Charger the Soldier

by Lea Tassie

  Wendigo a half-beast creature appearing in the legends of the Algonquian peoples along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes Region of both the United States and Canada.

  Woodhenge a Neolithic henge and timber circle monument located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, 2 miles north-east of Stonehenge and just north of Amesbury.

  Terms coined specifically for this book

  blink system a technological triumph, it requires a massive system of orbital satellites, quantum computers and devices surgically attached to every human around the globe. Each device is numbered and cataloged, then integrated into a global network of systems and subsystems which any individual can access virtually. This allows a traveler to pick a destination and activate the transport, or the blink, which will remove him from his present location, then reassemble him instantly, molecule by molecule at the desired destination. Similar, in a way, to the 20th century telephone system. One can call up the address where one wishes to go, then be deconstructed and reconstituted all in a blink.

  Dinosauroids Troodon dinosaurs developed by the alien Grays into super-intelligent creatures meant to be servants

  fifth dimension consists of the three dimensions all humans experience, plus time and space, coupled with an elevation to a higher plane of existence. A being in a fifth dimension could observe and interact with a being of the third or fourth, but the reverse is impossible. A quantifiable plane of existence where the observer experiences all the dimensions simultaneously, as if they are one.

  First Ones a small group of humans were selected by the alien Grays for development into super-intelligent beings suitable as servants, called humanoids. Some of these escaped the Grays, developed a great empire and evolved into the Age of Energy, where they discarded their physical bodies and became known as Enoch.

  Hyborg a combination of hybrid and cyborg, applied to physically and mentally altered soldiers

  Mahouds a branch of the First Ones which went off on their own and settled Atlantis

  Mavens the name given to bright students whose DNA is manipulated in order to create highly intelligent experts in particular fields, who are intended to quickly find new ways to reclaim the planet after the Mahoud-Earth war.

  Megiddo max Megiddo maximum security prison

  R/T Resurrected terminus, or living dead

  Taskers a class of robots built by the Mahouds

  Taskoids Tasker robots which acquired the ability to make decisions

  time-lock created by the alien Grays, this device isolates matter and energy from the normal flow of time

  About Lea Tassie

  I grew up on an isolated homestead in northern BC, and fell in love with books as soon as I learned to read. I wrote my first story when I was twelve. I've lived and worked in various places in North America but have been writing full time for nearly thirty years in the beautiful temperate rain forest of the Pacific Coast. My fourteen published books include humor (about cats), romantic suspense, mainstream, short stories, and lately, science fiction. In my spare time, I play bridge, do crosswords, and read other people's stories.

  If you'd like to read my interview at Smashwords, go to:

  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/leatassie

  Connecting

  Visit my website http://thechargerchronicles.com/

  Subscribe to my blog http://leatassiewriter.com/

  Favorite my Smashwords author page https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/leatassie

  Email me at thechargerchronicles at gmail dot com.

  Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to

  leave me a review at your favorite retailer?

  Other Books by Lea Tassie

  Adventure:

  Tour into Danger

  Cat Humor:

  Cats in Clover

  Siamese Summers

  Cat Under Cover

  Cats & Crayons

  Mainstream:

  A Clear Eye

  Double Image

  Deception Bay

  Science Fiction:

  Green Blood Rising

  Red Blood Falling

  Shockwave

  Short Stories

  Harvest (collection)

  Too Blue

  Ra's Revenge

  A Proposal of Marriage

  Grand Champion

  Early Retirement

  See more details at http://leatassiewriter.com/ or at your favorite retailer!

  PREVIEW

  Charger the Weapon

  The Charger Chronicles

  Book 2

  Available in late summer, 2016

  PROLOGUE

  Dart speaks to Reader:

  Are you ready for the second instalment of humankind's history? I hope so, because time is growing short. The forces that hate Earth and mankind will be here within a few days. But we have time to test your memory on the first one, Charger the Soldier. What do you remember about that?

  Yes, this is the year 4800 CE and I'm one thousand and eighty-three years old. And yes, I'm also the last man to walk the face of Earth. But that wasn't quite what I was looking for.

  Oh, you don't like exams? But everyone has to write exams. It's a condition of being civilized. Or maybe a condition of being educated. I really don't remember.

  How do I know all this history if I didn't live through it? Easy! Charger himself told me some of it and Charger is my father. Well, sort of. The rest I learned from the Tasker and Dinosauroid records.

  Now, Reader, I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions. Tell me what you remember from the first instalment.

  Yes, the alien Gray race landed on Earth millions of years ago and messed with the DNA of both dinosaurs and humans. Though, personally, I wouldn't call it 'messing.' After all, the Grays were so advanced that, in comparison, humankind looked like worms.

  Ha ha! Earthworms. All right, Reader, you're feeling pretty frisky this morning, aren't you? Of course, you already know that Charger is going to save you from the forces of evil. But what will happen to me?

  Oh, you think Charger will save me because I'm his son. Reader, you don't know Charger!

  But let's revisit the 'Earthworms' for a moment. Just imagine going back to cave-man days with a time-lock device, for example, or let's push it a bit and say a Bic lighter from early in the twentieth century. Flick that lighter and produce flame in front of cave people. They'd worship you as a god because you could make flames come out of your hand. The point is, we're so advanced there's no way we could explain to a primitive human what a time-lock device is. And the same applies to us in comparison with the Grays.

  You got it, Reader! All advanced technology looks like magic when you've never seen anything like it before. Now, tell me about the Mahoud-Earth war.

  Hm. Yes, it was humans killing humans, as usual, except that Earth people thought Mahoud people were aliens and many of them went on thinking so even when they learned different. Yes, as you say, head-in-sand type behavior.

  You want to see the big underground forest cultivated in Somalia by the First Ones? I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. Our limited time is not the only reason. You'll learn the other very soon.

  Did the spaceship Loki reach planet GHQ179? Eventually. Much later than they expected to.

  One last question. What do you think of Charger now?

  He's a hero? Not a killing machine?

  Well, I will admit that he did what humans told him to do because he wanted to save them. And because he obeyed orders, humans came to regard him as a hateful monster and wanted to destroy him.

  Yes, I'm sure if I were treated that way, I'd be angry, too. I can't deny that his solution to most problems is to simply wade in and kill everybody.

  Am I glad he's on our side?

  You bet!

  Now let me tell you what happened to the Mavens who stole the old alien supply ship and escaped into space.

  Chapter 1 Creating a new Eden

  Elvin and Eve s
at on their second-floor balcony during a clear evening and discussed the events of the day while their internal video cameras played back a colorful sunset vista of the red dwarf sun sliding down the sky and disappearing below the horizon. They both still spent long hours on research and organization, but never missed taking that break at the end of the day.

  "Things are going so well now," Elvin said, "that sometimes I forget how scared we were – and how ignorant – when we stole that cargo ship."

  "I'll never forget, even if it was thirty-five years ago," Eve said. "I was terrified."

  Along with forty-five of their Maven friends, they had managed to slip aboard the transport ship without triggering any alarms. While the others were exploring the rest of the ship, she and Elvin went forward to the bridge. Elvin had looked around, nervously at first but, hearing no alarms, started fiddling with the control panel.

  "We need to start this thing and get out of here before they find us," he shouted, desperation underlining every word. He'd banged his fists in frustration on the housing. This random act of violence suddenly sent out a high-pitched frequency, which seemed to emanate from the entire outer surface of the alien craft. Within a few moments, his friend monitoring the base for them called.

  "I can't see any movement on the base now," he'd said. "Absolutely zilch. Maybe that high-pitched tone rendered all the scientists and military personnel unconscious."

  Eve had asked, "Was that supposed to happen?"

  Elvin said, "God, I don't know. I hope I didn't kill them. Do you remember how that engineer managed to start this thing?"

  She moved past her boyfriend and placed her small hand into a slot on the panel. The craft surged to life.

  "Okay, great. I will go tell the others we're leaving," Elvin had said, as he moved from the central hub, known as the pit, into the cargo hold. The ship had been the only alien craft captured intact during the Mahoud-Earth war and a low priority item for the invaders. It was just a simple supply ship, programmed to do only one task: travel between Earth and a distant planet in the galaxy.

  It had been a glorified dump truck, Eve thought, traveling back and forth to the resource planet. The onboard Taskers, biomechanical drones programmed to carry out assigned tasks, piloted the ship and collected the supplies the aliens needed. But, dump truck or not, it had brought them safely to that same resource planet.

  They called the planet New Eden, for it had allowed them to escape their servitude to General Harris, who had attempted to create a horrific super-super-soldier by combining DNA from saber-toothed tigers, apes, and humans. The planet felt like an Eden, too, compared to the war-torn Earth they'd left behind. Now they were building their own world, with every intention that it remain peaceful.

  She remembered how startled they'd been after lift-off to discover Taskers still aboard the craft. But the drones, with no messages reaching them from the aliens, had remained dormant until some weeks into the trip, when Nigel learned how to activate them.

  Eve reached out and took Elvin's hand. "It's been years and I'm still doing this."

  "Me too," he said, and squeezed her hand. The pressure sensors in their limbs were extremely sensitive and finely calibrated. "I guess it's part of the pattern, part of being human."

  They never regretted coming here, though it hadn't been easy. Their group was brilliant and privy to everything the scientists knew since they were an integral part of computer programs designed to understand and deconstruct alien technology. Test tube Albert Einsteins, Eve thought, all of them. The name the scientists had picked for them, Maven, was apt. And all of them were in agreement that Earth was no place for them. They had stored food and clothing, oxygen and computers, tools and other essentials they felt they needed to start life over again, living in peace on a new world.

  "We had plenty of problems before we got here, though," Elvin said, apparently following her train of thought.

  It had hardly been an epic adventure. Several Mavens died en route; some from disease and some from careless actions. Thus the journey had turned out to be less of a noble trek to paradise than a typical human ship of fools setting out to take a new land. The travel time had been grossly underestimated, so the journey through space used more of the craft's resources than anticipated. They gained more speed by placing the ship in stasis and using drones as a means of increasing resources. But, a trip calculated at three months had taken them almost a year to complete and, with no way to control the vessel, supplies were depleted quickly.

  "I know," Eve replied, "but it wasn't all bad. We did learn a lot."

  They had planned for enough food and water to last the group for at least a year on the new world, which they hoped would be enough time to find edible food. However, a year in space with only a three-month supply of oxygen meant that water had to be used for conversion into breathable air. They gradually learned the methods and technology of the craft they lived in, which was their one shining accomplishment. Nigel made the breakthrough in the fourth month of travel. He figured out how to make the ship create a paste that could be ingested for food. A few days later, the fact that beds were available was discovered by somebody stumbling into a button placed low on a wall. This let a flat surface slide across the floor, creating a bed.

  One single room aboard ship was used for waste disposal, and later they discovered it was a source for recycling, as the waste was deconstructed and converted into food and breathable air. The smell the conversion produced was another thing entirely, much like burning truck tires mixed with concrete dust. So it was not surprising, after so many months of travel, that the smell of fresh air on the new world made several of the kids vomit. But the air was wonderfully breathable. The sun was a small red dwarf, and strange plants grew in abundance everywhere. It seemed that they had truly discovered an Eden.

  Elvin said, "No, it wasn't all bad the first few years, though I still miss some of those guys we lost on the trip."

  Only thirty-eight of the original group survived to reach their new home world, but these few were just as determined to create a better world as when they first set out. After a few months, permanent structures had been created by Taskers reprogrammed to new commands. New Taskers were created by taking apart the supply ship for raw materials. The discovery of edible foods and a good source of fresh water aided them in creating a town, complete with schools and parks with fountains.

  The first fourteen years had been really good. They accomplished much, including having many children, enough to fill that first school.

  Then the cicadas hit.

  Eve could remember the terror that swept through her friends as billions of the insects emerged from the ground and darkened the sky, filling the air with their shrill crying. They sought trenches where they could lay eggs and find fluid for food. For those purposes, they found human skin every bit as appealing as tree branches.

  Some of the Mavens found shelter inside buildings until the onslaught was over, but those who didn't make it into a shelter died. Later research revealed that while trees recovered from cicada attacks, though often scarred, the cicadas carried a bacteria fatal to humans.

  Again, it was Nigel who had found an answer. In a brave experiment, he took one of the sick Mavens, a man close to death, and partially conjoined him with one of the Taskers. These Tasker robots were infinitely complex and biomechanical in design, perfect as host bodies for humans to merge with.

  The experiment had been a success. Deep in a cave, far from curious eyes, Elvin and Eve watched as Nigel activated the Tasker containing the consciousness of the sick man. He seemed awake and cognizant.

  "How do you feel?" Nigel asked.

  "You three don't look the way you're supposed to. No wait, it's my vision. I'm seeing things differently. Oh, now I understand. I can see you in the infra-red spectrum, and now in the ultraviolet," replied Sheldon. Only hours before, Sheldon was lying on his death bed, almost comatose, only moments from succumbing to the bacteria infecting his body.


  "No, the question I'm asking, Sheldon, is how do you feel?" Nigel repeated.

  "I don't feel sick or in pain, if that's what you mean," replied Sheldon as he twisted his new mechanical limbs in several directions, trying to get an understanding of how this new body worked.

  "Look, Sheldon, read my lips, how are you feeling?" Nigel spoke slowly.

  For a moment Sheldon had no answer, then he realized what Nigel wanted. "I have no feeling. I feel nothing, no sense of touch at all."

  "I think he was too far gone to save," Nigel said to Elvin and Eve. "He should be able to feel. The pressure sensors in these mechanoids are quite remarkable."

  Elvin sighed. "I'm afraid you're right. The bacteria must have reached his brain."

  "But do you think we should proceed with this experiment?" Nigel asked. "We'd have to give up a lot of what it means to be human."

  "I don't see that we have much choice." Elvin took Eve's hand. "We'll still have our brains and that's the only real difference between us and other living beings. Do you agree, Eve?"

  She had nodded.

  "Start the conversion process," Elvin said. "Those who don't want to be converted will have to be put in stasis for their own safety. And about Sheldon..."

  But Sheldon was lifeless and his Tasker body dormant. Nigel flicked a switch on the control panel.