Olympus (Rise of the Empire Book 1)

by Ivan Kal

  OLYMPUS

  Rise of the Empire series

  By

  IVAN KAL

  Copyright © 2014 by Ivan Kal

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Proofreader: Tom Shuttat Main Line Editing - http://www.mainlineediting.com/

  Author’s note

  Olympus is the first book in the Rise of the Empire series, it sets the stage and introduces the characters for the main storyline in the series, and it is the beginning of the journey that will see humanity become a true galactic Empire.

  Contact the author: ivankalrote@gmail.com

  Table of Contents

  • Timeline

  • PART ONE – THE FIND

  • Chapter One

  • Chapter Two

  • Chapter Three

  • Chapter Four

  • Chapter Five

  • Chapter Six

  • PART TWO – THE EXPANISON

  • Chapter Seven

  • Chapter Eight

  • Chapter Nine

  • Chapter Ten

  • Chapter Eleven

  • Chapter Twelve

  • Chapter Thirteen

  • Chapter Fourteen

  • Chapter Fifteen

  • Chapter Sixteen

  • PART THREE – THE DIVIDE

  • Chapter Seventeen

  • Chapter Eighteen

  • Chapter Nineteen

  • Chapter Twenty

  • Chapter Twenty-one

  • Chapter Twenty-two

  • Chapter Twenty-three

  • Chapter Twenty-four

  • Epilogue

  Timeline

  December 2018 – World’s economy approaching collapsing point, unemployment at an all-time high.

  April 2019 – Corruption and economic failings bring about the collapse of the European Union, United States struggles with ever increasing number of homeless, Europe struggles with food shortages.

  July 2020 – With the collapse of the EU most countries are forced to implement population control, food and water shortages increasing, the price of water skyrockets. North African countries declare bankruptcy.

  February 2021 – Natural oil and gas reserves approaching depletion. United States increases their presence in the Middle East along with Russia and China. Relations between China and India deteriorate.

  November 2021 – African and South American countries reach bankruptcy points, people start rioting. Australia and Indonesian countries invest in solar, sea water, and thermal power research, and start building hydroponic and agroponic industries. Relations between Russia and United States deteriorate, China and India declare war.

  January 2022 – Russian military enters Iraq and Iran, United States responds by declaring war on the Russian Federation, the Middle East becomes a battle ground.

  February 2022 – UN tries to end the conflicts peacefully, most member countries unable to divert resources from their own problems. United States, Russia, China, India, and other countries involved in the conflict withdraw from the UN.

  May 2022 – UN and NATO dissolved, most European countries approach bankruptcy points.

  June 2022 – United Kingdom joins the Middle Eastern war on the side of the United States.

  March 2024 – Australia and Indonesian countries sign a pact, creating the League.

  December 2024 – The League builds first hydrothermal power plant on the ocean bed in the Southern Ocean.

  January 2025 – United States forms an alliance with the UK and India, European and African countries struggle with food, water and oil shortages.

  March 2025 – United States soldiers bomb Iranian village due to faulty information, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Using that as an excuse, Russian Federation arms their nuclear arsenal and points it at US major cities threatening to fire unless the US and their allies withdraw from the Middle East, with the dissolvent of the UN and NATO there is no world governing body to prevent them, US arms their arsenal as well.

  April 2025 – Remaining nuclear capable countries involved in the conflict arm their armament.

  May 2025 – Russian Federation fires their nuclear missiles, the US defense network isn’t able to shoot them all down, western coast totally destroyed, US fires their missiles in response, within hours both countries mayor cities are destroyed. India fires their nuclear weapons at China totally destroying most of their major cities. China subjected to sabotage, unable to fire all of their arsenal.

  July 2025 – Death count in the billion rising each day, millions more infected with radiation sickness, China becomes a wasteland. Refugees from the US west coast move to the east and south into Mexico and Southern America, Russian refugees move to Siberia, hard conditions add to the death count, few remaining Chinese refugees are given aid and living space in the League. Radiation clouds move to India, killing millions.

  August 2026 – Final death count approaching three billion. Shock from loss of life forces all involved parties to sign a peace treaty, retreating from war torn Middle East.

  October 2026 – Accord of Life signed, all countries agree never again to use nuclear weapons on Earth soil.

  January 2030 – Germany offers financial aid to other European countries, and proposes a union of all European countries into a single entity. Already desperate, all save for UK, Spain, France and Italy accept the offer.

  March – September 2030 – A new country is formed, all governments abolished, elections on various matters held. English accepted as primary speaking language, former prime minister of Germany Jonas Bauer voted and appointed as President of this new state, which took the name Concordis – Latin for united. A new governing system implemented, Concordis split into three regions North – Scandinavia and the rest of former Baltic countries, Central – countries of former central Europe, and South – Balkan Peninsula. Each region elected a single representative, the council of three was created, with the power to overrule any presidential decision if all were in agreement.

  February 2031 – League starts to export food and power to other countries in Asia and Europe.

  August 2033 – Concordis economy stabilizes, quality of life improves. People not living in the League or Concordis suffer. Concordis starts their own hydroponic program on a large scale, most of the fertile land allocated to farming. Water refining programs started. Underground lakes tapped for water.

  November 2035 – Radiation clouds over Asia and North America dissipate.

  December 2035 - August 2039 – US, India, Russia and UK pool their remaining resources and begin to clean up the nuclear waste left by the war. Their economies slowly start to stabilize.

  March 2040 – Olympus Corporation founded in Concordis southern region, primarily focuses on the development of new technology.

  September 2041 – League and Concordis finally able to sustain their populations, send aid to critical regions. League sends food packages to Asia, Concordis to Africa.

  February 2042 – November 2046 – Olympus buys the designs for the Leagues thermal power plants. Starts research on underwater habitats and development. Olympus
builds first underwater farms at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean powered by thermal plants. Olympus invests into genetic research, hoping to improve crop yields, and battle radiation sickness in refugees.

  August 2047 – Olympus starts mining the Atlantic Ocean’s bed for metals and oil. League does the same in the Pacific.

  January 2048 – African countries unite and jointly ask for the inclusion in Concordis, following their example Asian countries except Russia and India, do the same with the League, and are accepted. The Middle Eastern countries remain independent.

  July 2048 – November 2054 – Conditions everywhere begin to improve, the League and Concordis enter a time of technological advancement, Olympus develops first brain implants intended to help people with their everyday lives.

  February 2056 – January 2070 – Olympus builds first underwater city at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, it is named Nephthys. Population control is removed.

  March 2074 – January 2081 – Implant technology now widespread throughout Concordis and League. North and South American countries reach their prewar states.

  Part One – The Find

  Chapter One

  February 2081

  Michael Jorgenson reached for the panel above his head. He switched the exterior lights on and raised the front covering so that he could see outside of the sub. He liked to do that sometimes, though he didn’t need to. The Olympus searcher submarine Merman, like the military submarines of the last century, navigated mostly by sonar and other sensors that were developed in the past twenty years. But Michael liked to watch the water; its emptiness soothed him. Sometimes he swore that he could see movements out there at the edge of his vision. There were, of course, lifeforms here at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, but they tended to stay away from Olympus subs.

  “Oh God! You are doing it again!” Peter Manes said from his post at the sensor station.

  “I like looking at the ocean,” Michael replied sullenly.

  “Well, normal people like me are terrified. All that nothingness, it’s weird. You are looking but you don’t see anything.”

  “Then don’t look.”

  “I can’t not look,” Peter said, exasperated.

  “Well then shut up and watch the screens.”

  They spent the next ten minutes in silence. Michael stared into the dark ocean, but there was nothing to see, of course. They were seven hundred meters above the ocean floor, and there was nothing around them but water; the lights couldn’t illuminate more than a couple meters in front of them. From time to time, he would catch glimpse of something out there moving fast on the outskirts of his vision. He tried to follow it with his eyes, trying to discern what it was and what it looked like. Much of the ocean remained unexplored, its life unknown. Most of the underwater cities were built close to the coast, and the majority of the Concordis cities were in the Mediterranean, with only two cities built in the Atlantic. And both of those were placed at around ninety kilometers from the coast.

  The League had only one underwater city, and while Olympus had many mining operations in the Atlantic, none of them were anywhere close to the depth the Merman was currently at. The Merman was slowly mapping the bottom of the West European Basin at the depth of four kilometers. The searcher-class submarines were equipped with state-of-the-art sensors, which made Michael’s and Peter’s job easier.

  They were meant to map the ocean floor, discover metal reserves, and discern if it was profitable for a mining operation to be constructed here. If it was, a message would be sent to Olympus headquarters in Nephthys. If not, the deposits would be marked and coordinates sent to their base in Sedna, the second city built in the Atlantic. It was a boring job, with sensors and computers doing most of the work. The only reason for a crew was that the computer couldn’t be programmed for all eventualities, so the crew was more of a failsafe.

  “That’s strange,” Peter said, snapping Michael out of his reverie.

  “What?”

  “I just got a signal, but it’s strange…”

  “Strange how?”

  “This signal isn’t deteriorated at all,” Peter said, dumbfounded.

  “What do you mean? Is it a glitch?”

  “No, I’ve verified that the signal is coming from the outside and that it is our signal, but it seems that it was boosted. And it’s not a returned signal. Whatever it is, it’s broadcasting continuously at us.”

  “So what? Another sub caught our signal, boosted it, and sent it back to screw with us?” Michael suggested, maybe more harshly than he needed. But this was starting to creep him out, and his nerves caused his words to come out sounding scornful.

  Peter didn’t seem to notice his tone; he was completely engrossed with his station. Furiously tapping his screen, bringing up various graphs and running the signal through the computer. “No, barring the fact that there isn’t another sub anywhere near our position, our submarines don’t have the capability to send a signal through water without it deteriorating. That’s why we go to the surface to get in contact with the base.”

  “The League or the Americans?” Michael asked in a low voice.

  “No, the League is on par with us—our equipment might even be slightly better, and we couldn’t do this—and the Americans are at least a decade behind us technologically. They are still recovering from the war.” Peter raised his head and looked at Michael. “I’ve found the source.”

  Michael looked at his friend. He saw the same emotion there that was starting to creep into him: fear. He swallowed and asked, “Where is it?”

  “The signal is originating some fifteen hundred meters in front of us, from the ocean floor.”

  “Can you tell what it is?”

  “There is some kind of interference with the sonar, all I’m getting are rock formations. And it’s absorbing any signal I try to send. It’s like they just disappear. But we know that there is something, since whatever is there is broadcasting.”

  “Could it be something natural? A strange fish or something?” Michael asked, grasping for anything to make sense of the situation.

  “I don’t know…there are a lot of strange creatures in the world. Some can create electricity or mimic different sounds, but radio signals? It’s true that Earth’s oceans are the least explored part of our planet and that there are strange and different beings living here at the bottom of the oceans more than anywhere else. But I just can’t see a living organism having the capability to catch radio signals and then aim them and broadcast them, not to mention that it would need to have organs specifically designed to do just that…I mean an entirely biological beacon it would—”

  “Peter, stop!” Michael said as he recognized his friend’s coping mechanism. Whenever he became nervous or afraid, he had the tendency to ramble on. “What you are trying to say is that it can’t be any kind of lifeform, and must be something manmade, correct? Well, then, if it isn’t another sub, it could be some top secret project of Olympus. You said it had some absorbing qualities, maybe some kind of stealth or something.”

  “Well, yes…yes, it could be something like that. Yes, yes, even though I don’t think that we have anything near that kind of capability, nor does anyone else. But if it is a top secret project, we wouldn’t know about it right? Yes, they would keep it a secret and—”

  “PETER!” Michael said again. “Focus, Peter. If it is something of ours and is top secret, then they wouldn’t have sent our signal back at us, so the only thing that makes sense is that they had some kind of complications. Maybe the only thing they can send is our own signal, and are trying to get our attention. There might be people trapped there with no way of sending a message out.” Michael tried to convince that what he was about to do was a correct decision. “We need to go and check, see what we find.”

  “Michael, this sub isn’t equipped to carry out rescue operations.”

  “Maybe so, but we need to check the situation. If there is need for a rescue, we’ll surface and call for hel
p.”

  Peter hesitated a beat, and then nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he whispered. Michael knew his friend was scared. He was as well, but he also knew that as long as there was a chance that there was someone in need of help, he couldn’t just turn his back and walk away. He took control of the sub from the computer and set a new course. It took just under four minutes to get to the origin of the signal.

  “Where is it?” Michael asked. There was nothing but rock in front of them, and they were just a couple of meters away from the coordinates Peter sent to his screen.

  “It’s coming from the rock. Whatever is transmitting is buried inside it.”

  “Alright, I’ll go around. Let’s see if we can find an entrance or something.”

  Michael moved the sub around, trying to find anything that might explain the signal they were getting. The sensors were useless; anything they sent towards the rock got immediately absorbed, yet the signal they received was still coming strong. The reflectors outside shone a pale white light on the rock as the sub moved. There was nothing that looked out of place—no cave entrance, nothing.

  “Wait, what was that? Turn around,” Peter said, jumping out of his chair and coming to Michael’s.

  “Where?”

  “Back, on the right.”

  Michael turned the sub, but he saw nothing but rock. “What? I don’t see anything, it’s all just ro—Oh.”

  Michael just stared at the sight in front of him.

  “I guess we better go to the surface and call headquarters.”

  “Yeah,” Peter agreed.

  Chapter Two

  October 2081

  Tomas Klein, CEO of Olympus was anxious, which was rare for him. Being one of the most powerful men in the world—and certainly the wealthiest—he had little reason to be anxious about anything. But he had been waiting for this for the past eight months. Ever since that day when his second had come to his office and told him about the find on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The moment he’d heard and truly understood what it was, he’d wanted to drop everything and fly to the location and inspect the find by himself. But his staff had managed to convince him that waiting was the most prudent course of action. He was very much in the public’s eye, his movements very closely followed, and anything he was interested in immediately got the interest of the entire world. It took same careful planning and a body double to get him from Nephthys to Sedna, the city in the Atlantic, in secret.