by J. N. Chaney
Copyrighted Material
The Messenger Copyright © 2019 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2019 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing.
1st Edition
The Messenger Box Set
Books 1-6
J. N. Chaney
Terry Maggert
Contents
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The Messenger Universe Key Terms
The Messenger
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
The Dark Between
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Star Forged
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
The Silent Fleet
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Dawn of Empire
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
Worlds Apart
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
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The Messenger Universe Key Terms
The Messenger: The chosen pilot of the Archetype.
Archetype: A massive weapon system designed for both space battle, close combat, and planetary defense. Humanoid in shape, the Archetype is controlled by a pilot and the Sentinel, an artificial intelligence designed to work with an organic humanoid nervous systems. The Archetype is equipped with offensive weaponry beyond anything known to current galactic standards, and has the ability to self-repair, travel in unSpace, and link with other weapons systems to fight in a combined arms operation.
Blobs: Amorphous alien race, famed for being traders. They manufacture nothing and are known as difficult employers.
Clan Shirna: A vicious, hierarchical tribe of reptilian beings whose territory is in and around the Globe of Suns and the Pasture. Clan Shirna is wired at the genetic level to defend and protect their territory. Originally under the control of Nathis, they are space-based, with a powerful navy and the collective will to fight to the last soldier if necessary.
Couriers: Independent starship pilots who deliver goods—legal, illegal, and everything in between—to customers. They find their jobs on a centralized posting system (See: Needs Slate) that is galaxy-wide, ranked by danger and pay, and constantly changing. Couriers supply their own craft, unless they’re part of a Shipping Conglom. Couriers are often ex-military or a product of hard worlds.
Fade: A modification to the engine. It is a cutting edge shielding device that rotates through millions of subspace frequencies per second, rendering most scans ineffective. If the Fade is set to insertion, then the ship will translate into unSpace, where it can go faster than light. The Fade is rare, borderline illegal, and highly expensive. It works best on smaller masses, so Courier ships are optimal for installation of the Fade. One drawback is the echo left behind in reg
ular space, an issue that other cloaking systems do not have. By using echoes as pathway markers, it is possible to track and destroy ships using the Fade.
Golden: A transhumanist race of beings who are attempting to scour the galaxy of intelligent life. The Golden were once engaged in warfare with the Unseen. They are said to return every 200,000 years to enact a cycle of galactic genocide, wiping out all technologically advanced civilizations before disappearing back from which they came. They destroyed their creators at some unknown point in the distant past and are remaking themselves with each revolution of their eternal, cyclical war.
Globe of Suns: A star cluster located in the far arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is an astronomical outlier. Dense with stars, it’s a hotbed of Unseen tech, warfare, and Clan Shirna activity. Highly dangerous, both as an obstacle and combat area.
Kingsport: Located in the Dark Between, these are planetoid sized bases made of material that is resistant to detection, light-absorbing, and heavily armored. Oval in shape, the Kingsport is naval base and medical facility in one, intended as a deep space sleep/recovery facility for more than a thousand Unseen. The Kingsports maintain complete silence and do not communicate with other facilities, regardless of how dire the current military situation.
Lens: Unseen tech; a weapon capable of sending stars into premature collapse at considerable distance. The Lens is not unique—the Unseen left many of them behind in the Pasture, indicating that they were willing to destroy stars in their fight with the Golden.
Ribbon: Unseen tech that imparts a visual history of their engineering, left behind as a kind of beacon for spacefaring races.
Sentinel: A machine intelligence designed by the Unseen, the Sentinel is a specific intellect within the Archetype. It meshes with the human nervous system, indicating some anticipation of spaceborne humans on the part of the Unseen. Sentinel is both combat system and advisor, and it has the ability to impart historical data when necessary to the fight at hand.
Shadow Nebula: A massive nebula possibly resulting from simultaneous star explosions. The Shadow Nebula may be a lingering effect from the use of a Lens, but it is unknown at this time.
Unseen: An extinct and ancient race who were among the progenitors of all advanced technology in the Milky Way, and possibly beyond. In appearance, they were slender, canine, and bipedal, with the forward-facing eyes of a predator. Their history is long and murky, but their engineering skills are nothing short of godlike. They commanded gravity, materials, space, and the ability to use all of these sciences in tandem to hold the Golden at bay during the last great war. The Unseen knew about humans, although their plans for humanity have since been lost to time.
unSpace: Neither space nor an alternate reality, this is the mathematically generated location used to span massive distances between points in the galaxy. There are several ways to penetrate unSpace, but only two are known to humans.
Pasture: Unseen tech in the form of an artificial Oort Cloud; a comet field of enormous size and complexity. Held in place by Unseen engineering, the Pasture is a repository for hidden items left by the Unseen. The Pasture remains stable despite having thousands of objects, a feat which is a demonstration of Unseen technical skills. The Lens and Archetype are just two of the items left behind for the next chapter in galactic warfare.
Prelate: In Clan Shirna, the Prelate is both military commander and morale officer, imbued with religious authority over all events concerning defense of their holy territory.
1
Newton Sawyer took a deep breath, held it for a moment, let it out, then leaned closer to the vid. “I told you, Sammy, my friends call me Dash. Only my mother and the magistrates call me Newton.”
“But we’re not friends,” Sammy said, his voice a flat, mechanical construct that still somehow managed to ring with disdain. “We’re business associates at best. And, after this latest debacle, not even that.”
Dash offered his most charming smile to the amorphous mass that was Sammy. Concepts like gender, or even having a name, didn’t really apply to the Blobs—or if they did, not in any way someone who wasn’t also a living dollop of goo could understand. Dash didn’t care. Sammy and him were how this particular Blob wanted to be addressed, and since a Blob’s credits were as good a currency as anyone else’s, who was he to argue?
“Sammy, that hurts,” Dash said. “Cuts me to the core. Of course we’re friends. And friends help one another out.”
“The delivery was a failure.”
“Well, technically, sure. But that’s not my fault. Your middleman substituted some short-lived radioisotopes for what was supposed to be in the shipment. How was I supposed to know that? The fact that they’d mostly decayed away to nothing by the time I reached the buyer is—”
“The point,” Sammy said. “You were hired to deliver a working radioisotope generator to the buyer. That didn’t happen.”
“Yeah, but like I said, your middleman—”
“You accepted the shipment from him. That makes you accountable.”
“Just wait a second,” Dash said, holding up a hand. “I’m a courier, not a scientist, or whatever. I just deliver these things where and when I’m supposed to. I did that.”
“You were hired to deliver a working radioisotope generator to the buyer. That didn’t—”
“Okay, now you’re repeating yourself. Look, it was your middleman.”
“He’s not in my employ anymore, either.”
“Either? Sammy, you and me, we’re—”
“Concluding our business dealings, yes.”
Dash took another breath. “Okay, fine. If you just make payment, we can—”
“There will be no payment.”
“But—”
“You were hired to deliver a working radioisotope generator to the buyer. That didn’t happen.”
Dash clenched his fists under the console. “Sammy, you owe me—”
“Nothing,” the Blob said—and disconnected.
Dash stared at the vid for a moment, the only sound the various rumbles, whirs, and hums of the Slipwing’s systems. Then he punched the reconnect command into the comms.
“Sammy? Sammy, don’t you dare disappear on me. You owe me. Sammy? Sammy!”
But the vid stayed stubbornly stuck on the comm-provider’s splash screen. Dash hammered more commands into the system, but finally just got:
The receiver you are seeking is offline.
Dash slammed a fist down on the console...harder than he’d meant to. Something inside popped, then an acrid whiff of a burned-out circuit filled the Slipwing’s cockpit, followed by an error message on the diagnostics. It was just the latest of a dozen or so.
“Damn it!” Dash jumped to his feet, almost smashing his head into the nav. That probably would have triggered more errors, and Dash had enough of those to deal with, but none of them really mattered because the Slipwing was almost out of fuel anyway.
He stared hard at the controls. “That’s three jobs now without a payoff,” he sighed. “I guess I’ll take credit on that first one. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent that extra night with the lounge singer on Corona Superprime. But she had all those fancy parts, and even a second…”
Dash’s voice trailed off and he shook his head. Complaining to a piece of tech designed to manage the complex calculations needed to enter and traverse unSpace, a sub-dimension used for faster-than-light travel, would hardly get him anywhere. The nav was definitely not a good listener.