Kingdoms Away 1: Jorian Cluster Archives
Read Kingdoms Away 1: Jorian Cluster Archives Online
Authors: S. V. Brown
Tags: #scifi, #science fiction, #aliens, #space war, #political science fiction, #human genetic engineering, #science fiction genetic tampering, #science fiction space travel
The Joiran Cluster Archive
S. V. Brown
Copyright 2016 S. V. Brown
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in
any form without permission. This novel is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
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Notes
This novella has been professionally proofread. The
author emphasizes that any mistakes found are due to a few changes
and additions made after the proofing process.
“To err is Human; to Forgive, Divine.” Alexander
Pope, 1711.
Please Read
Thank you for reading this soft science fiction
story. It contains characters who represent all walks of life and
echoes many issues that are currently found on Earth today.
I dedicate my first book to my mother.
Please - check out my website for all downloading
options
http://selinavalenbrown.com/
Man is Wolf to Man (Plautus,
Asinaria)
Correlations in Unexpected
Places
Animalia rise up
Animalia spy
Animalia report
Animalia attack
It is I, Tyerineothia, who commands it
Excerpt from the Joiran Cluster Archives, the
Third Hostility
{[MILKY WAY] [Earth] [Bogotà]
[21/06/2032] [n2˚, w73˚]}
The Earth, once a beautiful jewel in the Milky Way,
was ruined. Pockmarked surfaces on the land, cries of beasts caged
and whipped, and abuses of unimaginable kinds were increasing
exponentially. Al Reos bent down and patted his bush dog, Charles,
absently on the head. “At least you’ll be safe, old buddy.” Charles
wagged his bushy tail. He had brownish-tan fur that was soft to
touch, much like Al’s own soft brown hair. Not that Al played with
his own hair much. “We’ve got plenty at least.” He straightened up
and resumed his musing. They were in his plain square office and Al
was studying paper maps stuck to his pin board. He marked off the
last of the animal habitats to be evacuated and dismantled just
west of the installation he worked in.
The Earth could no longer sustain the
inhabitants and Al pushed away the shame of having left his family
to starve. Plants and animals everywhere were bending to breaking
point under the heavy regime of greed and lack of foresight;
everywhere except Al’s new home. What sort of man brought his dog
but not his wife and kids?
Al rubbed his chin, trying to focus. Earth’s
decay could no longer hide under the petticoats of deceit. Social
structures were breaking down. The foundations of life itself were
eroding away. Individual Third World countries no longer existed;
they were all Third World now. He had considered injecting his
family with an agent that would send them to sleep and kill them.
Kinder in some ways but he couldn’t do that either. For weeks he’d
been trapped in some kind of mental paralysis, unable to make up
his mind. And then, on a bright Sunday morning, he up and left in
his old pickup with Charles wagging his tail and hanging his head
out the window.
It was obvious in Al’s mind he was returning
to thoughts of his family because it was the Year of the Tiger, as
Dr. Chen would say, and it was time to go. They weren’t just
leaving the planet, family and friends; they planned to abandon all
religion, cultures, traditions and any preconceived notions that
did not align with their goals. And because of that his good friend
Chen was using up as many sayings as he could. Somehow Chen managed
to annoy all two hundred and sixty-five scientists, fifty-six
individually hand-selected special force members, and Al teased him
that included the variety of animals—who ran away when Chen
approached—and all of them were going to escape Earth’s slow decay.
Al admired animals more than humans so they received the “who” tag.
The teams were practical though; they never allowed sentimentality
to prevent them from obtaining exactly what they needed to achieve
the twenty-six-year objective.
Bogota was dangerous yet beautiful. It was
one of the few places left on the Earth to be relatively untouched.
This was ironic considering what went on there; that the very pit
of hell would be the gateway for a better future. Al almost sent
for his family to live in one of the villages but found out they’d
been killed in a gang war. No one knew what happened to the bodies,
but it was rumored they’d all burned to a crisp. News just wasn’t
the same anymore, as even gang wars had become boring, common
events that barely raised concern. He barely shed a tear.
Al left the office, with Charles padding
along beside him, switching off the lights and closing the door
with a thud. After some minutes of walking down empty dimly lit
corridors, he entered a massive, partially underground hangar. He
leaned on a cold steel rail looking at the goliath. The Tun and
Tunuen, and related technologies, were constructed secretly for the
long journey from the Milky Way. They’d struggled for years with
travel distances, acceleration and environmental issues, and
materials to make space travel viable when suddenly they made
massive leaps in their research. Since history revealed that most
evolutionary, or even creation, events transpired this way, no one
questioned it too much. The trigger, it was discussed, was that
Earth was at breaking point heralding the change in direction—they
were desperate. Doggedly the scientists worked twelve-hour
rotations, taking little time off for recreation. Science was going
to be their all-consuming way, their god, so to speak. The Tun
wasn’t a sleek-looking vessel but it was functional. It was one
gigantic rocket and its only purpose was to lift them out into
space to dock with the real beauty, in orbit, waiting for them. The
Tunuen was a sleek vessel in the shape of a stingray and had been
built entirely in space. Al didn’t want to know the details of
their “Tun Lift-off,” but geologists assured them that sitting on a
magma chamber was just fine. Sure it was. They had some technology
that would harness the energy they needed, when they needed, for a
little boost. Of course the geologists and physicists had all
laughed at some joke that no one else found funny. Al had left the
room after that, wondering if they were all just going to die on
the countdown launch, “Lift-off.” Either way they would no longer
be a part of Earth and her broken social systems. They’d become a
part of the flotsam in space unless they didn’t actually get high
enough and crashed back on the surface instead. No doubt plunderers
would battle over the burning remains.
“Come on, Charles.” They walked across the
metal walkway and exited through a door that led to the main labs.
It was busier here, closer to the Tun. Guards nodded to him as he
walked by, and one bent down to pat Charles on the head. Al and
Charles had to go through several checkpoints. The risk of
breaching their secure location fortified the scientists into
keeping any new discoveries quiet. Some had
objected—halfheartedly—to the concealment, claiming that many still
remaining and functional civilizations would benefit from their
research. Civilizations? They were barely that and it had been easy
to overrule the transient do-gooders.
At the last checkpoint a guard smiled as he
opened the door. “Late night, Dr. Reos?”
“Yes, I needed to check on the fish.” The
water habitats were being drained into the surrounding regions.
There was a fifty percent chance one of the villages lower in the
valley would be flooded but they needed to take the habitat
enclosures with them.
The guard nodded grinning at Al’s real
meaning. Fish meant sharks. He glanced down at Charles. “How’s the
old boy now he’s infused with attites?”
“Healthy as. Remarkable adaptation as evident
in all the animals. Instinctive activation.”
“Wish we were so lucky.”
Al was about to walk by him but paused. As he
gazed into the guard’s eyes the guard laughed. “Sorry, no luck
either?”
“You know the drill.”
“Yeah, I am a blank slate. I am a blank
slate.”
Al laughed because they were told by some
biochemical technician that they should be able to send and receive
messages, mind to mind, when the attites were deactivated, caused
by some kind of perpetual chemical reaction between attite bonds.
They moved into the small room for decon. Charles sat by the
guard’s feet, looking more interested in taking a nap than sharing
the guard’s duties. The door closed and sealed behind him. He
stripped and placed his clothes in a locker that sealed closed.
Attite technology had been unleashed several
years ago and injected into all those going on the journey. Attites
forged onto their cellular structures, giving them the ability to
endure acceleration and de-acceleration procedures. Tiny new
strands of nerves were encouraged to grow from vital attite
components added in to specifically create a network that connected
from the spinal cord and then directly to the brain. They only had
to think of protection and the attites went to work interconnecting
to form cellular armor.
After the decontamination sequence he dressed
in loose pants and top, with slipper-like shoes. He waited for the
light to go green. Only five people taken from surrounding villages
died during the experimentation stage. It was hailed as a great
success and those who lived were given a rare opportunity to join
the scientists, or die. Of course, they weren’t told they would
die; just if they wanted to return to their family they would fall
prey to one of the many evils of the world, and there was so much
to choose from. Al had sat at one compulsory meeting to utter a
judgement statement. They all shared those jobs, rostered on like
it was canteen duty, except they cleaned the ranks, not the
dishes.
One zoologist came up with a variation of an
old counting rhyme. “Eeny meeny, miny, moe, catch a human by the
toe, if he/she hollers, let he/she go, and then let’s kill ’em
so.”
The light blinked and then green light shone
into the chamber. The door swung open and he moved to the closest
bench. Attite armor had other interesting possibilities but they
focused on what it achieved to get them off the hell hole. The only
dysfunction, not that he considered it that, concerning the attites
was regarding the fact that they would replicate spontaneously
using mineral composites found in the body. Tests had to be
conducted regularly to ensure individuals were not low on certain
vitamins or minerals. Some scientists worried that attites would
overflow in their bodies, but they were reassured that the data had
been based on normal cellular rejuvenation. The results showed
there were never more attites than cells.
Around him several other scientists were
quietly working at benches that spread out in all directions,
ignoring him. He was known as “Gator-man,” who was more worried
about the animals than people. It was all true and he righted his
gator sign again. Someone kept knocking the image of his face on an
ape’s body down. It was a small token of dedication to Charles
Darwin, as was calling his dog “Charles.” He was used to the snide
remarks and only came to the attite labs to check that his animals
weren’t being used for experimentations. He had been the one who
demanded human trials, and so they made him go with the soldiers to
collect specimens. He considered his colleagues all bastards and
bitches anyway, as they were as cold-hearted as he was in many
ways. At least he loved something other than science. Most loved
themselves more than science anyway. He used the old-school mouse
to bring up his files. His colleagues had given him ancient
technology and had snickered until they realized he wasn’t
frustrated with it. Of course Al simply had his computer whiz
friends put new tech in the old box casings—but they left in the
old tech. Al just made sure he switched over to “his” system and
then back again to the old crap once done.