by Aaron Hubble
Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ash
Farpointe Initiative Book One
By Aaron Hubble
Copyright © 2015 by Aaron Hubble
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and events appearing or described in this work are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events, is purely coincidental and the product of imagination.
Dedication
To Writers of Central Michigan,
For all of your support and laughter.
To all science fiction fans everywhere,
The universe is our playground.
Coming in 2015
Sojourners - Farpointe Initiative Book Two - Now Available! http://goo.gl/g7WiWU
Lucas & Evie - A Farpointe Initiative Origin Story - Now Available!http://goo.gl/g7WiWU
Harbinger - Farpointe Initiative Book Three
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CHAPTER ONE
The sunlight warmed Berit’s cheeks and glinted off the golden streaks running through her raven hair. Sleep threatened to take her away, steal her consciousness, but she didn’t care. The grass she lay upon made a soft cushion for her head and cradled her body.
This was perfect.
This was heaven.
Her mind began to slip into the blissful land of dreams; she was dimly aware that someone was calling her name.
“Berit?”
The voice faded, and sleep tugged her back where she truly wished to go.
“Berrrittt?” The deep voice drew her name out. “Are you listening?”
Fluttering open, mid-morning sunlight assaulted her eyes. Winnet’s silhouetted head filled her vision, a bemused smile on his face. Berit groaned and rolled onto her side. She covered her eyes with her arm.
“Just five more minutes.”
Winnet chuckled. “Come on, sleepyhead. You’re the one who wanted to come to the park and work on our ceremony, remember?” Winnet playfully poked Berit’s exposed ribs. “Was someone up late last night painting?”
“Maybe,” was the muffled reply from behind Berit’s arm.
“I wish you’d hurry up and finish that painting already. It’s consuming your whole life.”
Berit pushed herself up on her arm and gave him a playfully severe look. “Great art takes time. I wouldn’t expect a math professor to understand that.”
Winnet smiled. “When our budget balances and the only thing you’ll need to worry about is your painting, you’ll thank me.” He looked mischievously at her. “Of course, the three children hanging on your legs may be a bit distracting.”
“It’s three now?”
He nodded. “Two boys who cause untold amounts of mischief and a little girl who looks just like her mother.”
Berit played with the grass in front of her, reveling in the fantasy game they liked to play. “Why not two girls and one boy?”
Winnet’s gaze turned to the sky, and he absently rolled a blade of grass between his fingers. “Boys don’t need special attention, they just do their thing. If there are two boys, they can entertain each other, hit each other with sticks and catch insects together. Little girls are different. She needs to know she’s a princess, a one of a kind that I can spoil rotten.”
Berit playfully pushed his shoulder. “Sure, you spoil them, turn them into insufferable brats, and then run off to your hallowed halls of learning while I’m left to contend with the monsters you created. No thank you. There will be no spoiling in my household.”
Winnet raised a mocking eyebrow, knowing Berit’s deep love for children.
She conceded, “Okay, a little spoiling.”
They both laughed and Berit reached up and lovingly placed her hand on Winnet’s cheek. She stared into his dark maroon eyes, eyes that were quick and intelligent, always laughing, but that also held a deep thoughtfulness.
“You know I love you, right?”
He reached up and touched her hand, pulling it away from his face and covering it with his own. “I do, and I look forward to you being my wife in two weeks.”
“As do I.” Berit smiled, unable to contain the happiness that she felt at that moment. Two weeks - two weeks and she would be married to the most amazing man she had ever met. Hopefully, there would be children soon and she would be spending her days painting and being a mother. There had been times when she thought this would never happen. Now thirty-two, she was old to be marrying for the first time. Most of her friends had married ten years ago or more, but she had waited.
She was glad she had waited. What she felt now went beyond happiness, it was joy. Joy in the life she had been blessed with, joy in the man who was her olam’ani, her soul mate, and joy at the idea of walking with him into the unknown future.
Winnet unfolded his fingers from around her hand. “So, back to the final details of the ceremony. I thought it might be nice if we could talk your mother into playing the final song on her harp. She’s really very talented.”
Berit forced herself to come back to the present, shaking off the happy daydreams. “It may take some persuading…” Berit stopped in mid-sentence and cocked her head to the side, straining to catch a sound.
“Do you hear that?
Winnet gave her a quizzical look. “Hear what?”
“That high pitched whistling sound,” Berit said.
Winnet looked at her. “I don’t hear any…”
Without warning, the building across the street exploded in a deafening roar as steel and ancient stone were ripped apart as easily as if they were paper. The force of the blast knocked her flat on her back and stole the air from her lungs.
What had just happened?
Her ears were ringing and her head pounded with pain.
She felt Winnet grasp her arm and begin to pull her to her feet. She looked at him and saw his lips moving. He was shouting something, his face showing the desperate nature of his words, but all she heard was the ringing. Chunks of debris began to rain down from the sky that just minutes before had held only puffy white clouds. Tearing her eyes from the street, Berit followed Winnet, hearing muffled explosions and feeling the vibrations in the ground. Several small pieces of debris struck her back, then something large impacted the side of her head, causing light to explode before her eyes. Berit lost her grip on Winnet’s hand. She struggled to retain her hold on consciousness. With her flagging strength she tried to scream for Winnet, but her vision began to dim and darkness took her.
CHAPTER TWO
Five hundred years into the blessing of the Great Peace, the idea of conflict between the Great Cities is foreign and unthinkable. However, there was a time when wars ravaged the land of Aereas and millions of lives were lost due to the arrogance, pride, and unchecked thirst for conquest that reside in the hearts of the Am’Segid people.
Calier paused from his writing and looked up from the screen and out over the landscape th
ey were speeding through. They had left the northern mountains behind and entered the wide open grasslands that created a buffer between the forest and the ocean. Scattered across the sea of grass, large rock outcroppings had thrust through the thin skin of Aereas and provided a glimpse into the beauty that lay beneath the grass. The rock was a rich cream color and held multi-hued ribbons of minerals that created a beautiful striated pattern. Was it any wonder that the ancient Am’Segid who had called Gadol City home prized the rock and had used it to construct their greatest buildings and monuments? Artisans today continued to honor the past by creating works of art from the rock. Some of the most talented were able to use the striations to create intricate patterns.
Looking back to his screen, Calier caught a reflection of himself. He rubbed the beard he had allowed to grow while working in the field. It seemed to go nicely with his rapidly graying hair. A little facial hair was just one of the perks of getting away from the university and out in the field. He didn’t feel the need to look so professional when he was digging in the dirt. Most of his colleagues in the antiquities wing of the university preferred to study history through the more academic avenue of books and researching ancient documents, which had its place, surely, but Calier delighted in any opportunity to be at the ancient sites and sift through the ruins. This current dig was one he had been dreaming of for a long time. Calier was looking for the Ma’Ha’Nae, a branch of the Am’Segid. Just before the Great Peace, several thousand people had disappeared. Legend said that the Ma’Ha’Nae had retreated to the mountains, choosing to live in seclusion and isolation, hidden from the rest of the Am’Segid. No real evidence had been found to support the theory, just a few obscure texts that talked about these strange recluses. He understood this might be a waste of his time, but he had academic license to burn after discovering the Bayitam Ruins last year and bringing quite a bit of attention to the university. After that, they were willing to let him look for pretty much anything he wanted, and searching for the Ma’Ha’Nae was the fulfillment of a childhood fantasy for him.
Looking up, Calier saw small fingers wrap themselves over the back of the seat in front of him. A set of beautiful light green eyes appeared, their long lashes blinking shyly.
Calier waved to the little girl who immediately ducked out of sight. He smiled, and a moment later a head of curly brown hair streaked with the same light green color as her eyes emerged from behind the seat. The little round cheeks were covered with something red and sticky. She was the cutest thing Calier had ever seen.
He waved again, “What’s your name?”
“Saloma,” squeaked the little voice.
“Saloma…that’s very pretty. Do you know what your name means?”
She shook her head.
“In old Aerean it means ‘peace’, and some very important people had the same name as you. When the Great Peace was…”
The little girl thrust a half-eaten sucker in Calier’s face. “Do you want a lick?”
He chuckled. “No. That’s alright, you keep it.”
Saloma shrugged as if she couldn’t understand why anyone would turn down such a delicious treat. “What are you writing?”
“Something for my job. I study old things.”
Saloma paused as if considering his answer and then her face lit up in a smile. “Like my grandma, she’s an old thing. Are you studying my grandma?”
Calier could not contain his laughter, and it spilled out into the train car. What a perfect, child-like thought. When he was able to talk again he said, “No, no. I’m not studying your grandma, but I am studying some people who might have lived in the mountains a long time ago.” He leaned forward and whispered. “It’s kind of a mystery.”
“Oh,” the little girl said with a twinge of disappointment in her voice, but she immediately brightened. “I’m going to see my grandma today.”
“You are? Well then, you’re going to have a great day. Grandmas make all days great, don’t you think, Saloma?”
Her curls bounced up and down as she nodded her head, and her mouth split into a smile revealing several missing teeth. It reminded Calier of his niece. His brother’s youngest child would be about the same age, and he hadn’t seen her since heading into the field three months ago. Calier decided his brother’s house would be his first stop after presenting at the university.
An announcement came over the speaker of the METS car. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we will be reaching Gadol City and crossing the gorge in ten minutes. Please make sure you have all of your belongings, and thank you for riding the METS line.”
Glancing out the window Calier saw the spires and ancient buildings of Gadol City rising out of the sea of grass.
Looking once more at his curly-haired traveling companion, he said, “Well, Miss Saloma, it has been a pleasure getting to know you.” He offered his hand to her. She placed her small sticky hand into his. Gently wrapping his rough calloused fingers around the girl’s, he said, “You have fun with your grandma, okay?”
Saloma nodded and disappeared behind the seat, only to reappear a second later. In her hand she held a second piece of candy, this one wrapped. She offered it to Calier. “This is for you, in case you get hungry later.”
Calier let her drop the candy in his outstretched hand. “Thank you so much. I’ll eat it when I’m done with my work in the city.” She flashed him a gap-toothed grin that could melt the coldest of hearts and disappeared behind the seat.
He smiled, but the familiar pang of regret also tugged at his heart. He had always desired children. It was a painful reminder that no matter how much you planned, there were some things that were beyond your control, and the death of Halom had been one of them. But that was a long time ago.
Calier cleared his head of the memories and began to place his belongings in his worn leather satchel as he marveled at the efficiency and speed of the METS line. The Magnetized Elevated Transit System traveled all over the continent riding on the repulsive power of buried magnets. Calier didn’t understand how it all worked. Being a historian, he had never studied physics or engineering. He was just glad the trains got him where he wanted to go quickly, in comfort, and without creating any pollution or cutting up the landscape with ugly rails. The only flaw in the plan was crossing the gorge that led into Gadol City. No magnets could be buried in a gorge that was several hundred feet deep, so a cable was strung across the chasm. The cars entered a station on one side of the gorge, attached themselves to the cable, and moved across the expanse suspended from the thick cord of steel.
While the train silently glided along, Calier thought about how good it would be to walk the streets of his city again. He considered himself a man from two worlds. The outdoors called to him, and the fatigue that came with a hard day of physical labor often yielded the greatest satisfaction. Sometimes, while he was in the field, he fantasized about staying out in the wild and never going back to his office at the university. It wouldn’t be hard to disappear into those mountains; there were enough places to hide, and he could easily become a recluse who occasionally sent his finds back to civilization via the network or the METS.
But who was he kidding? He loved Gadol City too much, and now that he was in his mid-fifties, he liked the comforts of his home even more. It was clean and beautiful. There were hot showers and food that didn’t have wind-blown dirt in it. There was something to be said for being within walking distance of those you loved. He would miss them if he chose a life of seclusion. Aside from his family, he might miss the art the most. Since the Great Peace, and the opening up of the continent to travel, Gadol City had become a destination for artists and the mentors they sought. One could not turn a corner in the city without encountering a new masterpiece. He loved sitting in the park, surrounded by those labors of love as he studied yet another dusty tome about some long forgotten footnote in history.
Yes, thought Calier, I’m right where I need to be, between the worlds.
He felt the gentle bump as the car he w
as riding in docked at the gorge tower and heard the barely perceptible whir of gears as the car secured itself to the cable and began the journey across the gap. Calier looked down into the gorge, a drop of at least five hundred feet to the churning waters of the Tefillia River below. As a historian, he couldn’t help but applaud the ingenuity of his ancestors who had chosen Gadol City for its defensible location and near impossibility of being taken by an enemy. The city lay at the very edge of the Aerean super-continent, its back facing the sea and the sheer cliffs that dropped several hundred feet to the crashing surf below. The Tefillia River came from the mountains that lay east of the city and curved when it hit the solid rock that formed the cliffs. The river and gorge created a natural barrier between the city and the rest of the continent on the eastern and northerly sides of the city. All that remained exposed was a narrow strip of land at the southern end where the ancients had chosen to build a fortified wall. Gadol City had never been taken from the outside; the gorge and the walls made it virtually impossible to conquer.
The effort that his people had put into defending their city gave a clue as to the violent past of Aereas, when cities and the men who ruled them, had warred against each other for centuries. The Am’Segid had taken their civilization to the brink of annihilation before turning from that path at the last moment. A small group of idealists and peace makers had pulled their people from the ashes of tragedy and death and ushered in the Great Peace.
Looking deeper into the city, Calier saw the Victory Arches that led into the heart of his home. The arches had been built through the centuries to commemorate great military victories. Gadol City was not innocent of perpetrating conflict, and several of the arches had been built with the blood of tens of thousands of warriors and civilians. The last and greatest arch, however, was different. Made of pure white stone, it was larger and greater than the others, a testament to the power of peace and the men and women who had dared to follow a new path.