Read Guardian Awakening Online
Authors: C. Osborne Rapley
Guardian Awakening
GUARDIAN
Awakening
Copyright © C. Osborne Rapley 2014
All rights reserved
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Chapter Thirteen: Admiral Clayandrian.
Chapter Eighteen: Training a Guardian
Chapter Nineteen: A Guardian Returns
Chapter Twenty: The Artificial Intelligences.
Chapter Twenty-One: The AI Core
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Weapon.
Chapter One: Alien.
The sun dipped below the edge of the moor, the distant clouds formed red fingers that reached across the sky, heralding in the night. After a warm summer’s day, the air was still and cool. Tristan Taylor shivered as faint stars started to appear in the emerging darkness, a darkness that leached into his mind.
“Tristan, you’re not listening to me, are you?” Sarah stood with her fists clenched, leaning slightly towards him, her face distorted with anger.
Tristan swallowed, his mouth dry. “I’m sorry, but…”
She did not let him finish. “I’ve had enough of this, Tristan! Either you give up this stupid isolation -” She waved a hand at the sweeping moor. “- or it’s over, and I’ll return to London on my own.” She paused for breath. “Well?”
Her demand for an answer hit Tristan like a physical blow to the chest. He stepped back and shook his head. “Sarah, you know I can’t do that, not yet.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, reflecting the redness of the sky. She wiped them away with the back of her trembling hand. With a final toss of her head she turned, her high heels clicking on the stone patio. “I’ve packed my things; the rest is junk.”
The anger in her voice seemed to echo in his head; he had waited too long. He rubbed his temple, his hands cold and clammy. The slamming of a car door made him jump. His eyes started to water as he collapsed into a patio chair. The sound of a screaming engine and spinning wheels became almost deafening as the pain took control of his senses.
His hand shook as he fumbled in his pocket for his painkillers. He broke two from the blister pack and gulped them down with a shudder. He rocked forward, holding his head in his hands;
damn the Navy and their experiments!
The pain increased, and he shivered;
twenty minutes before they start to work
. He pushed down on the arms of the chair, forcing himself up. He stepped through the open lounge patio door, and slid it shut grunting with pain. He staggered to the settee and flopped down with a deep racking sigh that shook his whole body.
Tristan opened his eyes and blinked as faint watery moonlight filled the room with a gentle silver glow. He rubbed the scar on the side of his temple. The pain had passed. With a sigh, he stood and walked over to the light switch, the sudden blaze of light hurt his eyes. He glanced at his watch; this time he had been unconscious for over two hours.
The memory of Sarah’s sudden departure came flooding back and he shook his head. She had finally given up on him. He walked over to the mantelpiece. A young Lieutenant in Royal Navy dress uniform with his arm around a slim, pretty, dark haired woman, smiled back at him. His eyes started to sting, and he wiped them with a trembling hand.
“Shit!”
With a sweep of his hand, the picture went crashing to the ground, glass shattering into a thousand pieces on the stone hearth. If only he hadn’t volunteered for the experimental weapons program things would have been so different!
He turned, ignoring the shards of glass that crunched under his slippered feet, and he flopped back into the lounge chair. He stretched, staring through the window at the dark moor, the scene somehow unreal in the dim silver light as the moon faded in and out of the clouds. He had to have peace, silence, and isolation; why couldn’t she accept that?
The phone rang. He reached over and picked up the receiver. “Yes, hello?”
“Tristan?”
“Yes mother,” he sighed. From the tone of her voice, he knew a lecture was in the offing.
“I’ve just been speaking with Sarah. You’re being cruel and unreasonable, why don’t you see sense and at least come home to us? We can consult some different doctors, and get that damn thing out of your head.”
“It’s not possible mother, we’ve been through this before!”
“Come home, Tristan. Apologise to Sarah.”
“Mother!” Tristan rubbed his temple.
“She’s such a wonderful girl, Tristan. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like that.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“No one’s, dear, but you’re just… Well, you’re being unreasonable”
“Damn it, mother!”
Tristan glanced at the remains of the photo frame. Two faces looked up at him through broken glass. He slammed the receiver down, pinching his fingers on the phone rest.
“Fuck.” With a sharp jerk he ripped the phone from the socket and threw the receiver at the wall. “Now leave me in peace!”
He slumped back in the chair, and his gaze returned to the still silent moor as a few spots of rain splashed against the patio doors, the start of another shower. Through the broken cloud, a shooting star streaked across the sky.
The small red light blinked on the instrument panel incessantly demanding attention. Aesia ignored the pulsing red glow; there was nothing she could do about it anyway. She shivered, her breath forming ice crystals on the cockpit canopy. She had shut everything possible down, including life support.
She hoped the metallic rock of the asteroid would hide her from the enemy’s instruments. She glanced at her hands; they were shaking, not from cold, but the stress of battle. She placed one hand over the pulsing light. The smallest thing might give her position away.
Far above her a vast black ship, the stars, bright points of light, winking out as it moved across them. A faint mist, and flashes arching out from a hole in the side of the ship, showed her where her missiles had struck. She smiled; at least she had done her duty. Now, she must get away, and find somewhere to repair the damage to her fighter.
The dark shape stopped and hung motionless. She stiffened, bracing herself for the impending flash, the burning, as the weapons of the vast ship above turned her to hot vapor.
Her heart thumped in her chest, counting her life away almost in sync with the faint red light pulsing under her shaking fingers. The dark shape started to move; the stars started to reappear. Each new star increased her hope that maybe she would survive.
She waited until the dark shape was no longer visible then restored the power to her computer and life support. Her systems did not detect any enemy ships, so they must have engaged their Star Drive and moved away.
One small fighter in an uncharted system far from home, and rescue was not worth bothering about.
With trembling hands, Aesia removed her helmet and shook her head, her long white hair falling down over her shoulders. She rubbed her ears;
I must get this helmet adjusted
. She laid the helmet on her lap and turned her attention back to the instruments.
Increasing her craft’s power, she switched on the scanners. The neural interface took a moment to lock with her mind. She directed her attention to the planets of the system that she now found herself in. The first two planets from the star were out of the question, but the third planet had a breathable atmosphere. All the parameters checked out, and she could survive on the surface without any problem. The computer warned her that signs of early technology were present on the surface. The planet was inhabited by primitive beings. Still, she was more than capable of looking after herself, and they were probably far too primitive to be of any threat.
Above her, stars glinted cold and bright, but no dark shadows moved overhead. She took a deep breath and commanded the ship’s computer to start the engine ignition sequence.
Of the three main engines in her fighter, only one fired. The flashing red light on the console was joined by others, each insistent, each demanding attention. She shook her head; this was an unexpected setback she had not bargained for. Her craft would be hard to handle, and manoeuvring within a planetary atmosphere almost impossible. However, she had no choice. She would be unable to go far with her damaged craft. She dropped the tight fitting helmet behind her seat and grabbed the controls.
The flight from the asteroids had been difficult, and her arms ached from holding the damaged craft steady. The stabilization and auto pilot systems couldn’t cope with the engine damage, forcing Aesia to fly manually. She flexed her shoulders to ease the ache.
The sensors identified a primitive electromagnetic detection technology. She checked with the computer, ensuring that her fighter’s basic cloaking systems were functioning correctly. Something under the dashboard sparked, and the weapons targeting system went dead. She groaned; there was nothing for it, she had to land before anything else failed. With a firm grip on the vibrating control stick she guided her fighter into the planet’s upper atmosphere.
The computer had shown her a large island off a much larger continent as a possible landing site. Her sensors showed a few deserted areas that had the advantage of moving into the darkness of night, so her descent would not be detected by anyone casually looking up.
Aesia made her choice, and she pushed the stick forward. Her craft began to buck, throwing her against her straps as it entered deeper into the atmosphere. The noise from the thickening air became a roar. The control stick tried to rip itself from her grip. She bit her lower lip as her aching muscles strained against the violent movement; she needed all her strength to hold the craft on her chosen course. She commanded the braking thrusters to fire.
The seat straps tightened around her as the forward rush of her decent was checked. At least the thrusters were working. As she neared the ground, she pulled the stick back, straining; sweat ran from her brow, stinging her eyes. The control stick was like a live animal in her hands trying to escape. She just missed a small, low building before she hit the surface of the planet. She was thrown forward hard against her harness and as her head struck the main console one last thought passed through her mind;
my helmet!
Blackness engulfed her.
A roar rattled the windows and shook the house as something flew low overhead, followed by a dull thud then silence. Tristan leapt out of his chair.
An aircraft in trouble
! The ache in his head forgotten, he grabbed a torch from his hall cupboard, threw open his front door and ran to where he thought the craft had gone down.
He barely avoided tripping over the uneven ground in the faint light cast by a cloud covered moon. His stomach churned as he rushed to the crash site.
What was he going to find?
He cursed his stupidity for ripping his phone off the wall. If the occupants were in a serious condition, he had no way of contacting the emergency services. Even if he had one a mobile was useless, no signal in this local area. He cleared a small rise, his breath coming in ragged gulps. A cloud cleared the moon, flooding the moor in silver light. He skidded to a halt, his chest heaving. The silver light faded into the matt black of the aircraft. This was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
Three round exhausts protruded from under a stubby tail. The fuselage tapered from the engines to a pointed nose, partially buried into the peat of the moor. Short wings attached to the centre of the fuselage had two tubes projecting from them. They reminded Tristan of cannon barrels. He scrambled down the slope. Just in front of the wings he noticed a canopy, presumably where the pilot sat. His trained eye glanced over the craft’s markings. They were weird shapes, totally unrecognizable as any country roundels or writing Tristan had ever come across during his days in the Navy. The whole thing, with its sharp angular lines and mat black colour, exuded an aura of purposeful menace.