Shadows

by Brian Whiting

  Copyright © 2019 by Brian Whiting

  First Edition

  ISBN:

  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 writer, except in case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by fines and federal imprisonment.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s edges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks are not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Contents

  Chapter 1: The sky is falling

  Chapter 2: It’s a good day

  Chapter 3: Just a walk

  Chapter 4: Being Hunted

  Chapter 5: Refreshed Body

  Chapter 6: Everything Changes

  Chapter 7: Groundhog

  Chapter 8: Giants roam these parts

  Chapter 9: Unwanted Presents

  Chapter 10: Alternate Paths

  Chapter 11: Bio - Hacked

  Chapter 12: Round Agenda

  Chapter 13: Welcome back to what’s left

  Chapter 14: Getting Answers

  Chapter 15: Automatic Response

  Chapter 16: History Lesson

  Chapter 17: Liable for Damages

  Chapter 18: Wants and needs

  Chapter 19: Humani

  Chapter 20: Hunter to Hunted

  Chapter 21: Friends in need

  Chapter 22: Approaching the Center

  Chapter 23: The Face of the Enemy

  Chapter 24: Fallen Dynasty

  The story continues in Book 4, Terrineia

  Special Thank you those who helped make this possible.

  Message from the Author

  Chapter 1

  The sky is falling

  The room was brightly lit, and Jackie inhaled deeply from her fresh cup of coffee as she reclined in her comfortable computer chair, glanced through her datapad as her computer booted up. Off to the side, set at the very edge of her desk, was a pile of reports and bits of mundane-to-semi-interesting information she had stopped reviewing the night before.

  At the moment, only a few pictures were splayed about the center of the desk. They were all of Alex, showing him at a young age with his father or with one or more of the Founding Four.

  Her datapad lit up, and she reviewed the latest message. It was from her boss, Renee.

  (How does today’s lineup look?)

  Jackie sighed; she hadn’t even worked on the lineup yet. She was too distracted by what didn’t seem to make sense. She reached forward to hit the intercom button on her desk and said, “Come in, please.”

  A few moments later her secretary walked in and stood silently holding her own datapad, ready to take notes.

  “Who on our staff thinks they know the most about Alex?” Jackie asked as she leaned back and stared at the ceiling.

  “Troy. He’s always going on bragging about it, annoying really.”

  “The guy with all those tats.”

  “Yup.”

  “Bring him.”

  The secretary lowered her datapad and quickly left the office.

  Jackie picked up the photo on top of the others. It was of Alex, sitting in his father’s lap, on the front porch of their property. She guessed Alex was perhaps ten or twelve; the photo had no date stamp or markings of any kind. She wondered if there were other photos hidden inside the property. She remembered looking very thoroughly, but felt as if she had missed something, and if she just kept looking she would find more.

  She had gone to Alex’s old house just the day before. Most properties outside the safe zones were abandoned including his, and it was common now to scavenge them for essentials. She had taken it upon herself to search Alex’s stomping grounds hoping to collect more information about the founder of the UEF. She was deep in thought when her door opened.

  A scrawny man appeared in the doorway. He was loaded with tattoos that depicted death and pain, which covered nearly every exposed inch of his body but stopped just below his chin.

  Jackie stood and extended an arm. “You’re in digital editing, right?”

  “Yeah,” Troy responded, looking sheepish despite the horrific ink exposed on his arms and legs.

  “So I hear you’re a bit of a know-it-all when it comes to Alex. I could use your vast knowledge right now.”

  “Yeah, sure!” Troy responded, brightening. “What do you want to know?”

  “I don’t understand Alex and his father, or his friends, for that matter. They all seem to have a general distaste for him. What do you think about it?”

  “Yeah, well, there is certainly a lot to speculate about. It never did make no sense to me that his pops gave him a ton of money, then he shrugged him off later, or that he was ever close to Jorge, but now they barely speak.”

  “Exactly!” Jackie said. “There’s something missing. I would ask, but Alex is off on another side of the galaxy meeting with a new race of aliens right now, I hear they are a three sexed race. I doubt my story will have traction over that bit of news. But I want to find out anyway, so I’m looking into it. I’m thinking you would know more about how to get this information. Where would you start?”

  “I’d start with Timmy and Zeek since they are close by. No one has heard from Jorge since he took one of the grav shuttles. Come to think of it, I haven’t heard anything about Drake for a while either. I wonder what he’s doing?”

  While he spoke, Jackie typed furiously on her datapad, and when he finished she tossed the pad to him. He caught the pad and read it.

  (Transfer authorized from Media Tech edit team to Journalism team.) It included a job description and basic expectations.

  Jackie saw that he was hesitating. “If you want…”

  He stopped her before she could go further. “I…. Thank you for the consideration, but I… “

  “You pride yourself on knowing all there is to know about Alex, and when offered a job to find out even more, you don’t want it.”

  “It’s not that…” he said. “I need to confide in you. Can you keep a secret? I know it’s against UEF policy. Will you be required to snitch on me or something?”

  “Depends, give it a shot,” Jackie said, leaning back in her chair.

  “Well, this job says it’s a level-three position. I currently am in level four, and I need to stay in level four, for the housing.”

  Jackie squinted and said, “I am level four; you should be level two. How are you in level four?”

  “Well, see, I… just…. Look, if I told you, I just don’t know what will happen.”

  “You might as well spit it out now. If I have to dig into this, I just might have to involve security.”

  Troy sighed and hung his head. In a defeated whisper, he said, “I’ve got six orphans in my apartment. I found them out wandering in the lawless territory.”

  Jackie considered the implications. “Are they, like, chained up?” she said with mixed sarcasm and concern.

  “No!” Troy said, almost shouting. “Every once in a while, my brother—he’s a shuttle pilot—spots a young child wandering the outlands. And sometimes instead of taking them to the nearest camp, he brings them home.”

  “Like a pet?” She could hardly believe what she was h
earing.

  “No! Some of those safe-zone camps they got out there are worse than refugee camps. It’s horrible, and some of those kids left those camps to find something better. You take them to a camp, and they will just leave again. I am just trying to give them a new chance at life.”

  Jackie stood up and grabbed her datapad from Troy’s hand as she walked past him. “Let’s go!” she said.

  “Where?”

  “To your place. Let’s go!” she said with a mixture of frustration and disbelief as she opened her office door.

  ***

  Gs Ho Tae grasped the central pillar in the communium firmly. The Gothan battleship captain looked over the crew that were present. Those with the requisite status were in attendance. The room was full of commotion, with several boisterous conversations competing at once. He lifted the rock from the legendary Gat Fenora mountain on gis home planet and struck the pole with it. The resulting vibration within the chamber jarred the teeth and bones of even the most seasoned members of the Mothers crew. Immediately the room fell silent.

  Before Gs Ho Tae could open gis mouth to speak, gi was interrupted.

  “Point of order! Would the chief representative please confirm crew standings? I know of the bribery charge against our captain. Does gi still speak for us?” It was Ga Det Gru, who drifted into the chamber and approached the central pole where Gs Ho Tae stood. Gs Hoe Tae knew that if gis standing fell below 1,000 points gi would lose gis position as Captain.

  Gs Ho Tae gave no physical hint that the comment had bothered gis, but inside gis anger was already swelling.

  “Of course, Ga Det Gru, you are right and are permitted to make the request. The top three are as follows. Gs Ho Tae, with one thousand, two hundred and thirteen points; Ga Det Gru, with one thousand and twenty-two points; and Ga Bo Bek, with nine hundred and ninety-eight points.”

  “As soon as the bribery charge takes effect, I will be your captain,” Ga Det Gru said loudly, and then whispered to Gs Ho Tae, “Enjoy your privilege while you can.” Those in attendance began to clap their feet together. The sounds reverberated within the chamber and turned the sound of a hundred clapping shipmates into what seemed to Gs Ho Tae a thousand clapping shipmates. The clapping lasted the customary moment of time, and everyone stopped at nearly the same moment.

  “Gs Ho Tae, you speak for the ship. Please continue,” the chief standing officer said from the front of the crowd.

  Gs Ho Tae eyed Ga Det Gru fiercely, wanting to hurl the honored rock into gat skull, but now was not the time. “I feel humored,” gi said. “There are many rumors about what is happening. I have heard some of these rumors myself, including one about how the predators of the deep have already destroyed our beloved home and we have only two weeks of rations left.”

  The commotion in the room began to grow.

  “This is nonsense!” Ga Det Gru yelled over the crowd, and they fell silent again.

  “I will be clear,” Gs Ho Tae continued. “It is true we are about to come face to face with a predator of the deep. It is my belief that this predator is not the same as the one that previously attacked us. The ship is vastly different, and, more importantly, these predators speak our language.”

  The room exploded with cries of disbelief.

  “I would like to hear these predators speak for myself,” Ga Det Gru said, and the room hushed.

  Gs Ho Tae nodded to a shipmate near the entrance. The shipmate entered a few commands into the terminal by the wall, and a recording of Symboli played over the speakers.

  Realizing that the fluency of this message was far beyond that of the first message they had received less than a cycle ago when the predators sent them the unexpected greeting, Gs Ho Tae tried to mentally calculate how soon the predators would be truly fluent in their language. Finally, gi said, “Here is what is going to happen. The predator’s ship is on approach and will dock in our receiving bay. We will greet the predators and continue dial—”

  “No!” Ga Det Gru said. “Your bribery charges will take effect before the cycle is out, and I will be the captain. And I say this is inviting death. The predators know nothing except death. We must not open ourselves to vulnerability and allow them to enter our mother. We must resist—”

  “Enough!” The chief standing officer floated toward the center pole where both Gothans were located. “You are not the captain, Ga Det Gru, and you are in error. One point will be deducted from your standing and added to the ship’s pool.”

  “And you will be replaced as chief standing—”

  “That’s an additional point removed. Shall I continue? I feel pleasure in this,” the chief standing officer said.

  Ga Det Gru eyed the chief sullenly and drifted away from the center of the room until ga had fallen in line with gat shipmates near the outer wall and fastened gatself to one of the few unoccupied poles.

  “As I was saying,” Gs Ho Tae continued, “we will greet the predator and continue the dialogue. This time we will not be unprepared if they attack. All guardsmen will be armed and either in the cargo bay or standing by just out of sight. I want the death maker set up in the cargo bay. We will keep it covered unless we need it.”

  “I want the bay cleared of all craft, the pilots will keep close to the mother and blast the predator’s ship if it comes to it. We will also be prepared for a peaceful reception. I want the best offerings available to the predators. Does anyone have any questions?”

  A shipmate secured to a pole not far from Gs Ho Tae raised gis foot and held it parallel to the ground.

  The chief representative moved close to this shipmate and said, “A question is recognized, and a point is held in judgment. You may speak.”

  Gs Ho Tae recognized gis as the one who had offered the suggestion on the bridge.

  “I feel apprehension. Should we not open dialogue again before they arrive? Test their reasonability to simple requests? This may shed light on their intentions. If they ignore our requests, we should be more prepared to defend ourselves. If they are amenable, then we should be better prepared to host the predators. Do we even know how big they are? If they are as large as the last predators, they would not even fit in the cargo bay. How could we be hosts then?”

  “You speak wisely once again. From which family do you hail?”

  “The Tulin family.”

  “Represented well, indeed. Your clever and concise opinion will be rewarded.”

  “One point is added to your status,” the chief said, then turned away briskly. With one strong kick from the ground and a gentle push against the ceiling, ga floated to the other side of the room where gat pole was located.

  Just then a panicked voice came over the room speakers: “Captain, the predator has accelerated greatly and is nearing final approach to the mother.”

  “Sound the mother. Ready alert. To your stations,” Ga Det Gru said.

  The crowd of Gothans unfastened themselves from the many poles arrayed around the room and kicked off in all directions toward the six exits from the circular room at the center of the battleship.

  ***

  Ga Det Gru grabbed Ga Bo Bek by the arm as they entered one of the tunnels that were frantic with activity. “We must not allow this to happen!” he said.

  “I feel annoyance,” Ga Bo Bek said. “The vote is nearly finished. Once everyone gets to their station they will have no choice but to vote in the matter, then his standing will fall, and you will be the captain. Then you can make your own path. Until then, exercise patience.” Ga Bo Bek focused intently on Ga Det Gru, gat focus went from eye to eye, ga shuddered inwardly and turned away before continuing onto gat station.

  ***

  Alex sat in the cockpit with his EVA suit on, while the tiny one-and-a-half-foot Gothan answered questions supplied by Symboli at a computer terminal. Images and small action clips would appear on the screen, and Gs Nor Crest would seemingly answer as it felt appropriate, timidly at first, but more swiftly now. The pilot brought the shuttle to a stop abou
t half a kilometer away from the alien ship, which the aliens called mother, and waited for the bay door to open.

  Several other ships approached like a gang.

  Alex noticed that many of them had a piece of equipment attached that resembled a turret with a barrel sticking out of it. He had no doubt they were ship-to-ship weapons and wondered what other weapons they had hidden away.

  “Symboli do we know anything more about these ships?”

  “Based on the wireless transmissions our ship continues to intercept, I’ve learned this ship in front of us is their version of a battleship class vessel and they call it mother. I have no information as to the destructive power of their weaponry.”

  Just then the door of the alien ship’s cargo bay began to open. The cargo bay was rather dark, not brightly lit as Alex was accustomed to. The cargo door opened from the top and sank downward until it lay completely flat against the underside of the ship. Now, from the interior of the cargo bay several smaller vessels exited the ship and took up fixed positions around the shuttle.

  “Symboli, ask if it’s OK for us to enter now.” Alex eyed the nearby hovering ships that had exited the alien hanger bay and were now floating in space nearby.

  “No need, Captain, we have been ordered to enter,” Symboli responded.

  “Ordered, are you sure?” Alex looked into the hanger bay with deep interest.

  “Yes, thanks to our new guest, I am making huge gains in understanding the massive amount of information I have obtained at this point. You should be aware that in the interception of local communications, I would say they are all expecting us to attack at any moment.”

  “Thank you, Symboli.”

  Alex looked down at the sensor display screen. The shuttle was entirely surrounded by yellow icons representing the smaller vessels that had spilled out from the cargo bay. And the Enterprise was far behind on a slow approach, still hours away at present speed.

  The light in the cockpit suddenly darkened by shade as the large ship crossed between the local star and the shuttle, blotting out the light. The Gothan home planet was close by and very large. The pilot, Jeremiah, continued to make small adjustments to the controls as their shuttle entered the cargo bay, taking up three-quarters of the space in the bay. Once inside, the bay doors began to close.