New Light

by Ben Johnston

  New Light

  By Ben Johnston

  To my wife,

  the light of my life

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Event

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part II

  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

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part III

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  The Event

  Lightning ceased to be.

  The final claps of thunder boomed through the unlit city streets, rumbling past the darkened buildings and out across the cold plains. Over the distant grey horizon, the last peals slipped away in a fading crackle.

  The cold rain subsided, and as the clouds parted, two new suns appeared in the sky. These new suns followed a slow circle around the old sun, one always opposite the other. From these new suns issued forth new light.

  Scattered around the world, there were a few people on that day who opened their hands to find the new light. They could use the light of the new suns to grow crops and to split stone, or to rend metal and to break bone.

  These were the lightmakers.

  Humanity was desperate.

  Without lightning, many technologies that were vital to civilization were lost, and so humanity turned their attention to the study of the new light. They refracted the light. They teased it apart. They reflected it back together at angles through sheets of other light, using strange crystals and metals. They experimented endlessly.

  Then, with the insight of the lightmakers, they discovered how to mix the light, spinning it through interwoven glass spirals and crystal lattices, focusing it into new types of matter. By recombining this new matter with various other mixed light, they made new kinds of metal, crystal, glass, and other substances, all with surprising and useful properties.

  With these new materials, humanity invented new devices bearing capabilities wildly beyond and unlike anything before. No machine or tool, steam or fuel, could do what these could do. These devices exposed the powers of the universe, and with these powers, humanity returned to the sky and beyond.

  And so it was, high above the planet with a gleaming spacecraft fitted with crystal engines blazing like the sun itself, that humanity discovered there was no longer a speed of light. The old cosmic speed limit was gone. They could get to the next planet in an instant. They could reach distant stars and nearby galaxies in mere minutes. The universe was now in reach.

  Bursting outward with dazzling engines, bright swarms of humanity’s great starships began exploring and populating the galaxies. They set out in all directions, and after a thousand years, had settled a million worlds. The fire of expansion blazed brightly as humanity entered their golden, first intergalactic age.

  And it was good.

  But good things come to an end.

  In the first age, with growing power, humanity’s expansion through the stars accelerated. As a consequence, conquests grew and conflicts swelled. Wars of galactic scale inflated into wars of intergalactic scale, until the intergalactic wars merged and blew-up into the first full-scale universal war.

  The universal war swelled until it engulfed every civilized galaxy, reaching every settled world. Then, once the war had nowhere left for its destruction to expand out to, like a fire in a kiln, its intensity increased. Across the stars as the war raged on, new weapons were devised, each more powerful than the last. One galaxy would use their new weapon against another, and then a hundred more, and as each was used, the chaos intensified until, finally, with the invention of some horribly, incredibly, perversely powerful weapon, suddenly, in a flash…

  Every forest fire leaves behind a charred landscape, a place where all is burned and there is no light. And like the dark spires of dead trees littering a valley under the inky smoke of a starless sky, the millions of dead galaxies left behind after a universal war were mostly black. Their stars had all been killed, and the great empty spaces between these great swirls of dead suns were now filled with a smoke of debris and remains.

  This is the Ruin.

  Within a century of the first Ruin War, the ending of the First Age, the remnants of humanity and civilization had already crawled from the smoke of the Ruin and begun to move back out into the endless living galaxies. Humanity is resilient, and the expansion of the second age was greater than the first, with humanity’s power growing much more quickly and far greater, thanks to their having knowledge from the First age.

  Yet with their greater power and expansion, humanity’s wars in the Second Age blazed more intensely than those of the First Age. These wars were much greater in scale, power, and horror than the conflicts of the First Age, and out of them arose the Second Universal War. And, again, some mighty weapon was again discovered, greater and more terrible than the one from the First Age, and this time not just one million galaxies were destroyed, but hundreds of millions of galaxies, suddenly, in a flash…

  And so the Third Age began. And so the Third age ended.

  And the Fourth Age.

  And the Fifth.

  There has been a constant.

  At the end of every age since the first, one nation, one civilization, has endured each Ruin war to carry-on into the next age, a civilization that, after the last weapons go dark, has always emerged from the black cloud of dead suns back into the light of the unexplored universe to return humanity to the living galaxies.

  The one known as the stalwart. The shield.

  The great and ancient Union.

  And at the very soul of the Union itself, sat the ancient and legendary School and it’s eternal Towers.

  Located on the Union’s capital planet, Administra, the School consisted of twelve mountain-dwarfing towers, the clouds flowing around their gray foundations like foam in a stream around a stone pillar.

  At noon from the grassy surface of Administra, looking up, the tops of the sweeping colossal towers faded away into the blue of the atmosphere, looking like daytime moons.

  But it was not their colossal size that made them the most known structure in the universe. The Towers of the School had another aspect that made them unique and powerful: although dull gray in appearance, they were infused with the substance known as goldenlight.

  Goldenlight-infused artifacts were the rarest of relics, and knowledge of how to make the light was lost. But
it wasn’t just the rarity that made the goldenlight so incredible, it was the traits bestowed upon objects and substances infused with it.

  Goldenlight made objects unchanging and indestructible.

  Objects infused with goldenlight never wore down and could not be destroyed, and these great towers were built of this material. Twelve impossibly massive skybreaking mountain pillars stood untouchable, infused with the rarest substance known in the universe.

  This is how the Union had lasted through the twelve ages. This is how the Union protected humanity, carrying it from one age into the next. The Towers of the School, infused with goldenlight have endured through the wars and the ages.

  The current Twelfth age, by School reckoning, had so far lasted for several hundred million years, the exact age being a subject of constant debate. Judging by the universe’s current political climate, the School was convinced and assured the Union that no great wars appeared imminent. And so, under the sun on Administra, stood the twelve towers of the School at the noontide of the Union of the Twelfth Age.

  And it was good.

  But the Union was not the only great nation in the universe.

  In the Ruin a vast dark cloud of smoke and debris fills the spaces between the billions of dead galaxies, obscuring anything within. Many explorers venture into the black Ruin. Most do not come back out, so for ages it went undiscovered that right in the very center of the great and deadly Ruin, deep in its dark heart, right at its black core, shined a single living galaxy.

  A tiny speck of a glimmer amid the hundred billion black clouds and swirls, a speck of diamond on a black sand beach, this bright galaxy in the heart of the Ruin was called the Phoenix Galaxy.

  Within a decade of the discovery of the Phoenix Galaxy, the Vectan Empire, a militaristic collection of largely autonomous member nations, staked claim to the galaxy. However, when Vectus arrived to claim the Phoenix, it discovered the galaxy was not uninhabited and not uncontested.

  Already established centuries before the Vectan arrival, a nation called the Phoenix Federation had lodged a claim with the League of Nations on behalf of several native peoples, presenting archeological evidence that these people had been living on the worlds of this galaxy for thousands of generations. The Phoenix Federation claimed a right to their worlds and to the galaxy.

  Without notifying the league, the Vectan nations began forceful occupation of the Phoenix worlds. The Union protested, but the League was slow to act.

  Abandoned, isolated, without direct support or allies, the Phoenix Federation fought back fiercely. Eventually, after a decade of fighting, Vectus drew-back its incursion.

  They did this not as a truce, but as a stalemate arose.

  The Phoenix Federation had been far stronger in their resistance than the Vectan nations had anticipated, and the Phoenix had a property about it which, once discovered, made the galaxy both less valuable and more costly.

  The Phoenix Galaxy had no power suns.

  Every galaxy in the entire living universe, from the smallest cloud to the biggest swirl, has at least one power sun system: a solar system in which the two smaller power suns exist circling the larger yellow one. It was from these power suns that every nation collected and harvested its light to build and power its devices and cities.

  Every galaxy has these power sun systems. Most galaxies have dozens of them. Every galaxy except for the Phoenix galaxy.

  When this lack of power suns had been revealed, meaning that all light power would have to be imported, Vectus put an immediate stop to military operations, holding in place their current territories. So far, this cease-fire had held for almost a decade.

  But then something else had been found in the Phoenix, something valuable and powerful. And so the Vectan Empire again decided the Phoenix to be worth having. Yet before they could renew their occupation their plans were momentarily halted as the highest power in the Vectan Empire, the Premier of the Empire, was laid to rest and a new Vectan Premier installed. A period of transition was playing-out in the Vectan Empire.

  So, while out in the bright living universe the Vectans in the sparkling Imperial city of Vectus celebrated their new Premier, on the opposite side of the universe the strong Union struggled to feed its hungry worlds. Meanwhile, far, far away from the living universe, deep within the dark Ruin, inside of the lonely shining Phoenix galaxy, the Federation hunkered down on their thousand worlds, preparing for a renewal of the fight from Vectus.

  One of those planets in the Phoenix federation was a sparsely-inhabited jungle planet called Namoon.

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  On a humid night in Namoon’s planetwide jungle there stood a seven-room treehouse. Inside the treehouse cold vapor fell from a glowing blue device set above the kitchen entryway. The misty cascade parted like curtains as a girl in her late teens passed through, turning off the lights.

  She touched the kitchen wall pane which showed only one remaining red bar lit beneath eleven unlit bars.

  She frowned.

  Exiting to the hallway, she reached down to grab, flip and snap a longboard to her back. The board’s five crystals shined with a dim orange light, bobbing in the darkness as she strode to the front door where she stopped to grab a satchel and large backpack off the wall.

  From the cool quiet of her house, the girl stepped out onto her balcony and into the hot, thick jungle air. The night droned with insects accented by the warbles and chirpings of bird and frog calls.

  Leaning out over her high balcony railing, she raised her hazel eyes to the night sky. Through the upper branches and leaves of her house’s immense woven tree, she gazed up past the moonlit clouds at the bright stars. A soft warm breeze drafted upwards, ruffling her short auburn hair with the scents of fruits and flowers from her gardens below.

  She shifted her attention to the weightless fox now sitting on her shoulder. The fox had luminous sapphire eyes and a shiny, almost metallic, coat.

  Smiling, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a small square of puffed rice frosted on top with two layers, one tan and the other brown. “You know, Spirit, real foxes and dogs, and cats, aren’t supposed to eat chocsugar. Only lightfoxes.” She bent the square down the middle, pulled it in half, and tossed it into the air.

  Without moving the fabric on the girl’s shoulder, and with no noise or disturbance of air, the lightfox leaped, caught the half in his mouth, then landed on the balcony railing in a sitting position, facing the girl.

  She tossed the other half of the chocsugar-covered treat into her own mouth. Eyes closed, she shook her head grinning. “Is that not the best that thing you’ve ever tasted, Spirit?”

  Spirit answered with a rich and pleasant voice. “Anniya, I think your junglemix is the best thing I have ever tasted.” The little lightfox closed his eyes and nodded, his fur shimmered in the moonlight, reflecting faint gold patterns of fine spirals and intricate filigrees.

  Anniya let her smile go then scratched her head. “Have you ever eaten anything else?”

  “Junglemix is the only thing I have ever eaten, Anniya.” Spirit cocked his head.

  Anniya blinked. “Well, I guess that’s my own fault.” She shrugged. “Let’s see if you like anything else.”

  She reached into her cape’s pocket, withdrawing some dried mango slices. “Here, try this.” She bent a small slice down the middle, pulled it in half, then tossed the piece of dried fruit into the air.

  Without doing anything at all, Spirit sat there and watched as the piece of mango rose into the air and then fell to the ground.

  Anniya looked down at the piece of dried mango on the wood deck, then back up to Spirit on the railing. “Maybe some nuts?”

  Spirit cocked his head the other way.

  Anniya scratched above her right eyebrow. “Funny. I’ve never seen you eat anything until I made junglemix.” With no apparent exertion, Anniya leapt up onto the railing to land on her toes balanced next to the fox. “I’ll bet it’s the chocsugar.
”

  Spirit shifted his gaze to the large empty satchel strapped over Anniya’s shoulder, then to the large empty backpack held by its thick strap in her other hand. He tilted his head slightly, looking at her with narrowed glowing eyes.

  Extending her arm holding the empty backpack, she sighed. “Yes, Spirit. We’re going to go shopping.” She opened her hand, letting go of the backpack’s large strap. The bag fell away from her balcony, vanishing into the darkness below. A silent moment later, it sent back a soft crumpf.

  “The house power is almost out and we're out of chocsugar.”

  Sliding off her shoulder and down her arm, her large satchel vanished into the darkness to join the backpack far below. Spirit continued to look at her with his sapphire eyes, though his eyelids had changed from narrowed to drooping.

  Folding her arms, Anniya pursed her mouth and looked away. “I don’t have to justify myself to you, Spirit. I’m a living creature. I need food. I need air conditioning in this flecking jungle. I need things to survive, you know?”

  The shiny fox turned his lighted eyes downward over the railing at the darkness below. “I know that you have plenty of food in your gardens, Anniya.”

  Balancing with ease on the railing, Anniya bent down and patted the little fox. “Mr. Fox.” She smiled. “I can’t grow batteries or chocsugar in my garden.”

  Spirit blinked then turned his head to look up at her. She continued. “There are just some things that I can’t make, so I have to get them from…” She paused.

  “You know. Places.”

  Spirit was giving her that look again.

  Anniya gave a quick sniff, then stood. “Anyway. I don’t have to justify myself, so stop giving me a guilt trip every time the house needs batteries.” A smile crept up the side of her mouth. “If it makes you feel any better, we won’t be shopping in town this time.”

  Spirit’s ears perked up.

  Anniya continued. “And we aren’t just going to pick-up some one-month clunker batteries this time.” Her smile widened. “We’re going to pick up some high-power, long-lasting, yearlight cells.”