By Raymond Burke
The Starguards – Of Humans, Heroes, and Demigods
The Magna Aura Genesis
The Axalan Revelation
The Terra Chronicles
The Destinia Apocalypse
The Destinia Apocalypse
BOOK FOUR OF
THE STARGUARDS
Of Humans, Heroes, and Demigods
Raymond Burke
Copyright © 2019 Raymond Burke
All rights reserved.
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
ISBN: 0992890698
ISBN 13: 9780992890698
THE STARGUARDS
Raymond Burke is a British-born author - The Destinia Apocalypse the fourth in The Starguards series. His background includes an early life in Canada and the US, employment in the British Army as an aircraft technician, an MSc degree in Archaeology from University College London, and short-article writing. He is also a member of The Mars Society. Raymond cunningly lives without a fridge, satellite TV, iPods, and he also can’t drive. He’s a self-confessed 21st century caveman . . . and loves it! Through all, he has been a keen and aspiring writer. He currently lives in London.
To
Neena & Brian Baker
A late wedding gift
Acknowledgements
My continued grateful thanks to my family and many supporters and friends: John McMillan, Nigel Livingstone, Mark Emsley, Ptolemy Philpott and Tania Johnson, Chris Bellay, Mark Veal, Dave Baseley, Chad Dixon, Lori Buttermark, Anke Marsh, Leigh Mack, Carl Bialik and Lydia Serota. To my fellow writers Paul Arvidson, Peter Ellis, Lance Steen Anthony Nielsen, Nick Cirkovic, David P Perlmutter, Jon-Jon Jones, Stephen Marriot, Anne John-Ligali, Soulla Christodoulou, Anton Marks, Michael Grist, Benjamin Smith, and Nilam A McGrath for their help and guidance. And to the members of the LOTNA sci-fi group – you guys rock!
Cover design by Janet Dado. Formatting by Ivy Port.
Any leftover errors are mine alone to claim.
I can spell; I just like to make words up!
TALES TO BEHOLD
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
INTERLUDE
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
INTERLUDE 2
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
POST-EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A
BOOK FOUR
THE DESTINIA APOCALYPSE
The Last War
EVIL pervades.
It hides and it shifts, waiting in eternity,
dancing to the pulse of its impenetrable heart.
But there is an evil which returns from sleepless death.
An evil thought long lost, but through which all things
were born; an evil destined to shine its dark light
from the pre-cosmic dawn until the universal twilight.
No time, no place, is unknown to evil.
No one escapes its bounds.
Evil lives to be supreme.
And it is awakening.
Prologue
Water spilling.
Rock spinning.
Splashing down upon her.
No.
Tumbling through blackness, hurtling toward her, sprinkling her feet.
Life was emerging. Death was coming.
No not exactly – one now. The other not.
An omen of synchronicity? Her mind was not right. It wasn't her own. It was more.
Concentrate!
She saw it now, focussed in blurry flashes, present and future colliding in pain. The birth of death. The end of life.
She screamed. And breathed. Quick precious breaths. But the heavenly behemoth stayed its course.
Silly, she wasn't in space. She was confused, exhilarated, delirious.
She was home. With no way to change its trajectory. But the other miracle of magnitude was certainly on its way, ready or not. She could push that. No problem.
Focus. Breathe. Push.
The night was closing in upon them.
She screamed again. She had to forget about the catastrophe in dark the future.
Because for now, Lynn Kellis had to give birth!
CHAPTER ONE
Mindscream’s name echoed on Zane’s lips as her tired eyes sprung opened. They were instantly assaulted by bright sunlight. She was flat on her back, her body being subjected to rough movement. She threw a hand over her face to shade her eyes; to see her assailant. She could tell she was somewhere else, definitely not Earth.
Flashes of memory pin-pricked her brain. The explosion. Thane Industries. The attack of the E-Corps. The lorelet inadvertently released by Altair when he had touched the Archwitch's falling Lore stone shattering into energy. Desperately, Zane had somehow opened up a time-portal, spiriting herself and the Starguards away just in time.
Squinting hard, her eyes focused on Aerl. It was he who was shaking her. He stopped when she looked at him. Aerl continued to stare at her. Zane peered around, a bit dazed. The two of them were alone. No sign of the other Starguards Altair, Deb or Urana. Zane coughed and spat dust from her dry mouth.
Where were they? her eyes asked Aerl, who continued to gaze at her in a curious manner.
Aerl had removed his visor; searching brown eyes still studying her very attentively.
“What’s wrong, Aerl?” her voice trembled slightly, stifling another cough. His constant stare was becoming more than a little intimidating. Fear rose in the pit of her stomach. “Has something happened to the others?” But his cold eyes told her that was not it.
“Who are you?” Sceptre shouted in her face.
Zane recoiled from his harsh voice.
“What? Aerl, it’s me, Zane! What are you on?” She stopped herself as she noticed that her voice had changed. It sounded more mature. She looked at her hands, they seemed a little older, and then she noticed her body; a longer, fuller figure. “Oh, wow, look at me!”
“That’s not all, if you are who you say you are.” Sceptre fetched out a small crystalator, one the ubiquitous multifunctional crystalline computers, from his blue and gold uniform. He had made a recording, replaying the images to Zane.
Her mouth dropped open in shock at the sight. She was at least ten years older, dyed blonde hair replaced by her natural black hair, longer and fuller. She was a woman. Zane rolled onto her knees and stood up like a new-born foal, legs feeling a bit wobbly beneath her. Dusting herself off she felt and saw well-trimmed muscle; at least she still fit into her purple and black manoeuvre suit, which had automatically accommodated her fuller figure.
What's happened to me? she asked herself.
“Aerl, I swear it’s me,” she pleaded still finding her new voice a bit disconcerting, “but I don’t know what’s happened or how we got here, wherever here is . . .” The surrounding landscape was as rocky, hilly, and desolate as a brown moon.
A buzzing from Sceptre’s comms cut her off. He adjusted his visor controls to enhance the sound. Listening carefully to make out the signal, he frowned, before his eyes widened in surprise. He replaced his visor and his head spun in the direction of the signal.
And before Zane could get her bearings and register that the call was a mayday, Aerl had homed in on the signal and taken to the air faster than Zane had thought possible.
He left me here! She gaped in dismay after him.
>
Despite that and disregarding still being disorientated from whatever had just happened, Zane shot after him, a trail of dark dust marking her wake.
Thank god I can still run fast, she thought relieved.
Azure woke up. She yelped as bright sunlight burned her eyes.
Her thoughts raced Where am I? Where was Classia? Sword Celectral? Novan? Was I dreaming? But it had seemed so real.
The heat, however, was really unbearable after the relative darkness and shade of Celectral City under the coloured mists of the Ribbon System. Had she really fought the Lore again? She looked around at her new reality.
There were other things in the heat. Long shadows cast by a score of metal, vaguely humanoid-beings silently standing in a line a hundred meters away. Urana, the blue-haired Starguard, faced them in a stand-off, her hands ready to rain energy upon them. The gap and silence between them was pregnant with violent anticipation.
Alarmed, Azure staggered up to stand to support Urana. That's when she saw another figure, prone, behind her.
“Altair!” Then she noticed the familiar brown and red coloured uniform and mask.
The E-Corps leader, Fusioneer, she thought his name was.
What was he doing here? Where were Altair, Sceptre, and Zane?
Stuck between helping Urana and seeing to Fusioneer, Azure ran a systems check on her manoeuvre suit. Seconds later, she received an all-function clear mode. Keying up comms, she transmitted a mayday call on a Starguards frequency in the hopes Altair or Sceptre would hear it. Just as she did so, the metal beings began to stir and step forth toward them.
Did I trigger that? she questioned herself.
“Rain, what’s going on? What are those things?” she commed her fellow Starguard.
If Urana heard her, she didn’t answer. She had started firing plasma from her hands at the strange beings, who didn’t return fire.
Azure saw they were absorbing Urana’s energy. She knew what was coming next, “Rain, stop firing, they’re . . .”
Too late.
The beings had absorbed enough from Urana. They re-channelled the energy and began firing back. They were in battle.
Fabien L’Coyle, leader of the Marquis Edgar de la Valtare's forces on this new world, was bored. He and a good score of soldiers had been sent out to hunt down the traitor-spy known as Guillaume de Roth. Instead they had come across three unconscious figures laying in the wastelands to the west of the Silver City, their strange alien fortress.
“Voici! Voici!” a man shouted and pointed; Benoir, L'Coyle heard his distinctive loud voice.
There were cries of excitement at the sight of two women.
“Benoir, leave them! They are prisoners!” L'Coyle knew he needed to calm them down before they got out of hand. But he also knew his men would ignore his orders, Duke or not. They knew some of his past, enough to know it was the nominally lesser-ranked Valtare who gave the orders. And L'Coyle wanted his lands and title restored to him. The only way to do that was to see this war out. And these men weren't going to jeopardise that for him.
“Allez, Allez,” called out the excited Benoir, the rest of the men rushing over to the women against L’Coyle’s orders, trying to awaken them.
“Bring them back to the fortress for some fun!” another soldier, Roscos, muttered.
“No, are you joking? The Devouts will keep them away from us! Do it here!” Faverini had even started unclipping his breeches.
“How do you know they aren't Devouts, lost out here?” L'Coyle tried to dissuade them.
Faverini grinned. “We'll soon find out!”
Benoir grunted his approval.
L'Coyle cursed himself. The Devouts, the fearsome sisterhood allied to Valtare and Archron, were no fun to be sure, not wanting to sully their bodies and reputations with Valtare's men so the medieval warriors were reverting to their barbarous ways with the two strangers.
But even as they argued over one of them, the blue-haired woman dressed in white and yellow armour awoke.
“Get off me!” she yelled in anger, teeth barred. “Now!” Her eyes glowed bright yellow.
Now scared, the men tried to hold her down, Benoir gripping her armour, to restrain her. At his fervent attempt to force her, the woman erupted.
L'Coyle saw her unleash some form of hot bright yellow magic from her hands. Benoir and his fellow assaulters burned to their crispy deaths in front of L'Coyle.
“Retreat!” L'Coyle ordered in panic; the first to distance himself as more and more of his men were cut down by the mysterious woman's energy.
As he ran for cover, L'Coyle retrieved the crystalator Valtare had given him.
“Three strangers in armour,” he panted. “A blue-haired demoness burning my men alive! We need reinforcements!” He described the strangers to Valtare and after a few seconds silence; “Kill them!” came the cold reply: Archron's voice.
“Help is on the way,” Valtare confirmed.
Two minutes later, a dozen or so Surge pelted in from the cloudless sky. The metallic beings occupying the female warrior, just as the second woman, who wore all-blue armour began to wake up.
Licking his lips nervously, L’Coyle saw his chance, outflanking the otherwise-engaged Urana. He sneaked up behind Azure, who was blinking in the bright sunshine and talking into her forearm comms. L'Coyle prowled up to the still unconscious man, his first target. With his sword raised high to deliver a killing blow upon Fusioneer, a bright glint in the sky caught his attention. It sparked brightly from around a group of ridges moving like a golden arc, rapidly closing upon them. A brief flash sparked from the looming rainbow. Before a bedazzled L’Coyle could react, a massive burst of hard golden light had slammed into him hurling him twenty feet through the dusty air.
And there, flying in to unleash more lightning vengeance was Sceptre, a vision of burning livid light, unrelenting, felling L’Coyle’s small human army with impunity.
L’Coyle was only saved by dint of a small forcefield pack given to him by Valtare. Hurting all over, cracked bones jarring, jaw twitching, L’Coyle pushed himself up as Sceptre circled to land to assist Urana and Azure. Readying for another attack, L'Coyle charged but was brutally downed again into the red earth, by a force whose speed was a manic burst of colour.
L'Coyle's thin scar along his eye smarted and itched. Everyone thought it was a battle scar. He laughed to himself remembering the gift from his father, the Duke, who had whipped him as his step-mother had watched; punishment to both of them for his then teenaged son's and new wife's transgression in the estate stables. His step-mother's punishment had been worse. Blue eyes wide with fear, she had watched her young lover being stripped of both his clothes and inheritance and whipped while she hung from the stable loft, long blonde hair hiding the rope around her neck. Their eyes had met as she drew her last breath. Funny how he always thought of her when he was in pain.
Just before blacking out, L’Coyle’s mind vaguely caught the image of a girl vanishing almost too quick to see. With Azure and Urana occupying the Surge with covering fire, Sceptre picked up Fusioneer followed by Urana and Azure, leaving behind a battle-scarred land and destroyed men.
The impassive Surge did not pursue the strangers. One dull gray-coloured Surge picked up L’Coyle none too gently. He was flown over the dead land back to the fortress, where his collapsed body was presented before a stunned Valtare and Decion, who had been expecting a victorious return.
Needless to say, it was not a very quiet day in the Silver City.
Sceptre had flown erratic courses. Where to he did not know. He flew low avoiding any potential detection systems. Zane in her Windburst costume was almost running beside him. Azure and Urana flanked them. Sceptre kept going until a warren of hills and valleys approached. His visor's sensors detected no movement so he deemed it safe to land on a small plateau. Gasps of relief escaped them as they stopped to check themselves over and regroup. Sceptre made sure Fusioneer was still alive setting him down on a sandy patch o
f ground.
No sooner had they caught breath when Sceptre's head whipped around sensing movement to their rear. A stranger was scrambling down a rocky hill toward them, brandishing a sword. Before anyone else reacted, the stranger was ploughed into by Windburst, sending him flying into unconsciousness as he hit the rock hard wall. His sword landed by Sceptre.
I’m getting good at this shoulder-barging-at-speed thing, thought Zane.
“Is that Zane?” Azure asked in confusion, looking at the older Zane. “She almost looks like me!”
Her stare made Zane feel self-conscious. She milled around the fallen stranger, who was dressed in a stylised medieval warrior's armour.
“Long story, but it seems so,” a laser-focused Sceptre answered, warily scanning the area, as the Astral came over.
She looked sheepishly at Urana and Azure and shrugged. “Guess a girl has to grow up at some point,” she smiled, trying to feel more comfortable.
“Oh Universe, Zane, what happened?” Urana soothingly hugged Zane.
Zane could only shrug again, “I think we’re well out of the Kansas time zone and it’s obviously affected me, a natural time-traveller, more than it has you guys,” she joked.
The Destinia Apocalypse (The Starguards - Of Humans, Heroes, and Demigods Book 4) Page 1
