“I don’t understand . . . how . . . how are we still alive?” Hoff asked, struggling to put a sentence together.
“We’re not the only ones,” the younger Hoff said. “There are trillions here like us, resurrected from the war. Omnius brought everyone back.”
“That’s impossible!” Hoff said. “Not everyone had Lifelinks! Almost no one did! And where did all the clones come from? Where do you even put that many people? Not to mention how you might feed such a multitude.”
“Everyone was implanted long before the invasion, without their knowledge. The implants were attached to standard Imperial identichips, which were introduced in 48 BE and implanted in every citizen at birth. From there a pocket of nanites traveled to the host’s brain and built a cloaked Lifelink implant. As for where the clones came from and where we put everyone, Omnius has spent the last fifty years growing those clones and expanding the city of Etheria to make room for them. That city stretches from level fifty to level three hundred on Avilon, between the Styx and the Celestial Wall, and it spans the entire planet. There are currently over sixty trillion inhabitants, all resurrected from the invasion. Feeding them is just a matter of technology and utilizing the arable worlds found in the sector of Domus Licus.”
“I . . .” Hoff shook his head. “What are we going to do? Will there be two of us now?”
“No, Omnius tells me I have to decide whether or not to merge my memories with yours. It will be strange for both of us if we do. I’ll remember your life, everything you saw, felt, or otherwise experienced in the past seven years.”
“And me?” Hoff asked.
“You’ll become a part of me.”
Hoff couldn’t help feeling like that wasn’t fair, like he was being asked to die and share all the intimate details of his life with a fraud, but he had a feeling that he didn’t have much choice in the matter. “And what have you decided?”
The younger man smiled. “I think I need to sleep on it.” With that, he turned to leave.
“Wait!” Hoff yelled. He wasn’t sure what would happen to him if this Hoff decided not to merge memories with him.
The younger man turned.
“You married her,” Hoff said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Destra. You’re married to her now.”
“Really?” that seemed to take the younger man by surprise.
“Yes. You have a daughter with her, too. She’s seven years old.”
“Seven? That’s about the time . . .”
“You died. Yes. She was conceived on Ritan.”
“I’ll have to ask Omnius about that. If what you say is true, then I’ll have no choice but to merge your memories with mine. To do otherwise would be to deprive my daughter of a father and my wife of her husband,” the younger man said.
“Exactly,” Hoff said.
“We will speak again soon.”
Hoff felt desperation rising in his chest. He didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary in this lonely, cloud swept place. He reached out with a hand to stop the man—himself—from going, but his hand never passed in front of his face. He felt like he’d raised his arm, but nothing had appeared to happen. Hoff frowned and hurried after the younger version of himself, who was now walking across thin air away from him. He bumped into the younger man, and that man turned to him with a frown.
“What are you doing? You can’t follow me to the surface.”
“Why not? If everything you said is true, no one should be surprised to see two of us.”
“Surprised? Perhaps not. Frightened maybe.”
“Why would I scare anyone? I’m the same as you. You said so yourself.”
“I said our minds are the same. That does not mean we share the same body. Why would Omnius create two bodies for the same man?”
“What are you talking about?”
With that, the younger man pulled him frighteningly close, until their eyes were mere centimeters apart. Hoff saw his reflection in the younger man’s familiar gray eyes. No. He shook his head—but he didn’t have a head. He began to tremble all over, but he had no muscles and no nerves to produce that effect.
He was nothing but a shiny silver ball, floating in the air. An artificial eye glowed red in the center of his metallic casing, glaring back at him.
With that, Hoff wondered how he could have been so foolish. He and all the other immortals who had cloned themselves to escape death hadn’t found a way to live forever.
They had found a way to die a thousand times.
DARK SPACE V: Avilon
(3rd Edition)
by Jasper T. Scott
http://www.JasperTscott.com
@JasperTscott
Copyright © 2014 by Jasper T. Scott
THE AUTHOR RETAINS ALL RIGHTS
FOR THIS BOOK
Reproduction or transmission of this book, in whole or in part, by electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or by any other means is strictly prohibited, except with prior written permission from the author. You may direct your inquiries to [email protected]
Cover design by Thien A.K.A "ShooKooBoo"
This book is a work of fiction. All names, places, and incidents described are products of the writer’s imagination and any resemblance to real people or life events is purely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
This story comes to you thanks in part to my wife and stepson for being so patient with me. I lost track of how many times I worked late or skipped my weekend to finish this book on time.
A big thanks to my editor, Aaron Sikes. His advice and keen insight into the story were invaluable. Likewise, I’d like to thank Thien “Shookooboo” for creating such a stunning cover, as well as the illustrations in this book. It would be hard to find a more talented artist.
My thanks also go out to all my beta readers, in particular, I’d like to thank Betty Hoffner, Branden Rasmussen, Daniel Eloff, Dave Cantrell, Doug S., Filip Schlatter, Gary Wilson, Ian Jedlica, Ian Seccombe, Jim Meinen, John H. Kuhl, Julie Kuhn, Peter Hughes, Rob Dobozy, Ted Inver, and Tony Wilsenham. You all read that first draft like lightning to get your feedback to me in time for the 1st edition.
Last, I’d like to thank you, the Reader. Without your appreciation, none of my books would exist. I look forward to responding to your e-mails and reading your reviews. Your feedback is what shapes my work, and tells me what to write next.
Thank you, all of you!
To those who dare,
And to those who dream.
To everyone who’s stronger than they seem.
“Believe in me /
I know you’ve waited for so long /
Believe in me /
Sometimes the weak become the strong”
—STAIND, Believe
Prologue
—The Year 0 AE—
“Helm! Full throttle! Get us into orbit as fast as you can.”
“Yes, Captain!”
“And start spooling for a jump!”
“Already 22% spooled, sir.”
Captain Bretton Hale nodded but gave no reply. He stood at the forward viewports of the Arkadian, his palms pressed against the cold transpiranium. Golden fires raged in his dark brown eyes, poor reflections of the devastation in Roka City far below. Roka IV had been the last stop along the way to Dark Space. Orders were to pick up the remaining key personnel and as many refugees as possible before continuing on to the fleet rendezvous, but the Sythians had beat them there. It would have been easy for the fleet to jump out immediately, but the Supreme Overlord was among the key personnel they’d stopped to rescue, so the First and Fifth Fleets had been dragged into one last, deadly engagement to cover the overlord’s escape.
Bretton’s ship was a 280-meter-long venture-class cruiser, the backbone of the navy and a warhorse if ever there was one, but it was hardly a match for the Sythians’ often kilometers-long battleships. Bretton’s mission had been the same as all the other mid-sized cruiser captains: get dirt side
and rescue as many people as possible before the order came to withdraw.
It had been a nightmare on the surface. Crowds pressing in from all sides, screaming their pleas for a rescue. Bretton had seen more than a few parents actually throw their children at his sentinels.
He grimaced, the muscles in his jaw clenching with the memory. He winced, shaking those thoughts aside, and turned to his crew. His XO and niece, Farah Hale, stood at the captain’s table in the center of the bridge. That was where he should have been, too, not watching the last vestiges of the Imperium go up in smoke.
Bretton strode quickly down the gangway to her side. “What’s it look like out there, Commander?”
Farah’s back was rigid, her eyes hard and bloodshot when she turned to him. Her hair was wound as tight as she was, tied up in a bun at the back of her head. “An enemy battleship is moving to intercept us, and we’ve got four squadrons of Shells headed our way.”
Bretton grimaced. “ETA?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Comms! Have our Novas switch from flank escort to bow intercept. They’d better harry those Shells before they start hammering us with missiles.”
“Yes, sir.”
Farah looked up at him, her blue eyes round and full of fear. “We should have left when the First Fleet pulled out.”
Bretton acknowledged his niece’s concern with a nod. “That wasn’t our call, Commander. Hindsight makes skriffs of us all.” When Admiral Heston had received orders to jump out with the First Fleet, he had deliberately disobeyed those orders to finish rescue operations on the ground. Now the admiral himself was MIA and his fleet in orbit was being torn apart. Bretton shook his head. “Comms, any word from the Admiral?”
“No direct words, no.”
“What’s the Tauron have to say about that?”
“They’re reluctant to elaborate further.”
“Very well. Our orders are the same. Get to the rendezvous before the First Fleet gives us up for dead and leaves us behind.”
Beside him Farah sighed. “They should have given all the captains access to the coordinates of Dark Space.”
“Too risky. If just one of us were captured and interrogated, it would make this all for nothing.”
“The skull faces don’t seem intent on capturing us, sir.”
“No, I suppose not.” Bretton frowned, idly drumming his fingers on the captain’s table as he studied the holographic grid. The area above them was teeming with red enemy contacts. The area below them was the same. In the middle lay a tiny knot of green—the Arkadian and its fighter escort.
He eyed the largest contact in the swarm of enemies moving to intercept them. It’s just one battleship. We’ve skated through worse.
“Contact! De-cloaking at 15-4-22 by—”
The deck shuddered underfoot, interrupting the gravidar officer’s report before he could finish rattling off coordinates.
“Return fire!” Bretton roared, his gaze fixed on three red blips that had suddenly appeared between them and the battleship in orbit. They’d appeared out of nowhere.
“Three cruisers and a battleship,” he whispered amidst the hum and screech of the Arkadian’s beam cannons firing back at the new arrivals.
Bretton set a new waypoint from the captain’s table. “Helm, adjust heading to nav point alpha five and try to keep them from outflanking us. We can’t afford to take a broadside from those cruisers.”
“Yes, sir.”
The deck shuddered underfoot once more. This time the shuddering didn’t stop. Lights flickered on the bridge, and a scream of duranium shearing set all of their teeth on edge. Bretton felt himself being pulled toward the aft of the ship as artificial gravity and the inertial management system (IMS) faltered. It was a momentary blip, but enough to get Bretton’s pulse pounding.
“Forward shields critical!” engineering exclaimed.
“Equalize! What hit us? Damage report!”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t the cruisers,” Gravidar said. “My guess would be that battleship is dropping cloaking mines on us like bombs from orbit!”
“Clever little kakards,” Bretton muttered. “All right—weapons! Have our gunners lay down covering fire in a 25-degree arc around our bow!”
Suddenly a bright light suffused the bridge. Bretton looked up to see a wall of fire burst through the viewports with a deafening roar. The sudden wave of heat and pressurized air picked him off his feet and seared his exposed skin. Arms and legs flailing, he hit the bulkheads behind him with a thud. Everything went dark.
Time. Stopped.
Bretton supposed he was dead, but if he were, would he still be capable of concluding that? Somewhere he remembered reading that cognitive thought could go on for minutes after the heart stopped beating. Perhaps that was what he was experiencing now—his last few minutes of darkness before death. He wondered about the darkness. His eyes were in his head. Even if his heart had stopped, shouldn’t he still be able to see? Was he actually blind, or smothered by a mountain of debris? He tried blinking, but he couldn’t be sure if it worked. His mind wandered to the nature of death. Would he simply cease to exist as most predicted, or be resurrected in paradise as the Etherians believed?
An indeterminate amount of time passed. Eventually his existential wondering was subsumed by more immediate concerns: the sharp, tingling sensation in his extremities; his heart pounding; the loud, ringing of silence in his ears . . .
What was happening? Hadn’t he died?
Then a bright circle of light appeared, as if shining from the end of a long, dark tunnel; he felt himself move, being drawn toward the light, faster and faster . . .
The light grew to blinding force, and then it consumed him, surrounding him on all sides. Wind battered his face. His eyes teared as they struggled to adapt to the sudden brightness.
As he began to make out details, he gasped and flailed his arms and legs again. A carpet of golden-white clouds raced by underneath him, and he screamed—his lungs emptying with a pitiless wail. His mind raced to catch up. He must have lost consciousness briefly, only to be thrown free of the bridge. Now he was plummeting to the surface of Roka far below.
Except he wasn’t plummeting. Absent was the gut-wrenching sensation of free fall, and the clouds were not getting any closer. More remarkable still was the blinding red sun peeking over the tops of the clouds. The Arkadian had lifted off from Roka City in the middle of the night, but this looked like sunrise.
“What the frek . . . ?” Bretton wondered.
Suddenly the sky boomed with thunder—a voice—it said, “Hello Bretton. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“What? Who are you? Where am I?” Bretton craned his head to look around him, searching for the source of the voice. That was when he noticed that he wasn’t alone. Flying to either side of him were others like him. They looked vaguely familiar.
“I am exactly who you suspect I am, and you are on Avilon.”
“Avi . . . ?”
“Etheria lies below you.”
“Etheria? It’s real?”
“You’ll be able to see for yourself soon. Look . . .”
The clouds opened up below him, and Bretton saw a vast and sparkling city below. Orderly green expanses of parkland stretched between immense, glittering towers that seemed to be made of light. He gasped. It was the most beautiful city he had ever seen.
“Who are those people beside me?”
“They are your crew, Bretton.”
Joy swelled in his chest and tears sprang to his eyes once more. “I don’t believe it. They were right! Those codice-toting skriffs were right all along!”
“The Etherians? Yes, they had a part of the truth. Soon you will know its entirety.”
“I . . .” Bretton trailed off, unable to express what he was feeling.
“Would you like to meet your wife now? She’s been waiting for you.”
The tears in Bretton’s eyes began spilling to his cheeks and his joy overwhelmed him. He
’d never been so happy in all his life. His wife had died less than a month ago when the Sythians had invaded Advistine. Now, not only was the after life more real and tangible than anyone had ever imagined, but he was going to be reunited with her and all of the other people he had lost along the way. He was almost afraid to believe it. Maybe he was still trapped in the rubble on his bridge, unconscious and dreaming.
“No, Bretton, you aren’t dreaming,” the thunder intoned. “Welcome home.”
Home. The word rattled around inside his head for a moment before finding purchase. It felt right. “Thank you . . .” he managed. “What should I call you?”
“You know me as Etherus,” the thunder replied, “but I am better known by my children as Omnius.”
“Omnius . . .” Bretton said, repeating the unfamiliar name. “Thank you, Omnius. This is incredible. More than I ever imagined!”
“If you are amazed by this, what will you say when I reveal the mysteries of the universe? Prepare to be amazed, Captain Hale.”
Part One: The Choosing
Chapter 1
—The Year 10 AE, Present Day—
Ethan Ortane watched his long-dead mother embracing his son, Atton, in the sky. He had to remind himself that they weren’t actually standing on the clouds. It was an illusion. It had to be.
His mother wore a shimmering white robe, just like everyone else, and she looked far younger and more beautiful than he remembered her—but again, so did everyone else who had been resurrected. Apparently that was a part of the deal. Come back to life on Avilon and you get a brand new body, a perfected version of the one you had before.
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