by Troy Dukart
Also by Troy Dukart
The Venerate Order: Part 2
The Venerate Order: Part 1
Copyright © 2016 by Troy Dukart
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and articles, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
ISBN-10: 1537005618
ISBN-13: 978-1537005614
Δ
Second Edition
Grammar and Formatting has been
updated from the previous version.
For
Amy, my beautiful mother, who sacrificed everything in the pursuit of giving me the life she thought I deserved.
Howard and Ruth, my grandparents, for helping to raise me and instilling a passion for hard-work and generosity.
Steve, my best friend, who was always the brother I
never had.
God, for putting so many beautiful people in my life.
The United States Air Force, for opening a world of opportunity.
And last but certainly not least. . .
Brutus, my dog. You gave me the truest love I have ever experienced, I miss you so much baby.
ANGER COMPASSION
CONCERN DESPAIR Desire DESIRE
ECSTACY ELATION FEAR
GRIEF JOY JEALOUSY
Chapter 1/
The Accident
Strafe
Every once in a while you wake up and you get the feeling like you’re going to do something amazing.
My name is Strafe Rocknus. On this particular morning I was sleeping in my hammock in our city park under some trees. When I woke up, I felt like something was going to happen that day that would be unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I let out a loud yawn and “Ahhh!” My giant wolf that I named Brutus Maximus sprang up out his sleep, alert and ready to defend me. He’s my spirit animal, my guardian and my best friend.
I’m half Native American, a quarter Irish and a quarter German. From my father’s Native side, we get paired up with an animal when we are eighteen years old to signify our coming to adulthood and to pledge our lives to protect nature. The animal that a person chooses reminds us that nature is always at our side. Brutus was five years old.
I think I scared him, which is funny because most people find him scary. He trusts me completely and is actually my main transportation because he allows me to ride on his back. Ever since he was two he’s been able to carry me. We’ve developed a mutual trust that allows me to do so.
The day was bright, no clouds in the sky, and smelled of fresh cut grass. I thought I’d just relax for a while but I must’ve fallen asleep. I’d been working on designing my project to cross a gorge close to my town. Hopping out of the hammock, I picked up my flight jacket, a blue one, with round white shoulders and my flight patch on the left side. As I grabbed a banana out of my backpack, I saw someone riding up a Mag-Cycle. He parked ten feet from me and gave me a peace-sign. It was my friend Gain. He wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to rib me.
“Dream was that bad huh? You must have been about to try out the ramp!” he called out as he walked over to pet Brutus.
Brutus was really a big sweetheart in a wolf’s body. I’d vacated the hammock and Gain hopped into it. His hair was blonde, always cool-cut, slicked-back with a touch of black. As usual, when he rode he wore his midnight black Mag-Cycle gear. The whole outfit consisted of black leather pants, high-top black shoes, black gloves with a yellow shirt and a rooster on the front. Gain was a 25 year-old cycle guy proud of his many tattoos on his arms and a few piercings on his eyebrows and ears. He had bright blue eyes and always wore a bandana with our country’s colors on it. He was good with tools and was a machine head through and through. He might’ve looked weird to some, but he was my best friend.
“Careful now, you forgot I put a failsafe on that!” I said.
I pushed a button on the hammock and it folded up, dropping Gain to the ground. He winced in pain but we both started laughing.
“Speaking of the ramp, I need to get back to that. Is Yessa down there?” I asked.
“Yup, still tinkering around. She actually asked me to come get you. She said it might be done,” Gain replied while rubbing his back and stretching.
“You hear that Brutus! All that hard work might help me buy my own plane! Don’t worry, it’ll be big enough for you to ride in!” I cheered.
Brutus tilted his head, he did that often while listening to me. We folded up the hammock and headed off, Gain on his ride, and I saddled up on Brutus.
My town was called Santa Barbara, but now, in the year 2088, it’s called New Santa Barbara ever since it became 100% clean energy dependent in 2016. I grew up here. We enjoyed the life outside the big city, but were close enough to it to go bar diving or to a game. New Santa Barbara had shopping centers, arcades, beaches, movie theaters, good police and everything else needed for our idea of a comfortable life. Many of the houses were nestled in the mountains surrounding our city. At night, occupants of those houses looked down on the city like glittering diamonds.
Our vehicles were powered by magnet-lift technology to float in the air, allowing us to travel on any terrain, which is why we called them Mag-Cycles or Mag-Cars. It was a bright town and the colors on our town flag were blue and purple. I lived in my own apartment. My mother lived on the other side of town, so I wasn’t too far away and could keep an eye on her if she needed anything.
The park I had been relaxing in, Shoreline Park, was the only thing that separated us from the high cliffs that met the ocean. It was a grand forest that had many trees, flowers, and bright blue stoned walking paths. My city was surrounded by mountains and enjoyed green grass and nice breezes. To the east lay large canyons that sepa-rated us from southern California due to a large seismic crack that happened twenty years ago. The crack split inland, and was about as deep as a five story building. New Santa Barbara often tried to build bridges across the canyons that separated us to help with trade but it didn’t usually work out. The closest canyon had a high waterfall flowing, which was our fresh water source, and there were laws against environmental pollution and destruction, so we couldn’t channel it elsewhere. The water unfortunately made the sides of the canyon wet and often unpredictable, with many bridges collapsing in the past.
I recently graduated from Pilot’s College in New Santa Barbara with a Pilot’s License and a sub-focus in engineering and art. I’d always wanted to fly Mag-Planes as a kid, and now that dream was about to come true. I liked to tinker with stuff as well, which is why I studied engineering. Art, well, that came through a suggestion of a professor of mine. He said it would tap into the creative side of my brain, so I could perform logically and intuitively. I was happy to explore it. Now I was 23, and ready for the world.
As we rode down the coastline towards the canyon, we had a conversation.
“So Strafe,” Gain said, “Is it true the city is funding our project now?”
“Yep! Hard to believe, but I guess we caught their attention somehow,” I said with a shrug.
“Yeah, I’m sure having a cute girlfriend didn’t hurt either,” Gain teased.
“Hey, I’m pretty good-looking too! Don’t fill me with despair!” I laughed.
The city had promoted a contest to see who create something useful to help bridge the gap, literally, between the other local cities surrounding us, such as Goleta and Ventura. Yessa and I decided we should enter in the competition.
“Hmm, funny I didn’t have any say in that,” Gain remarked.
“We tried to get your opinion, but you never got back to us in time. Some days it feels like you fall off the face of th
e planet bro,” I told him with a concerned look.
“Shit happens dude, you know how my family is. Anyway, just don’t forget I was the one who came up with the idea to use kinetic energy. If we win, I’m going to be taking share of the money to buy lots of beer and sleep with a lot of women!” he crowed.
My friends and I came up with the idea to design a catapult that could shoot objects far over a distance while having them land safely at any designated spot. The trick was the city wanted it to use as little energy as possible, so we decided to look into using kinetic energy, like Gain suggested. It could be operated using gravity itself.
Being able to express myself, using the tools to do so, has always motivated me to try doing good things every day for my community. I did this so future generations could have the same great opportunities in life as I did. That was how my mom raised me.
“So Strafe, how are we going to explain this to the city?” Gain asked.
“We speak simple: we tell them our launcher uses gravity and a new jet-propelled magnet to shoot objects across long distances. To make it easier for them to see and imagine putting it to their own use, I decided to build the prototype near the canyon separating us from Carpinteria,” I told him.
“So, what does that achieve?” Gain inquired.
“The goal is to create landing pads and shooting areas on both sides of the canyon. Flying a Mag-Ship across to each side is feasible, but the catapult could do the same thing, at little to no cost. Drones are still not strong enough to handle large loads.” I surmised.
“The canyon has a deep hill before the gap, and would be a perfect place to try it out. You surprise me sometimes Strafe!” Gain teased.
“That’s what happens when you graduate college!” I said before I realize I might’ve offended him. Gain hadn’t graduated yet, and was struggling to keep his grades up. I saw him look down.
My girlfriend from college, Yessa, was also helping me work on the project. Yessa and I met at a pilot rally, which Gain had suggested to go to with some friends. She was also a pilot, as well as an equality activist, and awesome singer. She and Gain got along well because they both loved Mag-Cycles. She had golden skin, jet black hair and a smile that cast shadows on the sun. Every day I counted my blessings. She was the same age as I was.
Ten minutes later, we made it to the project site.
“There you are! Keeping busy?” I asked Yessa.
She had a cut tank-top with our college’s mascot, a cartoon gopher holding a surfboard, and some short-shorts. She’d been whistling one of her favorite songs when she saw us and smiled. She was looking good with her hair in a ponytail. She was wearing special glasses to help her calibrate the catapult. Brutus loved her. He ran over to get his belly-rub.
“Someone has to get this thing done by the deadline! I might as well take all of the credit,” she joked. She sat down and snuggled up to Brutus.
“Easy there babe, it’s two against one here,” I replied with a smile. I sat down with her and poked her in the stomach; she was extremely ticklish. I took advantage of that often.
“Anyway, what’ve you gotten done today?” Gain asked, trying to change the subject, “I see you’ve increased the efficiency by twenty percent.”
“Thirty, actually. See right. . .” I said before he interrupted me.
“Yeah! I see that. Thank you Mr. Smarty-pants,” Gain replied in irritation.
“Sorry bro, didn’t mean to step on your toes,” I backed off. He could be a little hotheaded when put on the spot.
“Ah,” she said while wiping away some sweat, “I just finished tightening some bolts and I think it might be finished.”
“Should we give it a try?” Gain asked.
“Yeah, let’s send that bag of potatoes over,” I suggested.
I grabbed it and put it on the platform. The ramp was shiny silver with a few glowing blue and green lights along the sides. They provided solar power. The ramp was narrow, maybe two feet wide and looked like a track on a roller coaster. It ran down about 200 meters. The gap in the canyon we calculated to be exactly 400 meters. We hadn’t shot anything off it before, so we brought a lot of variables like a bag of potatoes and some dummies from a department store. We also brought some solid objects like boxes to test. After we got all set, we sat back and Yessa went to the control panel.
“You sure you don’t want to shoot it yourself Strafe?” Yessa asked me. “This is your baby after all.”
“Ladies first,” I smiled with a low bow.
We counted down from ten and at one, the platform went off. Everything was looking great. The speed on the way down kept accelerating while the bag of potatoes stayed secure. It approached the launching point and at the last second the momentum shot it over the gap. In the air the bag wobbled slightly, but gained height. The potatoes didn’t quite make it the whole way. Instead, it crashed into the side of the canyon, splattering them all over the canyon.
“I’m glad that wasn’t a person! I don’t think any of those potatoes survived,” Yessa joked.
“For a first try that wasn’t too bad!” I cheered.
“I thought you would’ve got it first try, Mr. Engineer,” Gain taunted me to a tune.
“Professor Sighter would be so proud! We need to keep testing until it makes it the entire span – and continue testing to make sure it wasn’t a fluke!” said Yessa; I nodded back with a smile. I went over and gave her a hug.
After calibrating and tinkering around with the catapult after each try, we began to make some of the boxes and dummies go consistently across. I was starting to get restless.
“Well, I say this has been a great first day, let’s go get something to eat and prepare our speeches when we win this thing!” Gain said.
“Copy that! Anyway, we gotta figure out how to clean up the mess we made,” Yessa agreed while looking around at the equipment.
“Why don’t we really show them what this thing can do?” that feeling I got when I woke up was flowing through my body like electricity. It made me feel untouchable. I got on the platform and clicked my shoes into it, “Shoot me across!”
“Strafe, really?” Yessa said as she shook her head.
“This thing won’t turn heads unless we can shoot people across. I don’t want to show the city anything until then!” I looked down the ramp and tried to concentrate.
“I’m shutting this down. We’re not prepared enough for this!” she said. Yessa began to run over to the control panel when Gain grabbed her by the shoulder.
“Let him go Yessa. He’s got too thick of a head to listen. . .or die.” Yessa looked into his eyes and gave him a hard look. She looked back at me to see my approval, but still looked very uncomfortable. She shook her head with a no, but Gain kept glaring at her until she gave up.
“This is beyond stupid curiosity Strafe. You aren’t gonna make it across. We haven’t calibrated that for your weight!” she pleaded.
“The only thing to fear is fear itself baby,” I told her calmly with a smile on my face as I adjusted the straps on my feet.
Shaking her head, knowing how hard-headed I was, she said calmly, “I’m not pushing the button unless you wear the rope.” She went and grabbed the safety cable we had installed, “Luck doesn’t last forever.”
“Nothing ever does, that’s why we gotta keep testing it.” I smiled with a wink.
Gain helped me with the safety rope, although he definitely made sure it was on tight by almost squishing me. While using this rope, a pole extended after a person is launched across. It extends out one-hundred feet, so if the person falls down, the downward swing won’t slam the person into the canyon wall.
I used to be scared of heights, but becoming a pilot changed that. Adrenaline was my drug, and I never said no to anything. This project needed to wow the city, and I knew we could do that. We had all the safety precautions calculated, and I felt I’d be just fine. There was a very rapid rushing river down in the gorge, and it was very intimidating. There was n
o time to think about anything but reaching the other side though. The ramp was recharged and ready. The only thing that needed to be done was to push “Go”.
“I get to keep your wolf if you don’t make it across!” Gain shouted; Brutus looked up at him with a very confused look.
“And you get to buy me a beer if I do!” I yell back as I gave them a thumb up.
“Here goes Strafe, brace yourself!” Yessa yelled.
She wasn’t kidding, as I was already half-way down the hill! I kept my eyes on the prize, and when the ramp reached full speed and got to the launch point, I was off. I shot up in the air, and it was an incredible feeling. I was flying, over a gorge with a raging river no less! I shouted with joy; just to think of the possibilities that this could bring. About half way though, I felt a jerk from the safety rope that completely stopped my trajectory. It was like I got into a car-crash. My body was completely whiplashed. The safety rope got jammed and then snapped; I immediately started to fall straight down towards the rapids.
I could hear my friends scream but before I knew it, I’d hit the water. I fell five-stories before splashing down. I landed on my side and it was like crashing on concrete. The water was deep and full of sharp rocks. I didn’t catch my breath and began to have a panic attack. The current was too strong for me. I was trying my hardest to get some air but I kept getting pulled down. As I came around a bend I tried to reach the surface but just as I was about to, my head slammed into a rock jagging out from beneath the water and it knocked me out cold. What happened next changed my life forever.
Chapter 2 ζ
Battle for Eternia
Strafe
There was dirt in my mouth; I was lying in a puddle of dirty water.
My vision was blurry, my head pounding and I . . . wasn’t sure where I was. As I stood up and spit out the dirt, I found myself standing with thousands of soldiers in strange armor. The place was littered with the dead. When I touched the side of my head I found blood; must’ve been where I got hit in the rapids. What the hell is this? I had to take deep breaths to remain calm. My body was trembling. Where am I?
