Fighting the Storm: Mogs and Muses Book 1, page 1
Table of contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Prologue
Allen Telescope Array
Hat Creek Radio Observatory, Hat Creek, California, U.S.
2276AD 0400
Alexander Fluter sat back in his chair with a groan after giving the screen in front of him a glance. Six hours into his twelve-hour shift, he yawned before contemplating a run to the galley to get something caffeinated.
"Hey, Henry. I'm going to run down to the kitchen and brew up some coffee. You want a cup?"
After his call over the radio, Alex examined the screen in front of him again while he waited for the tech on shift to answer his call
"Don't you have a coffee pot in the room with you, Alex? If you wanted to stretch your legs, you don't need to call me to do it."
Chuckling as he listened to Henry's playful tone before he keyed up the radio again, Alex cleared his throat to put just the right amount of seriousness in his response.
"Well, if Dayshift had refilled the go-go juice before they left, I might have some to make. Now, smartass, do you want some nectar of the gods or not?"
Henry's bark of laughter and "touché" before his firm "yes" was followed by the radio in his hand going silent. With his answer given and another yawn driving his need for said go-go juice, Alex rose to his feet and got moving. Remembering to set up a recording to examine once he returned a little belatedly, he stopped a few feet away from his seat.
Once he groaned playfully, chastizing himself for almost letting something great pass by unnoticed on his watch, Alex tapped a few keys with a smile.
With the signals outside being recorded now while he was gone, he whistled a half-remembered tune while he walked toward the door. Sliding his radio, also tied to the screen in his pocket, he chuckled at Henry's jab and stretched his legs good and hard with a smirk on his face.
The nearly three-hundred-year-old Allen Telescope Array, or ATA, was one of the last that S.E.T.I. had kept operational. Curtailing global warming in the early 2030s had turned most of the world's focus from the deep beyond to keeping the little blue marble habitable for later generations.
Alex had fought tooth and nail to get this job, turning down several more lucrative offers that would have given him more money to spend than the five hundred currently in his bank account. Reaching the galley, he gave one of the cooks prepping for the next shift a wave.
"It's already started, Alex. I know how well the day shift keeps you stocked."
It took Alex a moment to remember the cook's name, Sandra, though he returned her smile once he did. Deciding a bit of conversation would help keep him awake long enough to drink the delicious brew, Alex walked over to the woman.
"Need a hand," he asked after he peeked his head into the kitchen.
After exchanging another smile with her, followed by a nod from the brunette, he leaned against the serving window sill to see what he could take off Sandra's plate.
"If you want to pour that flour into the mixing bowl over there, it would help. The other guys are grabbing supplies from storage right now."
Once he was given his arduous task, he nodded with a smile. Expecting some ten-pound bag to lift, dump, and the brownie points that would come after, Alex's eyes widened once he saw the "mixing bowl" Sandra wanted him to fill.
The thing could have fit two of him inside it, and calling the massive thing a cauldron wouldn't have been a stretch.
Once he got over his surprise, he looked at Sandra briefly to see if the woman was serious. Her slight smile made him rethink his initial response. While a bit thin and slightly sweaty at the moment, Sandra's freckled nose scrunched up in amusement over his surprise was a tempting enough sight to get him moving.
With nothing to do but back up his earlier smugness, Alex pulled up his nonexistent sleeves and picked up the equally massive fifty-pound bag of flour. Dumping the bag out while keeping most of his straining to himself, he let out what he hoped was a manly groan once his task was done. Despite his attempt to make the effort look easy, the cards weren't in his favor.
A cloud of white obscured his vision momentarily, and a bit of the flour caught in his throat and spoiled his little show. Coughing up most of a lung while Sandra giggled at him, Alex cleared his throat after a few moments.
"I said in the bowl, not all over you, Alex. Come here. Let me clean you up."
Still trying to be as manly as possible while looking like a bakery's ghost, Alex tried to wave off Sandra's help as his coughing fit made his eyes water. Trying and failing to recover from his flour dunking, the sensation of a warm, wet towel wiping away his tears surprised him for a moment.
What also surprised him was Sandra's face so close to his.
"Thank you for the help, Alex. I would have had to pull out the lift to get that done. Lord knows if that thing would have worked anyway."
Still speechless as Sandra continued to clean him up, Alex managed to squeak out a grumbled "you're welcome" past his itchy throat.
"How has your night been," Sandra asked as the silence between them stretched. Eye to eye at the pretty woman once he leaned down to make her job easier, Alex cleared his throat with a blush.
"Not too bad, still looking for the big one. I doubt it will happen tonight, though. I almost don't want it to. Could you imagine making first contact looking like I lost a fight with the Pillsbury dough boy?"
Despite his nervousness, he cracked a smile when Sandra giggled at his joke. Smiling a bit broader once the woman wiped said evidence of his loss from his chin, Alex decided stretching his legs had been an excellent idea.
The buzzing of his radio against his leg an hour later caused Alex to slap the offending piece of tech, trying to keep him from his enjoyable conversation. His coffee long forgotten, and Henry's complaints about his lack of it silenced with the turn of a dial twenty minutes ago, the alert buzz against his leg was beginning to drive Alex up a wall.
"And Kenith starts school this year, so I'm picking up a few more shifts to pay for supplies."
With no kids of his own, he still chuckled at Sandra's exasperated tone while he watched her place biscuits on a wax paper-covered baking sheet. As clean as he could be, thanks to her tender care, Alex leaned against the serving window outside the kitchen.
He listened as the other cooks chipped in about their kids and school woes while Alex wondered if he might be stepfather material.
Sandra, he found out, had been single for over two years and had taken the job at the ATA when her last one closed down. He had also found out the woman had a bit of the "bug" in her, too, which had caused her to take up the job here.
With more than a little of it himself, the last relationship he had been in had ended once his girlfriend, another S.E.T.I. scientist, had transferred to another better-paying job. Missing their talks on the phone while they stared into the screen upstairs, Alex finally pulled out his radio when his patience ran out.
The jerking movement caught Sandra's attention, and he lifted his hand to wave off her concern. His hand froze, though, still held between them when he saw what the device had been trying to tell him.
"Hey Sandra, let me have your phone number, please."
The big that had made him take this job began to itch, covering his whole body as excitement flowed through him. He still made distracted request, though. From what he had seen so far from Sandra, he wasn't going to let her slip through his fingers. Finding a smile while the urge to rush back to his console warred with his desire to get to know her better, he watched her walk over to him with a confused expression.
"Ok, I guess, here."
The grunt of victory he let out got him another giggle while he fumbled his phone out of his pocket and tapped it against Sandra's. With two wins in his pocket, after he saved her number, his excitement got the best of him, and he kissed the brunette with a broad smile.
He missed the blush that grew on her face when he turned to rush towards the steps leading up to his office. Almost dislocating his shoulder when he slammed into the stairwell door, he heard Sandra giggle again before he recovered and took the steps two at a time. Glancing down at the radio screen as he ran, Alex couldn't believe what he saw.
Clear as day and making its rounds along Jupiter's orbit was an unknown object large enough to warrant another look. It was sparse, but the data on the object informed him that whatever was slowly making its way toward their little blue ball wasn't from the Sol system.
Once he reached his computer to confirm that incredible data, there would be steps that needed to be taken. The first would be confirming the object's extrasolar nature. What would come after, he wasn't sure. There were hundreds of ways their world could go about exploring something that had come from a different solar system or possibly another galaxy.
Those possibilities and more ran unbidden through his mind while he ignored the strain from his exhausting run.
More than ready to begin the moment Sandra had given him her number, his ass had barely touched his chair before his fingers blurred over the keyboard. Looking up periodically at the screen with "unknown object signal" flashing on it, he giggled hysterically.
The search that had lasted centuries for the extraterrestrial and the unknown from outside their planetary system was about to take a leap forward.
The object slipping out of Jupiter's gravity well was almost screaming at the arrays up top that it wasn't just any old piece of rock. The fact that it hadn't been picked up sooner gave its discovery more weight. Sending off a few dozen emails chocked full of data on the object, Alex couldn't help the grin straining his cheeks.
The discovery would make him famous and compensate for the centuries of ridicule for the institute he worked for. Life outside of Earth might be proven with this discovery, and he couldn't wait to see how it looked.
West Palm Beach, FL
34 years later
I lifted my gaze from the sidewalk below me and gave the rapidly growing and glowing cloud cover above me a terrified look. The ringing of my wrist com brought me out of my terror momentarily when I saw "Mom" displayed across the holo screen above it.
Despite my reason for not being at home at the moment, I flicked my finger through the display to answer the call. Relief broke through my anger and sadness almost magically when Mom's face appeared before me.
"Listen, Tyrone, baby. I need you to be calm and do as I say, ok? Ty?"
My usual fourteen-year-old response to Mom's request didn't manifest once I saw the terror she was trying to hide from me. A flash of lightning blinded me for a moment before the deafening thunder that followed made me nod instead of answering. A few miles from home, trying to escape from my grief from Dad's death a week ago, I gave the park behind me a long look before turning back to my mom.
"Good, baby, good. I see you are at the park. Can you get to us?"
I shook my head, answering my mom's question while the rate of lightning racing across the sky above me increased along with the thunder that followed each blinding flash. Glancing around again, hoping for a better place to hide from what was coming, my pulse rose as I realized how exposed I was to that monster.
The Stormdyr that had taken my father from me last week was one of many that were at war with the nations of the Global Confederation or G.C. Our war with them had been going on since before I was born and had remained at a stalemate since day one.
Despite my loss and smiling at the memory of Dad's comment, I couldn't fault the G.C. for failing to beat the elements themselves. That wasn't the whole truth of the matter, though.
Before the discovery of Dr. Alexander Fluter, our world had been one that I wished I could have grown up in. Our fight and the war I had been born into had started only after the Hat Creek Object had passed by Earth twenty years ago.
My sister Allie screamed as another thunder strike landed right by our house, forcing me to focus on my current situation before I found my refuge. Past the vast football and adjoining soccer fields behind the park was my middle school.
The two-story building had been the bane of my existence and one of the reasons that my parents had bought our house. Now, It was my only hope for surviving the destruction the Storm was about to cause.
"I can make it to the school, Mom. I'll hide out in the gen room. It's the closest Storm Shelter. What are you and Allie going to do?"
Speed walking towards my school while I asked Mom my question, I lengthened my stride a little after another lightning strike landed less than a mile away.
"We are in the basement, Ty. Hurry, baby. We will be ok and see you once the Morph comes and takes care of the Storm."
The sound of the Storm Warning horn finally going off after Mom's response made me grumble when I shifted to a slow jog about how useless the thing was. I swiftly shifted to a near-dead sprint when the loud tearing sound that always heralded the Stormdyr's arrival split the air high behind and above me. Taking deep, gasping breaths, I spared a glance behind me while I raced through the football field.
The massive blue, glowing slash in space miles behind me slowly grew as the monster absorbed hundreds of lightning strikes. I watched its enormous head form along with arms and legs, giving off the same blue electric glow and put on some extra speed. Near collapse, as I neared the end of the football field, I still hesitated to end the call with Mom.
My feet pounded against the grass as I ran for all I was worth while I used the sounds of their terrified breathing to keep me going. The thought that if I made it to the Storm Shelter without being smashed and the fervent desire to see my family again forced my wavering vision to focus. I passed through the soccer field a couple of minutes later, and I chuckled when I realized I was more terrified for Allie and Mom than myself when my sister screamed again. Realizing a moment later why, I saw my view of Mom and Allie shake a moment after I caught sight of the Storm falling from its Slash out of the corner of my eye.
The ground rumbling beneath my feet, and the shockwave of sound and air that almost sent me tumbling followed the monster's drop to the ground. Its crackling roar, when it announced its presence, sent an ice-cold chill up my spine and made my heart almost jump out of my throat.
Allie's terrified scream when Mom almost fell over made me want to give up my safe haven and brave the coming destruction to go and help them. Remembering Dad's last message before he was crushed under tons of bricks, the Stormdyr that had killed him knocked over, I forced myself to do as he asked. A grimace filled with fury tore my face in half when I opened the back door to the school. Hating myself for having to choose between saving Mom and Allie or myself, I grumbled, "Take care of your mother and sister for me," with disdain at myself as the sounds of tanks peppering the Storm outside followed me.
Their shots reverberated on the walls around me and followed me as I rushed down the hallways toward the basement of the school. The explosions that followed filled the air outside, and I hoped I was making the right decision.
Despite my desire to rush back, and I almost did when my sister let out a tear-filled scream, I knew I couldn't do anything for Mom or Allie if I got caught up in the Storm's destruction. The floor under me, along with the walls, shifted slightly in time with the Storm's footsteps, and I froze in front of a bank of windows.
My jaw dropped, then clenched in fury as I gazed at the Stormdyr that had chosen to attack my hometown. The massive glowing monster was easily a few hundred feet tall, with a humanoid appearance that sickened me and made my fists clench with impotent rage. Unable to do anything against it, I grunted, cheering the soldiers firing their tank rounds and missiles at the monster, distracting it and me for a few moments. Seeing something that seemed so human crushing homes, businesses, and people under its feet felt wrong in a way that made me want to rush out to fight it myself.
Instead of following that strong desire, I looked at Mom and Allie hanging in the holo screen beside me. Watching my mother holding my sobbing five-year-old sister enflamed the pain I had been trying to deal with at the park.
I made myself move again toward safety as the Storm left a wide swath of destruction in its wake despite the G.C.'s efforts to draw it away to the beach. Taking the steps to the basement, I found in a frantic rush I pulled open the generator room door with much more force than necessary. Surrounded by several feet of reinforced concrete in case of a containment failure, I gave the fusion generator that powered my school a glance.
The aliens known as the Kaldeans had gifted us that technology when they had arrived a few years after the Storm. Though the tall, grey-skinned aliens had tried, losing some of their numbers beside us, the Stormdyr still assaulted our world regularly. With nothing to do but wait in my safe haven, I turned my attention from the shoebox-sized generator on its pedestal to the small desk holding an emergency console that occupied one corner of the small room.
