ENDLESS SKY: Covenant

THE FUTURE IS WHAT THEY MAKE IT

Endless Sky is the introductory novel to a Sci-Fi series that deals with men and women in equal measure.

When two WW2 enemy soldiers cease fighting to aid an injured alien, the American is snatched into the future where he meets up with his aged German counterpart. With two women—a Thai scientist, and an Iroquois national—they vow to help the comatose alien return home. Thus begins a life-changing adventure with a motley crew and witty alien AI that skips them forward in time, spanning centuries, galaxies, and universes as they carry out their worthy cause before she dies.

Each book in the series will be a complete story where the series is tied together with the cast and one continuous theme.

(click cover for full size)

I began this series because I had written almost 50 stories for the Star Trek TV show back in the 90s, but they didn’t use them. Well, they used parts of them and some characters. So I have enough content to write a lot of sci-fi stories, all based on interesting characters.

*
*
*

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Carl Sagan

*

COVENANT

Chapter One

The Ardennes, France, January 1945

The soldier skittered into the double-wide foxhole as a deafening, concussive 88 round exploded in the treetops, splintering the massive pines into a hail of fragmented burning branches. Pine oil, burnt powder, and a blood haze swirled together, drifting over the ground, coating the men of the 117^th Infantry Regiment, cramped low in their protective furrows, with a stench they would never be able to clear from their memories.

The soldier nudged the man whose foxhole he’d just invited himself into and held up a cigarette. “Hey, bud. Got a light?”

The foxhole’s owner raised his head, bringing his face from the shadows below the protection of his helmet.

“That would be Sergeant Bud to you, corporal. Just hold your hand up. Something burning will pass by quick enough.”

Another volley of 88s shook the ground and filled the air with calamitous starbursts, putrid smoke, and the agonizing shrieks of men rushing to death. The torrent of cannon fire continued at such a cadence, it seemed to be one long uproarious tone. Earth tremors took on a pacifying vibration. The cacophony of light and sound overrode conscious thought, inducing a compelling desire to sleep.

The sergeant’s eyes fluttered closed and the hellacious world surrounding him faded away into a harmonious pattern of colorful lights wavering by, accented in the changing mood by sudden jolts of pointed musical notes. Then, as if the paper score in a player piano had run out, silence became the void, a peculiar silence filled with a high-pitched whine. The battlefield smell was the first to register. The sergeant opened his eyes.

The corporal’s helmet butted up against his, the man’s open eyes staring directly at him, but not seeing. The sergeant shifted enough to bring up a hand and push the soldier back. His helmet rolled off and fell into his lap. A jagged tear sagged in at the top. The sergeant looked up past the man’s serene face to his arm, still reaching up for a light to his cigarette. His hand was gone.

Wriggling himself free of the corpse, the sergeant stood up. The entire shaded woods of thick pine were open to the threatening snow-gray sky. A few errant rays of morning sun somehow pierced the thick, contiguous clouds. The floor of the forest, once white with six inches of fresh snow, was now covered with an equally thick layer of pine needles and shattered branches. Small fires burned in independent patches, giving the desolate landscape a surreal animated texture. Rivulets of melted snow ran beneath the new ground covering and poured into the foxhole.

The sergeant looked down at the water about to creep over the tops of his boots.

“Shit.”

With some effort, he pulled his pack from beneath the dead corporal, slung it and his M1 Thompson over the rim of the foxhole, and scrambled out of his home of the last week. He stood alongside his flooded pit and looked around. Every man still alive had done the same as he. All stood erect in the buzzing silence, looking around like groundhogs coming up to predict an early spring. It seemed to him that only about half the groundhogs had surfaced.

As if searching for stations from his dad’s old crystal radio set, muffled voices came in and out of clarity. They coincided with arms waving in the air and people inexplicably running in all directions. The air itself seemed to be full of bees zipping past his ears. Pieces of bark flew off the trunks of the pines still left standing. Men fell this way and that, screams caught in their throats.

The sergeant hit the ground alongside his Thompson, pulling it to his chest like a lover. The bullets were flying everywhere at random, which meant to him that soldiers were firing while running. In a scurry, he slithered behind a decimated tree trunk and peered around the side. Silhouettes of the enemy were backlit against the smoke of their own weapons. They made good targets.

With his weapon set to semi-auto, he took down several silhouettes before it became obvious his position was about to be overrun. This knowledge seemed to have occurred to every GI along the line at the same time. Retreating was an option long since denied to them, for their position was surrounded. As if on cue, everyone sprang from their limited cover, their heralded screams mingling with their carbine and machine-gun fire, as they charged straight for the oncoming enemy troops.

The sergeant clicked his Thompson to full auto. He ran in a zigzag pattern, cutting between the strings of white-clad German infantry saturating his woods. They were all around him now as he swiveled and spun, letting out quick bursts of lead at the ghostly shapes moving through the fog of smoke. Bodies crumpled or twisted away, shouts of surprise or pain following. Tendrils of red hung in the air momentarily, then faded away.

Bullets zinged all around him like angry hornets. Running through the ruined forest became a horrid dance as the sergeant flung himself in circles, firing at the ever-tightening noose of men around him. He twirled and twirled, his index finger pumping away at a lifeless trigger. The world seemed to suck in on itself as if the forest unexpectedly contracted, then in one explosive moment, expanded into a blinding white light.

He was lifted into the air and thrown back as if by a mighty wind, colliding with several German infantrymen, all of them flipping over to be scattered amongst the fallen debris of the trees. The sergeant didn’t pass out, but his own breath in his ears was the first thing he noticed. No other sounds. It reminded him of hearing his voice through his head when he had a cold.

From the white, his vision returned. He was staring straight up into the trees tops. This part of the forest wasn’t as depleted of life, for green branches still brushed against the sky. He struggled up onto his elbows. No movement came from in front of him. With some pain, he managed to swivel his neck to glance left and right. All the soldiers who had been descending upon him were in the same state as he, all scattered throughout the woods, flat on their backs.

The sergeant reached for his Thompson several feet away. He looked around again. Then up. He wasn’t the only one looking up. The German sitting not ten feet away brought his eyes down and looked directly at him. He was looking for confirmation. The sergeant and the German soldier gazed back up into the boughs of the trees.

Not for a second did he think the contraption he stared at was a downed plane of any sort. Its amorphous shape was a tangle of graceful curves that seemed to wrap around themselves, interleaving at various levels. Maybe it was about twenty yards long and half again as wide, but it was hard to tell because a radiant white light pulsed from its exterior.

As strange as the object appeared to be, what made it frighteningly unique was that it hung about halfway down the height of the trees, stuck within three massive pines that pierced its hull. It was as if the trees and the object had combined, molded in place, for the trunks went clear through the body of the thing. Even the branches and pine needles sticking out from the glowing skin were unaffected.

Hesitantly, men from both sides pulled themselves up. The nearby German lowered his weapon and made a hand signal for the sergeant to do the same, then turned back to the sight before them. Soldiers from both sides made a cautious advance, gazing up in wonder at this marvel hanging in their midst like a supernatural Christmas ornament. Fifty to sixty men, mostly German infantry, circled the base of the trees as if waiting in silent prayer.

The pulsing light grew dimmer, then stopped. Though the object was close, maybe thirty feet up, it was impossible to focus on, for the surface was hazy, like a thick fog.

The German standing by the sergeant pointed up and spoke.

“Was ist das?”

Like an ink stain spreading across a pocket on a white shirt, a dark shape appeared on the underside of the object. Every man squinted, trying in vain to focus. It formed into a globule of sorts, then broke away. Everyone jumped back a few feet as the blob landed in the snow with a dull thud.

The sergeant and German soldier glanced at one another and seemed to form an unspoken communion. Together they started forward, their weapons raised just enough to aim at the foreign shape. At close inspection, it seemed jelly-like, about five feet long, and translucent. The sergeant pointed with the barrel of his Thompson.

“Looks like somebody’s inside that thing.”

The German nodded. “Yah.”

The thing moved. Both explorers took a step back. The gelatinous surface suddenly turned to liquid and flowed into the snow, leaving the shape of a person huddled in the fetal position and covered entirely in a seamless light blue suit. It seemed adult size with an overly huge head. Its extremities were unusually long and thin. No features appeared upon its face.

The circle of soldiers began to move in for a closer look. The figure stirred and everyone stopped. It made an effort to sit up, but couldn’t accomplish the task. Compelled by something beyond reason, the sergeant took cautious steps to the being and knelt beside it, laying his gun in the snow. He glanced back at the German, who nodded, and came up beside him. Turning back to the figure, the sergeant leaned in and slipped his arm under its back, helping it to a sitting position.

When he pulled his arm away, his sleeve was soaked in blood. Red blood. The body began to go limp again and the sergeant embraced it, cradling it in his arms. Like a photograph coming to life in a darkroom, the face materialized through the suit.

The eyes were large, angelic-like, with irises of multicolored, radiating hues. The skin had a satin texture and held a similar blue tinge to that of the suit. The nose was small, but well-formed and the faint pink lips wide and thin. The lips moved in an effort to speak, but no sound came. Slender fingers from one hand reached across to the opposite forearm and made some gestures. The suit lit up wherever it touched. The soldiers closest, who could see, took an extra step back.

Again, the lips formed to speak, but this time a soft, musical sound emitted. “Water.”

The creature looked past the sergeant to the German soldier. “Wasser.”

The soldier pulled out his canteen and handed it to the sergeant. Gingerly, the sergeant brought the canteen to the creature’s lips. The face-covering was gone. Attempted to help, the creature’s own hands covered that of the sergeant. After a few sips, it pulled the canteen away and smiled at its two helpers.

The musical voice came again. “Thank you. Danke schön.”

Another musical tone, gratingly harsh, wafted through the forest, clanking and clanging with intermittent growls of a diesel engine. Roaring into view, a German Tiger tank parted the ring of men and clattered to a halt some twenty yards from the rescuers and their charge. A ten-man squad trotted up behind them. The soldier in the turret turned his mounted machine gun on the sergeant. In an effort to subdue the situation, the helpful German raised his hands and spoke in German to his comrades.

An officer sitting on the back deck of the tank jumped to the ground, stared up at the object in the trees, then briskly strutted up to the sergeant and fallen creature. He leaned over, peering down on them as if inspecting an unappetizing meal.

“What is it?” he said in nasally English.

“Don’t know,” the sergeant replied, “But he’s not from our neighborhood.”

The officer glanced around at all the men from both sides of the conflict. He straightened his stature, took a few steps and called out in harsh, accented English.

“The German forces make secured this zone. All American fighters will put down their weapons at once and gather in a group by my Tiger.”

No one moved.

“Excuse me, major Sturmbannführer,[1] sir,” the sergeant said, “But this fellow, or whatever, is wounded and could do with some medical care.”

The major spun around and stared at the sergeant in disbelief. He pulled his Luger sidearm as he stomped back to the belligerent American.

“You, stand up and tell your men put down their arms or I will make every one of them shot, starting with you!”

The helpful German stepped between the major and the sergeant, hands up in acquiescence, speaking in his native tongue.

“Major, please. There’s no need for such conduct. The fighting has stopped. Can’t you see what we have here?”

“What? You dare to talk to an SS officer in such a way? Stand aside or I will shoot you.”

The major turned back to his tank and barked an order. The ten-man squad rushed around the tank and encircled the tiny confrontational group. With the wave of his Luger, the major initiated his order.

“Arrest this schütze,[2] and take these two on the ground to the regimental command post immediately.”

Two soldiers turned their weapons on the helpful German, while three more advanced on the sergeant and the wounded creature.

The sergeant shook his head, and with sorrowful eyes looked down on the defenseless being.

“Sorry, old buddy.”

The creature raised its arms: instantly a white flash radiated from them, buffeting through the woods, staggering everyone on their feet. The advancing soldiers who were in the midst of reaching down to grab their prey, shrieked and leapt back. The major jerked around from tongue-lashing the private. Even he needed no explanation now. Two of his three soldiers writhed on the ground screaming, blood spraying across the undisturbed snow, both their hands gone up to mid-forearms.

As if a giant ice cream scoop had gouged out a section of earth and part of the adjacent tree, a perfectly smooth concave hole was all that remained of where the American and creature used to be.

Chapter Two

Research terra-station, Mars, 2078

White flashes against his eyelids were equally as aggravating as any obtrusive sound used to wake a person up. Clearly, this alert system in his soundproof bedchamber would need to be rethought, especially after all the thought that went into designing the station in the first place. The bedchambers were a hit with all the employees, since they could design each room precisely as they wanted. His was modeled after a farmhouse he lived in as a boy, but not a boy’s room, mind you, for he was a teenager when he’d moved into that house. Though the walls throughout the rest of the station were elegantly curved and seamless metallic-resin alloy, the walls in his chamber were at right angles and resembled old fashion painted sheetrock. There were proper wooden tables and chairs, and bookcases with real books. The room was livable.

He let out a sigh for he knew that as soon as he sat up, the audible world would rush right in. Rubbing his eyes, he wondered why, after all these years, he’d had that dream again. Surely, he didn’t need to be reminded of his debt. He’d followed it unswervingly since that day; that day which had lasted more than a century for him. And he knew he’d follow it until the end of time, for if anything at all could be said about Scott Jonas McIntyre, it was that he was a man of his word. Even if he never exactly gave his word. So, in effect, he was a man of principle, and there was just no getting around that.

The moment he swung his legs over the side of the grav-mat,[3] the incessant, bleeping alarm echoed through his bedchamber and into his skull. The blasted shrieking was almost loud enough to disable anyone who might be trying to remedy whatever the problem was at hand. In moments, he was pounding down the terra-station corridor, slamming each step against the ergo-soft thread flooring with purpose, fully annoyed that lately he had to see to every little thing himself.

The first thing he was going to do after fixing whatever the presently annoying little thing was, was to eliminate all the incessant alarms seemingly going off throughout the day and night by making sure everyone was issued the personal indicator thingy that Tik had been working on forever. He’d promised that anyone could wear, embed, or otherwise affix the device to just about any appropriate, or otherwise, location on the body. All messages, orders, and alarms would register silently to each person and not pollute the general atmosphere with shrieking yelps and wavering sirens.

Scott continued on, heading toward his purpose. If he were back on Earth, he would have smashed through the doors of the sci-lab[4] as they did in the old west movies he loved, when the hero entered a saloon ready to annihilate his opponent. But that would be quite impossible since almost every door off-earth was a phased-entry portal. They phased away instantly to one of the infinitesimal universes we barely knew anything about, until you had cleared the entry, then phased back. But not a damn one of them swung.

There’s something unnatural about not being able to interact with your environment, like touching a door as you push it open. It subconsciously acclimates you to the place you’re about to enter, preparing you for what lies ahead, something tangible. But these phased-entries, as techno-speak likes to refer to them, eradicated the barriers between here and there. Everything was one continuous connection.

Scott had forgotten that the human mind needed its compartments, places to store its experiences in the physical world. Many times he wished he’d never invented the phased-entry.

Upon entering the sci-lab, Scott stopped abruptly. Everything was still. All the walls on the thirty-meter-long compartment were unbreached. The air was still breathable. All the lights on the consoles still twinkled. The only immediate abnormality was Chōnlata Wattanapun standing before him, clad in a skintight environmental undersuit, hip cocked to the side, one hand angled upon it, the other jutting straight out. Her hazel Thai eyes held mischief, but the cupcake with one tiny lit candle embedded into the pink frosty icing sitting on her open palm negated that tempting look.

With eyes in a squint, Scott glanced around the room at the now overly obvious, fifty-plus people staring at him. Cricket-critters! The whole damn station’s in here. He did a quick pass through his memory just to be certain he wasn’t off half a year.

“I’m pretty sure it’s not my birthday, Chōn, and would someone please shut off that damn alarm?”

In a second, the alarm cut off, leaving several echoey reverbs. Now the silence was painful.

“I’m also fairly certain,” Scott said with a bit of authoritative knowledge, “that in order for a joke to be funny, the jokee has to have an inkling of what’s going on.” He brushed his scowl across all the staring faces. “Unless I’m the butt of your amusement, in which case, you’re all fired. And since you’re all here in the sci-lab, you can just exit through the airlock. Never mind the minus 270 degrees Celsius, anoxia will pretty much eliminate that agony.”

The eyes gaping back at him all shifted to Chōn.

“I can see not sleeping with you for a night has put you in a particularly grumpy mood.”

One thing Scott McIntyre knew for certain was never to argue with any woman, especially Chōn, about anything remotely related to sex. He offered her a slit-eye glower which immediately made her laugh.

“Okay, sourpuss.” Chōn again projected the cupcake toward his chest. “Would you mind taking this? You can eat it later if it’s too much for you.”

Scott snatched the cupcake off her palm with just enough momentum to topple the candle into the frosting, where the flame sizzled, filling the immediate area with the smell of burnt sugar. Chōn turned around and arced her arm in front of her. The entire room filled with a universe of holographic stars. The speed in which they traveled through the starfield was many thousands of times faster than possible, since no one had achieved anything past the cusp of light velocity.

Scott went pale. Maybe for the first time in his life, he had no words. His mouth hung open. His brain stalled. Without looking away from the magical scene, two of his fingers gouged the cupcake from its paper wrapping and stuffed the confection into his mouth, candle and all.

Chōn turned back to him beaming. She bowed while spreading her arms in a ta-da gesture. Scott swallowed half the cupcake and spoke with muffled voice through the rest.

“You did it! You found a universe stretching faster than our own.”

He looked away from the miraculous site to gaze into Chōn’s eyes.

“How fast?”

“Well, only relative to our universe, I’d say about a million light-years squared. That’s why this simulation can zip past stars in our galaxy as if they were parked aerocars.”

Scott gulped the last of the cupcake so he could question a bit more seriously, as well as articulately.

“What about getting back?”

Chōn laughed, her natural tone throaty and sensual.

“Isn’t that just like a man? Never satisfied. Well, tee-rak,[5] we’ve found a companion universe, that relative to ours is contracting at the same rate as the one stretching. In effect, we can go anywhere in our galaxy instantly and return the same way. And in theory, as long as we stay within your artificial galactic bubble, time will have no effect on us because we won’t actually be moving at all.”

Scott looked around at all the smiling faces surrounding him. His eyes began to water.

“I-I don’t know what to say.”

Chōn stepped forward and pressed herself against him, going on tiptoes to hang her arms around his neck.

“A simple thank you would suffice for now. Later you can thank me properly.”

Scott went to return the embrace, but Chōn shouted, “Don’t you dare touch me with those cupcake-sticky fingers!”

With taboo hands held aloft, he leaned down and kissed her lips.

“Thank you, sweet pea.”

Then with an air of professionalism, he backed away, breaking her hold, and turned to the rest of the crew.

“Listen. I know I can’t really thank you all enough for having faith that this whole whacky adventure was actually going to work. I don’t know if I would have followed someone for three years based upon hope and a prayer, not to mention living on Mars in a construction site away from your friends and families. But you all did, and you have my gratitude.”

Scott paused for a dramatic breath. “And more tangibly, each of you also has doubled salary starting from the first day you signed up.”

The uproar of cheers erupted like a sudden sneezing fit. The first twenty seconds were unintelligible animal shouts, followed by repeated rock concert cheering of “Scott’s the man!”

An ego-gratifying warmth spread through him. He was exhilaratingly happy. The preliminary tasks were now complete. Now it was time to take it to the next level.

Scott raised his arms to bring down the adulation level.

“Listen up now, for I’m about to tell you what many have suspected for some time. As everyone knows, I was going to be the first to test this concept out.”

He waved a hand in the direction of an egg-shaped apparatus parked at the far end of the lab. Though it had the appearance of a small four-man inter-planet runabout, a dozen spindly, arm-like appendages protruded from its surface, giving it the appearance of a spider with broken limbs.

“You’ve all seen the vehicle I designed for such an operation…Well, that’s not what that particular contraption is for. That’s an emergency repair pod.”

Heads turned, catching eyes with one another, then came back to him.

“This facility that you all suffered to live in during the rampage of initial construction, and have called home for the last three years, is in fact not a terra-station at all. It’s the ship I intend to traverse universes in.”

Every mouth fell open. Glances switched back and forth with their neighbors’. Chōn stepped up alongside Scott and slid her arm around his waist. She beamed her smile at her co-workers.

“Take a breath, people. We’re not finished. Obviously, we believe in the integrity of this excursion and are willing to suffer the consequences should it be a dismal failure. However…we feel that we’ve all become one big integral family, and we’re offering all of you a bonus, beyond what Scott has so generously committed to, as your severance pay, which you’ll receive when earthside.”

Discordant muttering began to fill the room. Chōn raised her hand, cutting off the mounting uproar.

“However, for those exceptional few who would like to join us, we offer the adventure of a lifetime.” Chon took a quick breath and finished in a flurry. “Or complete annihilation.”

Before the last words had left her lips, every hand, without hesitation, thrust into the air. Chōn smiled up at Scott, both with wet eyes.

“You did it, Scott. You made fifty-four people’s dreams become a reality.”

“You know what you said about men never being satisfied? That’s the one thing I’ve never been sure about…whether insatiable curiosity is an admirable quality or a disastrous inequity.”

“Well, since half your crew is women, I’d say it’s an admirable human quality.”

Chōn turned back to the waiting team, still with their arms in the air, and waved them all down.

“I can think of only one proper way to thank all of you for your hard work and loyalty.” She winked at Scott. “Part-y! Part-y! Part-y!”