TOMORROW~!
Are you excited for my upcoming science fiction space travel novel with Falstaff Books? Get ready for the final excerpt below!
Orphaned siblings Scarlett and Duke Nam have had it rough. Cast aside by society, they’ve managed to stay afloat by being thieves on the streets of Alexandria, Virginia. Things plunge straight to Hell when a heist goes wrong and they’re on the run from the cops, but after they stumble into a nearby home to escape, something seemingly impossible happens – the house transforms into a spaceship and leaves the Earth’s orbit.
Scarlett and Duke awaken to find that they are now prisoners about the Titan International Spaceship. The Earth has been destroyed by the Bergleute des Todes, aka The Miners of Death. Scarlett and Duke are given the chance to become soldiers to fight the aliens who destroyed their world.
The only thing left for them is the hardest thing of all: Survival.
–
DUKE
I awoke when I heard echoed footsteps. I rolled over on my cot to look at the door. The guard opened it and waved two fingers at me.
“Get up.”
I stood, frowning. “What’s going on?”
“You’re going to be debriefed on the situation. Hands against the wall.”
I obeyed, remaining still as he cuffed me and pushed me out the door. No blindfold this time. I logged that knowledge away for later.
At the other end of the hall, another guard hauled Scarlett out of her cell and a small part of me relaxed upon seeing her. She looked small and cold, but her brown eyes lit up when she spotted me. The guards stayed two steps behind us with their guns drawn, ordering us to walk.
“Where do you think they’re taking us?” she asked me in Korean, her voice low and filled with trepidation.
“Not sure. It might be more questioning about the Rosewoods or whatever went down last night.”
“Stop talking,” the guard snapped, jabbing me in the back with his gun. I quelled my anger and continued walking. We turned right at the corner of the jail cell and into a stairwell. I could see an elevator nearby, but they didn’t want to risk being in an isolated space with us, so we continued past it. The stairwell’s walls were concrete as well, but the floor was metal. Odd.
We went up two flights and entered another hallway. Instead of jail cells, there were what appeared to be interrogation rooms. It may have been the ones they questioned us in right after the abduction. There were large glass windows next to the door, and inside were the same white walls as our prison with metal chairs and a table across from a one-way mirror. My suspicions of being abducted by government agents seemed more and more likely.
They stopped at a room at the end of the hall, and there were two men waiting for us: Captain Hallstead and an older man I had never seen before. He wore an expensive navy suit, and his gray hair was immaculately groomed. They stood in front of a table and two chairs, which the guards instructed us to take.
Scarlett bristled at the order. “I’d rather stand.”
“Lettie,” I muttered in warning. She glanced at me and sighed, taking her seat. The guards closed the door and stood against the wall behind us. The older man watched the two of us for a handful of seconds before speaking.
“My name is General Bridgewater. I’m the commanding officer of this establishment. I’m told that you are Scarlett and Duke. Is that correct?”
We exchanged glances and then nodded. He continued. “Normally, our organization is under the kill-first-ask-questions-later policy, but recent events have caused us to reconsider this course of action.”
He slid his hands out of his pockets and pressed them against the table, lowering his voice. “However, it would be unwise to take this as a sign of weakness. We are reluctant to kill you, but if necessary, we will. Do you understand me?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Scarlett said with the utmost sarcasm in her voice. I closed my eyes for a second, resisting the urge to kick her in the shin.
Bridgewater glanced at her. “You’re the one who’s been giving Captain Hallstead trouble, am I right?”
Scarlett’s eyes flicked to the captain. “Aw, you told him about me?”
He ignored her. “I wouldn’t quite call it trouble, sir.”
“Call it what you will. I like your spirit. I’ve seen many girls like you succeed with that kind of fire, but it won’t work here. Here, you either get with the program or you live a hard life. I can wipe your early transgressions clean if you agree to cooperate for the duration of your stay at this facility. That’s an offer for the both of you.”
“That’s very generous of you,” I said in a measured voice. “But we’d both be much happier if you showed us the door. “
Bridgewater exhaled through his nose, straightening to full height. “There is no door. That’s why we’ve brought you here. You don’t seem to have any more information for us, so it’s time to open Pandora’s box.”
He snapped his fingers. Captain Hallstead stepped forward and placed a manila folder on the table. He opened it, revealing a large photograph.
“Do you know what this is?”
“A satellite. What about it?” I answered.
“It’s not just any satellite. This is a deep space satellite constructed to explore galaxies that are too far away for us to reach as of yet. It was put into orbit over twenty years ago. It captured photos of an unidentified planet with qualities similar to Earth. We launched a campaign that year to find out if it had breathable air and other natural resources.”
“Yeah, I remember reading about this,” Scarlett said. “They were calling it Earth II. The program was canceled for vague reasons. I’m guessing you know why.”
He slid the picture aside. This time, it wasn’t a satellite. It was something that looked like a giant meteor with spikes coming out of it and an eerie blue glow at the center.
“Earth II was destroyed that same year.”
“By what? This meteor?”
“It’s not a meteor. It’s a ship.”
Both of us went completely still.
Scarlett spoke first. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling us that this thing is an alien spaceship?”
“Yes.”
She chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s great. Fantastic. It’s like we’re in Independence Day. Where are Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum when you need them?”
Captain Hallstead didn’t crack a smile. He kept going. “The ship has a cannon on board that harbors an energy source our scientists call Sorbatium. We believe it’s akin to solar energy, as if they are harnessing small suns. They’ve channeled it into a destructive beam. They fired at Earth II and destroyed it in less than five minutes. The ship then deployed hundreds of smaller vessels to collect the fragments of the planet’s core, which we believe they use for profit.”
“And who is they?” Scarlett asked, still heavy on skepticism.
“The astrologist who made the discovery was German. He called them the Bergleute des Todes. Miners of death. They travel from planet to planet, destroying them and gathering their core material. We knew it would only be a certain amount of time before they mined all the usable planets in that galaxy and started coming for ours. That’s when the Starlight Contingency was put into motion. We selected one hundred million citizens of Earth to be the continuation of mankind if our military force failed against the Bergleute. In secret, their homes were converted into our most advanced space shuttles and outfitted with equipment for an immediate exit of the solar system. The Rosewoods were part of that one hundred million, but your intervention brings that number up to one hundred million and two.”
“So what now?” Scarlett interrupted. “We become soldiers in the war against the Bergs? For great justice? Give me a fucking break here. How stupid do you think we are?”
Hallstead’s eyes narrowed a bit. “You really don’t want me to answer that.”
She glared. “Bite me, pretty boy.”
“Is there a point to this conversation?” I interjected, trying to stop their squabbling.
Hallstead cleared his throat, taking a deep breath. “Last night, the Bergleute made their way into our solar system. We launched a full assault on them. Every single shuttle was destroyed, and not just ours. France, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Korea…everyone’s. We had no other choice. We launched the Starlight Contingency after the last infantry fell.”
“Then what? You need us so you can launch another attack before they blow up the Earth?”
“You don’t understand. The Earth was destroyed six hours ago.”
My sister couldn’t hold it in anymore. She burst out laughing, loud and unbridled. It took her a moment to get it under control, talking through giggles. “This is amazing. I mean, I’ve never heard such a load of shit in my life. If you want us to work for you, just say so. You didn’t have to come up with such an elaborate ruse.”
General Bridgewater snapped his fingers again, this time at the guards. “Take them topside. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guards hauled us to our feet and shoved us out the door. Captain Hallstead and the general trailed us. This time, we used the elevator instead of the stairs. Both men were relatively certain we wouldn’t try anything in their presence, it seemed. I could attest to this but Scarlett…not so much. She retained a look of bemusement at the serious expressions on everyone’s face. I couldn’t blame her. Their story was laughable and had little evidence to support it. I suspected it was part of a larger scheme of brainwashing. I was vulnerable to many things, but manipulation was seldom one of them.
We rose for several minutes. My eyebrow started to lift when I noticed we were now in the twenties. The elevator was all metal, no windows, so I couldn’t see the outside. However, the fact that it was about fifteen feet across in both directions certainly roused my suspicion.
Finally, we hit the thirtieth floor and the doors opened. For a second, I didn’t move.
It looked like the docking bay of a ship, but not a seafaring ship—a spaceship.
There were at least thirty different consoles where men and women in dark blue jumpsuits sat wearing headsets and monitoring digital screens.
Captain Hallstead and General Bridgewater walked in, and the guards nudged my sister and I forward. By now, the skeptical expression on Scarlett’s face had subsided and she began to look unnerved.
The two men walked to the front of the deck, and we followed, staring at the sight before us. General Bridgewater brandished a hand at everything before us.
“Welcome to the Titan.”
There were windows at least twenty feet high in front of us, and beyond them was a sky so black that it felt like night itself stretched across my vision. There was only one thing breaking up the blanket of darkness. To the right, I could see the atmosphere of a moon of some sort—its surface a pale orange. I had never seen anything like it. Stars sparkled out in the distance, but none of it looked familiar. These were not our stars. I had seen them as a child, studying charts in my science classes and naming their patterns while my mother hovered over me, smiling.
“Hey, Duke,” Scarlett said next to me in an alarmingly detached sort of voice.
“Yeah?” I whispered.
“This looks kind of…real.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. I thought it was just me.”
Then Scarlett went limp and started to fall. The guards reached for her, but Captain Hallstead caught her with an expression on his face between surprise and pity. She had actually fainted. Not that I blamed her. The blood had retreated from my face, and I could feel dread filling my stomach like cold poison.
“Take her to the infirmary,” General Bridgewater said impassively. “Let me know when she revives.” He might have been used to seeing reactions like this, especially if this wasn’t an illusion.
Captain Hallstead handed my sister over to one of the guards, his eyes lingering as the man carried her out. I tried to read his expression, but it was like taking impression from stone: flat, lifeless, cold. But there was something there. I just didn’t know what.
“Do you have any questions, son?”
I glanced up at General Bridgewater and had to swallow before I could answer. Even then, my voice wavered. “Do you have…footage of Earth’s destruction? I’ll admit that I am starting to believe you, but this could still be some sort of elaborate ruse.”
The general turned and motioned to a wide circular console different from the ones the crewmembers were using. He touched his fingertip to the surface, and an enormous 3D digital map appeared. Briefly, I saw the coordinates for where we were in space and then he switched to a feed from a satellite.
“This is the last footage we received before it happened. It’s from one of our satellites. I’m sure other countries have their own versions of it as well. By the time the Bergleute entered the solar system, the ships including the Starlight Contingency had already evacuated the Earth.”
The satellite showed the surface of the Earth as I always remembered it—seeming to hang in the darkness of space like a sapphire. The upper corner of the globe began to darken, confusing me until I realized it was a shadow from the alien cruiser. The satellite wasn’t facing it so I couldn’t catch a glimpse, but I knew it was there. I saw a bright flash and then a red beam burrowed into one side of the planet. My stomach jerked inside me at the sight of the land crumbling and the seas boiling in its wake. It had disintegrated part of Asia already, and there were burning waves climbing outward from the entry point. After a few minutes, the beam burst out the other side of the planet and the tectonic plates of the Earth’s surface began to crack apart. Bright yellow and orange spurted from the cracks, evidence of the planet’s core peeking through as the weapon ripped it apart from the inside. At last, it exploded, and the satellite feed went to static.
General Bridgewater closed the feed. He showed no emotion at seeing it. I got the feeling he had watched it a hundred times, his pale eyes filling the world just before it turned into nothing more than rocks and dust.
“General Bridgewater,” I said. “If this is some sort of trick, understand that I will do everything in my power to end your life.”
He nodded. I wiped my eyes and straightened my posture. “Then consider this my agreement to cooperate with your operation. I can’t say the same thing for my sister, but I will do what is needed as long as I am on this vessel.”
“Good man. Escort him to the barracks.”
The guard reached for me, but I held up my hands. “What is going to happen to Scarlett?”
General Bridgewater glanced at Captain Hallstead, and he answered instead. “She needs to be examined for psychological damage, and if she chooses to play ball, she’ll be placed in the women’s division aboard this ship. You’re both going to become soldiers.”
“I need to be able to see her. She won’t recover as quickly without me.”
Captain Hallstead paused, seeming unsure. “We’ll see if we can make arrangements, but as of now she won’t be released until we’re sure she’s stable. A lot of people suffer from PTSD after seeing the world destroyed. We’ll keep her safe.”
I stepped forward, unafraid. “I want your word on that, Captain.”
He met my eyes. “You have my word.”
I let the guard take me back to the elevator and lead me to my new home. The only home I had left.
God help us.
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE STARLIGHT CONTINGENCY
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