by Kord Stone
The Awakening
Kord Stone
Book One in The Imortum series.
When Jason meets an artificial life form who is traveling through time and space to repair disasters, he has no idea he is about to become her partner—in more ways than one.
Advanced Lifeform Integrated Synaptic Escort, Alise for short, is having feelings she has never experienced before. Her new commander has awakened something in her she never expected. Now she’s determined to protect him from the mysterious stranger who is traveling through time to kill him and his family.
Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!
An adult science fiction romance from Ellora’s Cave
The Awakening
Kord Stone
List of Terminology
AI: Artificial Intelligence
AL: Advanced Lifeform
ALISE: Advanced Lifeform Integrated Synaptic Escort
DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
EMP: Electromagnetic Pulse
EVA: Extra Vehicular Activity
GMP: Geomagnetic Pulse
GSO: Geosynchronous Orbit
HAHO: High Altitude High Opening
HALO: High Altitude Low Opening
HUD: Heads Up Display
KK: Thousand Kilometers
Lanna: Mars
MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction
OCS: Officer Candidate School
OIC: Officer in Charge
PARSEC: Equal to 3.26 Light Years or 19 Trillion miles
PTD: Phased Time Dilation
SCI: Sensitive Compartmented Information
SLO: Stationary Lunar Orbit
TDS: Time Dilation Ship
Terra: Earth
TPE: Time Phased Explosive
Chapter One
Jason had always known his protective nature would get him into trouble again one day. Now he had proof. He was stuck inside a strange craft with a silver disk in his hand and a dead alien on the floor next to him.
It irritated him that a simple thing like a camping trip could turn out so badly. He shook his head as he thought back on the events leading to this point. He had awoken from a particularly grueling nightmare in which he was back in Iraq, suffering torture at the hands of his captors. He felt a sharp pain in his back, then the dream shifted to the memory of his brothers lying dead in their coffins. That was what woke him up.
Heart pounding and breathing heavily, he stood and wiped the sweat from his brow. Afterward he tried to ease the pain in his back. Once he managed to get the pain to recede he reclined on his lounge chair, staring up at the night sky, watching as planes and satellites whizzed past. As he listened to the sound of the nearby waves lapping against the shoreline, he tried to make sense of the shitty life fate had dealt him.
Out of the serenity, there had been a sudden blurred flash and a sonic blast right over his head. A concussion wave had knocked him out of his lounger and he landed face down in the gravelly dirt. With his head throbbing and ears ringing he had been momentarily disoriented. He was shakily making his way to his feet when the ground under his body began to quake and some sort of aircraft crashed into the nearby shoreline.
The adrenaline had begun coursing through his body and everything rushed back into focus. He looked through the settling dirt and dust and saw a long silver pyramid-shaped craft partially submerged in the reservoir about two hundred feet away, and he ran as fast as his concussed body had dared toward the vessel. He heard a faint cry for help from within and rushed to the exposed hatch several feet away.
The size and shape of the craft had not bothered him much. As a child he lived in northern Nevada and he had seen a few odd experimental aircraft flying through the sky, not to mention the strange things he had seen while serving in the Air Force. He figured this must be one of the craft from the Area 51 test site or Fallon Naval Air Station. He had heard rumors that Area 51 had been moved to an undisclosed location somewhere between the Utah and Colorado border, and he just figured the rumors had been put out to dissuade people from spying on the compound.
Over the years, people would hike to a mountain range outside of Rachel, Nevada, that the Bureau of Land Management controlled. It bordered Area 51 and had a nice vantage point so they could see what the military was doing on the base. The military and B.L.M. did a land swap, in essence putting an end to the looky-loos. Soon after that it was rumored that the base had been moved to the new location. But judging from the craft that had crashed in front of him, he figured the government must have lied again. He muttered to himself, “No big surprise there.”
Jason had approached the aircraft without a thought for his own safety, wanting nothing more than to rescue the person or people inside. He entered the craft through a triangular hatch that no longer had a door attached. He remembered thinking that even though it had crashed, the ship looked as if it hadn’t taken any damage at all. Shaking off the condition of the vessel, he had made it a step or two inside. He heard the cries of someone to his left about fifteen to twenty feet away. He ran through the barely lit corridor and came upon the man lying supine on the floor and partially propped up against some kind of console. Jason rushed over to assess the man’s injuries and the man suddenly grabbed his hand and pressed something into it.
With a gurgle, he whispered, “Hurry…press…the…blue…button,” and pointed to his left at a console that was just out of his reach.
Figuring the man was trying to call for help or prevent the ship from exploding, Jason did as he asked and he pressed the flashing blue button. Man, had that been a mistake! The moment he pressed the button, the ship began to rumble and everything blurred around him. A voice began to speak through the intercom in a foreign language, and Jason heard a loud explosion, then the blurred effect cleared.
Jason turned to the pilot and asked, “What the hell was that?”
The man looked Jason in the eyes and said, “Was…for…your…safety. Put…disk…there.” He pointed to a spot on Jason’s head behind his right ear. “It will…explain…everything.” He let out a cough of reddish green blood and collapsed dead beside his console. Startled, he had realized this was not a U.S. military vessel, and the man in front of him was not completely human.
Jason had looked down at the silver disk in his hand and back to the dead man next to him as he shook his head. Oh hell no! He put the disk on the console and took off for the exit.
Memories of his experiences in the military flashed through his head, and a chill swept down his spine. With a shudder, he thought that he did not want to be found in or anywhere near a spaceship and definitely not one with an alien…a damned dead alien at that. He ran up and down the corridor, looking for the escape hatch where he had entered the ship, but all he could find were smooth walls on every surface. He tried not to panic but thought to himself, I am screwed! In no time at all the military would be swarming this ship, and when they cut it open like a tin can, they would find him and proceed to do God only knew what to him.
His heart was racing and his head was pounding. He knew he needed to calm down before he had a stroke or a heart attack. He took several cleansing breaths, remembering his mindfulness training. After a few minutes, the sound of his heartbeat pounding in his ears began to recede enough for him to assess his situation.
1. No visible exit.
2. Dead alien…not my fault.
3. A control panel in the room with the dead alien.
“Crap,” he said out loud, knowing he had to go back to the room with the control panel and see if there was a button that would open the escape hatch.
He rushed back to the front of the ship or what he thought was the front of the ship. Hell,
it could have been the back as far as he knew. He entered the room and could still hear the voice repeating a message in a language he had never heard before but which sounded vaguely familiar. He went over to the console and examined the touch-screen buttons. They all looked like gibberish to him, though a few had symbols he did recognize. However, he was unable to read or understand Hieroglyphics, Norse runes, Cuneiform or Sanskrit. Some of the writing vaguely resembled a mixture of Latin and Greek, but it wasn’t quite right.
Jason grumbled, “Leave it to me to get stuck on a spaceship with ancient dead or dying languages for instructions.” There were no discernable controls to open doors and at the moment he was not willing to just start pushing buttons haphazardly. Just look at what happened when I pushed the damned blue button. He thought about it a moment and figured, it couldn’t hurt to push that one again could it? But the light behind the button had been extinguished and no matter how many times he pressed, hit or cursed at it, there was still no response.
It didn’t take long for Jason’s survival instincts to kick in. The ship appeared to be laid out in a square with corridors at right angles from the control room. Figuring it would be to his advantage to leave no stone unturned, he went down each of the corridors, looking for any sign of an escape route.
Depressingly, all he managed to find were three more rooms at the corners of the ship. One had a metal bed, the next a spongy floor and the last had several suits lining a wall. None of the other three rooms had so much as a flashing light, let alone an exit or any control mechanisms whatsoever. He made several sweeps with no luck. He even tried pounding on the outer walls but they were solid as a rock.
Feeling dejected and with no escape from the ship in sight, he returned to the only room with a control panel and seating. Sighing he figured there was nothing for it; he would have to press the unknown buttons on the console and pray he didn’t kill himself or anyone else in the process.
He approached the console and pressed every symbol on it repeatedly. He even pounded on the screen a few times to no avail. Nothing he did seemed to make any difference, and in the end he decided he would just have to sit it out in the seat next to the dead alien. He figured with any luck when the military did finally breach this tin can, he might be able to talk fast enough to not get lobotomized in some secret lab. As soon as he sat down, he focused on what the voice was saying. He thought it might be speech but it sounded like the buttons on the console looked, pure gibberish.
* * * * *
Jason was beginning to get irritated. To his best guess he had been there for at least twelve hours and he wondered how long this was going to take. The military had to be there by now, given that the Fallon Naval Air Station was only sixty to seventy miles away and the Nellis Air Force range was just south of that. They would have to have seen the ship on their radar and sent some planes to investigate by now. His watch had stopped working around the time of the crash. He figured the impact must have put out an electromagnetic pulse because both the digital and analog hands were frozen at 10:10. He didn’t know why but something just seemed wrong when he looked at it.
After what felt to Jason like a whole day had passed, there was still no sign of any activity from outside. He thought somebody must have at least reported the crash by now. He had been camping in his favorite spot, the one he and his brothers had gone to as children, and where they had planned to camp last year—before they were murdered.
Jason had been the only camper there, but he still figured the park rangers would have to have passed by and seen the wreckage first thing in the morning. That must have been twelve or thirteen hours ago. Not to mention the fact that the Interstate was only a few miles away and there were no trees, just wide-open spaces. Someone must have seen or heard the crash, he thought.
* * * * *
The voice from the ship kept repeating its message every minute or two for what seemed like at least twenty-four hours now, with only slight changes every hour, give or take, and it was really beginning to get annoying. Jason was hungry and he wanted to put some space between him and the deceased alien. He decided to make a more thorough inspection of the ship now that he had calmed down. He was apparently stuck in it and might as well try to find out as much as he could. Intel is always an ally, he thought hopefully. He figured he might get lucky and come across some food or drink. With any luck maybe he had overlooked something. He doubted it but it couldn’t hurt to look. The dead guy would have needed to eat as well, wouldn’t he?
The ship was not very large. He figured it to be a little over sixty feet squared on the outside. The inside rooms were about forty-eight feet from end to end, and it appeared to have only the four rooms, one at each corner. They were diamond shaped with a smooth wall on the inside where a corner would have been if the room had been square. Along either side of that wall were matching corridors at right angles leading to the other corner rooms. The first room had the control panel with the deceased alien in it.
Moving counterclockwise, he entered the second room, which had a closet feel to it. A variety of space suits hung from the inner wall. He rifled through them but found zilch. Nothing had changed since the first time he had looked. There were still no exits and aside from hangers and clothing, there was nothing else in the room. The third room contained only spray heads in the ceiling and a spongy floor, and the fourth room had a bed on a pedestal. It looked as if it was made of stainless steel and not very comfy. This must be the no-frills spaceship. Jason chuckled. Who did that guy piss off to get stuffed in this bucket?
Jason looked around and a thought occurred to him that this felt more like a scout type of a ship. And if it was a scout ship, maybe there was a mother ship nearby that would rescue… Ah hell at this point he didn’t care who got him out of here as long as they hurried. He was hungry and very thirsty. He had spent too much time in the sun yesterday and he knew he hadn’t consumed nearly enough fluids. From the looks of the ship, there was no food or water aboard. Let’s figure this out. You can survive ten to fourteen days without water if you’re properly hydrated in the beginning and stay out of the heat. He was a little dehydrated already, but this ship was on the cool side, not cold, but cool enough. He thought it over and assessed how he felt and figured he had six to eight days before the dehydration would do him in.
As for food, he was hungry, but he would die from lack of water long before the starvation would get him. With that grim thought in mind, he headed back to the “death room” as he was beginning to think of it. It was the only place on the ship with relatively comfortable seats. Looking around he thought that aside from the dead alien he had moved into the corner, the ship had a sterile feel to it. Practical but unwelcoming all the same. He sighed and took a seat to continue waiting.
* * * * *
The AI thought Elgon had left an awful lot to chance by not letting it explain to the man in the ship what exactly was happening to him ahead of time. It had argued with him over the last year about who the new commander of this vessel would be and how to approach him. They knew it was only a matter of time before the medical unit would no longer be able to repair the damage Elgon had sustained, and now with the injuries that had recently befallen him, he had finally reached the point of no return. In the end and with their time constraints, Elgon had ended up choosing this man from the short list of possibilities. He was not the optimal replacement, but then again Elgon had not been an optimal choice either. Nevertheless he had worked out. The AI had given in to Elgon’s demands in the end and uploaded its consciousness into the new binding disk, then proceeded to keep tabs on the new commander, using the sensor systems throughout the ship.
Chapter Two
Jason sat at the console, looking from the dead alien in the corner to the silver disk in his hand. It had been who knows how long since the crash. His best guess would have put it at three maybe four days. He was beginning to feel the effects of the dehydration and was going stir crazy without windows or any way to judge the pas
sage of time. There was nothing he could do but sit there and wait for someone…anyone to rescue him.
Jason looked down at the little silver disk he had been given. Several times over the past few days he was surprised to look down and find that he had picked it up. It was the size of a dime and seemed to shimmer almost like a droplet of mercury. He was seriously debating putting the disk on his head as the alien had told him to do, if only to stop the recorded message that still kept droning on and on. This felt a lot like one of the torture techniques used on enemy combatants to get them to give up terrorist cells. Hell, if I knew anything I would have talked by now! No he wouldn’t. He had gone through true hell in Iraq and they couldn’t get anything out of him back then. His honor would take him to death before treason. He gave a shudder. Our government doesn’t know the first thing about torture.
* * * * *
Jason was beginning to feel the repercussions from not taking his medications for the past few days. The feeling of impending doom was creeping ever closer. He knew the feeling well, and knew it would not be long before the voices and hallucinations started up again. With a sigh he placed the disk back on the console. The military had a tendency to put soldiers in situations where they saw and experienced things their minds couldn’t handle then…snap! You start hearing and seeing things, so what do they do? Ship you home and say, “Thank you for your service, we don’t need you anymore.” and let you try to pick up the pieces of your broken life.
Jason knew he was one of the lucky ones. He had family and friends who had been in past wars and they got him the help he needed right away. The VA medical system was not perfect but they helped him through the rough times. In the past year however, his sanity had been put to the test. He had been away at an overnight appointment when somebody ambushed and murdered his brothers in his home.
