Aurona, page 1
AURONA
BB Prescott
© 2019 BB Prescott
Aurona
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Elm Hill, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Elm Hill and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
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Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018966975
ISBN 978-0-310103707 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-0-310103714 (eBook)
Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook
Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.
Table of Contents
Book One: THE JOURNEY
Prologue:
Chapter 1: THE GALAXY ROOM
Chapter 2: SEEDS
Chapter 3: THE ROBE
Chapter 4: DECEPTION
Chapter 5: DOORS
Chapter 6: MAROONED
Chapter 7: JOURNEY
Chapter 8: THE HOLOSPHERE
Chapter 9: INCIDENT IN QUARANTINE
Chapter 10: THE PODIUM
Chapter 11: THE SHIELD
Chapter 12: THE KEY
Book Two: THE PLANET
Chapter 13: KIDNAPPED
Chapter 14: SOLUMBRA
Chapter 15: THE CITY
Chapter 16: PLANET OF LIGHTS
Chapter 17: PARADISE
Chapter 18: AERONAUTAS AND ANCHORPLANKS
Chapter 19: RAZAH
Chapter 20: SPYRINS
Chapter 21: METAMORPHOSIS
Chapter 22: THE STORM
Chapter 23: PRIMA
Chapter 24: MESEO
Book Three: WARPING TIME
Chapter 25: CRISIS
Chapter 26: THE ISLAND
Chapter 27: EVACUATION
Chapter 28: THE TOMB
Chapter 29: THE POWER
Chapter 30: MIND GAMES
Chapter 31: THE UNEXPECTED
Chapter 32: ZERAN
Chapter 33: WARPING TIME
PROLOGUE
White … blinding white. A translucent brilliance of crystals swirled in the air, obliterating the horizons. As daylight washed across the strange landscape, the small planet’s hot sun made both temperature and wind rise rapidly. Out in the middle of this vast plain of nothingness, the vague outline of a lone figure stirred and then disappeared under the rapidly accumulating drifts of powder.
A gloved hand lifted weakly. With great effort, a young man rose to one elbow and raised his head. His helmet glinting brightly in the cruel sun, he stared into a blank void: land and sky had merged as one into a total whiteout.
As his consciousness slowly returned he took in a few shallow breaths, wincing at a painful rattle somewhere deep in his chest. His mind swirling, he began to go through the possibilities, trying his best to reason it out: yes, that was it, his rebreather unit was malfunctioning. Struggling to remember the controls, he activated his head-up display with a few muttered commands. A bright schematic lit up, his e-helmet rotating on its axis, the inner workings showing transparently. As the back came into view, he drew in a sharp breath. “Oh no,” he scowled. “Where’d that huge dent come from?” Just under the surface, the transfer membranes of his life-giving cyborg lungs were laid out in millions of delicate, atom-thin sheets. Looking like a dark bruise in the center, a large section had been mashed out of commission.
With a groan of frustration, he scrolled quickly through a glowing tapestry of readouts. Almost alive and self-aware, the tempered thermoglass auto-darkened to let his eyes focus on the words. “You’re kidding,” he muttered, “it’s way below fifty percent capacity?” He coughed, this time tasting blood. Fighting a wave of panic, he forced himself to take shallower breaths. Suddenly, two lights blinked on. His vision was beginning to swim as he struggled to focus on a pair of small, flashing bar graphs crawling relentlessly up the side of the screen. The temperature was rising at a phenomenal rate and the pedometer revealed that he’d wandered close to seven miles.
“Huh? I-I don’t remember walking anywhere….” He shook his head in confusion. “And speaking of where, where in blazes am I?” He cleared the display to look outside and recoiled at the overwhelming brilliance. “Whoa! Way too much light!” Using the helmet’s alternate chin pad sequence, he tapped down the intensity. “Better,” he muttered, “but what’s all that awful, screeching static in the background?” He cupped a gloved hand over his earpiece and immediately got his answer: the howling storm of silica crystals had been hissing against the audiodomes, amplifying into a deafening roar. Scrolling quickly through a few more menus he found ‘Audio,’ and then tapping his chin decidedly, he clicked it off. Silence washed over him like a sheltering blanket. “Ahh, thank God. Maybe now I can think!” Stiff and sore, he pushed up with his elbows.
Something seemed to be holding him back. “Huh?” He tugged on his arm again, testing. Yes, it was definitely caught on something. Digging with his free hand, his probing, gloved fingertips felt something like a thick steel cable looped tightly around his wrist. His heart hammering, he cleared away the white silica powder to look closer. Frosted with crystals, a sinewy gray-green coil was wrapped tightly around his wrist.
“What in the world is this thing? Some kind of a snare?”
He braced his feet and yanked upward with all his might. Nothing moved: the cable felt like steel. “I’m-I’m trapped? No way!” He clenched his teeth and pounded on the coil with his free hand, his labored breathing rattling loudly. Suddenly an annoying buzzer sounded and a warning light pulsed a harsh neon yellow, dead center in his head-up display. “Crud!” He panted. “Rebreather’s totally maxed out now. Gotta calm down, gotta think rationally....” His head swimming, he paused to catch his breath, his gloved hand resting lightly on the coil.
Unexpectedly, there was a shudder under his fingertips. As he jerked his hand away, the coil started to undulate, tightening, loosening and writhing like a serpent. “It can’t be!” He gasped, his heart thudding loudly. “Th-this thing’s alive?”
The buzzer was now howling. He gritted his teeth in the din, the back of his head pounding viciously and his vision swimming from the lack of oxygen. “No, no,” he gasped. “Please, not now; I can’t black out now! Gotta conserve energy or I’m a goner!”
Steeling himself and gathering his wits, he forced his body to calm down, to lie absolutely still. Shortly, the coil gave a final shudder. It didn’t seem to be pulling him under; it just lay there, clamped tightly around his wrist. He exhaled, sweat running down his back in rivers. Waiting a few more scorching minutes, he nervously rechecked the bar graphs again. Both the e-helmet and suit were blistering hot, well within the dreaded red zone: he had to do something, and do it quickly.
In a flash, it came to him. Moving slowly, deliberately, he began to shovel out a deep, body-sized depression in the soft silica. It didn’t take long to open up a good-sized pit. He slid down carefully into it, pulling handfuls of the powder over him. Yes, it was definitely cooler in the hole, blissfully cool. With the howling wind assisting, it didn’t take long to get completely buried. With a series of voice commands, he sent his rebreather’s twin-tubed snorkel snaking up to the surface to scavenge the thin atmosphere’s limited oxygen/nitrogen content.
As absolute quiet enveloped him and the pain in his head ebbed away, he began to vent, his eyes tearing up in frustration. “So some kind of creature’s got me trapped, but where? Where in blazes am I? How’d I get here? The gravity’s weak, so I gotta be on a fairly small planet, but how…?” There seemed to be an insurmountable wall: no amount of logic or reasoning could cross it. “And what’s wrong with me? I-I can’t remember a thing!” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Was it that blow to my head?” He struggled to piece something, anything together, but to no avail. With a shudder of resignation his exhausted, battered body finally gave in.
He slipped away. Distant memories of his childhood poured in like a great wave flooding his mind, followed by visions of a torrid jungle, torrential rain, and swirling mists….
Chapter 1: THE GALAXY ROOM
Driving sheets of rain were blurring the peaks of the distant mountains. The odd, jagged ring of spires had eroded almost beyond recognition over the eons, but still guarded their hidden world: a lush, flat plain of fertile volcanic soil several miles in diameter. As shadows dimmed, a deep rumbling shook the earth. The chattering jungle creatures grew still, apprehensive.
In a rush, a storm spilled into the caldera of the dormant volcano. Flashes of neon slit the leading edge of the clouds, deafening peals of thunder bellowed out of the darkness, and a moving wall of wind and rain caught the palms broadside, ben
The deluge was over in a few hours. With stifled growls, the storm clouds reluctantly slid their long, black cloaks from the distant watercolored peaks. As the eternal tropical sun burned a great hole through the swirling vapors, a sudden, breathtaking shaft of light focused downward onto a muddy stream swollen far over its banks. The skies grew clearer, late morning mist lifted to the jungle canopy and stillness settled in with the heat of the day.
Far away, over the rush of cascading water, the effervescent melody of a child’s laughter embellished the thunder’s deep, rolling bass. It drew closer, weaving a brightly colored thread of sound through the hushed gray-green tapestry. Vibrant, alive, the cheerful echoes resonated strangely out of place in the lost valley; indeed, man hadn’t seen this part of the island continent in centuries.
Strange sounds began to come from the tangled underbrush: an odd, static crackling and a low electrical hum. Puzzled, the creatures listened intently. An apparition slowly materialized in the shadows: silently, furtively, gliding a few feet off the ground, a bullet shape with two figures on it poked around a primeval-looking tangle of cycad palms. The soft, rhythmic staccato sound of wet branches slapped against a sleek, hard surface, and then stopped. The shadowy bullet shape rotated toward a large clearing.
Suddenly a string of blue lights fanned out along its sides. In a whir of motion it veered, accelerated, then darted out into the open. Flashing brilliantly in the sun’s spotlight, its vibrant electric blue hull blazed to life with the startling iridescence of a morpho butterfly.
“Ple-e-e-e-ease!” The excited squeal of a young boy ascended upward into an impossible, stratospheric register. As the sled whipped through another hairpin turn he begged again, this time reaching a high C sharp. The creatures ducked for cover.
“No way-y-y!” The boy was thrilled and chirped in delight as he held on tightly, his wet, tangled hair flying. His eyes watered up in the wind, making the lush, flowered landscape blur even more. “Grandpa,” he teased, “where’d you learn to drive?”
The old man chuckled to himself as he sat hunched tightly over the controls, maneuvering intently with a set of small, ultraresponsive thumb steerers. The sled’s response rate was far better than he’d ever hoped; it seemed to slice through the jungle’s tangle at almost the speed of his thoughts. He glanced over his shoulder at the boy. Roller coasters had always thrilled him: the faster the better. To push the envelope, he hatched up a quick maneuver to feed his grandson’s need for speed.
Feigning alarm, he threw his hands up in mock helplessness. “Oh no! Wait, what’s this? There’s something wrong with the controls!” The sled stopped, spun 360 degrees, and then quickly resumed its breakneck speed.
Just as he’d hoped, Adam was impressed. “Wow! How’d you do that, Grandpa?”
He chuckled mischievously. “Ever hear of preprogramming? Six seconds to figure out the maneuver, three to lock it in, and one to punch the button!”
The boy’s slow, silent ear-to-ear grin was worth the effort. The old man slowed down, leaned back, and scanned the controls with satisfaction: they were floating along on incredibly sophisticated hardware, once unthinkable fantasy confined to the realm of a visionary’s dreams or a theorist’s tinkering.
“Antigrav, Adam! Who’d have ever figured that an ordinary sphere of polished lead might hold the key? Hey, since our big breakthrough last fall, we’ve had nothing but fun, fun, fun, right?”
The mop of wet, tousled hair nodded enthusiastically.
“Whoa, hold on! Could that possibly be…?” The man abruptly stopped and stood up in the sled, shading his eyes in the glare. “Yes, there it is, the triple mound, dead ahead! Let’s get the coordinates.” He glanced into the sky and then back to his wrist programmer to do a few quick calculations. “Perfect! Quick, quick, grab the maps! They’ll all be distracted! We’re right on time for the release!”
They leaned against each other, peering up into the cloudless sky. Yes, there it was, an unbelievably bright, shining dot, even at this time of day. As the boy dropped to his knees to rummage around for the maps, the old man punched a series of buttons on a small transmitter.
Slowly, majestically, the massive triangular satellite swept by in its endless loop, streaming out a powerful band of encrypted chatter. TriNight had officially been in orbit one year to the minute. Down in Mission Control, its guidance crew was busy celebrating, oblivious to a series of carefully orchestrated, yet stealthy mechanical movements that were starting to show on the monitors behind their backs.
Out on the tips of each of the satellite’s three arms, small half-cylinders were slowly rotating open to reveal a set of polished, thumb-sized mirrorlike spheres. At another signal, the MicroSats were silently released from their rubberized magnetic docks to puff a short distance away from the massive structure. Looking like brilliant specks of dust in the unblinking sun, like dancers in perfect synchronization, they puffed outward and upward at a precise angle. Accelerating to a mile’s distance from each other, they retrofired their strong propulsion units to park in geostationary orbit, positioned in a precise equilateral triangle somewhere above the western coast of New Guinea. As the enormous wedge shape of the mothership slid over the curve of the horizon, the three stowaways rotated their cameras and sensors downward….
“Yuck!” Adam peeled a pile of wet paper off the floor of the sled. Scowling, he tried his best to smooth it out in his lap. “They’re all runny, Grandpa.”
“That’s okay, I think we got it.”
Adam shoved the wad of papers aside to peer over his shoulder. There was a brilliantly glowing screen on the dashboard. “Wow!” He gushed. “Look at that! Your little GPS guys are all cranking out real-time videos!” He pointed, first to the screen then to the humps in front of them. “We must be real close to the….”
Their eyes locked. “The Outpost,” they whispered in unison.
“The MicroSats are pointing the way,” the old man affirmed. “We had to use ‘em to see through this thick jungle. You know, Adam, in spite of the big storm this morning, we’ve actually covered most of the distance! According to my little spheres, there’s less than half a mile to go. Thank God we had our shields up or we would’a gotten soaked.”
“Hey!” Adam pointed through a small opening in the trees. “There’s the muddy river I just saw on the screen! We might be able to go faster along the shore!”
“Good thinking! A perfect detour, roughly in the same direction,” his grandfather grinned, turning the sled toward the water. “But remember, we can fly.”
“Huh?”
“We’re gonna go right down the middle!”
“No, no! Over the water? It’s too wild, Grandpa. W-we can’t….”
“Think again! Anything’s possible, right! I’ll just recalculate our latest coordinates onto the map and we’ll make some serious time! Just watch!” He raised the sled a few feet higher and shot straight out over the swollen stream. Hovering rock-steady for a few moments to adjust the controls, he nosed south on the highway of roiling brown water and punched the accelerator. Like some exotic species of flying fish, they soared over the rock-strewn, muddy surface, the sled pulsing powerfully beneath them.
Adam raised his arms high in the air, yelping in delight. “Wow! This is more like it, Grandpa! We’re really movin’!
The old man chuckled, squinting his eyes in the spray. “Hey, I’m thinking this would be a perfect time to test our autopilot, don’t you?”
Adam rested his chin on the big shoulder, watching intently.
“Here goes,” the old man grinned. “Supertechno stuff!” Slowly, deliberately, he slid the delay control up a few notches to let the circle of Doppler radar chips work in closer sync with the side thrusters. With a soft hum, the double row of fine, blue laser locator beams brightened and fanned out around the sled’s lateral lines as the big internal neodymium magnet gyro sped up several hundred thousand rpm. Things immediately smoothed out: the sled became alive, anticipatory, and almost human in its reactions.
Adam’s sensitive ears picked out another sound: tiny puffs of air were now shooting out all around the perimeter! With short, precise autopulses from a train of valves in the minijet rails, the sled was now a step ahead of the subtlest shifts in wind shear and the ever-changing terrain of the rapids in front of them.
