Chaos in the Starless Nights (In A Universe Without Stars book 1.5) Read online

  Chaos in the Starless Nights

  In A Universe Without Stars Book 1.5

  J Alex McCarthy

  Copyright © 2015 by J Alex McCarthy

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  J Alex McCarthy

  5232 Corteen pl #25

  Valley Village, CA 91607

  www.jalexmccarthy.com

  Table of contents

  Part 1 – The million year old traitor

  Part 2 – The eyeless, dreams of turquoise things

  Part 3 – Training to see the unseen

  Part 4 – Fiel, the omnipotent leader

  Final – Trust of false idols, the product of the old gods

  Postscript

  Part 1 – The million year old traitor

  In a single blink, civilizations began and ended.

  In a single breath, stars sparkled and simmered out of existence.

  General El Ical’s eyes opened for the first time in what felt like ages. But he knew better. He breathed heavily through the two holes where his nose should be. The pale green face of a Serephin.

  He stared at the interior of the small metal transport ship. He was used to crystal odysseys that defied logic. Odysseys that brought tears to people’s eyes and inspired millions as they flew above. But now there was only cold hard metal in front of him and blackness filling the windows.

  He looked over to his daughter, Shir, who piloted the ship. Only a little over a hundred years remained before this whole ordeal would be over.

  To a normal man, that would have felt like eons. To Ical, it would have took a breath or a wisp of a second for that time to pass, for he was millions of years old. Thanks to the power of the stars, he looked no older than a sixty-year-old human male. But that was a gift and a curse. Without the power of the stars, which could limit time itself, for every blink he took, for every second of his life that passed, hundreds of years elapsed. It was a drawback to being near-immortal, with the limitations of the natural Serephin brain.

  He relaxed into his seat. There were still over a hundred years left on his journey. He closed his eyes. To others, his eyes were never shut, he would’ve never jumped into the future. To them, Ical acted as usual, speaking, eating, sleeping, and going through his natural motions at time’s normal excruciating pace.

  But to Ical, only a sliver of a second passed. To him, the next time he opened his eyes he would be a hundred years older. As his eyes shut, he thought of his past mistakes, his past regrets, and why he was on the run.

  …

  The skies around Ical split apart. Hundreds of mirror thin beams pierced the blue, seemingly splitting apart reality itself as the sky exploded into flames. Hundreds of Jour ships cleaved through the fires and descended onto the city below.

  Ical’s forces took to the sky to intercept them. The Jour ripped through them. Ical stood in the middle of it all, unseen in the sky, standing as if there was a floor beneath his feet. He wore the uniform of a Serephin general: navy blue fatigues with symbols marking his status as a general of the Eliite Serephin military.

  “The Jour have vastly improved since our last battle,” Ical said to Leif, a comrade and a friend.

  “They have not been standing still, they want our people dead and they will do anything to stop us,” Leif said.

  Ical’s troops were getting massacred. The single error the Jour made was that they had not brought ascended. An odd oversight, one Ical thought they wouldn’t make. He could end this battle quickly. “I’m going to join.” He was an alpha, an ascended, a powerful being who had mastered the power of the stars. He stepped forward.

  With a flash, he opened his eyes. He was back in the ship, only twenty years had passed. He was concentrating too hard. His daughter sat across from him, asleep. Her skin was a darker shade of green to his own. She was still young, only a couple thousand years had passed since her birth.

  His memories of those last twenty years rushed into him. The small conversations with his daughter, the passing of lifeless planets, the modest mentions of the passing years. Ical’s culture never celebrated birthdays because they marked each as being one year closer to their eventual end.

  Ical felt heavy as the world weighed down on him. Only a little more than eighty years left. He closed his eyes once more.

  …

  Ical’s eyes opened, his hands gripped a balcony railing. His pale green hands creaked against the rail as he flexed his fingers.

  The balcony overlooked the suburb of a city, an odd mix of green and brown filled his vision. It looked human but on a closer inspection, there were subtle differences in the architecture that proved otherwise. The leaves on the trees and the petals on the flowers were shaped in a manner unseen on Earth. The rooftops angled at a just too shallow angle, the contemporary looking houses were built from a wood-like composite material. And the oddest part of it all was the small star floating a couple hundred feet above the ground and the skyscraper-laced city above the star, hovering upside down over Ical. He was in the Caelacis, the Skyeater.

  The light dulled on Ical’s slightly horizontally-shaped head, his age was finally catching up to him. Something rang behind him.

  His daughter, Shir, popped up on a display on his desk. He walked into the room.

  “Father, are you somewhere private?” Shir asked.

  Ical pressed on the display and the shutters of his windows closed with a hiss. “Yes.”

  “We are not the only ones taking stars. I believe there is something else out there doing the same.”

  “That’s not what I asked you to look for.”

  Shir looked down. “You were right.”

  Ical held his breath.

  “Leif is working with the Jour. Their attack was a false flag operation. There is also a high possibility that Leif has something to do with the blackness in the middle of the universe. The whole godforsaken reason we’re on this mission, why we followed Leif! We betrayed our allies for him!” Her voice was high and strained.

  “Calm down.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  That would explain why the Jour came handicapped. The Jour had a chance to take them down and didn’t take it. At the time of the attack, with Ical’s and the Eliite’s forces scattered across the universe and with the Skyeater only being half built, they should have been able to severely incapacitate them. But instead, the Jour were just a minor inconvenience.

  “Father!”

  “We leave now, grab your family, and meet me at my place.”

  Ical blinked, he was back in the small transport ship once again. This time, eighty years had passed. He was almost there.

  Shir stood next to the window, staring out into the black. Even though they’ve been traveling for a hundred years, it looked as though they had not gotten any closer to their destination.

  The stars never seemed so distant.

  “Are you fine, Shir?” Ical asked. “I know this must be hard for you, being awake for all this time, following me into this hell.”

  “I’m fine. I’m not old enough for this to be as easy a journey as it is for you, but I’m not young enough for time to not have an effect on me.”

  “That’s not all,” Ical said. He knew his daughter.

  Shir leaned against the window. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I had a long time to think about it. When
we get to the Citadel, I’m going to leave all of this, this chaos and turmoil. I’m going to take my daughter and find a safe planet somewhere. I want you to come with us.”

  “You know I can’t…” he paused.

  With that, Shir looked back out the window, she was done speaking. Ical sighed and closed his eyes for one last time.

  …

  “I’m scared…”

  Ical and Shir stood over a pregnant bloodied woman. Dosia, Shir’s daughter, Ical’s granddaughter. She lay in a pullout bed on the wall. They were in the transport ship.

  “Shh, it’s going to be okay,” Shir whispered as she pushed the shelf-like bed into the wall.

  “No—“ was the last word Dosia muttered as the bed closed into the wall with a click. The words Cryosleep, duration: 108 years projected on a panel above the opening.

  Shir leaned against it and cried. Ical lay a hand on her shoulder. “It’s the only thing we could do. You and I don’t have enough understanding to help her.”

  “My son-in-law is dead, your grandson by law is gone. You could have killed the soldiers, you could have stopped my daughter from being injured. Why? Why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you stop them?”

  As they escaped the Skyeater, they were pursued and his grandson killed, his granddaughter injured. Ical wasn’t sure if they could save her unborn child.

  “I’m…I’m sorry, but I couldn’t hurt the very people who used to look up to me,” Ical said.

  “Now you expect me to wait one hundred and eight years before I know if she can be saved?”

  “The Citadel has the technology to save her, you have to be patient.”

  “I loved him like a son and I was about to be a grandmother. I was about to leave a legacy.”

  Ical looked at her, but had nothing more to say. He grabbed a rag from a drawer in the wall and cleaned the blood off himself and the floor. He had forgotten how tedious and grueling scrubbing a floor was, seeing that he was a general for thousands of years.

  “I’m sorry,” a whisper came from Shir. She stood and wiped the tears away. Ical found another rag and gave it to her. She wiped the blood from her hands. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you, it’s not your fault. I’ll clean up the rest, you go sit and unlimit yourself.”

  The time limiter. It was what most people called the ability to limit the perception of the speed of time to manageable levels.

  “But the ship? It’s going to be a long journey. I don’t want you to suffer it alone.” He would be there, but not really, she would have somebody to talk to and to endure it with, but it was not the same. It never was.

  “No. It would give me something to do. Now sit down, father, you don’t have to suffer with me.”

  With that, he sat. At Shir’s young age, time passed at a relatively slow pace. She would feel every second, minute, and hour of the days to come.

  “Plus, you’ll be here to keep me company, just, not really.” She walked over to him. “I’ll see you in one hundred and eight years.” He closed his eyes.

  …

  Ical’s eyes creaked open, his daughter stood in front of him. “We’re here.”

  One hundred and eight years gone.

  He walked to the cockpit. Out of the window there was no more black or darkness. Colors filled his vision as a planet much like Earth eclipsed the window. Its red sun peeked over its crest lighting up the purple gas clouds that floated behind the Jupiter-sized planet, turning the space around them a powerful magenta. Glion, a planet of wonder.

  In front of it all was a jade blue crystal odyssey, shining like a majestic beacon of hope against the flame of the sun. But upon a closer inspection, the crystal was imperfect, chunks of it floated free. A metal structure stuck out of its rigged hull and stretched out in a cylinder shape around the planet and into the other side of it. The Citadel. It was a ring for Glion.

  “That’s new,” Ical muttered.

  Ships came and went from the Citadel. It was supposed to be a safe place, a place that would accept anyone and everything. But that was until Ical’s and Leif’s betrayal, the reason the jade was fractured.

  And yet, it was still a place of power, a place of safety, but after that faithful day, every promise of security it provided was a little less certain.

  “Unidentified ship, please halt and present your identification and travel files,” a voice came on the intercom.

  Shir and Ical entered the cockpit.

  “I can handle this.” Ical pressed the receiver button. “This is General EL Ical of the Serephin Eliite military and faction, requesting entry into the Citadel, and relinquishing rights as a free citizen, only in return for my passengers’ safe passage and well-being. We have an injured passenger.”

  “Please wait.”

  There was a long pause. Shir stared at the intercom. “I’ll be surprised if they don’t blow us right out of the air. I know I would.” Shir said.

  “There is no air around us so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  The intercom sparked on.

  “El Ical, you’re clear to land in bay AAZ61, coordinates, landing regulations and protocols are being sent to you now.” A display popped up on the dash with the instructions. “Please be advised that if you make any action to either leave or veer off in any direction other than the ones that were given to you, expect hostile retaliation.”

  …

  The back of Ical’s ship opened up inside the Citadel’s ship bay, Ical and Shir stepped out. Twenty soldiers walked out of the hallway that was in front of them. There were wing Sigils on their cuffs. Archangels. They pointed their guns at Ical and Shir. They were serious.

  Ical laughed. “Do you really think you could kill me?”

  Shir glanced at him in shock. “You’re insane.”

  “You’re not as powerful as you used to be Ical.” A man walked up, his attire the whites of a council member. His skin the palest of blues, his features human and Serephin, but the ridges under the dark hair on his head made him very much Avalour.

  Ical never liked how similar they were to most other intelligent races. If it wasn’t for their small differences, like how the Avalour had noses, they would look exactly the same.

  “Good seeing you, Bedivere,” Ical said.

  “It’s councilman Bedivere now.” He pointed to the crystal wings on his white jacket collar. The soldiers snapped to attention. “I was made a council member after you killed my superior, my father. So what in the hell are you doing here and why shouldn’t I kill you where you stand?”

  “Because I have information on Leif and what we were doing and…” He paused and looked at Shir, her gaze was on the ground. “… Information that will change the natural order of the galaxies.”

  Bedivere stroked his chin. “Well, out with it.”

  “I will only speak with Fiel… and I will only give him the information if you grant total immunity to my daughter and her kin.”

  “You must be insane.”

  “Or you get nothing.”

  Bedivere scoffed, but Ical didn’t budge. “Hmm…”

  He looked at Shir and the ship. “I expected more people to run away from Leif’s shit show. How many injured?”

  Shir looked up. “Just one, sir.”

  Bedivere lifted his hand. “All right, take them.”

  The soldiers ran and grabbed Shir. “What! No!” she screamed. Two soldiers grabbed Ical and wrestled him to the ground as the others sprinted into the ship.

  “What’s the meaning of this!?” Ical shouted.

  “Don’t worry, Ical, we’re not savages like you. We’ll take your daughter into custody and keep her safe. We’ll even take care of your sick and your wounded. But you, you’re under arrest for the death of millions.” Ical stared into the eyes of Bedivere. He could escape, he had power to kill them all, but he wouldn’t, he didn’t want to do it again, to inflict death on the undeserved. He just slammed shut his eyes.

  …

  Ical’s eyes flung
open, only fifty minutes had passed since he unlimited himself. He blinked again. Nothing happened. He tried again and again. Nothing. There was something wrong with his limiter.

  He felt his power slowly slipping through his control. A sliver of it was still there, if he ever needed it, but most of it was gone.

  Unable to unlimit himself, he took in his surroundings. He was in an incredibly large black room. The walls were made out of what looked like volcanic rock, the blackness of it seemed to absorb the color in the room.

  The only light came from the star of Glion. There was no fourth wall, only the star, impossibly close singeing Ical’s retinas. There was a wall, he just couldn’t see it. He couldn’t feel the stars heat, but sweated anyway.

  He tried to move, but cuffs locked him to one of the two chairs in the room. Why had he not noticed that earlier? He had no clue. Maybe it was whatever the walls were made out of. It was seeping his power.

  Suddenly it clicked. “The infinity prison.”

  “Right,” Bedivere said leaning against the wall. He was standing there the entire time.

  “The infinity prison…Why…Why use it now? We never used it before.”

  “We never had a reason to. With Jahum around, every criminal, thief, killer, and spy, just submitted to him. Because Jahum had that kind of power, an air to him. But since you and Leif chased him away, we don’t have that power anymore or that protection. So we have to use other means.”

  Bedivere rubbed his hands across the cold dark walls. “Amazing what the Jour were able to build. This is the only reason we don’t fear an invasion and why so many refugees call this place home. This material is the binding that has kept diplomatic relations together since Jahum left. Not even Jahum himself could create something like this.” Bedivere sat in the other metal chair.

  Ical could break out, he was powerful enough. He could feel the power tethering on the edge of his fingertips. But he didn’t want to; this was his punishment for his sins. But he was thankful he could still feel the power out there.