Empire's End - Time of Doors Season 1 Episode 4 (Book 3): Post Apocalypse EMP Survival - Dark Scifi Horror (Time of Doors Serial EMP Dark Fantasy Apocalyptic Book Series)

by Eddie Patin

  "Ruin Prevails" is Episode FIVE of Season ONE of the "Time of Doors" (Book 5)

  Read it today!

  Click HERE to find Book 5

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  About Eddie Patin

  Author, entrepreneur, and adventurer, Eddie Patin was born in south Louisiana, and has lived the majority of his life in Colorado, USA.

  A business owner and consultant during the day, Eddie spends his free time building a career as an author, an artist, and a musician. Outside of his writing, he has business experience in marketing, SEO, creating companies, ad and graphic design, and copy writing under his consulting business. He’s passionate about his music, the pursuit of martial excellence in firearms, combat arts, and medieval weaponry, and is a big fan of Capitalism and the Free Market.

  Eddie Patin’s favorite fiction authors are Ayn Rand and Stephen King, and his favorite genres to write in are dark fiction, grim sci-fi, and horror. He is also an author of a variety of non-fiction topics, and likes to write children’s books designed to promote strong values.

  You can find Eddie Patin’s titles organized under fiction, non-fiction, and children’s books, based on slightly different pen names:

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  More Books from Eddie Patin

  The “Time of Doors” Series

  Portal Zero – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 1

  Worlds Merge – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 2

  The Days Alive – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 3

  Empire’s End – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 4

  Ruin Prevails – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 5

  Wasteland, USA – “Time of Doors” Season 1, Episode 6

  Other Fiction Books

  In Darkness of the Mountain’s Night – Werewolf Horror

  Out of Paradise – Medieval Zombie Horror

  Hijacked on Naos 5 – Science Fiction

  Reclaiming the Maze – Fantasy Story about a Minotaur

  Curb Painting – Little Books of Extra Cash Volume 1

  Declutter Magic – Organized for Life Series Book 1

  Declutter Magic 2 – Organized for Life Series Book 2

  (Being Updated—Coming Soon)

  MORE COMING SOON!!

  Keep up with my Website for New Titles (Click Here!)

  Enjoy this Excerpt from…

  Hijacked on Naos 5 – The Chronicles of Alex Varia

  A Science Fiction Short Story from the Primoria Universe

  About the Book

  "I love this taste of Patin's vision, the science fiction shades of his Primoria universe. Fantastic atmosphere! Stands apart from the typical genre."

  - Terry Winthrop, Blogger and Administrator of SciFI World Weekly Reviews

  Stranded on an ugly, hostile planet, freelance Infiltrator Alex Varia must track down and face an entire colony of savage, backward Zurgans to reclaim his ship after a salvage operation was rudely interrupted.

  Enjoy this short novella from "The Chronicles of Alex Varia" series of Eddie Patin's Primoria universe.

  "Can't wait to see more of Varia! Awaiting Patin's full-length Varia novel."

  ONE

  The sky is falling.

  I never thought that I'd actually see it.

  As things are right now, I'm stranded on this damned planet, and the clouds boil. The vapor in the air twists and writhes with its pink and orange tendrils like fire in a vacuum. Ether battles itself, like two great squids fighting among the roiling of their putrid ink. The swirling seems to encompass this entire accursed waste of a landscape, and the cracked pale earth-stuff stretches out before me.

  The sky is falling. I'm waiting for it to suck me up, sweep me away, and strip the flesh from my bones.

  I sigh, the sound of my resign lost among the wind.

  At least the weather is neutral. Breathing the thick atmosphere isn't as difficult as it could be. My ship's betrayal could have dropped me in worse places -- much worse.

  I can recall the time when I threw the Xenomorph out of my airlock while cruising dangerously deep inside the atmosphere of Psylon 4. Its eyes were the first to go, but it never lost its malicious grin, even as its hardened skin disintegrated and its fangs dissolved. The bastard fell away to the surface a kilometer below, looking up at me with all of the blind hatred it could muster. Hatred was an assumption. How the hell could I know what an alien feels? How could I assume that a human emotion flared in those cliché red eyes? Especially Xenomorphs ... hardly more that insects. Space bugs.

  In the quiet solitude of this alien desert, I can feel the symbiote inside me, wriggling around in my guts.

  Time to move along.

  Who knows what will happen here at night? That is, assuming there is a night.

  The little wretches that live on this world were somehow able to jam my navigation. Brought me here. Used my own ship to dump me after knocking me out with my own life support. I guess they didn't consider me much of a threat, since I'm still alive. It's not very often that the wool is pulled over my eyes, but I have seen a blue moon or two. Leaving me alive will be their big mistake...

  Zurgans. At least, I think they were Zurgans. I didn't get a very good look at the creeps in their primitive skiffs as I was passing out.

  Brushing the white, chalky dust from my pants and belt, I see that they've taken my blaster. The grey synth-leather holster yawns, empty, incomplete. The tumbling yellowish light of the sky casts a prism of colors over my drab clothes, an old black Space Marine uniform faded by the suns of dozens of worlds. Gold. Pink. Orange. The color of blood congealed on a copper floor. They dance on me.

  On the bright side, the aliens didn't seem to have an interest in old earth weapons. My Remington 870 combat shotgun still sits comfortably in its shoulder sling, a full meter of dormant destruction. The muscles along my side ache and complain as I reach for the stock. It slides from its sheathe easily, the synth-leather molded from years of use, and I check my beloved scattergun for damage from the fall.

  Only three shells in the tube, five on my belt.

  I feel naked.

  The shotgun's black stock is smeared with the weird, white surface dust, but the rest of the gun is clean, safe from grit within the sling. The bolt slides open like a lover and slams shut with the unique metallic snap so uncommon in these days of energy weapons. In the swirling, golden light, the tritium bead on the end of the twenty inch barrel winks at me like a friend with a crooked smile.

  When other Infiltrators question my affinity for ancient technology, this antiquated weapon, I just remember that they've never fired one of these babies into a group of hungry Barlacs and seen them scattered to the four winds. Those shiny, corporate idiots with their vector-rifles and plasma guns have never seen what a shotgun can do in the trenches, strange alien jungles, or skinny ship corridors. Or, maybe I'm just far too attached to the visceral feel of the gun, the intimate closeness of the kill. The hot metal that can singe your fingertips, the addictive, sulfuric smoke. Energy weapons are too operat
or-friendly. Too ... clean.

  There are still plenty of critters out there that can be put down by good, old-fashioned lead. For the others, like the tough and resistant Xenomorphs, I keep an old service-issue blaster on my hip.

  Pulling the five shells from my belt, I load up the magazine tube. Put one in the chamber. Eight shots. Damn.

  Finding my feet under me, I'm somewhat disgusted by the spongy earth, the low gravity that makes my stomach drift.

  If the temperature of this place stays like it is right now, a lukewarm veil of nothingness, the battery-power left in my water generator should last me three, maybe four days. I hope the little dreks didn't take my property too far.

  Inside my vest is my PAPCon.

  Pulling out the device and flipping up the 'discreet' display, the screen comes alive with a -zip-, and I'm pleased to see that the Aggressor is still out there. For all their trouble in hijacking my ship, the Zurgans didn't seem to notice its locator.

  I suddenly remember a movie I saw as a kid, though I couldn't remember its name. In the movie, there were short alien peddlers. Thieves. They would steal ships and robots, dress them up a bit, then resell them to farmers who were none the wiser. The main characters regarded the aliens as little more than nuisances and beggars. Spaceport scum. While the little guys were good at what they did, they were a little short-changed in smarts, and always ran into trouble by making mistakes -- like forgetting to disable locator units.

  And the heroes always found their stolen goods.

  I might not be a hero, but it looks like the Aggressor is eighty-some kilometers north by north-east.

  Lucky.

  With the press of a rubberized button, the hologram of a keyboard projects at waist level. The small screen changes from the vague topographical map, following the Aggressor's position, to an information-browser. The translucent keyboard shimmers in the turbulent light of squid-sky. Friendly letters appear on the top line with the warm embrace of corporate advertising:

  Welcome back, Alex Varia.

  My calloused hands begin their search.

  Vain hope perhaps? As if another information pull on Naos 5 will give me any more information than when I researched this planet several days ago... Did a space-writer visit the indigenous life-forms in the last week and amend the information?

  "Yeah, right..."

  The sound of my voice startles me, so foreign in this quiet place, floating among the dull wind. Maybe I've swallowed some of this white dirt. My words sound as if I've been chewing gravel.

  Naos 5. Equatorial Radius - 2675.9 km. Sporadic colonies of Zurgan.

  Zurgan. (bipedal) Descended from the Nawans of Naos 6. Established home-world is Naos 4. May be dangerous.

  My tired eyes scan over the rest, a smattering of measurements and figures. Nothing useful to someone stuck on the surface, on foot, with the intent of zapping some alien thieves and skinning out of dodge. The same shallow text as before. May be dangerous? Who the hell writes these things?

  Resisting the urge to pop a chow-pill, I begin to walk.

  The gravity on Naos 5 is a little lower than on Earth. That's probably why I wasn't injured in the fall from my ship. The range of my Remington will be significantly increased; some good news in this storm of misfortune. My shotgun has essentially become a super-shotgun. I'd better make these eight shots count.

  Good God, there is nothing out here. The earth under my boots make me feel as if I'm walking on the stomach lining of an unfathomably huge beast, and the cracked, dusty lining goes on as far as I can see in all directions. As the growing distance steals the detail from my vision, the cracks disappear and the ground becomes a flat sea of salt, shimmering under the spectacular sky.

  I know from what I've seen in orbit that this world revolves around a single sun, but I certainly can't see that sun from down here in the dirt. For a brief moment, I entertain a chilling worry about what kind of mysterious vapors saturate the atmosphere, making the sky the myriad of twisting fire and plasma it is. Another detail left out of the logs? An x-factor making this atmosphere something more complicated than "a lot like Earth"? Something poisonous? Toxic? Flesh-eating bacteria?

  No sense in worrying about things that can't be helped, thinking too much about nagging thoughts. But, then again, it is a long walk.

  And I plod on, following the direction of my PAPCon.

  I walk over the un-changing world, under the chaotic-yet-unchanging sky, until the colors change.

  TWO

  The sky in the east, although still churning and burning, darkens, its pinks and yellows bruising into purples and blues. A veil of sludge swallows the sky, creeping westward. The sun is setting, but its location is completely lost to me behind a curtain of weird clouds and vapors.

  On such a small planet, the twilight is very short, and I'm soon walking on in utter darkness, the millions of stars overhead shrouded by the canopy of cloud-cover. The only light about me is the faint glow of my PAPCon, casting a blue haze over my chest and face. My right hand nervously makes its way to the flashlight in my belt, if only to confirm that it wasn't lost to the Zurgan thieves.

  The flashlight is still there, its cold metal assuring my touch. I could illuminate my path, but doing so would serve as little more than a psychological comfort. I have little need for psychological comforts anymore. There's nothing to trip on out here in the alien desert. I may as well just watch the PAPCon and its artistic digital rendering of a compass, guided to my goal through the inky-black void.

  My feet flog out into the darkness ahead in an uneasy rhythm, propelling me to the tiny ship icon along the bright, white path on the happy little plasma screen of my personal assistant. Outside the diminutive display, in the real world, I feel as if I'm not moving at all, swimming in the blackness like in a dream.

  I could hold my flashlight with my free hand, but Hal will warn me of any danger, and I'd rather have a hand ready for the shotgun.

  I call it Hal.

  The alien symbiote inside me has saved me from ambush on many occasions, acting as a kind of sixth sense, stirring my intestines whenever bad intentions are headed my way. I don't know much about the parasite, but we seem to get along fine enough. Aside from my eyesight going a bit fuzzy every now and then, I haven't been able to figure out what it takes from me, what it feeds on. The doctors don't know either. I picked up Hal at some point when I was exploring the old Volthian ruins on the third moon of Antares 3, and his (its) benefits can't be ignored, so I keep him inside.

  After an hour or so of walking around in the dark, I make camp. My ship doesn't look like it's going anywhere, according to the stationary red icon on the map. 'Camp' doesn't consist of much. I plop myself on the dusty hardpan, drink some artificial water annoyingly hinted with alkaline, and pull the waterproof pill-case from my vest.

  Hmm. Blue pills. Green pills. Brown pills. Icky pinkish-grey pills.

  I swallow a brown chow-pill with a chaser of water from a generator much in need of a new filter. Within a moment, a small belch brings a flavor to my cottony mouth reminiscent of beef sirloin. Steak sauce. Grease-fat. A small reminder in this alien world of the comforts of home. Of course, I gave up the comforts of home a long time ago. I hardly enjoy these chow-pills anymore, but it's been a good while since I've had any real food.

  A few minutes after dinner, I take a small, white supplement pill with another mouthful of water, then remove my shotgun, lie down in the dirt, and close my eyes.

  The say that the supplements give a body all it needs, but without being chewed, savored, swallowed, it just isn't the same. Something is just ... missing.

  I sleep like a man without regret.

  The light comes in at me quickly, like a flood, and seeps through the cracks in my eyelids like oil through a busted seal. Pink. Yellow. Gold. My milky dreams are set aflame and consumed, faces incinerated to ash and blown away on the wind now filling my ears. I open my eyes.

  The expectations of seeing my hyper-sleep chamber wa
sh away to an infinite field of white dust, a world of cracked hardpan. With a dose of disappointment, the memories of my predicament return. Zurgan. I have Zurgan to kill and a ship to rescue.

  I have myself to rescue.

  My tanned and weathered face is pressed into the dirt, and though I can't see myself, I know that I must look like hell. I can feel the white powder falling from my cheeks in clumps, sifting away from my hair. The taste of dirt in my mouth reminds me more of musty steam than soil.

  The composition of Naos 5 is definitely different than that on Earth.

  Hope it's not poisonous.

  Sometimes I forget how ridiculously dangerous exploring other worlds can be, such a plethora of mundane perils, so many seemingly insignificant details begging to be overlooked. Then, I remember that I've been flying from planet to planet, looking for anything interesting that I can get my hands on, for the last ten years.

  Not dead yet.

  Many aliens I've come across in my travels understand no such concept as luck. Luck to other species can be as incomprehensible as the imaginations of fish might be to us. My luck holds just the same. It's damned good to be human.

  I push to my feet and brush off. This white dusting all over my clothes and gear might help camouflage my approach to the Zurgan colony up ahead. Well ... wishful thinking. How else am I going to get the drop on them? With absolutely no cover in this alien desert, I won't be able to do much more than walk straight into their little Zurgan village, gun blazing.