Broken Stars (Universe on Fire Book 1)

  BROKEN STARS

  UNIVERSE ON FIRE SERIES

  BY IVAN KAL

  Copyright © 2018 by Ivan Kal

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  They told us “No”. They said that we were primitive and that we were not worthy. That they could not allow us into the galactic community. That we were too aggressive, too emotional, and too untrustworthy. That they could not risk us mingling with the enlightened races. And so in the moment that was supposed to be the culmination of all of our history, the greatest of our victories, as our first manned FTL ship was about to leave our star system, we were handed our greatest defeat. They came, and without a word spoken, they broke us. A generation born and bent on traveling to the stars, a generation of dreamers, watched as a warship far more elegant than anything we had ever imagined blew the Humanity’s Gift apart into a cloud of gas and debris. As our first manned FTL-capable ship—the Humanity’s Gift—was supposed to be our gateway to the galaxy. Its mission—to seek out other sentient life, to say to them: “Look! Here we are, and we are ready to join you!”

  In the end it did not matter that we had cured most diseases, that we had mostly ended war and poverty. Earth had been united for the first time in history, and it was all for nothing. They had watched us for a long time and they had judged us long before we tried to leave our star system. They had been content to leave us alone and simply watch. We knew now that they had hoped that we would destroy ourselves, and that they were annoyed when we didn’t. And so with no trial and no room for appeal, the Qash’vo’tar ordered our isolation, and they enforced it. And no matter how we pleaded they were not moved. A single warship far greater than anything we had attempted to build took down all of the satellites we had that watched the stars, they reduced to rubble all of the industrial facilities capable of building spaceships or their parts. They ordered us to never again try to reach beyond the border of our own sky. We were to be forever bound to our homeworld, and any attempt to circumvent their decree was met with a harsh response.

  If they had taken the time to learn about us, to truly understand what it was that made us human, they would’ve known that telling us “No” had been their greatest mistake. That robbing us of our freedom was one thing that we would never forget and never forgive. We learned quickly that they cared little for what we did as long as we did not try to leave our atmosphere. Any sign that we were trying to develop technology for space travel was met with a deadly response. And so we turned our sights elsewhere. At first we tried to atone for some imagined crime, hoping that if they saw what we could achieve, then they would change their minds. It was a foolish hope, but we advanced nevertheless. We pushed medicine to the point where we could extend life, fix terrible injuries. We explored our world down to the deepest depths of our oceans, we burrowed below Earth’s crust, and tapped into our own core, getting access to near limitless energy. We might not have been able to reach above, but we did everything else. Our understanding of physics and our universe reached a point far beyond what we had ever imagined possible. The laws we once held as absolute seemed as primitive to us as the belief that the Sun circled the Earth. And then it came, what we now call simply the Discovery. Denied the stars above us, we yearned for a way out of our home—our prison. Foolishly we clawed, and by accident we made our own way out.

  Deep beneath the ground we experimented, looking for a way out. And in one moment that forever changed our fate, we broke through to somewhere else. We made a breach in space and time, a breach to another universe. A universe so much like ours, yet different. A universe where there was magic. It changed us, it gave us hope. We made contact with other beings, with a galaxy’s worth of them. A universe where travel among the stars was made possible by massive gates between worlds and not by crossing the vacuum of space. We were a novelty, a race that could not use magic, yet had a powerful magic of its own. Our technology was unlike anything this new universe had seen. It was not that they were primitive, but magic was their technology. They did things that we could never attempt simply with a wave of a hand or an elegant script. Their cities were as large as our own, with magic equivalents for all of the things we considered civilized. They taught us much, and we taught them much in return. And so, we were finally rewarded, finally we would sate the desire to explore. And all without our jailers realizing. We were finally free.

  We were so wrapped up in the possibilities that we did not notice at first the consequences of our actions. Magic seeped through the breach, it changed us and our world. And two generations after we opened the breach the first child with magic was born. It came to us as a shock. It was not something that we had considered possible. Then we realized that by opening the breach we had changed the very nature of our universe. Magic, it seemed, was now possible. It was not as powerful as it was in the universe beyond the breach, but it was here nevertheless.

  Few of us explored this new universe, but there we were always the strangers, visitors who just didn’t belong. And the stars above Earth shone at us, and their light reminded us of what was denied to us. We had a home, we had a galaxy that should’ve been ours to explore. There were other races here who should’ve been our friends, who should’ve guided us and helped us. They spurned us, and we resented them for it.

  And so, almost sixty-seven years after our isolation began, a decision was made. They feared us, they cast us down from the stars because they thought us unfit for their community. And we would show them that they were right to fear us. They might be far ahead of us with their technology, but we had a new weapon now, a thing that they knew nothing about—magic. Now, it was the time for us to claim the dream our race had dreamed since before we knew what stars truly were.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Anthony Smith sighed as he felt the shuttle land. He did not look forward to his task today, in truth, even now he was tempted to just order the pilot to turn around and leave. He did not in the end do so. He stretched his hand and grabbed hold of a short tube from behind his seat and then stepped outside the small shuttle. As he felt the cold air on his face he chasti
sed himself for his thoughts. He was not really considering disobeying his orders, even though he knew what the outcome would be. He glanced back at the pilot and his bodyguards through the canopy and signaled for them to shut down the shuttle and wait.

  He would continue alone from here, as he always did. Finally, he turned to the large complex building in front of him and the long cable that stretched up the clear blue sky. The Kilimanjaro tether was one of humanity’s greatest achievements, but now it was the most visible seat of humanity’s jailers—the Qash’vo’tar. Reluctantly he took a step forward, and was met with the armed guards, who like always scanned over him with their alien devices to make sure that he had no weapons on him. One of them took the tube from him and opened it, peering inside. After a moment he closed it and returned it, then gestured for Anthony to follow.

  They were taller and lither than humans, but were humanoid, as were all races humanity had seen here, and as most were in the… other place. They wore sealed suits even though Anthony knew that they were capable of breathing Earth’s atmosphere. It was a precaution, as humanity’s jailers remembered well the ease with which the human forces had utilized their airborne biological weapons against them in the beginning. But that had been before they knew the price of such actions. And while humanity had not attempted an attack against the aliens for almost forty years, the aliens did not make the same mistake twice.

  As always, the guards remained silent as they escorted him to the walls surrounding the space-elevator complex. The wall was the work of the aliens, and was another reminder that this was no longer human land, and that they were prisoners on their own world.

  The turret encampments on the oval towers watched the sky even though they had little to worry about. Earth had learned well the lessons of what happened when they tried to disobey their overlords. There was no air traffic anywhere near Kilimanjaro. The shuttle that flew Anthony here had been cleared for approach long before it came in sight of the mountain, and the turrets had followed it all the way. Anthony almost chuckled at that; the shuttle could barely fly up to the top of the mountain. It like every piece of technology used on Earth followed the strict guidelines from their overlords. No technology that they considered a threat was allowed near them. Mostly that meant no spaceflight capabilities, and no propulsion systems capable of certain speeds. In many ways the guidelines were lax—their overlords cared little about any kind of technology that they didn’t think had an application in space. They were focused solely on preventing Earth from expanding into space.

  In their minds, humanity had no place among the civilized races. A belief that they had taken every opportunity to hammer into the United Earth Council every time they questioned why they were being kept grounded.

  And now Anthony would question again, as he had done every year for the past ten years of his tenure as the Earth’s liaison. Earth’s overlords had always enforced the belief that someday, once they had become worthy in the aliens’ eyes, they would be allowed out into space. Their worldwide broadcasts always commented on how much progress Earth had made, how close they were to being accepted as friends. In the alien’s minds, every action they took was for the good of humanity and the galaxy as a whole. They were foolish to think that humanity would believe that—Earth would not believe in their lies. Humanity had too much practice with lies of its own to fall for it.

  Nevertheless, the people of Earth had little choice; to fight was to suffer the consequences. The way that the aliens kept Earth contained always seemed strange to Anthony, and to many of Earth’s best analysts. With their power it would have been easier to simply wipe them all out, even their one ship was enough to do that. But the prevailing opinion was that their motives were simply alien and beyond what we could understand without more information.

  The guards escorted him inside the large building that stood adjacent to the elevator complex itself. It had once served as a command center for the United Earth Space Force, the entity that had been formed only a year before the tether was finished, for the purpose of exploring and colonizing our solar system and beyond. And only ten years after it was created the aliens had arrived, and the dream that the UESF was supposed to help humanity achieve was harshly squashed.

  Once inside the building, Anthony walked through the hallway decorated with alien art. He didn’t even bother to look at it. The novelty had disappeared after the first few times he had visited. And in all honesty it was a little tame, with art being simple depictions of stars or planets from high orbits. Instead, Anthony focused on his task. Almost unconsciously his hand tightened around the plastic tube in his hand. He was escorted into a large office with a glass wall that showed the view of the tether and the elevator with the blue sky behind it. Behind the desk that was the centerpiece of the room stood an alien. For all intents and purposes the alien. Dahrar Ajiha of the Qash’vo’tar, and the being in charge of keeping the Earth from reaching space. If what the United Earth Intelligence organizations had managed to piece together was true, Dahrar was a rank similar to Commander.

  Ajiha turned as they entered, wearing a red dominated robe-like garment and smiled at Anthony. The fact that the alien was happy to see Anthony only made his job harder. The two of them had gotten to know each other very well over the years that Anthony had served as the UEC liaison. They had had interesting and engaging conversations over the years, at times when they spoke of things other than the Qash’vo’tar’s continued policy toward the Earth. And while Ajiha was careful to never speak in depth about anything regarding the Qash’vo’tar or their society’s way of life, it was inevitable for the alien to reveal things. And while Anthony thought of Ajiha as something akin to a friend, information was what his job was all about. And Anthony suspected that Ajiha knew that too.

  The Qash’vo’tar looked much like humans, at the first glance at least. Their skin was blue of shifting tones, ranging from pale to deep blue. The skin on their faces was mostly deep blue, with slight lightening around the eyes and on the sides of their face in varying patterns which were unique for each individual and were the easiest way of telling them apart. Their eyes were slightly larger, and their noses flatter and wider. They, like humanity, had two sexes, and Ajiha was a male.

  He took a few steps toward Anthony, and then noticed the tube in his hands. His smile disappeared immediately and was replaced with a tired and annoyed look in his slightly larger than human brown eyes.

  “Is it that time already?” Ajiha asked in English, his accent and pronunciation only slightly off, courtesy of his slightly different vocal cords.

  “It is,” Anthony answered with a small shrug.

  Ajiha dropped his head and moved behind the desk, taking a seat. He gestured to Anthony and he stepped forward to stand in front of the desk. And like he had done every year for the past ten, he opened the tube and pulled out the rolled up piece of paper and placed it on the table in front of Ajiha.

  “Dahrar Ajiha, on the behalf of the United Earth Council I formally ask for the Qash’vo’tar to revoke its ruling and leave the United Earth territory, as well as relinquish its hold over United Earth assets both groundside and in space. We are, as always, willing to work with you to come up with an agreement acceptable to both the United Earth and the Qash’vo’tar.”

  Ajiha closed his eyes and scratched at the bony ridges on his forehead. For a beat the silence stretched. Then he opened his eyes and stared at Anthony.

  “The answer is the same, as always. The ruling of the Qash’vo’tar is final. The Earth is not ready to join the grander stage,” Ajiha told him as he took the piece of paper in his hands and looked at it. All that was on the paper were signatures, as always. It was signed by every Councilor of the UEC, and adorned simply with the UE symbol at the top, an image of the Earth on a black shield. The paper was symbolic in a way, a tradition started by the first Earth liaison to the aliens. A tradition that every other liaison had continued. Every year the same request would be brought in front of the alien in
charge. So far there had been six, with Ajiha, who had been here for almost fifteen years, being the latest one.

  Anthony sighed; he’d known what the answer would be, it never changed. There were times decades ago when Earth’s liaisons would threaten and rage at the alien that was the face of the oppression of Earth. But that practice had been abandoned long ago, before Anthony’s time. There was no point, no matter what humanity did the aliens never changed their answer. But today, his task was different, today’s answer held much greater consequences than any other.

  Steeling himself, Anthony took a step forward, getting closer to the table.

  “Ajiha, we have known each other for a long time now,” Anthony began. “In some ways I even considered you a friend.”

  “And I you,” Ajiha added, his alien eyes softening.

  “Then please, help us understand. We are willing to do anything that you ask of us, but we don’t know what it is that you want. How can we become worthy in your eyes when we don’t know the criteria?”

  “You are making great strides forward, I am confident that soon the people of Earth will be brought into the fold,” Ajiha said mechanically.

  “Don’t feed me that bullshit line, you’ve been telling us that since the moment you arrived!” Anthony told him, surprising Ajiha with his tone, then he made an effort to calm himself. “Please, this cannot continue for much longer—the state among the populace is only going to get worse, and once we hit the tipping point we will not be able to contain it. At least take a few of our people back to your worlds, let us see what it is that we are lacking. Your resupply group should arrive in a few weeks. Send them with it, we already have a list of candidates. And we can keep it a secret from the populace if you want. But we need to know in which direction we need to move.”

  For a moment there, Anthony thought that he had gotten through to the alien, he could see real emotion in his eyes. A desire to help. But then Ajiha’s face hardened, and he knew that he had failed.