Fractured Earth Saga 1: Apocalypse Orphan
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Authors: Tim Allen
Tags: #Fiction, #Alternative History, #General Fiction
Apocalypse Orphan
Book One of The Fractured Earth Saga
by Tim Allen
Apocalypse Orphan
Book One of The Fractured Earth Saga
Copyright © 2016 by Tim Allen
First Edition: January, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or using any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialog in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any individuals depicted in stock imagery are models, and such images are used for illustrative purposes or as design elements only.
The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Cover photo credit: Fotolia
Cover design: Tim Allen
Mobi (digital) 978-1-988236-00-1
Paperback 978-1-988236-01-8
Large prt (paper) 978-1-988236-02-5
Hardcover 978-1-988236-03-2
Large prt (hdcvr) 978-1-988236-04-9
Collectors 978-1-988236-05-6
Audio Edition 978-1-988236-06-3
EPUB (digital) 978-1-988236-07-0
Published simultaneously in Canada and the United States
The Warrior of Legend has arrived...
Trulane stared at Wolf with fear and awe. After a long silence, he said, “A legend has been told for many generations throughout the lands. Long ago, we had one moon in the sky, and the blue moon was not there. Then a blazing star came from the heavens and the world was made anew. According to the legend, a traveler will come from the sky in a flying chariot that talks but has no tongue. He will be a giant among men. He will be immortal, and no blade, poison, or claw will mark his skin. Men will follow the traveler as he leads our people to victory over all the kingdoms. When the world is under his dominion, he will lead a chosen few to the stars.”
Wolf said to the young man, “That’s a fascinating myth, but I am not that man. Look…” He pulled out his Bowie knife and sliced it across his hand to show he could bleed. Gazing at his hand in stunned silence, he saw no blood, no cut, not even a scratch. He jabbed the knife into the palm of his hand, but it deflected harmlessly and left no mark.
“I…I don’t believe it,” Wolf stammered. “What has happened to me?”
Trulane’s face broke into a broad smile. “
You
are the Spirit Warrior of the legend!” he exclaimed. “You have come at last to lead our people to freedom and victory.”
“No, I am just a man. Please say nothing about this to anyone,” Wolf pleaded. “I know you are excited, but trust me. This can’t get out until I have time to adjust. Promise me, Trulane, as my new friend.” Wolf had a strange, sinking feeling that gave him a chill, and his whole body shuddered.
About the Author
Tim Allen is a 28-year veteran fire captain for the Peoria (Illinois) Fire Department. His writing career began the day he responded to a structure fire. Tim and a fellow firefighter were nearly cooked in the inferno, and his supervisor told him to write a report on the incident. He was so upset by the experience that he left out details and wrote a brief summary that glossed over the terror of that moment. His supervisor felt that Tim's report wasn't detailed enough and ordered him to write a more descriptive fire report.
In the rewrite, Tim gave a highly descriptive narrative of the event. He titled it
Faraday Street
and included vivid details about what he had seen and felt during those two minutes of hell. His boss stated that this report contained too much detail, and it earned Tim a reprimand with the most severe punishment possible: an insubordination charge and a day off without pay.
Over the next few months, word of Tim's
Farraday Street
narrative got around, and the incident flared into controversy. Eventually, the report began circulating among his fellow firefighters, and when several co-workers wanted to read more of his stories, he began writing in earnest. Today, Tim devotes most of his free time to writing, while teaching courses on Hazardous Materials Response, Confined Space, Rope Rescue, and Structural Collapse to firefighters and local businesses.
Tim is currently writing a murder mystery entitled
Tethered
, but his primary love is science fiction. He has nearly a dozen sci-fi novels in development that run the gamut from planetary colonization and aliens to time travel. He also writes horror stories based on well-documented crime reports and true stories.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all my friends for coming over and listening to me drone on about my books. They were kind enough to laugh when necessary and show amazement when asked. I would also like to thank my editor Richard De A’Morelli for his edits, critiques, suggestions, and straightforward criticism. He has taught me so much in the last few months, and I consider him a very good friend. My brother Jimmy, who keeps reading my books, also gets special thanks. I must also mention my son Tim and my daughters Alexandria and Victoria. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Martha Patricia Allen, for giving me the love and support I needed to finish this book. I love you all.
—Tim Allen
- Title Page
- The Warrior of Legend has arrived...
- Part 1 Nomad
- Part 2 The New World
- Part 3 Super Human
- Part 4 The Silver Knight
- Part 5 Love’s Triangle
- Coming Soon: Syns of an Iron Wolf
Through space and time my path has led,
Across infinite miles I have sped,
No planet has beckoned to become my home
Forever wandering, I remain alone.
I’ve never stopped to wipe my feet,
I’ve never found that life so sweet,
But through the eons I have seen
What finally belonging can mean.
No longer traveling to and fro
To far out places no one knows,
I’ve seen the faces changed by time
And mystic wonders that warp my mind.
Now I have returned to see you again,
Meet me smiling as a friend.
For I may threaten your world’s sky,
Or I might quietly sail on by,
To travel deeper into the black,
But mark my words…I will be back.
-Commander Orlando Iron Wolf
Part 1
Nomad
Chapter 1
January 31, 2025
T
he early morning light was brilliant, illuminating the heavens in a way most humans have never seen. The sky, devoid of an atmosphere, yielded a vision that was so clear it seemed it could shatter like fragile glass. In this crystal-like moment, Commander Orlando Iron Wolf was hovering 255 miles over the earth on the International Space Station. He had been assigned to the ISS by NASA to oversee a team of research scientists working on various assignments.
Wolf peered out the thick window as he finished his shift. The final orbits of the day were about to be completed. This day had started just like all the others. The current crew consisted of two botanists, two physicists, one biologist, and Wolf floating through the heavens, observing the planet Earth and doing mundane chores and experiments to keep themselves busy. The scientists had left Earth months ago from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) capsule. The rocket belonged to a private company, and NASA leased it to deliver new workers and supplies to the station. NASA had found it was cheaper to let someone else do the dirty work of moving people from Earth to the station—no ships, no maintenance, no fuel. Most of the expenses had been reduced by half, allowing for other project funding and making many NASA scientists exceedingly happy.
A few weeks earlier, the crew had been scanning an area in deep space near the red hypergiant VY Canis Majoris, which had already ejected half its mass and was surrounded by a reddish-orange nebula cloud. Against this bright background, a small shadow—a pinhole in the nebula’s light—had drawn the crew’s attention. The discovery had been placed on the back burner until yesterday when Wolf gazed through one of the ISS telescopes and noticed that the “pinhole” was larger and seemed to be growing. He fed the readings into the computers, and the instruments confirmed what appeared to be a large comet or asteroid moving at a high rate of speed towards the earth’s solar system.
He peered through the optical telescope and adjusted the filters to block some of the light from the hypergiant’s glow. There it was. He looked away and then back over the same area. The anomaly was still there. It seemed remarkable to him that something so far away could be viewed with such a low-powered telescope, and he reasoned that it must be enormous. Tapping the communications module, he said, “Wolf to Command, do you read me?”
A bored, male voice came over the radio. “Yes, Wolf, we read you.”
“I want you to look at grid fifteen. Look closely at VY Canis Majoris. There’s a pinpoint of a shadow on its lower hemisphere in the nebula cloud. It’s the anomaly I reported two weeks ago. I’ve been monitoring it. It’s growing larger and has moved from the spot where I first detected it. I’ve fed all my current readings into the mainframe, but the computers up here have gone crazy, and warning lights are going off every few minutes. Can we have them turn the Hubble?”
“Turn the Hubble?” A long pause, then: “That’s a little extreme, don’t you think, Wolf?”
“I’m telling you, something is out there, and it’s getting bigger and brighter.”
“Oooh, little green men coming to get you…you got a gun in space?” laughed Charlie Richards, NASA’s current mission director.
“Charlie, I’m serious. Have someone turn the Hubble or get the WISE explorer, Kepler, or the New Horizons to scan the area. We need to move those expensive pieces of shit into that sector to see this thing because whatever it is, it’s coming fast.” Wolf said with a sense of foreboding, not realizing that moving the satellites was harder than just flipping a switch.