Nova: Episodes: Survivalism

NOVA: EPISODES

SURVIVALISM

SHAAWEN E. THUNDERBIRD

NOVA: EPISODES

SURVIVALISM

Copyright © 2012 Justin Achneepineskum.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-4640-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4642-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-4641-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 06/26/2019

Special thanks to

Frank Achneepineskum for funding my dreams

Gina Fusco for helping me make this book better

Jesse Achneepineskum for making the cover art

and Georgia Goetz for believing in me.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1:     Extraction

Chapter 2:     Fractured

Chapter 3:     Asylum

Chapter 4:     Auxiliary

Chapter 5:     Cursor

Chapter 6:     Nativity

Chapter 7:     Catharsis

Chapter 8:     Cataclysm

Chapter 9:     Incursion

Chapter 10:   Conundrum

Chapter 11:   Subterfuge

Chapter 12:   Retribution

Chapter 13:   Obstruction

Chapter 14:   Descension

Chapter 15:   Perseverance

Chapter 16:   Sojourn

Chapter 17:   Collision

Chapter 18:   Incission

Chapter 19:   Coalescence

Chapter 20:   Frontier

Chapter 21:   Animosity

Chapter 22:   Dereliction

Chapter 23:   Contrariety

Chapter 24:   Relinquish

Chapter 25:   Determination

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

We thought we were powerful. We thought we were gods, beings of invincibility. But I can see it painted within my mind. The haunting howls, the screaming flesh, and the ring of flames ending all time. But they didn’t know it would explode. They only knew our sun dimmed out of proportion. But I see it. I see it all, for I am the cursed who brings the foretold.

And they, these so-called scientists, the harvesters of my dreams, stared at the screen in awe that revealed the destruction of their world. Within this petty room, I, the Seer of All Things, was connected to electronics to monitor the sensory readings that my vibrant dreams displayed. Yet he alone, this Colonel Scathers, could not muster his hundreds of reactions under one flow of emotion.

He just stood there, thinking, dreaming. What would he do? Who would he tell? Who would believe the prophecies of what he thought a madman. But this so-called madman was right about everything. He must act. He knows he must. The survival of the world depended on his actions. For if he did not, he’ll suffer the consequences, and that is something he could not live with. Oh no, not him. He’s too important. He must survive so he can die in vain.

As of this moment, he puked, this project is now classified. No one is to discuss this beyond this room.

The coats are in wonder. The coats are in terror, for never before did they imagine the end. They wondered if it was true. They wondered if it was lies. But all of them knew that the force of this word would spread onto the world. That was the concern for the petrified Scathers. Walk he did away from this madness, leaving behind a comet tail of thoughts. Into the corridors with shiver in spine and into the darkness his horrors reside.

Shamest to the one whom would tell it to all.

*         *         *         *         *

But shamest be not on the balcony of the saints. The immaculate Scathers had visited a home, a home that resided on top of a tower, a tower that viewed the last of the world. But the first he told was one he should not tell: the Secretary of Defense defending her secrets. Young she was but intelligent she be. This Valinda of worlds be too beautiful for command.

But Scathers acted with words that were fire; worries galore of the end of the world. Noted she did with concern and with sceptics. Weapons, her thoughts, repelled the incrucial. But sincerity be him of claims he possessed. With voice, with evidence, he presented it forth.

This is the sun’s corona before elaborate alterations and this is the sun after implementation, he spoke. Valinda. We did this.

Deepest in thought, she scanned these claims. Believable or not, we altered the sun. One hundred years after the birth of A.I., humanity already had solar rebirth, a power to de-tensify the rays of our star. But the bravers of beings had to test our volition. They wanted to do what others could not. They wanted a prize to immortalize their souls. They wanted our light. They wanted our sun.

How is this possible? she so bothered to ask.

I don’t know what to tell you, he covered.

Are you trying to play God?

I had nothing to do with this,

Why would you tamper with it? What the hell were you thinking?

That doesn’t matter now.

Matter?! We have eight billion people living on this Earth.

That project was specially classified. Not even the president knew.

Oh, and how will that look that our own president didn’t know what was happening in his own government?!

If congress knew, that project would never have lifted off the ground.

So, you undermined federal policy? What gave you the right?

There’s forty-nine projects with special classification.

Well, we can’t just sit here. I’m going to schedule a press conference.

Without presidential consent?

We cannot keep this contained! People have the right to know!

We’ll get indicted. Shut down for NRSCA investigations. It’ll blow up in a nation-wide scandal and even you don’t want that.

Too angry for reason, the fiery Valinda wanted to thrash out more. She stood there thoughtless, powerless, and highly uneducated in matters like these. Crowd control. Media control. Public order. Such are the reasons for the experienced to be promoted and not for the interests of feminist satisfaction.

We have to go to Congress, reasoned Scathers.

Without scientific evidence, all we have is a Psi-Ops patient spitting out ridiculous claims, she retorted.

Here. Use this, Scathers said as he handed over the folder of sorts. We have to convince them to order a world-wide evacuation.

*         *         *         *         *

Evacuation to where, Valinda? slashed the sceptical Gerow. Oh, he be the fish that out-trouted the seas, razor in mind and reasonist in soul. Doubtful beyond doubtful, the arch of his brow crusaded his concerns.

But the nervous Valinda stood there, unenchanted, before congress in private to decipher her claim. Worry and humiliation crept up into her face, but proceeded she did, the proceedings in vain, on the holographic display.

Gliese 581d on the constellation Libra, she muttered. The only known extrasolar planet with potential habitability. Only twenty light years away. If we funded NASA to conduct a New World’s Mission and with our terraforming technology, we could—

—could what, Valinda? stabbed Gerow. Cast us off to Neverland? Land us on an alien planet? Repopulate the human race? Do you even realize the financial pressure this will have on our economy? To build massive fleets of shuttlecrafts to evacuate the human race based on a prophecy is what, Valinda?

But response evaded her.

Implausible! twisted Gerow. No government will ever agree to launch a planet-wide campaign to leave the planet, our jobs, our homes, our foundations on this Earth that we’ve spent years building and enhancing, based on the paranoid delusions of a madman’s prophecy that probably won’t even happen!

Pity. Not that I, the one, had cared much for the human race. But the lovely Valinda did. No, she just stood there bruised and defeated in a room of empty reason. Not one of them were even close to being convinced of my dearest claim. Let the world play god. Let the people do creed. Let the immaculates paint themselves from the existence of time.

Pity for the ones deceiving their own.

*         *         *         *         *

But rumours of the Nova expelled onto the world. Some claimed it a doom say. Others believed. The ridiculous scientific world exploded debate. Media hosts harvested the mania into greater proportions. Coverage upon coverage filled the televised realm and this dark paranoia infected them all.

They were watching, waiting, all of them in a gasp-filled world to be so denied. But that didn’t happen. They know it to be true and a great tidal of impending doom washed over our world.

But a Nova’s a lengthy process! It takes decades to mature!

I trust the feds. If they knew, they’d do somethin’ about it.

It’s a fear tactic to drive people to buy consumer products.

Suddenly, there’s all this Nova talk on the eave of election?

The government would save their own asses before helping us.

I don’t know what to do. Was crying all day. Called my mom, my ex.

Like rats escaping fire. So disgusting.

Yet, political badgerings became so intense that the presidency responded to a petition of sorts. So many gathered around televised screens in bars, city streets, holographic displays to witness the thunder from the president’s word. So many gathered before the whitening house. The whole world watched as the well-pressured leader marched to the podium — how forced he was.

What we are witnessing here today is a historic event, a mouthy reporter spattered. The president is making an urgent response to the nation-wide petition after insiders leaked out credible documents claiming our sun potentially going supernova. Rumours escalated the validity of these statements for months and with no government response declaring these documents a hoax. It can only be speculated that these rumours are true.

Many people spoke of the end of the world and many people are afraid, spoke the president. Life, as we know it, is a precious thing. The joy of which should not be robbed of by fear. So I urge the nation to exercise rational scepticism to these claims. It was suggested by—

—a flash of light that you were all going to die. A light so blinding that even closed eyelids roasted. Oh, how the beautiful scream of a dying star opened up the doors of heaven, spanning its arms of light outward as though to collect all the billions of petrified souls with one warm embracing hug.

But that is not how they saw it. They stopped. They screamed. They cursed damnation but for their supposed god.

Jack! Turn it off! Turn off the damn camera! yelped the reporter. And thus, there was complete radio silence; no cry for help, not even a whisper. The dread of spiritual silence encaptured reality, as sand and rock alone gave no home to the warm pattering of feet. They could’ve prevented this. They should’ve listened. But what did I know? I was just a madman, The Seer of All Things.

CHAPTER 1

EXTRACTION

Oblivion; a void of non-existence where all things were forgotten. Therein lied no suffering, no conflict, and no madness in such a place. That was how he liked it. It was a place of peace, of tranquility, of divine absolution with no discord that brooded into this nirvana, until a cryptic voice invaded.

Sentient being, the voice unleashed. Heed my voice. Are you operating? Are you conscious?

He was now, but he wasn’t even aware of his own existence, nor had concepts of self-awareness conceived. He could not distinguish the strangeness of the word, for conscious thought itself eluded. His mind forgot but his thinking’s self-reacted, sparking to life the usage of language. But why a voice spoke to him from the depths of pure emptiness he did not know.

He urged his eyelids apart. Frosty crystalline fragments on his eyelashes chipped apart and cold air stung his eyes. His voice rattled out a birthing gasp. His warm breath contorted into a swirling mist. Sound, still distorted, puzzled all hearing except the beatings of his own heart.

He was awakening; waking up in a cold ovular chamber that suspended his body’s functions. But amidst his own revival, instincts intervened from the terror of red eyes.

He’s conscious, said the red eye’s mechanized voice.

The surface’s under attack. We have to move, commanded an authoritative voice.

The red eyes pulled away and a disco of flashing lights flickered through the capsule’s circular window.

Whoa! Like, right now? said another muffled voice. While them drippin’ wet popsicles’ still thawin’ next to live wires?

It was hazy. It was blurry. He saw some figures, but couldn’t make out what they were. Were they people? Were they beings? He couldn’t tell in the mist of silhouettes.

The two voices continued to argue but he couldn’t comprehend. His eyes were still recalibrating, but managed to focus on the frenzy of rushing people. They were fixing things, helping people from other ovular capsules.

Listen. spoke the figure of authority.

A device was adjusted. The volume amped up. Radio traffic blared. He heard gunfire, screaming, explosions, and amplified voices overlapping with tension.

Don’t you think this stands out as a little more important, mate?

Then, what ye gonna be doin’ with all them?

The main officer huffed a sigh, then glanced at the situation. The officer looked away, succumbing to the argument and the eight-foot-tall cyborg pushed a button that opened up the capsule’s doors.

The pod expelled him out and he stumbled to the grated floor. His lean, half-naked body dripped with dew. His limbs shivered. His heart pounded. His heaving stiffened, all that can be attributed to the cold air’s mighty grip on his body. It was crushing him, electrifying his skin as his body struggled for stability.

Help him at least, a field medic scuffed while blanketing him.

He embraced the warmth as though a divine salvation from the cold. The medic flashed a light in his eye while taking his vitals. He squinted. The light itched at his cornea.

Yet his mind raced with questions. Who was he? Where was he? Who are these people? What are they doing? But memories still eluded from an intense brain freeze he was having.

The hell is happening? said a blonde-haired patient.

Look. Okay, just relax. Okay? We’ll get to your questions soon, replied an another medic while taking vitals.

You! directed the commanding officer, besieging his whole view with the barrage of his presence, Name and credentials!

Those commanding words stung him with offense. He didn’t even realize the officer had an eye patch until then. But as he called forth upon his memories, he first remembered lights zipping by vertically.

*         *         *         *         *

He was in a room. It was small, octagonal shaped, an elevator. Another man stood by. They were heading down. It was miles beneath the surface. He remembered the man’s name: Marcovian. He wore a lab coat. He was a scientist.

Yeah, sorry, these rides are long, commented Marcovian. Military secrets and all. Name and occupation, please?

Logan Lee Lansard. Street magician, he spoke.

*         *         *         *         *

Street magician? The eye-patched soldier snapped him out of reality.

Rampras, they’re all over us! hinted a voice on the radio. What the hell’s taking you so long?

Who’s attacking? He thought, while still recalibrating the concept of a name. He was confused. Things didn’t make sense. But as the nodes in his brain wired together the aspects of identity, it came to him in no time. But, he was still confused. He tried to shake it off, but his hibernation sickness made it difficult.

So, he distracted himself. He glimpsed around at the now visible room; metal-plated walls, grated flooring, pipelines protruding and travelling along the ceiling, all of which signified that they were in a scientific facility.

The room’s soldiers were equipped with metallic-plated body armour, embedded photon shoulder lights, and computerized assault rifles.

Twenty-two malfunctions. Seven inoperative. Twenty active capsules overall, reported a female soldier on the comm system.

We’re approaching zero hour. Evacuation is imminent, consulted Samiren XIII, the eight-foot-tall cyborg. Samiren, by designation and the thirteenth unit of his design model, was all in rags except for the pistol-like device on his waist and a turret embedded on its left arm.

I know, mate! growled Reginald Rampras IV, the one-eyed captain of Beta Squadron. His rough voice alone commanded authority, but his eye patch created wonders of his war history.

What month is this? rasped the nauseated Logan, but was neglected.

Alright, got the last one, cappy, said Calis as he got up off the floor. Though nothing was special about his clean appearance other than a growing stubble, he was Christopher Calis, the team’s lieutenant and technician.

Where’s Martin? said Rampras.

He’s being a stereotype again, said Calis.

Outside the room, irritating screeches pierced ears. Rampras peeked out to see. Complexed, robust equations were scratched obsessively onto the corridor’s steel panels. Its writer was of oriental origin.

Martin! barked Rampras.

Martin flinched. His elbow banged into his rifle leaning on the wall. The rifle fell over and bounced on the ground. Bullets snapped out and ricocheted down the hallway, leaving behind an array of homeless sparks.

Everyone covered while Samiren idly stood by unaffected.

Ever hear of a friggen safety switch? Calis blasted at him.

Get off your damn ass and get the rest ready for evac! roared Rampras.

Martin walked right into Rampras’s face and glared. His left eye and cheek twitched intermittently. His breathing heaved erratically. It looked as though he was going to explode at a moment’s notice.

Maybe, I leave gun here…loaded, hissed Martin.

Grab your gun and get out of my sight, mate! Rampras whispered with equal flames. At first, Martin didn’t respond as though exercising his right to be defiant. After a moment, he turned and left.

Who are you people? muffled Logan with a cough.

Just shut up for a minute, said Rampras as he reached for his radio. How much longer before extract?

We’re ready now, captain! said the voice on the radio.

Good! said Rampras as he turned to the defrosting few, Listen up! The project you were in is terminated. We’re at war! Everything will be explained at Settlement Epsilon. Let’s move out!

Field medics picked up the still-defrosting patients from the ground, hurled their arms around their shoulders, and inched them toward the hallway.

Logan was still disoriented. He wobbled into the neighbouring corridors. He passed Samiren, whose facial features were hidden behind a protective steel-plated mask. He got the sense that Samiren was disapproving of the lag.

Radio traffic sped through the corridor highways with sonic aroma. Logan took in his surroundings. He watched the squad disappear around the corner, then looked around at the darkened facility only lit by emergency lights.

He saw images of faint memories creeping up to the surface.

*         *         *         *         *

They were in a room. Connected to other hallways. Looked the same as the other. But properly lit. He remembered the carpet. It was red. Had fuzzy edges. He remembered the wall plants. Vines. Wall fountains were nearby. They were in a lobby.

Engineering announcement, spoke a voice. It sounded amplified, on intercom. A scheduled maintenance will take place at zero seven hundred hours affecting decks three to five.

Good day, Mr. Kriejzuken, a receptionist said. She was behind a desk. She was blonde, wore a white blouse. She upkept her database.

He saw a scientist. It was Marcovian. He pointed down the hall. Labourers were there. They were hauling a cart. Something was in there: deactivated droids.

They’re two weeks late, complained Marcovian.

Back orders from Cy-Corps, explained the receptionist.

Plug it in the alcoves then, replied Marcovian.

*         *         *         *         *

But Logan could not remember anymore.

Thoughts invaded his mind. Was I a patient? Was I experimented on? Why would I do such a thing? Maybe I had good reasons or maybe just desperate. He didn’t know. He had to know. Logan eased his way around the corner, balancing his own leaning tower of Pisa. Up ahead, Calis consulted a distraught Martin.

What in jeebus has gottin’ into ya? remarked Calis.

It no your business! snapped Martin.

None of my business? Yer peashooter almost poked a hole in my tin can. What’d ya mean it ain’t no business of mine?

Just leave me ’lone! Martin said while rushing off.

The whole corridor tremored. Emergency lights flickered. Debris and ceiling guts flung off and stabbed at the grated floors. Logan lost balance and stumbled to the ground, slamming his elbow into the wall. He groaned. Calis noticed him and helped him up off the ground.

Easy does it there, said Calis.

Sentinel! Sentinel incoming! blared the voice in the radio.

Plough it down!

What’s happening? questioned Logan.

Oh, jus’ yer everyday global apocalypse, remarked Calis.

Logan was shocked. He dared not question more. The haunting overlapping radio traffic spoke for itself. He thought about the world he woke up to, but thought even more about the world he left behind.

As Logan passed the windows of empty laboratories, he recalled faint memories, but were too dim to image out.

Area 77 is the central source of psionic research, said the memory of Marcovian’s voice. The Lancelot Program is the one you’ll be admitted.

The Lancelot Program, he thought. He arched his brows, thinking, scraping up from the edges of his mind of what that meant. But he couldn’t grasp it. He could not remember upon command.

Logan and Calis continued on, travelling through several intersections. Then the fluorescent emergency lights flickered. Darkness invaded for momentary lapses. All but Samiren’s red eyes up ahead was sucked into the darkness.

A deep growl rumbled from the undertones of the silence. Calis and Logan glanced about. Nothing was around. It sounded distant, several floors away.

Calis to Rampras. Did ya hear that? said Calis to his radio.

Copy, replied Rampras on the radio.

We expectin’ trouble?

We still don’t know what kind of facility this is, mate.

Ever get the feeling of eyes on the back of your head?

Logan looked back. Nothing was there. No one had even said it. It was a memory, a glimpse of another hallway in the same facility that once was.

*         *         *         *         *

He was in a hallway. Windowed, laced with wire mesh. He walked to the glass. Looked down. Rooms were below. Boxed in like cubicles. People were in them. Wore white regalias. They were doing things. Tests. Experiments. But with each other. They were training… training their minds.

A man stood beside him. It was Marcovian.

The back of the head’s best for reception. The front’s for transmission, explained Marcovian. It takes years to grasp basic empathy.

Logan looked down. Saw two patients. One was sketching. The other sat nearby. Had his back turned. The other concentrated, then drew what came to mind. He was reading him, that other guy. He was grasping images.

*         *         *         *         *

Langoliers! We got Langoliers incoming!

That ripped Logan outta of his memory. They had caught up with to a patient-soldier traffic jam at a four-way junction. One junction door was sealed. A technician was already working on the door’s circuitry. Patient whispers increased as the impatient Rampras spattered commands on radio.

Target the Langoliers first. They’re shield generators and rapid repairers of on-field A.T. Units.

The surface squadron will have ninety seconds to alternate their position before arbalest bombardment, Samiren stated.

Rampras took note of that with a single look, Gun them down and loop them south. Then re-establish the visual shield along the trench lines once the arbalest finished barraging.

Copy! acknowledged the soldier on radio.

That’ll hold them off for awhile, Rampras said as he pushed people aside to attend himself to the mechanic’s presence. Multanis, I told you to pack it up.

The balding middle-aged soldier, Doctor Multanis, who was working on the wall’s circuits, graced out a frustrated sigh.

Deputizing a multi-talented physicist to a technician to disable sophisticated automated defense grids is not my way of celebrating shore leave, whined Multanis. If we can’t disable these grids, Captain, I assure you, we’re in for a rough ride.

A loud crunch contorted the metal door. It twisted and warped out of shape. Then an unseen tug ripped it off its sockets. The door snapped and flipped for the crowd. Everyone clammered, but the metal slab drifted to a glide. The ten inch cast-iron steel slab was suspended above them, the crowd of awe-filled eyes, then floated to the feet of a mysterious woman.

Logan nearly gasped. She was so beautiful. Her dark, handcrafted leather gown accentuated the pale nature of her skin. Her luminous eyes, piercing through the shield of her raven black hair, spoke with intense insanity. But her lips whispered with the exquisite sensuality of a seductress. She, however, was Vanis, the squad’s lead psionicist.

You’re late, remarked Rampras.

Vanis sneered at him.

Okay, what was the point of that flashy business? asked Calis.

The system already had this facility quarantined when we came in, explained Multanis. Turning on auxiliary power reactivated the containment procedures. Either we deactivate these grids or we disassemble every containment door we come across.

Mmm. To sooth the chastity of virgin doors, hinted Vanis.

Calis looked at Vanis awkwardly as though threatened.

There’s no time. We have to move right now, said Rampras.

Just wait, cried Multanis. I can still—

—Rampras ripped him off the floor and glared straight into his eyes. Multanis was easily two hundred pounds. Adding that with an extra one hundred pounds of metal plates, Rampras easily shocked everyone in his group.

We’re moving right now! growled Rampras.

Multanis couldn’t believe he just did that. He gazed at Rampras in total disbelief at his outburst. But given that his soldiers were dying on the surface, Multanis could easily understand his stress.

Rampras let him go. Multanis grabbed his assault rifle, stood up, and gave a blank stare at Rampras. Rampras seemed glad that nothing more came out of that. He led the silent squad on down the ripped open doorway.

The squad trudged forth through several corridors before coming to a room. It had rail walkways between four large conversion cylinders of a hydrogen compression room. Grime-stained danger signs with pictographic symbols patterned the walls. This place seemed like a water, oxygen, or even a power plant that provided and distributed to the rest of the facility.

"C-Squad.