SF Books by Vaughn Heppner

  THE TRAVELER SERIES:

  Galactic Marine

  Sleeper Ship

  The Zero Stone

  The Institute

  Neanderthal Planet

  THE SOLDIER SERIES:

  The X-Ship

  Escape Vector

  Final Odyssey

  EXTINCTION WARS SERIES:

  Assault Troopers

  Planet Strike

  Star Viking

  Fortress Earth

  Target: Earth

  Visit VaughnHeppner.com for more information

  Neanderthal Planet

  (The Traveler #5)

  Vaughn Heppner

  Copyright © 2023 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -Prologue-

  McPherson looked odd in a Russian Federation Navy uniform. She was a beautiful woman in her early thirties, wearing her hair up in a bun under a Kontr-Admiral or Rear Admiral military hat.

  She was aboard the Project 09852 Belgorod Special Mission Submarine. It was 583 feet long, approximately fifty feet wide and displaced 30,000 tons fully loaded. That meant the Belgorod was fifty percent larger by displacement than the U.S. Navy’s Ohio-class missile submarines.

  The Belgorod had extra-large torpedo tubes that could launch the new Poseidon Intercontinental Nuclear-Powered Nuclear-Armed Autonomous Torpedo. The Poseidon was sixty-five feet long and six point five feet wide. It was the largest torpedo ever deployed. Many thought of it as an underwater drone instead of a torpedo, it was so huge.

  The Poseidon torpedoes were the reason McPherson had wanted access to the Belgorod. It was why she’d gone to such extreme lengths to obtain impeccable credentials straight from the Russian President’s desk.

  Theoretically, McPherson now had the authority to order a Poseidon launch.

  It had been some months since McPherson had left the underwater dome in the Persian Gulf. That was where the Krekelen Rull had imprisoned her. Worse, Rull had attempted to break her mind through his psi-master pets. She’d barely hung on to her will and sanity. If Jake Bayard hadn’t freed her when he did by threatening to destroy the underwater base…

  Aboard the Belgorod in her private quarters, McPherson scowled and then shuddered in horror. Afterward, her face twisted with bitterness.

  Several months ago, Bayard had chosen that slut Livi the Vegan over her.

  McPherson balled her hands into fists as they shook with fury. She hated Livi, and she’d begun to hate Jake Bayard as well.

  During McPherson’s underwater imprisonment, she’d held out against the psi-masters, knowing Jake would free her. When he did, he’d finally see what a lovely woman she was, and they would become lovers. Instead, the player Bayard had chosen the Vegan wanton he’d met on his journeys to other planets. It must have been exotic times then. Bayard had probably slept with the Vegan witch and fallen under her spell.

  McPherson exhaled, feeling lightheaded and ill. She picked up a handkerchief, dabbing perspiration from her face. She closed her eyes, remembering the torment of the psi-masters as they’d tried to break her mind telepathically for the Krekelens.

  The Krekelens and Terrans—the new name for the secret human group resisting the reptilian shape-shifters—had battled against each other since the beginning of human history, maybe even from before that, in pre-history.

  The battle had intensified lately.

  Was that Jake Bayard the lusting Traveler’s fault?

  McPherson shook her head. She didn’t know. What she did know was that she loathed and hated the Krekelens, Rull most of all. She hated the idea of being a prisoner in the underwater base deep in the Persian Gulf. The psi-masters had mind-raped her down there—

  “They’re going to pay for that,” McPherson whispered.

  She took off the Russian Federation military hat, used both hands to straighten her hair and then set the hat back on firmly. It was time.

  McPherson whirled around and faced the closed hatch. Then, resolutely, she opened the hatch, ducked her head and started for the bridge. She had a pistol strapped to her side. She’d use it if she had to. It likely wouldn’t come to that, as she would collect her Russian bullyboys first to enforce her orders.

  It was time to launch a Poseidon at the Krekelen underwater base on the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

  ***

  The Belgorod wasn’t in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman beyond the Strait of Hormuz on the other side. It was deeply submerged in the Arabian Sea, which merged into the Indian Ocean.

  The specific Poseidon torpedo had received a few modifications from the Terrans who’d followed McPherson into Russia. The modifications and her latest post did not have the sanction of the larger Terran group.

  McPherson had gone rogue, although no one knew it yet, including those who helped her here. She’d gone rogue because the rebounding in her mind from the psi-master assaults several months ago had built up to an intolerable degree. The rebounding hadn’t driven her mad yet. She still had her cunning. But it had caused inner torment for far too many weeks. She was convinced that destroying the underwater base would relieve her of the torment.

  The point in this case wasn’t how she forced the Belgorod’s crew and captain to obey her order, but that they did.

  The Belgorod in the Arabian Sea launched a massive Poseidon torpedo, doing so at night.

  The torpedo or underwater drone quickly built up speed to seventy knots, or eighty miles per hour on land.

  At this speed, no known submarine or torpedo could catch it. Perhaps if someone received an alert and dropped depth charges or other defensive hardware in its path, they could halt the Poseidon.

  In this instance, the Poseidon continued on its underwater course, with no one being the wiser. Its nuclear power gave it effectively unlimited range. Thus, there was no possibility that it would stop short because of a lack of fuel.

  The special modifications took over, a mini-computer with advanced drives. It steered the Poseidon into the Gulf of Oman and caused the torpedo to dive deeper as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, negotiating its deepest region of 295 feet.

  Then the Poseidon headed for the Iranian Basin where the Krekelen base was located.

  So far, no one knew about the approaching doom. It was conceivable the Krekelens in the underwater base knew, as they had more advanced technology than the humans did.

  In moments, one of the Krekelen subs left the base and accelerated as fast as it could, heading in the opposite direction as the Poseidon.

  As the sub did this, the torpedo zeroed in on the hated base.

  Krekelen countermeasures—including psi-master-trained sharks with strapped-on explosives—attempted to destroy the torpedo before the warhead detonated.

  Two kilometers from the underwater base, the highly advanced computer realized the countermeasures would destroy the Poseidon in seconds. To counteract the countermeasures, the computer activated the switch.

  The two-megaton warhead detonated. The explosion released massive amounts of heat energy, light and radiation. The heat vaporized large amounts of water, which shot upward as steam. Upon leaving the water, it would spread as a radiated steam cloud that would potentially reach a wide area.

  A giant shockwave and huge underwater bubble caused even more displacement of water.

  A tsunami would appear soon to hit the surrounding coastlines. That would cause severe destruction to buildings and infrastructure and horrible damage to the coasts.

  There was going to be possibly irreparable damage to marine life and coastal ecosystems. Fallout would strike far beyond that.

  In the immediate vicinity, the heat, shockwave and radiation reached the underwater base, obliterating it and all the Krekelens, psi-masters and the other living beings within. It also reached and destroyed the fleeing Krekelen mini-sub seconds later.

  It was a devastating strike against the secret aliens, and proof of the deadliness of Russia’s Poseidon torpedo.

  Aboard the Belgorod far away in the Arabian Sea, McPherson learned the news and knew a moment of peace.

  Elsewhere, however, the repercussions to this nuclear attack had yet to begin.

  -1-

  I was beginning to have my doubts about the latest mission. It was so damn cold all the time and we were so miserably alone down here on the ice plain of Antarctica.

  I’m Big Jake Bayard, by the way, an ex-Marine and Traveler, which means I can travel to other planets in other star systems, at least under the right conditions.

  I was with a larger group known as Terrans, the former witch hunters who’d battled the Krekelens for millennia. We were on our way to the secret subterranean base near the South Pole.

  There were a hundred and eight of us. We hiked across the Niflheim terrain in scores of Bandvagn 206s. Those were ex-Swedish Army vehicles, double-box, hitched, tracked snow-vehicles.

  Each 206 looked like two big boxes linked together, articulated like a ’60s moon-rover toy. Each box or cabin had powered rubber-coated caterpillar tracks, making four altogether. A Bv-206 could maneuver over
loose snow—it could even swim, being amphibious for reasonable aquatic crossings. Each articulated tracked vehicle could carry up to 2,200 pounds of cargo or seventeen people, six in the front box and eleven in the rear.

  It was my turn driving our vehicle.

  Livi, my girlfriend, was sleeping in the rear box, heavily wrapped in blankets, no doubt.

  As I’d said earlier, we were in Antarctica. That meant it was cold all the time, mostly freezing and sometimes so cold your piss hit the snow as ice instead of hot liquid. The wind always made everything worse.

  This was one of my most hellish experiences in Antarctica. Sometimes, the wind picked up, swirling loose snow into a blizzard. Visibility became nearly zero then. At those times, we circled our Bv-206s, mimicking a wagon train of the Old West, enduring until the blizzard blew itself out. We would mostly sleep, keeping warm the best we could.

  The point of the expedition was to reach the near-South Pole base camp, the secret subterranean one, and finally take control of the ancient obelisk that sent me to other planets. We’d take over through squatting rights, controlling the subterranean base that no one else in the world knew about except the hidden Krekelens. Our experts would study the ancient hieroglyphics and cave paintings, and study whatever else we could find down there.

  Little Draconians had kept a flying saucer hidden there for thousands of years. Heck, they’d been hidden there themselves in suspended animation. What other treasures were waiting for someone like us to find at the site?

  Good old Qiang was in charge of the expedition. She hated me because I’d caused the death of her only daughter Mei, her only child. An alien Zero Stone used to run Qiang’s mind as well. I’d freed her from it, so she owed me something.

  In any case, our caravan of Bv-206s and snowmobiles had been traveling for thirty days already. The route was a normal one. We’d offloaded near the Ronne Ice Shelf, which was directly underneath the bottom of Chile in South America. After that, we followed the path of the Leverett Glacier, which led to the South Pole. We used that route because it was relatively flat and had a gradual ascent. That made it easier for the vehicles. This was the route that supply convoys and research teams used when traveling to and from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

  For any of you who are interested, the glacier had been named after W.P. Leverett, an American geologist of the Byrd Antarctica Expedition in 1928-30.

  The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, by the way, was a research post located at the geographic South Pole. It was named after Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole, and Robert Falcon Scott, a British explorer who’d also led an expedition to the South Pole. The station had been established in 1956 to support scientific research. It was operated by the United States Antarctic Program and was the southernmost continuously inhabited place on Earth. The station served as a base for a variety of research activities, including studies of astrophysics, meteorology, glaciology, and geology. It was also a major logistical hub for scientific expeditions to the surrounding area, including the Transantarctic Mountains and the Ross Ice Shelf.

  Under normal conditions, it would take forty to sixty days to reach our destination.

  We were doing it overland for a multitude of reasons. One, we didn’t have enough big cargo planes to take everything we needed, and we were taking a lot. Even with our one hundred and eight people and multitude of Bv-206s, we would be woefully short of supplies far too soon. A second reason for doing it this way was trying to be inconspicuous, slipping there, so to speak, under everyone’s nose.

  This was the first time the Terrans were attempting to take over this most important and secret subterranean base.

  It had been my idea…

  Actually, it had been Livi’s idea. She was going to help us clear out the base and tell us about anything untoward that we might not understand. That included any hidden Krekelen traps.

  For thirty days, we’d been traveling in two large columns composed of these tracked boxes. We’d hiked over ice and snow, becoming acclimatized to the harsh and horrible weather. A few times, we’d stopped several days to rest.

  I’ve described Antarctica before and won’t go into detail this time. But it was damn cold and that was all there was to it.

  We had weapons, some of them advanced, but hoped we wouldn’t have any problems or have to use our lethal gadgets.

  So far, we hadn’t. There’d been two flybys by heavy cargo planes. Later, a Huey helicopter from the Argentine Air Force had gone past. That had been ten days ago.

  So it was rather surprising when—

  Oh, you want to know what time of day it was. It was light. It was light all the damn time in this place, as it was summer.

  Summer was the only time to travel as we were doing here in Antarctica. In winter, it frankly would have been next to impossible doing it this way.

  One problem with our one hundred and eight personnel was that everyone here belonged to the Terrans. That meant we’d taken people from important assignments in various government or military positions.

  The Terrans were a small organization given what they did and the power they wielded. Removing so many important personnel meant opening up the playing field for the shape-shifting reptilian Krekelens. In other words, this was a risk, a gamble.

  It seemed like a good one, though, to finally take control of the secret base, perhaps finding new alien or powerful, ancient human weapons. It would also allow me to Travel more easily from one planet to the next, knowing my return to Earth would place me back with my people. That meant going from one planet to another would be safer for me. Maybe I’d even find allies over there.

  I’d already learned a lot through my various forays. We now knew about the Institute composed of hairy Homo habilis geniuses, about Livi and her planet in the Vega System. A nuclear war had decimated it and them. We knew about the Shajoks on Tynar in the Canopus System, the Neanderthal-eating Ophidians on Saddoth, the flying saucer piloting and dinosaur-riding Draconians, the Zero Stones and the deadly Chaunt System where the hidden and possibly extinct Anunnaki had lived. The Anunnaki might have built all the teleporting pyramids and obelisks on the other planets.

  Despite Livi and I having been an item for several months now, she’d kept quiet about what it was like on her planet in the Vega System.

  Livi was a secret agent. I was a secret agent, as it were. We were both Travelers, meaning she and I had the genes needed to use the ancient transportation systems. Usually the travel systems looked like a ziggurat, pyramid or an obelisk.

  The one down near the South Pole was an obelisk, having a computer entity on top that controlled it. The obelisk and controller were ancient. Once, the greater system had linked all our worlds, which had been called the Harmony of Planets. That had been shattered long ago, before the Sumerians and ancient Egyptians had built their early civilizations.

  As our files of boxy Bv-206s churned across ice and snow, two big cargo planes flew lower than average toward us.

  I craned my neck and tilted my head, looking out my closed window. Heat was too precious to roll down a window.

  The two cargo planes flew over us: coming so low, they shook my box vehicle. Afterward, each plane made a long turning bank, making it a loop, heading back for us to fly over again.

  I stopped my Bv-206. We all stopped.

  I zipped up my parka and put up my fur-lined hood. Then, I opened the door and stepped onto crunchy snow. The cold slapped my face like a cruel-handed witch. I leaned back in the cab and pulled out a special anti-aircraft tube.

  I needn’t have bothered. The two cargo planes roared over us and kept heading for home.

  Cargo planes, by the way, can be muy dangerous, particularly if they had giant rotary guns or dropped bombs.

  Those two—I squinted at their departing forms.

  They’d had hostile intent. I think I’d seen the markings of the Argentine Air Force on the wings.

  Argentina and Chile both flew missions in Antarctica. The Russians did to a lesser degree, and at times, Americans did as well. Lately, however, the Russians and Americans, who used to be cooperative, were no longer and both flew less than they used to.