The Tribe of the Free
Earth – North America
October 30, 2442
The October sun beat down on Colin McGregor as beads of sweat ran down his face as if he’d just climbed out of a river. Most of the planet hadn’t seen cold weather in almost a hundred years. The generations of people still remaining on the planet had never seen snow. Most of the planet was uninhabitable, with the temperature spiking well-past the safe area to sustain life of any kind. North America was nearing the end of its life. The Tribe of the Free was all that remained in this part of the world. He would have to convince Avara to lead her people off world, just as he had convinced the tribes of Highlanders to join him in his cause.
Those in the Tribe of the Free were farmers, not fighters. But there was nothing to farm anymore. Food was scarce and water almost nonexistent. Avara would be a fool not to lead her people to someplace they could survive. But after her last trip to another planet, that might be more difficult.
The pilot landed the shuttle a couple miles away from the tribe. Colin didn’t want to frighten them into thinking the Orlanders were coming, though he was sure the High-Born hadn’t paid this part of the planet any mind for decades. He walked along the wasteland, the ground was so arid, it powdered under his feet. It hadn’t rained here for many weeks. By the looks of the dead trees and the empty stream, it might have been months since there was any precipitation. Preparing his speech on the wasteland alone would be enough to convince Avara she needed to get her people off the Earth and seek refuge on another planet. All things considered, Avara is not an easy woman to convince.
The village was a ghost town. Colin found no one on the street, not even a stray animal. It was as if everyone packed up and moved away. Or worse, Colin thought. By the looks of things, it was a fair bet that the tribe had moved on, looking for a new source of food and water. It was hard to believe that Avara would leave this place, since her husband was buried here. But considering everyone looked to her father, Avara might listen to him, and abandon this place.
Colin stopped in the middle of the town square. The ting of windchimes blew steadily in the humid air. He drew a hard breath. The air was heavy, and Colin had forgotten how bad things were on this part of the planet. In his heart, he hoped Avara and her people did move away from here. But when he heard a door closing, he turned to find Avara’s father Norvene.
Haggard, Norvene approached Colin cautiously. The old man was dirty as if he’d been working in the fields. There were holes in the knees of his pants, and some of the buttons on his shirt were gone. His beard was gray and wiry like steel wool, his sandy blue eyes were dull and sad. Norvene raised a hand and jabbed a bony, bent finger in Colin’s direction. “Where is Avara, where is my daughter?”
A breath lodged in Colin’s throat and his brow furrowed. “She’s not here?” he asked.
His finger still raised, Norvene shook his head. When his parched, cracked lips parted again, he said, “She left with you, months ago.”
“She left me, to come back here,” Colin explained. “I assumed she made it back.”
Norvene lowered his finger. His brow knotted and he said in a repeated whisper, “You assumed... you assumed... you assumed.” He cleared his throat, but his voice remained raspy. He asked, “How long ago did you two part?”
Colin rubbed his face, and said, “It’s been several months now.”
Straight-faced, a tear welled in Norvene’s eyes, and he said, “She told me, she did. When she was a little girl, that she wasn’t meant to be here. That she was meant to be someplace else.” He trembled. “She said, she was supposed to be someplace else, be someone else. It was a story that seemed to be idle fantasy. Even when she told me the same thing before her husband died, I disregarded her stories. What kind of a man doesn’t believe his own child?”
Colin didn’t know what to say. How could he explain that the last time he saw Avara she was standing at the entrance of a spatial portal – a gateway between worlds. He thought it would take her home, and he was sure Avara believed the same. There was no way to even try and explain what happened, because Colin didn’t understand it himself.
Colin took a step forward and said, “I don’t know what happened to your daughter, Norvene. I wish I could say something, but I can’t.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Norvene asked.
“I came here to see Avara, I assumed she would be here,” Colin replied.
“I trusted you... and you failed me. Failed me...”
“Norvene listen. Your people can’t stay here any longer. I came here to convince Avara to lead your people off the Earth, to someplace different. Someplace where you can build a new life away from the hardship of a dead world.”
“Earth is our ancestral home, we can’t leave it now, when she needs us the most,” Norvene said.
“Earth needs time to heal, it needs time to reclaim. With mankind off the planet, Earth will mend itself. You know that more than anyone.”
“Where would you take us... to what planet?”
Colin narrowed his vision. His kilt blew in the dry wind.
“You have no new world in which to take us,” Norvene snapped and wheeled around on the balls of his feet.
Colin skirted around the old man and blocked his path, his hands stretched out in front of him, and said, “I don’t have all the particulars worked out. I don’t have a planet picked out, but the Tannadors have excavated many worlds, one of them I’m sure will be fitted for you and your people.”
“The Tannadors? You’ve allied yourself with the High-Born?”
“It’s not what you think Norvene,” Colin tried to explain.
“Is this what has happened to my daughter. Has she become a slave to them?”
“Norvene, so much has happened in the last several months, it would take too long to explain, and even longer for you to understand what has happened. If you would just listen to me.”
Again, Norvene extended his crooked finger, this time jabbing it into Colin’s chest, and saying, “There is nothing you can say that will make me believe you or trust you again. Not until Avara returns and tells me what is going on.” The old man elbowed his way past Colin, pushing him aside.
“Norvene, please.”
“Not until my daughter returns. Until then, your words are just dust on the wind.”
High Earth Orbit
The Space Platform Evergarden
Home of House Everhart
June 28, 2402
The endless paradox of time stared Moyah Everhart square in the face. The interminable period would have been unbearable if it weren’t for her long-lasting friendship with Delta. In the last twenty-five years, the two were inseparable and the young girl had become a woman. Delta was forty-three, and even though Moyah was much older than her, she looked much younger. Time didn’t alter her appearance, but it did alter her outlook on what it meant to be alive. No one should live to be two-hundred and eighty-five years old. And no one should have to wait that long to save mankind from a creature so horrible, that his appearance still gave Moyah shivers, even though she hadn’t seen him for over two centuries.
Delta had become much more than her friend. Taking up the cause to prepare man for a war still forty years away, a war she might not live long enough to see. Yet, Delta put that out of her mind and managed her daily routine of recording birthing records and transporting newborns to the moon facility where they would be raised and trained as fighters.
For over two-hundred years, scientists have worked to improve the human race, to perfect the species. Engineering smarter and stronger humans into the perfect model of mankind. By the time Uklavar would awake from his prison, the army of humanity would be ready to face him.
The Everhart exploration ship, Destiny had been working diligently. Its mandate different from the other High-Born ships. Wherein they were chartered to find wealth for their respected houses, the Destiny was ordered to find weapons, and technology to advance science. It was a fru
itful endeavor, accumulating vast resources overlooked by the other exploration ships. Though Moyah didn’t see every piece of technology gathered, she was informed when other, more opulent artifacts, with potential were uncovered. Her standing order was to have any out of the ordinary objects brought to her for inspection.
The cask was one such item. It was brought to her after a dig on a planet designated Kepler 212. The planet had been disregarded by the other houses for its lack of materials and resources. It was desolate, where all forms of civilization had been leveled to rubble and ash. The casket was a box twenty-four inches by twenty-four inches in diameter and reported to be found sitting alone in the center of the remains of a large city.
Left alone with the item, she wanted to study it by herself. There was too much at stake to allow just anyone to know of the part the casket will play in the future – her plans needed to be kept secret, and not even her confidant, Delta needed to know the origin surrounding the casket.
The box had the Z symbol in the center of it, surrounded by dozens of other markings. But the Z, was all she was concerned with. She’d seen the casket before, on Uklavar’s planet in the custody of Professor Charles Long, who Moyah knew had been born four years ago, to Amanda and Alexis Long. Unknown to anyone, the Long family had been under constant surveillance once Moyah determined who they were.
Moyah’s link to the future was Charles Long, she knew he came into possession of the box prior to his arrival on Kepler 369. She would make sure he would never get it. If she could prevent him from figuring out its secrets, perhaps Uklavar would never awake. For a time, she considered having him killed, but history would find a way to prevent that, or at the very least, someone would take his place. Besides that, she couldn’t live with the idea of her being the murderer of a baby.
If she could make slight alterations to the future, perhaps the war she prepared for, could be averted. “I can’t let you fall into the hands of anyone, not until we have past the event that woke the beast,” she whispered. She rubbed her hands over the casket. “Whatever secrets you may hold, are best left untold.”
Suddenly, the casket exploded in a flash of brilliant light. It branded the back of Moyah’s eyes, and she threw her arms up over her face. Buckling to her knees, the light bled through the creases of her arms. The brilliance overwhelming, the clarity immaculate.
“You’re tampering with forces best left to the nature of the universe,” a woman’s voice echoed from inside the casket. “You have one task, Moyah Everhart, prepare the Earth for the coming of Uklavar.”
“But I can prevent his arrival, if I keep the casket...” Moyah moved her arms away from her face. Though the light was still powerful, she managed to clear her vision enough to see the image of... “Azalum...?”
Azalum, the high priestess of the Cosmea, stood in front of Moyah. Her brilliance burned like a star in the night sky. “You might delay it, but Uklavar is becoming stronger by the year. Soon he will release himself from his prison without the help from the people of Earth. They need to be aware of his coming. You are not the only means to his downfall. You all have to work together if he is to be stopped. Do you understand?”
Reluctantly, Moyah nodded her head. For two centuries she had worked toward one goal, fight the horned beast. Making sure the casket fell into the right hands, went against everything she believed, but she understood the implications of her inactions. With nervous tension in her voice she said, “I will make sure the casket gets into the right hands.”
“There is much preparation at hand,” Azalum said. “Uklavar is not your only challenge. Earth is dead, it is well past its time, and those humans living on and around it must migrate. It is time to move the human race out to the stars and leave Earth to heal itself.”
“Migrate, to where?” Moyah asked.
A flash of light from the casket bloomed above Azalum, and five planets appeared. “Of the five planets in this cluster, four are habitable, the fifth, Imperia, is barren and the ancestral world of the Shon’mirah. Humans may settle on any or all of the other four worlds. Time is fleeting, if you are to survive the coming of Uklavar, mankind may have a chance out among the stars.”
Moyah’s blood chilled and she stood, frozen in place. Migrate to space, she thought. “Will the humans entertain such an idea?”
“Moyah, are you alright?” Delta asked from the other room.
Startled, Moyah turned from the cask, but glanced back just as Azalum vanished in a wisp of wind.
Delta appeared in the room a moment later and asked, “Were you talking to someone?”
Moyah fixed her attention on Delta electing to keep what she saw to herself. She told Delta the whole truth about how she came to be trapped back in time, and Delta half believed her. But there was some things Moyah thought was too wild for anyone to believe. Even she didn’t believe it all.
“Have this casket placed in my personal vault and mark it priority A-1.”
“Are you alright?” Delta asked. “You act as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Moyah offered a reassuring smile. Age lines had started to crease Delta’s face. But she saw in her longtime friend that innocent girl that used to bring her clean linen.
“I’m fine,” Moyah replied. “I’m becoming more anxious than ever, especially since we are nearing my time. I’ll be born in ten years, how odd will that be, to know I’ll exist twice? Scientists call it a paradox. An event that could cause irreparable damage to the timeline. What if I am the catalyst, the reason Uklavar escapes in the first place.”
Moyah chagrinned. Not even Azalum could know of what consequences her time displacement could cause.
“Time is always in flux, Moyah. No one can fully predict what will or will not happen. Think of it as a gift, not a curse.”
Moyah gave Delta a smile and asked, “When did you become an expert in time travel?”
“When you sat me down on the edge of the bed that day and told me your story,” Delta replied. “I’ve spent the last twenty-five years learning all I could about the theory of time. You are a catalyst alright. You’ve balanced the scales, so to speak. When this creature arrives, you will have Earth more than prepared.”
Moyah reached out a hand and touched Delta’s face. “What would I do without you?” she asked.
“You’d probably be talking to phantoms, and sleeping with as many men as you could, to fill the void,” Delta responded with a smile in her voice.
“Well, at least I don’t talk to people who aren’t there anymore,” Moyah replied with an equally jovial tone. They shared a laugh, but Moyah’s laugh was laced with worry. The future was always in flux, but she knew what was to come, she knew that history would have to play out, and like a bystander, she would have to watch it unfold, good or bad until she and time collided and the Earth comes face to face with its greatest threat.
The Earth’s Moon
Staging Area for the Army of Man
July 19, 2413
Moyah had yearly visits to the underground silos on the Moon. She liked to see for herself the progress of a project she set in motion two centuries ago. From the moment the first breeder gave birth, to the conception of the first crop of warriors, she had been a part of every step. She watched the first generation of fighters born, saw them train, and then train the next generation and so on and so on. Entire generations would be born and die and never see combat, but their fighting styles, their experience and their abilities would be passed on to the next set of fighters. With each generation, mankind became better, their DNA tweaked just enough by the scientists to make the warriors of man the perfect example of genetic engineering.
In less than thirty-years the troops would be called on to fight a war destined to come. The idea of Uklavar was drilled into the soldier’s head from the time of their birth until they died. All they lived for was to fight, to fight and kill. By the year twenty-four-forty-two the army of man would be the perfect killing machine.
It had been a long st
ruggle and building the pretense that the slaves were bred for servants, hid the real reason of their creation. Sadly, some of those born would never get the chance to train, to fight and to preserve humanity. Their duty was just as important. They were the ruse that kept the High-Born none the wiser. Though it was true that the slaves were treated less than human, their worth was priceless.
Moyah stood in the observation pavilion looking down on the exercise chamber. The ornate room was well lit, and broken up into different sections, each containing unique styles of combat training. Hundreds of men and women were engaged in continuous drills, from hand to hand combat, to handheld weapons training. From sparring androids, to live targets. Each section blazed with activity.
Moyah glimpsed Delta standing at her left. Her longtime friend looked despondent and withdrawn. “Aren’t they impressive?” Moyah asked.
Delta nodded but didn’t give a verbal reply.
Before Moyah could ask Delta, what was wrong, the general to her right replied, “There are fifty training facilities just like this one all over the moon, Milady. All have constant training exercises going around the clock.”
“It’s barbaric,” Delta said under her breath.
Moyah ignored her friend and asked the General, “If need be, how many soldiers could go into combat right now?”
With pride, the general replied, “We have five-hundred and fifty thousand soldiers ready for combat today, Milady. By the time we reach our ordered due date, we estimate we will have seventy-nine to eighty thousand soldiers ready for battle.”
Delta huffed and turned away.
Moyah grimaced and asked, “And transports?”
“We are laying the keels to seven more attack warships this week,” the general said and threw out his chest.
Turning back around, Delta said, “Can I ask something?”
“Of course,” the General replied.
“What’s your name?”
Silence...
“It’s a simple enough question,” Delta said. “What’s your name?”
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