Alien Game (The Thousand Worlds)

by Rod Walker

  YOUNG MAN'S WAR

  The Thousand Worlds

  Rod Walker

  Copyright

  Young Man's War

  Rod Walker

  Castalia House

  Kouvola, Finland

  www.castaliahouse.com

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by Finnish copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental

  Copyright © 2017 by Rod Walker

  All rights reserved

  Editor: Vox Day

  Cover Image: Lars Braad Andersen

  Version: 001

  THE THOUSAND WORLDS

  Mutiny in Space

  Alien Game

  Young Man's War

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Invasion Day

  Chapter 2: The Coming of the Dark

  Chapter 3: The Drive

  Chapter 4: Castle Base

  Chapter 5: Training

  Chapter 6: First Mission

  Chapter 7: Spokane

  Chapter 8: Recovery

  Chapter 9: Rescue

  Chapter 10: Old Wars

  Chapter 11: Interface

  Chapter 12: Diaspora

  Mutiny in Space

  Swan Knight's Son

  Other Books from Castalia House

  Chapter 1: Invasion Day

  My dad had problems, and that’s the only reason my sister and I are still alive.

  It’s weird to think about what life was like before Invasion Day. It’s kind of like remembering a dream, but the sort of dream you have when you’re sick with a bad fever. I remember the kinds of things people used to worry about back then, and now it all seems insane. Nobody was starving, everyone had the latest tech, yet everyone was angry about stupid stuff floating around the Internet. People argued about what one celebrity had said about another celebrity, and which singer was dating what actress, and what sport star was demanding too much money, and about the latest twists and turns in their favorite television series.

  A lot of things changed after Invasion Day.

  General Culver says that everyone has their own Invasion Day story, and they’re always sad, and he’s right about that. He also says their stories are ultimately hopeful, even though they’re awful, because the people telling them survived and weren’t slaughtered, converted into zombies, or devoured by the Dark. I’m not sure if he’s right about that.

  Anyway, the only reason that my sister and I survived Invasion Day was because of my father.

  His name was Daniel Kane, and he was a sergeant in the Chicago Police Department. Dad wasn’t the kind of cop who gave talks at schools or helped old ladies across the street. I’ve heard some stories from people who knew him, and apparently he once shot a suspect’s dog in front of the suspect’s children in order to coerce a confession… and the man turned out to be innocent. Another time someone tried recording him beating a suspect, and Dad responded by shattering the man’s cell phone and beating him to a pulp.

  The man later testified that he had tripped and fallen off the curb.

  No one ever messed with Daniel Kane.

  Not twice, anyway.

  So I don’t think my father was a good man. At the time, I thought it was normal, but later I realized it was kind of like getting raised by a Mafia enforcer who happened to work for the city government. That being said, he never raised a hand against me or my sister. He was strict and he was cold, but he never hit us. He never raised his voice when he disciplined us, either, but simply rebuked us in a cold, scornful voice, his eyes like chips of ice, the knuckles standing out against his skin as he flexed his fingers.

  When I got older I realized that he was a very damaged man who was trying to be the best father he could with what was left of his conscience.

  Dad was also a bit paranoid, for excellent reasons that I found out later. He had a gun concealed in every room of our house, and he taught me and Maggie how to shoot and the basics of self-defense. Our house was a fortress, with bars over the windows and reinforced steel security doors. I had one room on the second floor, Maggie had the second, and we never, ever went into my dad’s room for any reason ever. Sometimes when he opened and closed the door, I saw the rifles mounted on the wall, along with things he had brought back from his time in Afghanistan.

  The Kane household was a well-armed one, and Dad made sure things ran like clockwork. Despite that, he really didn’t care what we did with our designated leisure time, which is why Maggie and I were playing a video game when the hour of Invasion Day came.

  I remember it so clearly. It was about nine at night on a Saturday. Dad was in the gym, which is what he called the dining room since we didn’t have a table and it was full of exercise equipment, grunting to himself as he lifted weights. Maggie and I had finished our chores, so we sat in front of the TV, game controllers in hand as we played a racing game.

  “Roland, the console is overheating again,” said Maggie. She was thirteen years old, and because of Dad’s training she was a bit of a tomboy, so we got along pretty well. Her thumbs jabbed at the controller, her face narrowed in concentration as she focused on the game. She had Dad’s focus and intensity, but she looked a lot like Mom. I don’t think she remembered Mom very well. I suspect Maggie had been my parents’ last attempt at making peace before she left.

  “I don’t think it is,” I said. “The game’s still working.” Our model of game console had this bad habit of overheating and frying itself, rendering itself incapable of doing anything but putting a big red ring on the screen. We’d already replaced the stupid thing twice under the warranty. “I don’t hear the fan going. If it was about to overheat again, the fan would be on maximum.”

  Maggie scowled as she steered her car around one of the track’s hazards. “You don’t hear that?”

  “Hear what?” I said.

  “That whining noise. It sounds like the fan is maxing out again.”

  “It really doesn’t,” I said. I was mostly concentrating on the game, but come to think of it I did hear a faint whining noise. It didn’t sound like a computer fan. It sounded higher than that. Almost like metal tearing.

  I paused the game.

  “Hey!” said Maggie. “You’re just doing that because I was winning.”

  “Hang on,” I said. I scooted closer to the TV, listened to the game console for a moment, but I didn’t hear anything from the box. I heard the fans, yes, but they sounded normal. I heard Dad grunting as he did deadlifts, the floor vibrating a little every time he dropped the barbell.

  And I heard that strange metallic whine. It seemed to be getting louder. Maybe there was something wrong with the air conditioner?

  “Roland.”

  Dad had come into the living room. He was a big man, and he looked like the sort of cop who would kick down doors and come in with his carbine blazing. He kept his head shaved, even though it kind of made him look like a Nazi, but I think the comparison pleased him. Right now, he had a massive scowl on his face, and I cringed a little. If that whining sound ticked him off and he thought it was coming from the game console…

  “Yeah, Dad?” I said.

  “Mute that,” he said. “I need to listen.”

  I nodded and hit the mute button on the remote. The game’s chipper music went quiet, and I could hear that whining sound. It was now louder tha
n the noise coming from the console’s fans.

  “It must be the air conditioner,” pronounced Maggie. She tended to be a bit of a know-it-all. “That sounds like an air conditioner motor.”

  “Maybe one of the neighbors is fixing something,” I said. “Or their car won’t start.”

  “No, it must be the air conditioning,” said Maggie. “A broken car doesn’t make that noise.”

  I looked up at Dad to see what he thought, and I blinked in surprise.

  There was something on his face that I had never seen before.

  Dad looked…

  He was frightened.

  “Dad?” I said.

  He didn’t say anything. I don’t think I can describe how shocking this was. Dad never showed fear about anything, ever. Chicago at that time wasn’t exactly a safe place, and people had tried to break into our house a couple of times. Dad had beaten the would-be burglars within an inch of their lives, his scowl never wavering. For him to show fear was as shocking as if the sun had gone dark in the middle of the day or had risen in the west.

  “Dad?” said Maggie, concern in her voice.

  “Oh, no,” he said in a quiet voice. “No, no, no. Not now. Not now.” He looked at Maggie and me. “I had really hoped you two would be spared this.”

  “What’s wrong?” said Maggie.

  Dad seemed to pull himself together, his face drawing into its usual hard mask. “Get your grab bags and go. We leave in five minutes.”

  I pushed to my feet, puzzled, but I knew better than to disobey. “What’s going on?”

  “And get your guns,” said Dad. I blinked at that. As you might guess, Dad was a gun nut, but he was equally fanatical about gun safety, and he had drilled into us that we were never to pick up a gun in a crisis unless we needed to use it, and never to point the weapon at anything unless we intended to kill it. “Guns, grab bags, kitchen in the five minutes. Go!”

  He all but shouted the last word, which kicked us into motion. Dad didn’t shout. We scrambled up the stairs, and Maggie vanished into her bedroom, and I went into mine. My grab bag was the closet. Dad was ever careful, and the grab bag had been loaded with clothes, food, tools, weapons, supplies—everything you needed to survive in a disaster or a crisis. Part of our chores included packing and repacking the grab bags, making sure that everything worked and that nothing had expired.

  I pried up one of the floorboards in my room and took my gun from its hiding place.

  I say “my” gun, but it was technically Dad’s, and I was forbidden from touching it save at his express word or during a life-threatening emergency. It was a Glock 17 pistol, and while I would never win any shooting competitions, I was a decent shot with the thing. I checked that it was unloaded, and then pulled out the clips from the hiding place and tucked them into my grab bag.

  Handling the heavy handgun seemed to send a shock through my brain. Before, the pure habit of obedience had taken over, but now I was beginning to wonder. Why were we doing this? All we had heard was an odd whining noise. Maybe it really was just the air conditioner acting up. The central air unit for our house was older than I was.

  Then again, I had never seen Dad that freaked out by something. Angry, yes. He got angry and cold a lot. But frightened?

  I shrugged, checked the grab bag one last time, and headed for the stairs. Maybe Dad was freaking out over nothing. If so, it was no big deal. Better to go along with what he had in mind that risk a punishment.

  Maggie had beaten me downstairs, but she was always better organized than I was. Her eyes were wide in her face, though she seemed otherwise calm. I guess Dad’s alarm must have gotten to her. The whining noise had gotten louder, so loud that it was starting to get annoying.

  “I guess,” said Maggie,” that’s not really the air conditioner.”

  “No,” I said. I started to point out that I had told her so, but I stopped. The noise had gotten louder, and it also sounded…strange. I had thought it sounded like a broken machine, but now it didn’t sound like anything I had ever heard before, and it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

  “It sounds like something screaming,” said Maggie.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Then I saw the light.

  It was nine o’clock at night, and the lights were off in the kitchen, the kitchen door closed. But around the edges of the door I saw a flickering, colorless light, almost like the fluorescent lights in a hospital emergency room. The light kept flickering, and I realized that it was flickering in time to the undulations of the whining noise.

  “Roland,” said Maggie. “I think that’s coming from the alley.”

  I started to answer, and Dad came hurrying down the stairs. He was dressed in something that looked like riot gear—body armor and cargo pants and a harness for weapons. He was carrying a lot of weapons, two pistols, several grenades, a pair of heavy tactical knives, and he was holding an AR-15 with a lot of custom modifications.

  “Dad,” said Maggie. “If you go outside like that, you’re going to get arrested.”

  “I’m not,” said Dad. “The force is about to have bigger problems. In a couple of hours there might not even be a police force. Are you both ready?” We nodded. Dad looked at the glow coming from the kitchen and swore. “The alley. Of course it would have to be in the alley. Follow me. We’re going to the SUV and getting out of here.”

  “What’s going on?” I said, but we followed him.

  He didn’t answer as we walked into the kitchen. The lights were off, the blinds drawn, but the strange gray light leaked through the gap in the door and the windows. It flickered, the eerie whining sound altering in time to the light.

  Dad froze for a moment at the back door, his hand an inch from the knob.

  “Roland, Margaret,” said Dad. “Listen to me. I hoped this would never happen. I’ve been preparing for this day for years, but I prayed you wouldn’t have to live through this. Guess I’m not going to get what I want. Our lives are going to change, and they’re going to change for the worse.” He looked at us with hard eyes. “If we’re going to get through this, you’re going to have to do whatever I tell you, and we’re going to have to stick together. You understand?”

  “You’re starting to scare me, Dad.”

  “Good. Tell me you understand.”

  “We understand,” Maggie and I chorused.

  “No,” said Dad. “Say it.”

  “We…have to do what you say, and stick together,” I said.

  “What Roland said,” said Maggie. “Do what you say, and stick together.”

  “All right,” said Dad. He took a deep breath, and I suddenly realized he was steeling himself to face whatever was outside. It was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen in my life. “Let’s go.”

  He threw open the door and strode into the backyard, and Maggie and I followed him.

  And for the first time in my life, but definitely not the last, I saw one of the Dark gates.

  Chapter 2: The Coming of the Dark

  Yes, I know they’re not “gates”, not really. I’ve heard the official scientific description, filled with words like bosons and tachyons and anti-protons and wormholes and tunneling neutrino streams, and I’ve seen the equations the scientists worked out. I think all the math written out to describe one of the gates scientifically takes something like five hundred pages.

  So the thing I saw hovering at the end of the alley behind the house wasn’t really a gate, but that was sort of what it looked like.

  It was like a…hole in the air, a rip made out of flickering gray light. The wailing, whining noise came from it, almost as if the air was screaming from having that hole ripped through it. Through the gate, I saw someplace else. It looked kind of like a jungle, albeit a jungle filled with giant mushrooms that glowed with a purplish-black light and vines that pulsed and throbbed like mobile veins. Through gaps in the mushrooms I saw a writhing red sky, black lightning leaping from twisted thunderhead to twisted thunderhead.<
br />
  It looked like a kind of hell.

  “Dad,” said Maggie, shocked. “What is…”

  “Don’t talk,” he said. “Don’t stop. Keep walking. Right to the garage. Go.”

  We kept walking. Our yard wasn’t wide, but it was deep. Dad had a little plastic shed for storing lawn equipment, though he had never more than a perfunctory interest in keeping the lawn trimmed. I glanced at the shed as we passed, perhaps because it seemed so normal compared to the weird thing in the alley.

  As I looked, a dark shape moved from behind the shed, and for the first time, I saw one of the Darksiders.

  At first I thought it was a big dog. Then it moved out from behind the shed, and I realized that it was moving wrong for a dog because it had too many legs. The thing came into the light shining from the gate, and I got a better look at it.

  “Dad!” I shouted.

  It was hideous, absolutely hideous. It had twelve jointed legs like those of a giant spider, but the twelve legs supported a curved shell kind of like that of a giant sea creature. Spines jutted almost at random from the shell, and its two forelimbs looked like those of a scorpion, with serrated cutting edges. Its head was a misshapen mass of black chitin and red eyes, seemingly jammed together at random, and it twitched back and forth as it scanned the backyard.

  This thing was nothing close to human. It was nothing even close to something that belonged on this Earth.

  “Daddy!” screamed Maggie, but Dad was already moving into action.

  The armored thing surged forward, rearing up on its back legs as it did so. A mouth opened at the front of the creature, four interlocking jaws yawning wide, their edges marked with serrated blades.

  Dad shot it five times. The creature shrieked and black slime erupted from the creature as all five shots struck its head. The creature staggered and collapsed, going silent.

  “What was that?” I said. My voice sounded strange in my ears.