A Prologue

  Harold Van Met III, first hero of the Everwar, bore the name of someone three times his age. At ten years old, and to his parents' chagrin, he started introducing himself as Harry. A small uprising but far from the last he’d undertake. Not even the gods, why soaked in their own embellished myth, could have predicted how meteoric a name could become….and if the gods themselves couldn’t see it coming, Harry never had a chance…

  235 A.A. (After Ascendency)

  …Jupiter reigned.

  Harry adjusted his camera lens, capturing all three colony ships in one shot. With half their titanic length driven into the bedrock, they looked like daggers grounded to the hilt transposed on the ruddy skyline. After a month of customization he’d finally figured out how to properly defuse Jupiter’s oppressive light.

  Thank Alfa.

  That he was finally able to fulfill his role on this pilgrimage was indeed a blessing. If his first act of rebellion was calling himself Harry, his second was forgoing the family business to pursue photography. The final stroke of insurrection was enrolling in the Empire’s first colony voyage to Jupiter, traveling millions of miles from Dearth, and anyone who ever knew him as Harold Van Met III.

  Not till intrepid Estrelladors lashed their vessels to Io’s orbit did they identify the existence of 23 additional celestial bodies, coined the Cercanos Moons. Their proximity to Jupiter was so close, they were undetectable by long-range scanners due the planet’s radiation. Harry always thought their discovery was poetic, or at the very least, romantic. The 23 Cercanos moons had always been there, waiting, keeping a secret from the Empire till the right moment.

  The Imperio and Imperia wasted little time in arranging this expedition, claiming Alma Prime for their future capital of the Rim. Three new generation colony ships set forth for—vessels so large they had to be built on Luna’s dockyards. Now that the ships had landed, they would never fly again. Like seed to soil, the ships would become a true city in just a few years as more and more Dearthlings made the journey.

  As he took his first few shots, admiring the clarity of the image, he wondered whether his work would be documented in the annals of history, like those greats who filmed the colonization of Luna or Mars. It was those documentaries, lauding the feats of mankind, that inspired him to look beyond Dearth’s atmosphere, to become one of those people who learned to master the universe.

  Something came over Harry as he zoomed in on the colony ships, and he thought how wonderful it would be to be in the frame for a few pictures. He’d never really done that before, not on Dearth anyway. Perhaps it had something to do with Jupiter. Or perhaps it was hubris, that contagion of manifest destiny which struck at the hearts of all those indebted to adventure. Or, maybe, it was just a damn good shot.

  A meter shy of the cliff face looking down on Alma Prime’s great basin, Harry confirmed his camera was indeed on and stepped into the frame. The colony ships stood stark and brilliant against the barren landscape. The majority of their length may be underground, but their exposed surface levels still stretched three kilometers wide and he could just barely make out the hundreds of people milling about, building the infrastructure directly atop the ships that would one day be the city of Nuv Tosamir.

  There was a connectivity here that Harry would have a hard time finding back on Dearth. Nobody on Alma Prime spent their time idle, and he’d yet to hear a single complaint. He finally understood what the Imperio meant in his farewell speech to the expedition crews—the noble pursuit of cosmic expansion, and the belief that there was no force in all the universe that could match a civilization at work.

  As the builders had their orders, Harry had his own. And it was Alfa’s will that he be here to document everything before him, like the habitability crews who constructed and maintained the oxcellerators that already provided those nearest to the colony ships with fresh air; or the gravwell networks being embedded across the basin; or the surveyors who were inspecting and readying the land for tilling. Thousands of people all scattered across the basin in small teams, but together their efforts had but one purpose, something far greater than Harry could describe.

  Harry was envious of those nearer to the ships who didn’t need to wear their space suits any longer. His skin itched terribly but this far out he still needed its protection from the vacuum of space and Jupiter’s radiation.

  A mechanical foot the size of a car landed just to his right. Startled, Harry placed a hand on its ankle to steady himself. Craning his neck, he drank in the 15 meters of meck towering above him. These expeditionary models weren’t as heavily armored as those made for war and made famous during the Ascendency, nor was it outfitted with the sloping frames and thin limbs of SportMeck that had become Asparia’s pastime. The meck standing beside him was more honest, built for the harsh conditions of space, and the rigors of colonization with long arms, fingers, stout legs, and a robust chassis.

  Harry found himself wishing they were built with heads—a thought he returned to often. There was a gap above the chest, and between the shoulders—not a physical one but a vacuum of visual space which kept the machine from looking too human. It was the artist in Harry that wished for such an axial to be included in their construction. Then the Empire’s great shepherds would have a face he could look upon and share in this moment of great contentment, man and machine…but of course, mecks simply weren’t built that way.

  As though responding to his unspoken whims, the cockpit hatch on the chassis unfolded and the pilot peeled himself through the aperture. He clung to the handholds, visored helm gazing out at the basin, seeing for himself what Harry saw.

  “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” The pilot’s asked, then answered his own question, “What took us so long?”

  Harry returned his gaze to the budding colony, happy to have company in his revelry, “I know what you mean.”

  Ensign Gino Scott Taylor—a young man with three first names—graduated from the Meck CORP’s Academy at 18, and deployed with Jupiter expeditionary force not two weeks later. Like the builders and engineering crews sprawled across the basin, Gino had his own duty here on Alma Prime and by a stroke of luck, Harry had gotten to come along.

  Harry glanced backward at the camera and confirmed the footage was still recording as the red light above the lens still glowed. Beyond that, their transport, a bulky vessel meant for traveling between the Cercanos, waited for their small crew to finish their assigned task today. It was Alfa’s own luck that Harry had ended up among their number today. There was a mishap in the scheduled skiff departures, and the one he’d been assigned, which was supposed to take him to the base of the colony ships, was completely booked by the time he arrived.

  As he sat waiting for the next available transport, wondering if he’d be reprimanded by the Director of Marketing, Gino approached with a fast smile. Harry must’ve looked a pitiful case because the pilot offered Harry a ride to the basin cliffs, assuring him there would be ample inspiration upon their precipice. He was right.

  The crew laboring beside their transport was constructing a network of antennas around the basin perimeter for weeks and were finished. The dozen or so engineers scampered across the two story scaffolding they constructed days earlier, making final adjustments.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  A woman stood on the transport ramp in a military space suit. She put her hands on her hips and a voice penetrated his com.

  “Hey paparazzi. What was my one rule?”

  “Last to unload, first to pack up, Lieutenant Straka.” Harry was already walking back to his camera. The shots he got already were sublime, he wasn’t going to spoil his invite. Maybe they’d invite him back.

  “Good boy. Now get to your seat before they start pulling the equipment in.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Lieutenant?” Gino’s voice pitched through his com and Harry turned back to him, looking out at the basin. Harry froze, but his eyes drifted upward, drawn to what must be an optical illusion.

  Three Cercanos moons hovered in the sky above the towering colony ships, their neon glare stark against the tempestuous warm hues of Jupiter. A black stain began to spread between them, growing like a jar of spilled ink. Harry could’ve sworn it began to rotate.

  There came a flurry of whispering prayers over his com as the burgeoning impossibility continued to grow, its darkness seeming to make the Cercanos nearest to it glow more brilliantly.

  A crack appeared, bright and terrible like lighting, wheeling around the black mass. The three moons responded in kind, exploding in a terrifying burst, shattering like fallen pottery.

  Until this day, this very moment, Harry had taken each monumental sight of the voyage in stride, but here, his senses failed him. His mind couldn’t comprehend the destruction, nor the impending danger.

  Shapes moved at the center of the mass. Five of them, growing in size, coming closer. Harry blinked, and the five shapes were now in Alma Prime’s upper atmosphere, arriving and stopping with unnatural speed, backlit by a blooming devastation.

  Ships…they’re ships…

  Larger than any colony ship could ever be conceived, each was a sinewy lozenge with sharpened wing-like appendages sweeping from aft to stern. This was no design born of human hands.

  Static crackled in his com, slithering between his ears like barbed wire. Instinctively he tried covering his ears but the helmet made it impossible.

  “g..ge..geoo…geos.”

  The staccato sound drilled inward through his com, pushing on his eyes till it settled into wet static.

  “Geos geos geos geos!”

  Harry looked up to the sky through pinched eyes, a moan escaping his gritted teeth. The shockwave from the initial explosion arrived cracking the air like a whip. Harry flew backward, his breath stolen as he slammed against the ground.

  The taste of copper. Sweat blurring his vision. Panic crawling under his skin. The moon trembled beneath him.

  He sat up, reborn into a nightmare as all three colony ships began to rise from the ground. For a second he thought they were attempting to escape, then the truth gutted him. Harry lunged to the basin’s ledge. The ships weren’t taking off, the ground beneath them was rising, lifted on massive tectonic sheets. The basin cracked like a splintered windshield and the ships began to fall into the widening maw beneath them.

  Hundreds of survey crews ran across tilting plates of bedrock the size of city blocks. Skiffs fled from the epicenter, but their small gravwells weren’t designed for flight, and fell with the colony as the basin disappeared, and that ear-wrenching sound repeated itself over the com again and again.

  Something fell onto Harry’s helmet. He flinched from his stupor in time to see the object falling end over end, a ruby light pleading for attention. His hands shot out, snatching it as something else tumbled over the edge.

  My tripod. Still in shock, he looked down into his arms to see what he’d rescued. My camera. The light above its lens still burning red.

  The cliff began to vibrate, turning stone to sand frighteningly quick. Camera in hand, he crab-walked backward as the ground disintegrated.

  His heel kicked one more time and found nothing but air. Then he was falling. His stomach ballooned into his throat as he screamed, twisting midair, scrambling for purchase. A hand appeared to swallow him whole—a metal hand—a meck’s hand. Harry clutched his camera to his chest as its fingers wrapped around him like a well meaning beartrap.

  The meck strode away from the disappearing cliff, but they continued to fall until its foot struck something solid. Quickly, painfully, they began to outpace the landslide, gaining in elevation. All the while Harry was hurled against its fingers, camera cradled in his arms like he was protecting a newborn child.

  The meck’s strides became more even and Harry was able to look at their surroundings. The transport loomed ahead, hovering just above the ground with the loading ramp open. Harry’s breath caught as it began to rise in the air.

  Panic. They were going to be left behind.

  Gino leapt from the ground, and Harry was thrown back with the force of the jump. The back of his head ricochetted off the hand. His vision spun, and he watched them fall into the transport’s holding bay in slow motion. He was rocked again as the meck landed in the bay, and could feel the transport dip, clipping the ground before beginning to rise in elevation again.

  The meck shifted, rising to a seated position. Harry gasped as its grip loosened and nearly slipped through the fingers. Feet dangling he watched the bay doors crawl to a close as destruction proliferated like a chemical reaction and the alien ships descended into the basin.

  With the bay door sealed, the spell of shock began to break. Harry carefully slipped from fingers, to chassis, then knee to ankle, and ground. He drifted to the viewport as the wave of debris in the atmosphere and beyond spread like sand thrown into the wind.

  Suddenly aware of the weight in his hands, he looked down to see his camera held dutifully in his arms, lens facing the unspeakable fate of what was once a triumphant achievement of mankind. Everything was so quiet… When had the alien chanting had stopped?

  He removed his helmet, and was battered by a klaxon alarm and flashing caution lights. Memory reinserted itself. Harry had completed his emergency training along with hundreds of conscripts prior to landing on Alma Prime. By all accounts the transport should be a whirl or organized procedure yet he was alone, with naught but the meck and a suffocating emptiness.

  The cockpit opened halfway, then was forced open another few inches by a bloody hand jutting from the interior. Gino appeared through the too-small gap, then slipped forward, falling 5 meters to the ground face first. His legs landed above his head, curling behind him with a sickening crunch.

  Harry approached as though in a dream—somehow he already knew what he’d find. Gino Scott Taylor, Ensign of the Empire’s MECK CORP, looked at Harry unblinking through a cracked and bloody visor, neck bent at an unnatural angle. He twitched—a final act of defiance or simply a bodily reaction in death, Harry couldn’t tell. Gino lay still a moment later.

  “Who’s there?” A voice called, echoing from nearby. “Alfa! Anyone?”

  Harry left Gino to follow the voice, limbs carried on wisps of apathy.

  Strapped into the pilot’s chair was Lieutenant Straka. She looked back at the sound of his boots upon the bridge, mouth moving but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. It was all so quiet.

  He sat in the pilot’s chair next to her, as she continued to speak. Harry realized it wasn’t her that was quiet, it was him. He was distracted by the hole in her shoulder and the pool of blood at their feet.

  “Got it?” She asked, words perforating his trance. She pointed at several gaugues on the ship’s dashboard. “Navs. Vitals. Coms…fried but—gods!”

  Her face tightened and she began to wheeze.

  “Beacon’s on. Keep to Sol and maybe…and…”

  “What do I do?” Harry asked, distinaly aware she’d been trying to tell him exactly that. Slowly her wheezing became a death rattle.

  “Tell…them.”

  “What?” He was suddenly aware that this was the last person he’d ever talk to. “Who? Tell who?”

  “Ev…everyone…”

  Straka’s body slumped between the seats, her head smacking his knee before splashing into the puddle below.

  As Harry stared at the ripples made by her dying breath his attention was pulled to the blinking red light secured in his lap. Reality suddenly ceased its crawling and crashed into him like a wave. In the vacuum of space, alone save for the departed, he finally screamed.

  …In the 47 days he spent alone on the transport vessel, Harold Van Met III, first hero of the Everwar, for it was by this name the world would come to know him by, discovered a profound realization: his life was never his own. He was rescued somewhere between Jupiter and the belt. Upon his return to Dearth he would partake in the most commercialized interview in Asparia’s history, greater even than the first Imperio’s speech after the Ascendency. To billions of viewers Harry would recount that he was neither photographer, nor son, and go on to say that after the fall of Alma Prime he hardly ever felt human again. From that point on, he claimed to have always, and forever more, been a messenger of Alfa—the one destined to witness and proclaim imminent doom, forevermore the spark which set the stars aflame.

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