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READ ALONG FOR AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEXT BOOK IN THIS SERIES!
COMING DECEMBER 2019!
An excerpt from Chapter II: The First Encounter
“Patrick, sir, wake up!”
With his eyes still groggy from sleep he forgot where he was for a moment. As he rolled over in bed, it was the panic in Roger’s eyes that snapped Patrick back to reality. Roger’s calm demeanor had been thrown out, replaced with a panic that both surprised and worried Patrick.
“Sir, we are under attack! We need your powers!”
“First things first, take a nice deep breath and calm down.” Why do you need my powers? Patrick thought as he swung his legs off the bed. “I cannot have you losing your head right now!”
Patrick shocked himself with his next action. He jumped up from the bed and firmly grabbed hold of Roger by the shoulders. Roger was a large man, standing a foot taller than Patrick and at least a few inches thicker. Despite having the power of the orb, Patrick was still intimidated by Roger’s size.
“You know the drill. Get down to the engine rooms; leave one Iceman and one Fireman down there to keep the ship running. Get the rest to their battle stations.” The ship rocked violently sending Roger reeling backward into a nearby wall, Patrick followed as his hands were still firmly gripped on Roger’s shoulders.
“Radio me in the command center when you’re done. We’ve got this!”
Roger nodded and took a deep breath. As Patrick released his shoulders, Roger ran for the door, pausing and turning around once he was halfway out.
“Sir,” he paused not sure how to relay the rest of his message, “there is one other thing. Flupotia has been missing since the attack started.”
“What?! Did they attack her ship first?!” She can’t be gone.
“I can’t say for sure. None of us saw her ship actually get attacked. One second she was there, the next gone. It was only then that we noticed the attackers flying in.”
“There has to be an explanation!” Patrick shoved past Roger, rushing up the stairs towards the command center. “Don’t just stand there,” he shouted back down the stairwell, “get everyone moving!”
Roger took off in the opposite direction, heading down the stairs towards the engine room. As Patrick cleared the last two steps, he raced to the radio. As his fingers closed around it a second blast rocked the ship, sending him sprawling to the floor. Patrick cursed under his breath as he lifted himself to the radio.
“Flupotia, come in! Flupotia, are you out there!” He was screaming into the radio as if the louder he was the further his voice would travel over the radio waves.
“Patrick, Gin-us here. We haven’t been able to make contact with Flupotia since the attack started.” His voice was grim, “what play are we going with here?”
“Forget the plan for a second, where did she go?! There’s no way she would abandon us like this!”
“Patrick, I understand your frustrations and I hope there is a simple explanation,” Gin-us paused, carefully choosing his words, “but right now surviving this attack is our main objective. So I ask again, what’s our play?”
Patrick couldn’t bring himself to admit it out loud, but he knew Gin-us was right. Flupotia had proven she could hold her own, and had more than earned Patrick’s trust. Whatever reasons she had for abandoning them, they must have been justifiable.
“Okay,” focus Patrick. “I know we’ve mostly run drills with all three of us, but we’ll just have to improvise a little bit here. We stick with the same plan for the Firemen and Icemen. Leave one of each in the engine room to keep the ship running. Get the rest up to the cannons; they’ll know what to do from there.”
Patrick let go of the radio button for a second and turned to Jane. “How many ships are we looking at out there?”
“Right now, looks like we’ve got four hostiles on us.” She replied quickly, not taking her eyes off the screen in front of her.
Patrick raised the radio back to his mouth. “Alright, I’m leaving Jane and John in charge of keeping the ship flying straight. Roger will coordinate the weapons.” Now for the fun part. “You and I, we’re going out there. Without Flupotia, we’ll need to be the weapons ourselves. There has to be something in this DNA encyclopedia that allows us to breathe out there.”
While Patrick knew it wasn’t the greatest plan by any means, it was all they had. Silently, Gin-us and everyone else that heard it was inclined to agree. While they were down a ship, the Firemen and Icemen had proven their worth in training exercises completed on Earth. Not only were they able to power the engines of the ship, but also the cannons. It had become one of their favorite drills to run, the propulsion systems built into the cannon somehow amplifying their powers. The first time they had run the drill it had shocked everyone, Firemen and Icemen included. Lucky for the small rebellion, they had been flying drills in a remote area over the desert and nobody had been injured.
Without waiting for confirmation from Gin-us, Patrick took off down the spiral staircase at the center of the command center. He flew down the stairs past the barracks, the cannons, the mess hall, the med-bay, and the armory. Finally, he reached the hanger at the bottom of the ship that housed dozens of smaller crafts as well as the exit hatch. Gin-us had taken the same path on his own ship, arriving seconds behind Patrick as he took a few moments to bark orders at his own crew.
Both Patrick and Gin-us stood in silence, searching their minds for a creature capable of surviving and fighting in outer space. They cycled through dozens of creatures that were close to what they needed, but not quite right. There were large creatures capable of breathing with no atmosphere, but they had no way of maneuvering without gravity. Then there were smaller creatures capable of flying through space but unable to breathe. Finally, there were creatures capable of both flying and breathing but with no discernable attack method. Finally, Patrick and Gin-us came to the same conclusion, dragons.
The transformation began quickly, fueled by the adrenaline pumping through their veins. Patrick watched as his skin cracked forming scales of deep mahogany. His fingernails sprouted into talons and he quickly turned to the control panel, punching in the code to seal the inner doors behind him. As the inner doors hissed shut he felt the room shrink around him as his bones splintered and grew tenfold. Within seconds the room was no longer large enough to contain him. Patrick struggled to turn around, the sound of his scales scraping against the metallic walls was like nails on a chalkboard sending a shiver down his spine. With great effort, he was finally able to position himself in front of the exterior door control panel.
Punching in the code, the room around him depressurized, and the outer doors hissed open. No sooner had a crack formed in the doors that Patrick felt all the air ripped from his lungs. He gasped violently, struggling to breathe in the oxygen-deficient environment as his lungs had not yet transformed. With his concentration and energy now focused on survival, the transformation slowed to a snail’s pace. He urged his transformation forward, pushing his body to its absolute limits, but even he wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Sipperly wrote the first draft of Aliens from Arapholanx when he was twelve years old. Over the next decade and a half, the story would undergo dozens of edits and revisions. Adams writing is inspired by his love of both science fiction and fantasy. He hopes through his writing he can create new worlds for others to get lost in and enjoy.
Connect with the author:
Instagram @author_of_arapholanx
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/arapholanx/
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The Birth of a Rebellion Page 22
