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.
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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.
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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.