by Angel Bright
Earth on Target
by Angel Bright
Book one of the Survival amidst the Stars Trilogy
Copyright © 2018 by Angel Bright
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods including information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior written permission of the author/publisher. The only exception is by a reviewer in the case of brief quotations and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please contact the publisher.
This book trilogy is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Publisher: Angel Bright Books
[email protected]
Contact: +971505349440
Skype: silvyapos
ISBN-13: 978-0-9998484-1-8
Contents
1 Is This Really Happening to Me? Mystique!
2 Awakening
3 Military Training—Survival and Clashes of Senior Sorcerers
4 Time for Action
5 Violence and Collaboration
6 Fateful Gifts
7 The Setting
8 The Story of the Greats
9 Desperation and Plans to Fight the Hunters
10 Shadows in the Dusk
11 Vigorous Actions to Acquire Technologies
12 New Technologies and New Weapons
13 Testing of Tempor One and First Clashes with Invaders—Insidious Injury!
14 Battle Alert on Earth
15 Attack on Earth—Counterstrikes by Earthly Cosmic Powers!
16 Nolen’s provides assistance
17 Rhem the Earthman
18 Spell-Casting Technology
19 Battle for the Planet Prima Davos
20 The Frigate Fearless in a Relentless Battle around the Planet Prima Davos
21 Calamity and Triumph! A Meeting with an Overlord
22 Counterstrike on the Planet Corba, Kerrani System—Fateful Discovery of a Black Scout Ship
23 The Planet Corba
24 Economy, Construction, and Space Battles
25 Meeting One of the Commanding Assassin Planets
26 Downstream
27 Development of Earth Medicine against Possible Biological or Chemical Warfare
28 Theories and Realities—Conspiracies and Betrayals
29 Exploring the Black Ship
30 Hunting for Black Ships—Machine Teleportation
31 Ceres—War with the Horners
1 Is This Really Happening to Me? Mystique!
The truck came on to us out of nowhere. The street was totally empty and quiet under the shade of the chestnut trees. Apparently, my mother sensed the danger at the last moment and screamed, “Urraht abt!” I closed my eyes, sensing the horror of inevitable death. I heard a deafening crash accompanied by a low bass tone, probably unrelated to what was happening. I was numb. I did not feel pain, but dust rushed in my nose, and I began to sneeze.
Someone shook me, and gradually I began to feel the bustling commotion around me. I opened my eyes, horrified, and found myself on the grass beneath the flowering chestnuts. People were running around me. Some of them took my mother out of the road and gave her water from a plastic bottle. She clutched my schoolbag and stared at me with frightened eyes. But she was alive, too. I tried to get up, but the elderly couple who had put me down on the grass did not let me.
On the other side of the street, the truck was lying on its side, covered with smoke. Its front wheels were spinning surprisingly fast.
From the nearby neat homes, eyewitnesses were quickly gathering, stressed by what had happened. Some were carrying water, others had blankets and home medical kits, and others were calling 911 or relatives and friends.
A group of students peered into the window of the overturned truck and looked for the driver, but the cabin was empty.
Two police cars with their sirens blaring arrived. Soon, the officers had yellow tape around the scene and began to urge citizens to move away so as not to tamper with any evidence.
The paramedics put an immobilizing collar on my neck, as well as on my mother’s; laid us on stretchers; and loaded us into an ambulance.
Side by side in the ambulance, my mother squeezed my hand encouragingly. We rode under the flashing lights and a deafening siren. I was not allowed get up, and my mother gave me a sign to lie motionless.
The trip turned out to be short. As the hospital staff wheeled us down from one specialist doctor’s room to another, I did not feel any pain or fear; rather, I was interested in how they were touching me, expecting broken bones or open wounds. I disappointed them.
At one point, when my mother and I were in the same room and the nurses and doctors were elsewhere, my mother motioned me to follow her. We walked past the toilets and down the stairs to the lower floor. There, we got to the elevator, exited the hospital without rushing—still in our hospital gowns—and hailed the first taxi we saw. We got out from the taxi to the nearest metro station and headed home as we were with hospital clothing.
When we arrived home, my mother retrieved the spare house key from under the cactus pot on the front steps. She always left it there for me because I was, after all, an eight-year-old and needed to become more self-sufficient.
Inside, my mother packed clothes and ordered me to dress quickly. She ran to change clothes and collect documents and some useless stuff like cheap jewelry, a small black vase, a dog collar, and a short stick with some letters written on one end. We didn’t have time to eat or even drink some water as we ran out the back door and through the opposite courtyard. We crossed over to the bustling main street, where the taxis stayed outside peak hours.
We took the first free taxi and headed to the outskirts of the city. We changed taxis and returned to the center. We took another taxi to the mountain near the city, and then we took a city bus to the suburbs.
Perhaps my mother had been severely injured in the accident and was moving chaotically around the city. I grabbed her hand to calm her down and asked her to go to the nearest clinic, for I felt sick.
She looked at me closely. “Be patient, we’re almost there.”
We walked down some narrow streets. After wandering for a bit, we rang the doorbell of a low house surrounded by beautiful silver pines.
It was as if we were expected because the door opened almost immediately, and we set off down a dark corridor to a cozy living room. We were led by a tall woman, older than my mother, with a lion’s mane of lush reddish hair and yellow eyes.
My mother finally addressed the woman. “Sybil, this is Raymond. He will be staying with you, as we agreed.”
She then turned to me. “Rhem”, as she liked to call me, “You’re staying here for now. Your aunt Sybil will treat you well until the time comes for you to stand next to your father. Be respectful, and do whatever she orders you to do, because it will be for your own good. I’ll see you when I come back from a long journey. I have to leave, my son. It would have happened one day anyway. I will watch you through your aunt Sybil.”
She left my clothes on the couch, pulled out a thin rope woven of colored threads, and tied it around my neck.
“Rhem, let this rope stay where it is now until you’re twenty, my son. It will keep you safe.”
She turned and, without saying a word, left and closed the door behind her.
I ran after her and op
ened the door. Once again, the colorful world jumped me.
2 Awakening
I came to in a nice nursery room with children’s drawings on the walls. The bed was soft, and the pillow smelled pleasantly. The room was dim, and the small window on the wall behind me was covered with a heavy, thick curtain. I did not know for how long I had remained unconscious. I was ashamed of my weakness.
Because of my weakness, my father had left me, and now my mother had done the same. My body was full of flaws. I was weak. I was sick often, and in the past year—my eighth—things had become even worse for me. For as long as I could remember, I had had vision problems. I could see clearly, but there were some colored stripes on the periphery of every subject I saw—sometimes brighter, sometimes paler. And the constant headache ruined me, especially in the spring months when the colors became brighter and dazzled me. I stayed locked in my room with darkened windows to avoid being killed by this defect of mine. When my mother found out I was going out almost in a trance at night, she started locking the door of my room for my own good. I never protested because I knew I was creating too many problems for my parents, and I felt guilty.
I had seen my father only once, after my seventh birthday.
He was sitting in the middle of our living room, and when she took me to him, he looked around at me from all directions, humming disapprovingly. With a royal gesture, he indicated I should be taken back to my room.
Lately, most of the colorful edging of the objects had increased their brightness, and my headaches had turned into seizures. Today, it happened to me for a second time. How I wanted to be blind. At least then I would not have headaches.
I put my face under the cold stream of the tap in the bathroom and covered my eyes with an opened thick book. It gave me some relief until the first opening of my eyes.
The door opened, and my aunt Sybil entered carrying a food tray. I felt a great hunger and asked how long I had not eaten. The dusk had thickened, probably due to the evening coming, and it allowed me to start eating.
My aunt Sybil shook her head and whispered. “The poor child.”
I looked at her like a guilty puppy and decided to keep quiet patiently.
It’s hard to keep a promise when you’re eight. And I was afraid—terribly afraid—of being abandoned. I was afraid of contempt. And light was my enemy. It was going to kill me. The days without load and pain became fewer and fewer. Close to my slack arms, the two halves of some plate began hardening. I groped for it with my fingers as it was hidden under my skin. I was becoming more and more repellent, even to myself. Self-pity gave way to malice. The narrow nursery room began to press me on all sides, and my soul was striving to find way out, in the open. I was awakening.
The door lock turned out to be not very complicated, and it succumbed to my desire with a soft click. Even now, late in the evening in the corridors and rooms, a soft blue light was coming from the walls. I started going down the ghostly stairway to the basement to where the vision of that impulse for boundless space was drawing me. The basement consisted of a large room with four columns supporting the ceiling. In the center of this room was a clutter of disorderly old furniture, and the space beside the walls was empty. As I entered the basement, I heard a very quiet pop and saw a faint blink of light coming from the walls. I turned my gaze to the left, where the subtle sound came from, and I saw an open door with a blue flashing frame. Through the door was a figure standing on the dark seashore—Aunt Sybil!
Her body was moving in a slow, flowing dance with graceful arm movements. Her right arm then rose above her left arm and seemed to pass through the wall. A crackling beam of pale-blue light shot from her right arm and struck the pile of rocks on her far side, and the image of Aunt Sybil became dark. She seemed to feel my presence because she turned abruptly to me and shouted.
“Stay there! Don’t come close!” She bent down and lifted something from the ground. She stood up with her arms raised, and a ring of pale-blue light descended from the tops of her fingers, sinking into the ground. Her body convulsed, and she became Aunt Sybil again. She quickly returned to the basement with me, waving casually with an old paintbrush and throwing it on the pile of old furniture. She led me silently by hand to the nursery and stood next to me until I fell asleep.
In the morning, I had only a vague memory of some unreal sleep full of gentle sorceresses giving stick candy. The door lock was changed.
Friday, my problem day, was coming close. The familiar tightening of my head started as early as the previous night before, and it then turned into a strong migraine. Despite my previous complaints, my aunt did not take me to a doctor. I spent the whole Friday with compresses and covered with the thickest book from the library downstairs, which I sneaked into my room. I knew that at midnight my agony would begin, and I was dreadfully counting down the time till then. Something in me was beginning to wake up, and I lost control of my actions under the attacking environment around me. I did not want my aunt to see me in such a state and leave me to the child services.
This time, the corners of the room began to twist earlier than I had expected. I began to suffocate, yet my consciousness remained clear. I had to get out of the house and go somewhere with space and cool night air. The lock turned out to be easy again and opened on its own. I went down to the basement, but among the crowded furniture I found a few useless old brushes crusted with paint.
I slipped out into the street and left with almost no strength. I crawled to the nearby park and lay on my back. My agony was coming in minutes. High in the sky, snow-white clouds were waving in the moonlight. And the same clouds below were black and heavy. And there were multicolored lights above that blackness. They twisted and untwisted…
Something quickly fled through my legs and stopped. I sensed an animal’s sour smell. I swung round and straightened my right arm with my palm forward instinctively to protect myself. A green, glowing lightning lit up on my extended palm, and a stink of burned fur filled the air.
I had pressed my back against a thick tree and was staring at the place where the animal had been. I wanted to see if it was there. Despite the darkness, I did not dare to leave. And then…
A faint green light began to illuminate the grass, shrubs, and trees in front of me. I began to see quite clearly the spot with pieces of animal and a long dappled tail that had been torn away. I’d seen this animal slip into the sewer opening. It was now in pieces.
I started running among the trees. I saw clearly where I was running. From the slope above the river, I sent a green lightning toward the water, again and again.
I slept deeply that night, and the migraine did not come.
A few weeks after that Friday night, I went out secretly into the bright forest. I went all the way to the railroad, sat down on the rails, and watched the trains. On the other side was a lake and a paper factory beside it. I felt that the crisis was coming. I walked a few paces down to the opening of a pipe, whose other end was shielded by an embankment. That was my shelter. There, I struggled with the pain that gradually covered my entire back. And the light fell on me.
The last Friday night in the shelter was terrifying. I was tossing around in the pipe, and a green flame came out of my back. I came to on the embankment, with my arms facing the three factory chimneys. I was shooting powerful green streams at these chimneys and the factory units beneath them. They were the giant monsters of my dreams. I was hearing the sounds of the heavy wall collapsing, and when I felt purified, I stopped. I went down the river and ran through the park. A bit later, I was already falling asleep in my bed.
In the morning, I was awakened by street bustle, talking, and thumping feet. I dressed and went downstairs just as Aunt Sybil came home after talking with the fast-paced neighbors. She grabbed my hand and hurried after the crowd of running people.
When I saw the crowd of people, the equipment, and the police cars, I hiccupped with fear. I then started crying hysterically and pulled Aunt Sybil home. In between tears, I
tried to explain to her.
“It hurt very much. I did not want…it hurt very much…I wanted to see no light…” I continued in my trance. My understanding and anxious aunt took the shortest way, crossing strange yards and narrow streets, trying to calm me down. Finally, she spoke to me.
“Quiet, dear, do not talk. Let’s go home.”
It turned out that the road through these yards was extremely short, and I was soon swallowing gulps of water, choking, and my teeth clattered at the edge of the glass in our kitchen.
My aunt patiently waited for me to calm down, and the water really had a beneficial effect.
“Tell me now, what’s bothering you?” she asked me.
“I did it.”
“What?”
“I knocked down the factory.”
My aunt exploded with laughter.
“And how did you do it?”
“I hit the chimneys with the green lightning. My head hurt so…I was about to faint. I wanted to throw out something that was about to burst from inside and aimed the lightning at the chimneys.”
Aunt Sybil listened to me without moving, having covered her mouth with her left hand.
“When was this?”
“I think…more than two hours have passed.”
She jumped up, grabbed bag and clothes for me and her, and led me down to the basement.
“Hurry! A lot of time has passed. We can still do it.”
I was silent, and I could barely keep up with her.
We closed the basement door and put a thick lightning rod in a special locking device at our side. Aunt Sybil started digging into the desolate cabinet full of old books and unnecessary objects. She started taking out some things and put them in an empty backpack, which was among the unnecessary things. She picked up something like an old ink pen with a rusty tip and made some smooth movements around us and toward the front door. With old chalk, she drew intersecting triangles on the four walls of the basement.
Under one of these drawings, she attached a large piece of old packing paper, stood up against it, and swung along intersecting diagonals with an old brush crusted with dried paint.