Description

The remnants of two civilized worlds, once separated by countless star systems, are brought together under a shared calamity. The Vagantem home world was lost forever, and its people forsaken. Stranded in the near empty cosmos for years, the Vagan people eventually found a habitable planet. This world, however, was already claimed. As they introduced themselves to mankind, the Vagantem soon understood the gravity of their arrival.

Times were unstable for humanity, long before the Vagantem arrived. The discovery of life and technology outside of their comprehension only sped up the inevitable. Earth’s governments quickly grew aggressive and paranoid, opting to fight, spy and vie for the closest seat next to their new friends from across the void. Soon enough, world war was rampant. The Vagantem had initially chosen to remain neutral and uninvolved with the battles, until the very planet was at stake.

The Vagantem interfered, and before anyone realized, Earth was a blasted and irradiated wasteland. Humanity had fallen, just as the Vagantem had. With limited time to act, the Vagan soon worked to cleanse and terraform this world they now inherited, into the beautiful likeness of their old home. The fleet remains divided and splintered, in orbit along with man’s lunar colony, reluctant to fulfill the promise and potential of what they had started below.

Unbeknownst to them, not all of humanity was extinguished. From the deepest cracks and shadows survivors have emerged and embraced this new world. It has been eleven years since the end and now, warlords and scavengers rule what they can.

Read An Excerpt From Chapter Two

A small group of Vagantem technicians and bioengineers tended to screens and computers in a lab. Great arms of machinery made of metal and rubber were attached to the dark ceiling above, waiting to be used. Three tanks bubbling with a bright green fluid were the focus of the lab. The first was empty, and connective wires hung loosely from it. The middle held a Vagantem—an important one, as the lighting and center stage seemed to suggest. He was grey and shriveled and blasted with purple scars. The third vat, which seemed more insignificant, held a human under a blinking dim light. Wires and breathing tubes linked him to the tank, and he floated in the green juice, naked. He was a dark, brown-skinned man, and his left arm and hand were twitching. A metal device inside the vat pierced his twitching flesh in various places, sending sparks of electricity into the joints and muscles. The skin on his arm, relative to the rest of his body, seemed new and smooth and scar-less, discounting the few recent pockmarks from the device. It was Shane the restless, resting in an alien vat.

An error message suddenly flashed on the center holo-screen above the inner hub of workstations situated in front of the vats. “Someone is corrupting the system. I am shut out! We are being infiltrated,” argued one of the technicians while the others fumbled with their computers to try and trace the hack and pinpoint the breach.

Suddenly, an explosion from far down in the ship shook the lab. Many of the lab technicians and bioengineers fell and cowered, while a few maintained their footing and dashed for the exit in a panic. A red light flashed, and a strange siren blared back and forth through the ship. A defensive drone orb with a stinger-like laser tail floated down from the ceiling on high alert.

Weapon fire came closer, but it was coming from the floor below the lab. The rest of the Vagantem ran out, but the drone remained. It scanned the unconscious Vagantem in the vat. Then it went over to scan Shane. Shane was no longer unconscious; his eyes were open and terrified, and he punched and kicked the glass walls of the tank. His movements were slowed by the viscous fluid and limited space, and the walls remained strong. The drone watched him curiously, then scanned him.

The drone turned, almost frantically, and watched the entrance. It slid open, and two golden-suited Vagantem soldiers stormed in. The drone fired a white-blue ball of light, striking the first in the helmet. The Vagantem’s helmet erupted, and his face and tendrils disintegrated. His headless neck then squirted out purple blood, along with mechanical sparks. After a quick sidestep, the second intruder fired a precise red line of laser from its frontal focus cannon and sliced the drone in half. It fell and melted into a molten pool of itself.

The Vagantem rebel kneeled and pressed his helmet against his fallen friend’s chest. “For the cause …for our people,” he whispered in his cosmic speech. His mourning was short-lived, and he soon approached the main control panel, then flicked a switch, pulled a lever, and pressed a button. The empty vat drained its fluid and opened first. The soldier repeated the same process on a similar dial beside the other. The tank containing the scarred Vagantem soon drained and popped open. The soldier rushed over and grabbed him delicately, unhooking him from the machinery with small metal hands that cycled out from his armor’s wrists. As he did this, he noticed Shane staring at him. “What a pity,” he muttered