cover

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"Is the end of everything, Professor?"

"We shall have to wait and see!"

Dedication

This book is dedicated to

The Future...

Acknowledgement

My sincere thanks go to

My partner Julie Boyd

For editing this manuscript.

Introduction

Professor Brienstien the clone of a long dead scientist has crashed landed on a hostile alien world. Meanwhile at the other side of the dark void, a terrible war has begun between interstellar corporations, and the fate of every being in the Universe will hang the balance.

Chapter 1: Star Fall

The starship crash landed badly and tumbled out of control. Huge sections of her hull were torn off where the shields failed and duralloy plating made contact with the unforgiving ground. Over and over, end on end, until the momentum was spent. Then as luck would have it she landed right side up facing forward; dense forest burning in a trail of devastation behind her. At the helm Professor Brienstien; a scientist and clone of Einstein the famous scientist with a similar name, lay unconscious as the holo-control projectors in front of him smoldered and caught fire. But of course, Brienstien was no ordinary man. He was genetically engineered to be superior in many ways. The sudden deceleration had caused him to injure his head, and blue blood trickled down his mop of tangled white hair. An alarm was sounding, although he could not hear it.

It was then a shadow appeared out of the approaching darkness drawn by the dramatic spectacle of the explosion. The figure was that of a man, and he was dressed in the dirty, worn clothes of a survivor. He went inside the burning ship and looked left and right along the access passage. The doors had opened themselves as part of the emergency escape protocol, and he hesitated before going inside. The fire was beginning to burn out of control. He shielded his face with a large green hand, and made his way to the bridge of the small freighter. There he found the unconscious body of the pilot slumped forward in his grav-harness. He deactivated the magno-locks and then dragged the strange looking man out of the burning bridge. He was exceptionally strong, and easily took the stranger outside, and put him down at a safe distance from the raging flames, which were consuming the vessel.

Then he took a risk and went back inside, going left this time towards the cargo bay; to see what the ship was carrying. An opportunity for salvage could not be ignored. He was gone for another minute before returning with a medium sized storage container. The smoke was black and dense now, and he just made it off the ship when there was a sudden explosion from the bridge, that rocked the ground and sent bits of duralloy shrapnel flying out in every direction. He was lucky this time and flattened himself against the earth. He jumped back up and dragged the unconscious man further away from the stricken starship. He returned a few moments later and recovered the salvaged container, and when that was done; watched from a safe distance as the ship broke up under the force of multiple blasts which broke her back completely. In a few hours there wouldn't be much left. He turned his attention to the container, and found that it was locked and would not open. He tried to bash it with a rock, and then lever it with a length of metal; but the rock crumbled and the metal bent. He became frustrated and threw the container down. He pulled out a blaster pistol and shot at it; but the pulse bounced off and set fire to a nearby tree. Clearly that wasn't going to work either. He looked up at the sky and knew it was going to be night soon. The commotion would bring many scavengers and with the darkness just as much danger. Now a decision needed to be made. He couldn't take the stranger and the container at the same time, as it wasn't possible to lift both of them. So he wrestled with himself and then decided to hide the container and save the stranger. When he was done concealing the item, he returned and lifted the man onto his shoulders, and walked carefully off into the shadows of the mutated forest.

Chapter 2: The Dark Tide

The war between the Altex and Zepher Corporations was being enacted against the backdrop of a million scattered planets. As huge planet busting anti-matter bombs, which had been concealed by Zepher Corp agents on many of these worlds; exploded in cataclysmic eruptions of incredible kinetic, energy awash with gamma rays. The planets suffered badly and were fragmented into huge asteroid fields that expanded violently into the vastness of space. In return Altex Corp tried its best to avenge the billions of people who were being slaughtered with such brutal tactics; but they found the planets of their enemy surrounded by huge energy shields which could not be penetrated. The war was one- sided. The Emperor was becoming increasingly desperate as the dark tide began to rise; creeping up the scattered shores of the Imperium. It seemed that Zepher Corp had been preparing for this cataclysmic confrontation, and all the while appearing to be the technological underdog. They would not listen to the desperate cries for a cease fire, they didn't care how many people burned in those raging anti-matter explosions, and they just enacted their evil plans; as more and more Altex Corp controlled planets were blasted into fragments.

Chapter 3: Field Execution

The Commander and his three remaining men, Ciaro, Tibbs and Piedro had been captured by the enemy and faced their final moments as they were about to be executed. They looked at the approaching Z-Corp space marines and feared the worst. The enemy lined up and prepared their weapons, it was going to happen all right.

"Anything to say before judgment is passed, Commander?"

"Please, spare my men and just kill me instead."

"That's not possible you know the way we do things."

"Yes, there is no mercy allowed."

"Ready men, aim...."

"Wait!?!" The Commander raised his hand up." The enemy was ready to fire.

"What is it, Commander?"

The female voice of the Master A.I. suddenly said.

"Initiating protocol 'D' in thirty seconds."

The Commander smiled.

"Do you know what that means?"

"No tell us!?!" The enemy soldiers looked uncertain.

"It means we're all going to die."

Chapter 4: Zero Hour

The singularity opened and Zero flew inside. The Cosmic Clown flew after him, into that gigantic swirling spiral in the sky. The nanite-machines followed; pouring more and more black objects, into the chaotic vortex of anomalous energies.

Beyond that opening in the fabric of reality a connection between two universes had been established. The transit was swift, and in a fraction of a second they emerged from the nano-recombinator on the other side.

Zero smiled and knew he'd escaped from that hellish prison. He grinned like a madman who'd been given the opportunity to emerge into the real world.

A female voice was counting down.

"Ten...Nine...Eight...Seven..."

And he immediately guessed it was a countdown to destruction. Then the Cosmic Clown appeared too and was right behind, Zero. He seemed dazed. A nanite machine emerged followed by another and another. They began to reform into something sinister; but it was too late.

"Six...Five...Four..."

Zero looked around the area. There was a heavily shielded exit door, but it was closed.

"Three...Two...One..."

Then Zero was gone and the door had been smashed open. In a fraction of that remaining second the monster had escaped, followed by the Cosmic Clown, who found that he could also move at the speed of light; or at least a significant fraction of it.

The Machines were not so lucky as the Master A.I. initiated Protocol 'D' and the whole asteroid base, floating in the empty void; exploded in a massive, silent blast of fire.

But they had gone far beyond the asteroid, flying at unbelievable velocity away from certain destruction. The space where the asteroid had been was now occupied by a large tear in the fabric of reality, and somehow it exerted a strong attractive force which began to consume everything in the space around it.

A dark looking world was far off in the distance and Zero flew in that direction, closely followed by the Cosmic Clown. In seconds they had reached the edge of the atmosphere and they went down like two blazing comets but immune to the friction of such a rapid decent.

Zero landed gracefully and a second later the Clown landed hard, smashing into the ground and tumbling over and over; his momentum was such that a trail of devastation was carved out the dense forest that surrounded them. It was a temperate world and it contained much that had clearly been destroyed. The planet showed signs of a massive conflict in the past and around the forest; the remains of a ruined city sprawl...