripesicles222, Vin, Draco38 ad Appleye2. To you and all those following the last story, sorry this on took so long to appear, and I do hope this one entertains.

Thanks, Marty.