War of the Worlds Read online

  Novelization by

  Adam J. Whitlatch

  Based on a screenplay by

  David Abramowitz

  Story by

  Joe Pearson

  SECOND EDITION

  War of the Worlds: Goliath

  Published by Latchkey Press

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This work, including all characters, names, and places:

  Copyright © 2014, 2018 Tripod Entertainment

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art Copyright © 2009 Tripod Entertainment

  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 the written permission of both the publisher and author.

  Also by Adam J. Whitlatch

  The Weller Series

  The Weller

  The Weller: Night of the Cicada

  Vengeance For My Valentine

  Birthright - Book I of the Temujin Saga

  October Ballet

  For Jessica.

  Acknowledgements

  My deepest thanks to Joe Pearson, Leon Tan, and Mike Bloemendal for allowing me to play with their toys in their sandbox. And to the fantastic artists of Tripod Entertainment, Imaginex Studios, and Studio Climb, I couldn’t have done this without your inspiration and support.

  Thank you to Peter Wingfield for the kind words of praise and encouragement… as well as the many, many laughs.

  Which brings me to Ree and the wonderful members of the PWFC. Thank you all for your support. Let friendship thrive!

  Thanks to Shawn Beatty, the one true King Zombie, for helping me with the Japanese portions of Captain Sakai’s story and dialogue. Doumo arigatou.

  Ko map sum ni da to Daniel Wathen, my teacher in the ways of the sword.

  Many thanks to my brothers at KHP Publishers, Inc. (S.D. Hintz, Jerrod Balzer, and Shannon Ryan) for all their hard work and support on the first edition.

  And last, but certainly not least, I have to thank my beautiful wife, Jessica. Without her, I never would have met those crazy boys at Tripod. This truly is all her fault.

  “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”

  - Theodore Roosevelt

  Prologue

  St. Petersburg, Russia - December 1899

  “We are all going to die.”

  The declaration came from the trenches. Hundreds of young soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets huddled together against the biting cold and heavy snow falling on the shoulders of their threadbare gray uniforms. A lone priest drifted along the sandbag-lined ditch like a phantom; the incense brazier dangling from his hand swung like a pendulum in slow arcs, leaving a fragrant trail of smoke, adding to his ghostly appearance.

  Captain Nazarov surveyed the faces of his men, a mosaic of fury and terror. Most of them were boys hardly old enough to lift a rifle, let alone stand up to the horrors that awaited them. Some of the men crossed themselves with trembling hands as the priest passed, muttering indistinct prayers while others kissed photographs of their loved ones. Nazarov’s own fingers clutched the cross hanging from his neck.

  All around him, men heaved sandbags, pushed carts overloaded with munitions, and rolled cannons and Maxim heavy machine guns into position. It was chaos, not the carefully regimented order he was used to. But there was no time for order.

  “Let’s go,” one of the sergeants shouted to the artillerymen. “Hurry! Move your lazy asses if you want to live!”

  “Steady, men,” Nazarov intoned. “Steady.”

  One private, no older than nineteen, caught his eye. The young man looked over the rim of the trench, his eyes fixed on the distant tree line. His shoulders heaved as his breath came in faster, heavier gasps. Even from several yards away, Nazarov could see the beads of sweat on the soldier’s face despite the chill.

  “No,” the private shouted. “I do not want to die!”

  He threw down his rifle and struggled to remove his ammunition belt, finally depositing it on the floor of the trench as well.

  “We are all going to die!”

  The private scrambled out of the trench and bolted, his boots slipping on the fresh snow.

  Nazarov turned and shouted, “Private, stop! That is an order!”

  The other soldiers turned to watch the commotion. The fear was infectious; many of them looked as though they were ready to join their comrade. The captain’s orders went unheeded, and the private surged across the frozen battlefield, weaving his way between artillery emplacements, past the machine guns and cannons.

  “Stop, you coward!” Nazarov shouted.

  Nazarov turned to the nearest soldier and snatched the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant rifle from his hands. He chambered a round, shouldered the stock, and sighted down the long barrel at the private’s back.

  “For God’s sake, stop, you fool!” he bellowed.

  Again, the captain’s orders went unheeded, and the private shrank in the distance.

  “Damn you,” Nazarov whispered.

  The sharp crack of the rifle’s report echoed across the battlefield, silencing the confused, frantic rumblings from the trenches.

  *****

  Colonel Sergei Kushnirov watched the private through his binoculars from a quarter mile away. The boy’s face was devoid of all reason, reduced to a mask of terror. The colonel watched the fear melt into shock as the bullet struck his back and exited through his chest.

  The soldier stumbled a few labored steps, reached futilely for the wound on his back, and collapsed face first to the ground. Blood pooled under his body, staining the trampled snow a deep crimson.

  Kushnirov lowered the spyglasses. Lines of worry furrowed his brow, and sadness haunted his dark eyes. “His is not the only blood that will nourish the earth of Mother Russia this day,” he said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder.

  He reached into his coat and removed a round, gold locket. His gloved fingers fumbled with the clasp for a moment before it sprang open to reveal a photograph of a smiling woman and two young children—a boy and a girl.

  “Do you remember when we first met, Katya?” he muttered. “Do you remember, my love?”

  Kushnirov looked out over the battlefield, at the shivering youths in the trenches, the rearing horses, and the blood trail left in the snow as two men dragged the body of the cowardly private away. Above the spectacle, the imperial standard, with its black, double-headed eagle crest on a banner of brilliant yellow, flapped in the crisp winter wind.

  “I remember little else,” he said, returning his gaze to the portrait. “As long as you are with me, I do not fear death.”

  Kushnirov snapped the locket closed and grasped it firmly in his fist. He steeled himself, refusing to let his men see the sadness and longing in his eyes. Such emotions were infectious. He turned his horse, and looked into the stern faces of one thousand Cossack horsemen.

  The city of St. Petersburg loomed behind them, a gleaming citadel of beauty rising in the distance. Kushnirov spurred his horse into motion and rode down the length of the cavalry, his spirit emboldened by the fire in his men’s eyes.

  “Tonight,” Kushnirov said, “I stood in the Grand Church of the Winter Palace in the presence of our beloved Tsar. He said to me, ‘You and your Cossacks are the shield between Mother Russia and the invaders. Your saber is my right arm. Use them to drive the devils from our land.’

  “I ask you today to remember who y
ou fight for,” Kushnirov called. “Who you bleed for. Who you die for. And to tell you that there is no army that can stand before us. No invader that will not tremble before the strength of our steel.”

  “We will not fail,” Kushnirov continued, the fire in his voice warming the chill in his blood. “We will not surrender… our Mother… our homeland… our Russia. We will be victorious!”

  The colonel drew his shashka and bellowed, “Death to the invaders!”

  The Cossacks lifted their own swords in response, returning the battle cry as one thunderous, unified voice. “Death to the invaders!”

  Their enthusiasm washed over the battlefield like a wave, until even the poor wretches in the trenches took up the battle cry.

  A crackling sound echoed from the forest, and Kushnirov turned to look as the trees parted to reveal the first of the invaders. A pair of glowing red eyes loomed near the treetops, followed by another pair, and another, until the shadowy forms emerged. Three eighty-foot-tall Martian tripods stepped into the clearing on spindly legs, their tentacles writhing and snapping like whips. The gleaming, domed heads scanned the soldiers standing between them and St. Petersburg.

  Captain Nazarov raised his saber, slashed the air in a downward stroke, and bellowed, “Fire!”

  The deafening roar of the 76-millimeter guns and Maxims filled the air. The tripods stepped lithely through the barrage unscathed as bullets bounced off their armor. Kushnirov watched in horror as a cannon mounted to the bottom of the lead tripod, dangling like some obscene metal organ, fired a intense beam of green light at the soldiers in the trenches.

  In an instant, Nazarov and his men were enveloped in emerald flames and reduced to screaming skeletons. The remaining soldiers fired their rifles at the towering death machines, desperate to avoid the fate of their comrades.

  The other two tripods opened fire, swiping their heat rays across the entire front line and turning the trench into a moat of fire and ash. Those not caught directly in the beam’s path ran and screamed as the flesh melted from their bones. The heat rays detonated the artillery shells in mid-air with a deafening roar.

  “Courage, men,” Kushnirov said. “Have courage!”

  The tripods advanced, their heat rays reducing the cannons to molten hulks as their tentacles snatched up the few stragglers scrambling between their legs.

  Kushnirov raised his sword. “For God and Mother Russia!” He pointed the blade at the Martian machines. “Charge!”

  He spurred his horse into motion, and the ground shook as the thousand Cossacks at his back joined the attack. Despite the stallion’s thunderous, rapid hoof beats jarring Kushnirov’s bones, the cavalry seemed to take an eternity to cover the distance between them and the invaders. The towering, death-spewing machines loomed larger, their eyes turning to fix on the living tidal wave of human and equine fury bearing down upon them.

  The horsemen fired their rifles, but the assault was like the buzzing of gnats to the machines. The Martians turned their heat rays on the riders. All around him, Kushnirov’s Cossacks and their horses melted and ignited. The air became ripe with the stench of burning flesh and hair.

  Horses whinnied, and men screamed as tentacles snatched up both mount and rider. Those who weren’t crushed to death in the giants’ iron grip or torn limb from limb were flung high into the air, their bodies mangled as they struck the ground. Blood fell onto the battlefield like rain.

  Kushnirov slashed at a tentacle reaching for him, lopping off a six-foot section. A heat ray raked the ground beside him, and Kushnirov turned his head to follow its path. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he watched the beam streak toward the gunpowder kegs stacked beside the cannons.

  The explosion threw Kushnirov’s mount off its feet. They tumbled over the snow, and the horse landed on his legs. He screamed and struggled to free himself, but the dying animal’s bulk was too much for him to lift. His breath came in rapid, shallow gasps as panic overtook him.

  Warm snowflakes settled on his cheeks, and he brushed at his face. A fine, gray powder coated his fingers—the ashes of his countrymen mingled with the falling snow.

  One of the tripods’ taloned feet slammed into the frozen ground beside him, missing his head by barely a foot, and Kushnirov looked up. The machine strode past him, its heat ray slicing a path through the screaming soldiers. His eyes fell on the distant skyline of St. Petersburg, already engulfed in flames. The silhouettes of numerous marching tripods swept through the city, their heat rays flashing.

  Kushnirov stretched his arm out toward the city, his fingers reaching in vain. “Katya!”

  A brilliant gleam above him caught his eye. He looked up as a flaming green comet streaked across the sky, heralding the arrival of more Martian invaders.

  Chapter One

  Leeds, England -1899

  In a crumbling cathedral at the heart of the city, three trembling souls crouched beside a pile of smoldering pews. The multi-hued beams of light streaming through the stained-glass window above the dais did little to instill the Holy Spirit in the Wells family. God, it seemed, was not listening.

  Robert Wells comforted his wife Christine with soft words while their ten-year-old son Eric fidgeted nearby. He was cold, despite the crackling fire, and wanted to go home. Not even a week before, they had stood together in their front yard and watched the falling stars rain down over England. Never once did it cross their minds that those verdant fireballs were the harbingers of Death incarnate.

  Eric crawled over the rubble and peered around the broken outer wall. “Father,” he called softly, “are they gone?”

  Fresh snow fell upon the city of Leeds, but the pure, white flakes did little to conceal the carnage that littered the streets. Dozens of small fires and broken gas lamps cast eerie shadows upon the ruined structures. One wall bore the permanent silhouettes of a family of four, their final defensive postures burned into the masonry.

  Nearby, a trio of crows picked at a shapeless mass of charred, smoking flesh, a ghoulish feast for the carrion eaters that followed the invaders wherever they went like a black cloud.

  “Stay down, Eric,” his father hissed.

  Robert grabbed his son by the arm and pulled him behind the wall, wrapping the boy in a tight embrace while Christine huddled against his back. A moment later, a Martian tripod stepped out from a building’s shadow at the end of the block. Its tentacles writhed as the domed cowl swept its red eyes to and fro across the street. The ground shook as the machine lumbered toward the cathedral, its rhythmic footfalls stirring up billowing clouds of ash.

  Small chunks of masonry and dust rained down on the Wells family’s heads as the crumbling structure shifted and shook from the repeated impacts. Charred wooden beams groaned under their burden. Broken bits of stone danced across the floor in time with the tripod’s steps. Eric held his breath as the invader passed their hiding place and the quaking subsided.

  “We have to go,” Robert whispered. “Now!”

  Robert grabbed Eric’s hand and led the charge out into the street, casting constant glances over his shoulder at the giant. Suddenly, the tripod turned. Its heat ray flashed and blew apart the wall where the fleeing humans had huddled only moments before.

  Robert led them through the shadows and jumped through the blown-out window of a tavern. An overturned table in the center of the room provided cover. Christine held Eric tight against her chest, her fingers stroking his hair more for her own comfort than his. For several moments, all was silent.

  Christine looked at Robert. “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Maybe we lost it,” said Eric.

  Robert held up his hand. “Shh!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Eric spotted a shadow moving silently along the wall. The long, serpentine tentacle crept closer and closer, until it slithered around the table, inching toward his face.

  Christine screamed.

  “Go!” Robert shouted. He grabbed their hands and pulled them out from behind the table. They ran
through a hole in the wall just before a heat ray destroyed what was left of the building.

  Eric and Christine screamed as dust rained down around them. Eric released his father’s hand to shield his head from falling debris. The Martian fired again, blowing a crater in the street behind them and raising a new dust cloud. Eric stumbled and coughed.

  Robert and Christine rounded the corner and pressed their backs against the wall of a burned-out shop. Robert’s breaths came in rapid, heaving gasps. When he looked down, he realized Eric was no longer beside him.

  “Eric?” he said. “Where’s Eric?”

  Christine peered around the corner. “My God… Eric!”

  Robert followed her gaze and saw the boy standing in the middle of the street, frozen with fear as he locked eyes with the towering Martian machine at the end of the block.

  “Eric,” Robert called. “Move! Now!”

  The boy did not respond. His joints remained frozen as the tripod took a step toward him.

  “Run, Son!” Robert pleaded. “Do it!”

  Robert ran into the street, his arm outstretched, ready to snatch the boy out of harm’s way. The sudden movement drew the Martian’s attention, and the heat ray flashed. Eric shielded his eyes from the intense emerald light. Robert screamed as the searing beam struck him. Eric turned and watched his father’s charred skeleton crumble to the cobblestones.

  Christine left the cover of the wall and ran into the street toward the spot where her husband had stood. “Robert!”

  “Mother!” Eric shouted.

  The heat ray flashed again, and green flames engulfed Christine’s body until all that remained was a pile of smoking ashes.

  “No!” Eric screamed.

  The tripod stepped toward him.

  Eric turned to face the advancing machine. “You monster!” he shouted.