Here it is, the prologue, I hope you like it. (I probably should warn you that there will be some bad language in this story.

The Sovereignty

Prologue:

"Holy Mother of God, Thompson, SHUT THE DAMN THING DOWN NOW! SHE'S NOT GONNA HOLD! WEBER, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"

Lloyd Thompson's heart nearly jumped into his throat. All of the sudden, just like that, the situation had gone from bad to much, much worse. Alarms were blaring everywhere, the yellow-red emergency lights had come on and cast an eerie glow across the lab. Lloyd looked across the room to his supervisor, a bearded man with a balding gray head yelling at the top of his ancient lungs. "GODDAMMIT THOMPSON I SAID SHUT THE MOTHERF*CKER DOWN! WE GOTTA KEEP IT CONTAINED!"

Lloyd scrambled to put in the emergency shutdown code into the console, only to miss a keystroke and slam his fist down on the keyboard in frustration. Suddenly, through the eerie green-yellow gas cloud that was dominating the bio lab, a face slammed up against the safety window to the control room. The eyes were blood red, with a mixture of tears, mucus and more blood running down the man's gruesome face. His tongue was already starting to swell, and more blood streamed from his mouth, nose and ears.

Lloyd couldn't take his eyes off the man, and neither could anyone else in the safety of the control room for that matter. The man's left eye appeared to move maybe an inch, where he was now staring into the room, and into Lloyd's eyes. His slightly opened mouth quivered for a second, then seemed to form the words "help me." The zombie-like face was still looking in Lloyd's eyes, and worse, it seemed to be looking right through him. "Help me." the face said again. This time, it just slid down the glass, leaving a smeared face print of blood, mucus and tears on the window.

"LLOYD!" he looked over to see his supervisor yelling at him again. He tore his eyes away from his supervisor and back to the computer screen. WARNING: SAFETY CONTAINERS BREACHED. UNABLE TO COMMENCE AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN, MANUAL SHUTDOWN REQUIRED. EXPLOSION IMMINENT. These were the red letters that were dominating the top half of the computer screen, and that kept flashing red and yellow, creating quite a distraction. He quickly punched in the letters LXGIWYLASNAEB to start the manual system shutdown, but it wasn't in time. A huge explosion rocked the entire station. Another one of the containers had blown, releasing the deadly virus through several corridors.

"Lloyd, close all the doors on this station. Override the airlocks. No one enters, no one leaves, we gotta keep this thing isolated."

He simply nodded and entered more codes into the computer. All the doors in the station began to close, unfortunately for humanity, they weren't closing fast enough. Four scientists and a soldier were all in the wind's deadly path. The doors only took about one and a half seconds to close, but it was too long. The five men could see the cloud ripping through the long corridor stretching before them at nearly a hundred miles an hour. Just as the door was half closed, the toxic cloud blasted through, covering the men in the most deadly virus mankind had ever known.

The door was now completely closed, but it was all too late. The men hit the floor almost instantly, almost simultaneously. They were all convulsing, throwing up blood, crying blood, coughing blood, urinating blood and loosing blood any other way the human body can. They were all dead within fifteen seconds.

Lloyd pulled up a diagram of the station, and the 3D green-on-black view showed the hundreds of rooms, corridors and docking bays begin to flash red. No, he thought, it's been sealed up in the bio lab and a few corridors, why is it still going through the station? "Oh Christ, the air pump." he said aloud and looked through the glass. The cloud in the bio lab beyond the window was now beginning to thin out, probably because it was rushing through the rest of the station. He could just make out the big cylinder in the corner of the bio lab that was the air pump generator for the entire station. That was why it was getting everywhere, it was going through the ventilation system.

Suddenly, he was struck with fear, with the realization that if it was everywhere in the vent system, then he could be breathing in certain death. He looked at the floor and saw the very last thing he wanted to see. A faint green-yellow haze was hovering just above the floor, going from his ankles to his knees. The rest of the geeks and techies all looked down too, as if they had all had the same realization at the same time: the realization that they were all going to die in this room. Lloyd instinctively pulled out his emergency respiratory full-face mask and fitted it over his head. He was the only one in the room who was going to get out alive. His bio suit had protected him from the virus, and the mask was going to save his life. Unfortunately, that could not be said about the rest of the geeks and techies. Lloyd was the only one in the room who had clearance to enter the bio lab, and he had been in there eight minutes before the explosion. He was probably the luckiest person on the entire station, and only because he hadn't bothered to take off his bio suit after leaving the lab.

The rest of the men all began to panic and rush for the door. In doing this, they all signed their own death warrants by stirring up the air, causing the deadly cloud to rise and enclose the men. Before Lloyd's supervisor came crashing to the floor, he managed to input the code into the small keypad next to the door. The large, double blast doors opened, letting the death cloud from the control room merge with the one in the corridor. As Lloyd stepped out, he almost tripped over a leg. He looked down, to see the bloody face of a three star general staring straight up into the ceiling, looking at the red flashing light, but truly seeing nothing at all. His hand twitched slightly, but Lloyd knew the man was dead. He had died almost instantly when the cloud came rushing through the hallway because he panicked and gasped, filling his lungs with death.

Lloyd walked down the hall and kept tripping and stepping on convulsing bodies and bloody corpses. It was like a river of death. The riverbanks were the walls, the water was the greenish-yellow cloud that hung about a foot above the floor, and all those little stones and sticks that would slice the living hell out of bare feet on the river bottom were the bodies that lay strewn about on the floor, some in truly awkward positions.

He thought for a moment. There was no point in trying to shut down the ventilation generator anymore, the deadly cloud was everywhere in the station, and everyone that wasn't wearing a bio suit was probably dead now, even though the explosion had happened only two minutes ago.

He eventually made his way to the docking bay, and opened the door using the emergency override code, just as he had been doing for the past five minutes to get through the station. It was now seven minutes after the first explosion. The docking bay was filled with the cloud, and Lloyd could just barely make out the end wall. He had to feel his way down the stairs with his feet and finally fell down the rest of them.

He had hit his head and probably sprained his wrist, but he would be okay. Except, of course, for the one injury he didn't notice. His bio suit had gotten a small, almost microscopic rip in the lower thigh area that was slowly letting in the deadly virus. Lloyd finally found his way inside the cockpit of one of the many freighter ships crowding the docking bay. He had to use the ships onboard missiles to blast open the outer airlock doors, and as he ran, Lloyd Thompson started the chain letter of death for over a billion people.




Edited by - Killa on 6/10/2006 4:48:50 PM

Edited by - Killa on 6/10/2006 9:55:57 PM

Seeing as how no one is intrested, I guess I'll just not even bother to write the rest of chapter 1.

Wow man, grusome as hell but good writing! I'm interested in seeing where it leads. What are you going to do if yo ukill off that character? Have someone find the ship later? I say keep it going. Cheers.

Now Brave, I can't tell you what'll happen, you'll just have to wait and see. It's nice to know that at least one person here has read it.

For a while, everyone was on my back about getting my new story up, and now that it's finally here no one seems to care. Oh well, as long as one person cares about it, I'll continue.

This is great, please continue!

Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you. - Dilbert and Wally

dont worry Killa, were reading it. There just isnt much to comment on yet.

Its a brilliant start, keep it coming. It'll be good.

Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

i like it as well, its much darker then most of the stories here...

007

Dark beginning, promises of death, mayhem and chaos in the future...

All the makings of a ripper fanfic.

MORE!

And here we go with the first official chapter. Not as soon as I'd hoped, but just remember how I am about fanfics and realize that I could have made you wait for a month. I hope you like it, although except for the prologue, The Sovereignty will probably start off a little bit slow as I'm introducing the characters. Also, the language is considerably worse than it was in the Prologue. I just thought I should warn you first. Enjoy.


The Sovereignty

Chapter 1:

"Rebecca..."

A mutter came from the darkness, then a loud creaking sound. She had rolled over, facing away from where her husband was standing over her, calling her name in the wee hours of the morning.

"Rebecca, come on now honey, you have to wake up," the voice said again. Another mutter came from the dark, but this one could be understood. "Lloyd, I have to get up for work in three hours, let me sleep." She felt the covers move slightly, then be ripped off of her, exposing her naked body to the cold air inside the room. She curled up into a little ball and dozed again. A rough hand began to shake her shoulder, shake her violently, so violently in fact that she bit her tongue.

Rebecca Thompson finally sat up in the bed, rubbed her eyes, tried to ignore the taste of blood in her mouth and looked at her husband standing beside the bed. She was ready to slap the living hell out of him for waking her up this early and making her bite her tongue, but she could see that her husband wasn't angry. He was frightened. Frightened like a little child is of the monsters in the closet, but Lloyd's monsters weren't those purple fur balls with one eye and striped horns that hid under the bed, Lloyd's monsters were the real kind, the kind that could be watching you from a mile away, then all of the sudden swoop out of nowhere and get you. Lloyd's monsters were government monsters, trying to track him down, and if they did, the wouldn't only kill him, but they would also kill his wife Rebecca and their two children, Emily and Jesse.

"Come on honey, we've gotta go. They're coming for me, I know it, but they won't get us if we move fast," Lloyd said to his confused wife, still sitting on the bed in all her glory, looking at him through perplexed eyes. He had made the worst mistake of his life, and everyone else's for that matter, when he ran from the base.

"Lloyd, who's coming for you? What the hell is going on?"

"I ran baby. I f*cked up big time. I shouldn't have ran, but now it's too late. We gotta get outta here or we'll all be dead. Come on, get Emily and Jesse up and dressed. We don't have time to pack anything other than some food."

He walked quickly out of the room, almost running, leaving her sitting on the bed butt-naked and confused as hell. Finally she stood up and threw on a pair of pants and a shirt, she was now scared out of her mind, so scared in fact that she had forgotten to put on underwear. As Rebecca was just about to walk out of the doorway into the hall, Lloyd ran passed and nearly knocked her over. Now he actually was running.

Both him and her were scared sh*tless, as they should be. They had no idea what was awaiting them in the future, nor did humanity. She walked out into the hall and could see Lloyd in the kitchen of their tiny apartment scrambling to stuff dehydrated food into a bag. He looked up at her and motioned for her to get a move on. Of course, when dealing with Lloyd Thompson, get a move on was the very nice way to say what he usually meant when he motioned like that, which was: hurry the hell up b*tch.

She walked into the small room that Emily and Jesse shared and could see her two sleeping angels. Emily at the age of ten and Jesse who had just turned twelve two days earlier stirred a little when she walked in, but they didn't wake up. Rebecca whispered the word "overhead" and the small light in the center of the ceiling of the tiny room came on, at first very dim but eventually enough to make the room bright. She heard Jesse moan and saw him try to cover his eyes with his forearm.

Rebecca and her son had never gotten along too well, and Emily was a perfect little angel. The two conflicting forces. The Yin and the Yang.

"Jesse, wake up sweetie. You need to get dressed, we have to go somewhere. Get your sister up."

He groaned again and stirred some more. He always did things the first time he was asked and his mother never had to ask him twice to do anything. Never.

Jesse and Emily came walking out of their bedroom together and into the kitchen, where their parents were talking. Lloyd looked at them with the most scared eyes the children had ever seen.

Ten minutes later they were all loaded into the Humpback and in space. Rebecca looked in the rear-view monitor, to see the small icy planet of New Berlin. She took a good look, as this was the last time she would ever see it again.

________________________________

It had been four months since Frank Johnson had come from Bretonia (more like kicked out of) and had been lucky enough to find a minimum wage job as a miner in one of the diamond mines on Pittsburgh. Four months on this blazing hell of a planet, and he still barely had enough money to get by. Times were tough. Well, tough for him anyway, everyone else in the colonies seemed to be doing fine. Just dandy.

Hey, look on the bright side, he thought as he placed an explosive charge on a very large rock, the temp may be coming down about a degree (like hell it was.) He had often wondered if he was crazy, always arguing with himself in his head. You're not crazy you worthless prick, Frank said to himself, only to answer himself with: the hell you aren't.

It was his job to clear out large rocks so that the mine could be expanded. He, of course, didn't get to pick which ones, he was just a grunt and did as he was told. Yes master, I am your slave and will do whatever you want. Would you like me to give you a blow job, master? Of course you would you fat ugly prick.

He let his mind wonder off some more. He was recalling something strange he had seen last week. While he was working in the blazing heat, he saw something curious. A lone Humpback freighter had flown over the mine without stopping, and just kept going off into the desert. But why? Why had a Rheinland freighter been flying over the desert of Pittsburgh and not stop at the only human population for six and a half thousand miles in every direction? Oh well, it was none of his concern.

The charge had been planted on the boulder, and Frank was ready to arm it when something caught his attention. He looked into the bright blue sky and could see three ships, flying toward the mine in a triangle formation. He watched them for a moment as they flew over the mining pit and dropped a small black object. He watched as it fell into the pit and landed right on the top of the colossal laser drill and exploded in a blinding flash of light.

His eardrums instantly ruptured, he was blasted back against the boulder before he knew it and his eyes seemed about to melt from the light.

After what seemed like a short eternity (which in reality had been about a quarter of a second) the blinding light and deafening noise went away. Frank was still back up against the boulder with a pain on the back of his head. He slowly slid down and landed on his knees. All he could see before he lost consciousness was that the mine pit that had previously had the gigantic laser drill towering above it was now a crater littered with debris and a huge plume of smoke rising above it, dominating the sky. Everything went black and Frank Johnson went down face first into the burning desert sand.

_____________________________________

James Olsen awoke staring straight up into the orange evening sky, the heat from the setting sun made his face feel like it was melting. He scrambled to his feet only to come crashing back down. He looked around in a cloud of confusion. What the hell had just happened? He knew where he was, or, did he? The scenery had defiantly changed. Where was the huge towering laser drill? Where were all the workers? And where the hell was he? Now he really didn't know.

Last thing he remembered, he had been operating the laser drill, then a loud noise, blinding light, and now this. He was laying in the middle of nowhere with a gigantic crater in front of him and a lot of smoke and fire. He finally managed to slide across the blazing sand and into the shade of a nearby rock, and his body instantly felt eighty degrees cooler. He sat up and put his back up against the boulder, noticing for the first time the explosive charge stuck to the side of the rock about two feet from his head. It wasn't armed, thank God for that.

He looked toward the direction of the huge crater and plume of smoke, and could see four people staggering around. They were all hurt, but they looked to be in better shape than him. He saw a man with scraggly blonde hair and a black goatee walking toward him. His face was burned a little, the skin now starting to peel off, and his clothes were practically shreds hanging off his body, but he looked to be okay other than that. As he approached, he said something which James could not understand. His hearing hadn't returned fully. "Huh?" James said.

"Said, you're one lucky son of a b*tch. That tower over there was just 'bout to topple over and send your ass to Kingdom Come. Lucky for you I showed up. You ain't just a lucky son of a b*tch, you're a heavy one too. I almost couldn't drag you outta there." The man sat down in the sand next to James, and then extended his hand. James took it.

"Frank Johnson. You?" The man said.

"James Olsen. I guess I owe ya big huh?"

"Damn right. When the rescue team shows up, I want a forty-eight ounce filet minion."

James chuckled. "No such thing."

"Well, it's what I want."

"Well then buddy, it's what you're gonna get. As soon as those guys hurry their asses up. How long's it been?"

"Not sure. Nobody is to tell ya the truth. Guess it's been 'bout four hours. Ya'd think they'd showed up by now."

"Yeah, really. How many survivors we got?"

"We counted eighteen after the explosion, but five died since then. I saw it all, bastards bombed us. That's probably what's takin the rescue guys so long."

"So, what? You wanna go after help or somethin? If those guys that bombed this hell hole don't want anyone coming, then no one's coming. Just that simple. We can't stay here forever. How much food and water is there?"

"Not enough. Seven gallons of water and a hamburger that some asshole already ate and threw back up. Everything else was in the underground storage rooms, which got completely buried in all that s*ht down there. I think somebody oughta go and look for someone. But there's not another mine around here for six thousand miles, and that's across nothin but desert. And, to top it all off, we got the environmentalists to thank for this goddamn heat. Ya remember when Pittsburgh was covered in all those clouds? Planet was fifty f*ckin degrees cooler then."

"Well, if no one else is willing to go, then do you think it should be us? I mean, now that this pain in my leg is gone, we look like the best choice to go out there. If I remember correctly, there's a small settlement about fifty miles from here. If we keep up speed, and take all the water we can carry, we should be able to make it by tomorrow night."

"Let's give it till tomorrow. When you're in a situation like this, the most important thing you should do is stay put and wait for those assholes to show up. If they ain't here in the morning, then we'll go tomorrow night. It'll take longer than you thought though, cus we'll only be able to go by night in this heat. But now, get some sleep, al right?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Both James and Frank looked at the setting sun, which was now making the sky purple and dark blue. They had no idea what was ahead of them, but right now their minds were only on getting help and getting off this hell hole. If they only knew. How long would it take them to reach the settlement? What if there was no one there? What would they do then? God only knew.

this is great, dosnt seem slow at all...

reminds a bit of the movie Outbreak...

007

007, if it seems similar, then sorry. If it seems like I'm stealing some of the plot from that movie, then I'm sorry. I've never seen that movie, and I don't even think I've ever heard of it.

Well, don't everyone post at once.

I know a lot more people have read this that what posted about it, but please, I ask you that if you read it to post your thoughts. One or two comments on it are nice, but in order for me to get an idea of what the general population thinks of it and to get ideas on things I may need to clarify or improve, some more input would be nice. Thank you very much.

its not that its a bad comparison, if youve never seen it, how would you know?

otherwise its great....

i truely think this has possibilities..

COMON PEOPLE!!

lets give Killa some encouragement!

*starts clapping*

007

I might as well post in here if it will speed you up