SOME SECRETS ARE TOO DANGEROUS FOR EITHER WORLD TO KEEP.When the nuclear-powered subterranean cruiser Prospector II breaches the Earth's crust eighty miles off course in the deserts of Yemen, the Pentagon discovers that Pellucidar is far more than a geological curiosity-it is a geopolitical powder keg. Traveling aboard the titanium drill is Ambassador Cyrus of Sari, bearing living proof of an advanced inner civilization and The Great Secret of the Mahars, an ancient manuscript holding the genetic keys to reptilian parthenogenesis.Topside, corporate cartels and rogue black-ops contractors will kill to possess it. Beneath the surface, the telepathic reptile queens will drown entire continents in blood to take it back. To prevent an extinction-level biological arms race across two worlds, Cyrus makes an unthinkable sacrifice: he turns the sacred formulas into ash.Now, with foreign superpowers detecting the seismic shockwaves and scrambling to build their own plasma-arc drills, the United States launches Project Iron Armada. Backed by two newly outfitted heavy tactical transports-Prospector III and IV-Major Dr. Traci McKenzie and freshly commissioned Lieutenant Russ Miller lead an elite expeditionary force back down through eighty miles of magma and solid stone.They arrive to find the inner world engulfed in total war.United under a wounded, vengeful Queen, the subterranean city-states have forged the Grand Brood Coalition. Ten thousand bronze-armored Sagoth gorilla-warriors, armored War Lidis, and screeching aerial screens of winged Mahars and giant Thipdars are sweeping toward the sea, leaving allied garrisons in smoking ruins. With their command element shattered and tribal renegades hunting them through the primeval canopy, Traci and Miller must rally the khaki-clad legions of Emperor Neil Zander Innes for an apocalyptic last stand at the gates of Innesport.High-tech military combined arms collide with prehistoric savagery in this pulse-pounding, epic sequel to Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary hollow Earth.
