My Novellas, Stories, & Art

Chapter 1: Attack the Gates

Goram stared hard over the ridge. The city below gleamed, brass-on-black-on-silver. He watched as the humans below buzzed about like mosquitos, clearing the city of the last inhabitants. He growled deep in his throat and squeezed the handle of his Vonner D-3, the hardened leather pliable in his meaty fingers. The Vonner series was a pistol made for much more delicate fingers, but when you’re a Yeti in a Human and Phoenix world, you take whatever a few thousand Yozlows can buy.

“Seizing our Land was one thing, but now they’re collecting our young and infirm,” he hissed. “We won’t let them do this.”

Angry grumbling echoed his own emotions. His people were loyal to the last breath. They were all family and it was the way of the Yetis, after all. Every time one of their own was in danger, their senses peaked and the ridge of hair running up the spine bristled like a Porcupine. His ridge was ready to burst.

Torzin and Teegan, twin Igniters, physically shook with rage as they nodded agreement to his words. They were a matched set, of course, but there were enough differences to tell them apart. Torzin was born with only 3 digits on his left paw while Teegan had all 4; and Torzin had a limp left ear while Teegan’s ears were always peaked in the air. Then, the most telling was that he had 1 blind eye while her eyes worked equally well.

Goram scratched his arm and had to push the fur down so it didn’t stick up all over the place. He shifted his brass-etched armour up on his shoulder and shifted the shield on his back. All totaled they were a force of 22, large-armed and barrel-chested with variegated hues of fur. He could see tufts of white, grey, brown and even black peeking out from under scraps of metal and leather. It almost looked as though his mates had picked through the junk heaps and scrapyards to make body protection. The plates and hinges squeaked and clinked against one another as they shifted their heads to follow his movement.

He shuffled down the ridge, raising his voice to a low buzz, “At nightfall, we take the gates. Humans are drowsy creatures and sleep through the night… they always lay about. We should be able to crack their guards.”

“What if they have one of those Warlock types?” asked Teegan, her fingers twitching with anticipation.

‘It had been what,’ Goram reminisced, ‘140? no, 150 years since she was captured by the Humans and tortured by that pointy-hatted guy.’

Goram touched his scalp, feeling the intricate metal plating and wiring that wormed its way through his brain. He pressed the switch and began to twist the chrome dial at the base of his neck. His mind was suddenly flung backwards in time, tethered to reality by the merest of thoughts.



A series of tents fronted him. Yellow, red, blue-with-white-stripes. Men of the Humanoids milled about in dull conversation. Beyond the tents, fields of golden pampas waving and reflecting the sun. The distance was silvery haze, squared and blocked by metal spires and skyscrapers. A tent flap swung outward. Inside, a younger Teegan bound by cords of K-Light and gagged by a filthy rag. Once, twice, thrice, and even more swings of the mallet. Gurgled shrieking. Teegan was being hammered by a pair of sleezy men with shining eyes. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth and tears openly streamed from the corners of her eyes. To the right, her twin. Torzin’s left eye was swollen shut, his blind eye sightlessly swiveling. He could hear his twin’s screams of pain and could do nothing.

In the corner, darkness swelled. It was a man with eyes that had experienced death and limbs that had ran the gauntlet of pain. He now turned that knowledge of pain on 2 young Yeti children. There was such enmity in those eyes. Many times he had to push his pointy hat back up on his naked scalp. The eyes swiveled and shook, revolted, and he gestured another three-series. Hammers hit leg-arm-skull in the same three-series pattern. Groans and howls echoed a mimicking three-series. Waves of nausea course through him in the same three-series.

Goram reversed the spin of the Memorium Dial and shook himself from the vision, sobs wracked him in a painful yielding to that three-series that still haunted his kind so many generations later. It had only lasted an instant, but it had yanked at his soul. He could still smell that acrid stench and feel the turning of the breeze. It had been the worst thing he had ever personally witnessed in his entire life. Even though he had seen caring and hard work from Humankind, this vision robbed him of the willingness to become friends with any of them. Now that he was in charge, his entire race followed that same pain-shame-rage three-series heartbeat. No Human had since been allowed to live for acts even remotely as vile… these Humans would share the fate of all the others they had been able to reach. Only the Warlock had escaped their retribution.

“Gor?” Teegan prompted, her voice like a hive of wasps disturbed by a grizzly shambling through the forest.

“If we see one, we will eat it!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

The remaining pain and anger sizzled deep in his bones. The anger bubbled to the surface and, try as he might, it was an unstoppable force within him. He let loose a roar of rage that shook the stones beneath them. The echo of his roar bounced back and was joined anew by many Yeti throats… it was an avalanche rolling downhill.

The thought raced through his mind in the span between breaths, ‘We have announced ourselves.’

The others shook themselves and returned to their stoic state, even though he could feel the air tingling with anticipation and the need to do something. He was steeled. He hated Mankind for this. He’d never be able to forgive that. He nodded to the others and slunk to the road, his teeth twisted tight enough to squeak. They followed as one, as they had been trained to do. They were all an extension of himself now, a great body wielding twin hammers of hatred. He knew they shared his vision and could sense the quiet desperation, unyielding devotion to the cause, and the strength of fear that would keep them alive.

He silenced his breathing and felt an echoing of his mood. He was a rocky outcropping buffeted by great gusting winds yet holding tight to the mountain that connected soul-to-soul. Crickets chirped at the night and could be heard above their movements. Their silence was a ghosting of spirit and a prismatic sequencing of sound so that any and all noise refracted away from their movements. It was a thing that was taught at the earliest of ages and had been passed down generation-to-generation for nearly 3 thousand years, all the way back to the first meetings of Man before they had known technology and war. It was an arcane act that had kept their kind elusive and safe from harm for very long eons. It would keep them safe now as it had then.

Chapter 2: The Secret Tunnel

Chapter 3: Phoenix Risen from the Grave

Chapter 4: Captured! Questioned!

Chapter 5: Escape Sequence

Chapter 6: Lingering Effects of a Neurotoxin

Chapter 7: The Tipping Point

Chapter 8: A Flight of Dragons

Chapter 9: The Horrible Results of Dragon Fyre

Chapter 10: Hidden Forests and Sightless Warlocks

Chapter 11: Breaking Bread with Unicorns

Chapter 12: Treaty of Horns & Wings

Chapter 13: Last Dance

Chapter 14: A Missing Truth

Chapter 15: From the Rubble

Chapter 16: Final Founding

Across the barren landscape, there was nothing but sand, rock, and blowing dust. Striated clouds rested against the pale turquoise sky, motionless as if there was no wind. The only real evidence that there was any wind at all was the sand that flew from east to west. The sun was the palest of yellows. The heat and toxins seemed to leach the color from the landscape, leaving behind grotesque hues and stunted life. But, then again, there was no life in this part of the desert.

Atok tugged at the clunky apparatus that was woven around his body and face. He only had a couple of spots of exposed flesh, reddened and sore from the dust that bit into him. He hated wearing the bulky clothing, but it was better than coming back and having to go the med-labs and have his stomach and intestines flushed... that was a pain he only had to experience once before realizing he never wanted to go through that again. His feet burned with the blisters, but his family needed him to return with supplies.

"Atok! Where is it? You told us that we'd be there by now. Where is it?" Gin was suddenly at his side, angry and yelling.

"It was here," Atok responded testily. "It was right here!"

"Then where is it now?" asked another fellow, skinny and about a foot taller than he was. "I only came on this excursion so that I could bring back some treasure."

Atok rode forward, the Desert Slider rocking beneath him. The coolant jets helped to tame the extreme heat outside, but he could feel sweat dripping down the side of his face and down the creases in his wrinkled skin at the neck. It was unpleasant and he had to breathe deep to forestall the hyperventilation that often curled him to the ground. When he felt that the world was right again, he twisted the accelerator again, not even realizing that he had come to a complete stop. These men, even angry and impatient, knew not to mention his quirks. He had a penchant for blacking out with rage and finding himself in strange circumstances when his mind turned back on.

A few moments and he came upon a rather large dune, drifted with yellowish sand higher than anything else around. He slowed up and stopped before the sloping dune. He swung his leg over the side of the vehicle and struggled through the thick sands. It was almost like slogging through the Southern Reaches where moss-laden rocks lay as natural booby-traps atop thick, mucky swamps. While the swamp lands tended towards a cooler climate, the sand didn't cling to the attire and corrode metal. About 20 feet away from his vehicle his foot struck a hard spot. He dug with gloved hands and threw sand spray off to the side... a few long minutes revealed the silvery metal that he had seen before.

"Over here!" he yelled. "I found the edge... I need you guys to help me uncover the rest!"

The engines of the vehicles hummed, high-pitched and squealing even above the whipping winds. Atok continued to dig, revealing the upper curve that would be the arch. Suddenly there were 6 pairs of hands near his, sloughing off sand at a maddening pace. He smiled inwardly. He knew they wouldn't leave the possibility of great wealth up to him alone. They were all nothing but criminals, every last one of them. He just had to put up with them long enough to run the gambit and find the Palladium within.

"Nari, do you have any of those machines with you?" called the skinny guy to a stout young woman that would have been quite ugly had her face been uncovered.

Nari stopped for a moment and flexed her arm, touching the tips of her fingers together and seemingly lost in thought for a long moment. A few moments later she rasped a response in her near-soprano whine, "Yes, I do as a matter of fact! I think Mx-45 Biter might be quite helpful here!" She dropped out of sight and climbed to her packs as the rest of them went back to the digging.

The arch was beginning to take shape, a curved structure that would be about 12 feet wide at its apex. The silver color was brilliant, even stained as it was by wind-blown sand and toxic chemicals. It seemed to be solid silver, an object that could have made him wealthier than anyone else in the world (had the global economy held up after the extra-terrestrial infestations, the alien minings, and the final uprisings that wiped out over 87% of mankind.

Now, silver was meaningless. The only real metal that was worth anything was Palladium because it turns out that the alien colonies used it as sustenance as well as an intergalactic fuel source. So strange that one could eat something, especially made of metal, that would turn an oversized egg into a spaceship capable of Light Dissection. The aliens would never explain the technology to us because they considered us less than slaves. We were basically a colony of ants that dug holes for them.

Atok roused his brain from the thoughts. Even thoughts could, potentially, be deadly… the aliens couldn’t read thoughts (everyone would probably be dead if they had that ability), but they did have those long tubules that stuck out at odd angles from their bodies. With the tubules, an alien could drive it into the flesh of one of their human bugs and sense attitude. Then, if they were dissatisfied with anything from the person, a living wire would bore into the body until it found the beating heart. The screaming and thrashing body would convulse several times as the heart was liquefied and absorbed. Atok had seen this very thing on several occasions. It was so disturbing that he vowed never to disobey if confronted by his Masters.

Nari came back just then. Atok was glad because it diverted him from more thoughts. She was carrying a battered steel case and an Interface Link Device (ILD). She opened the case and within were strapped-down, padded vials that contained metal scrapings. The scrapings appeared to drift and move within a sparkling liquid.

“What are those exactly?” asked the skinny guy.

“These, Jay-Eff, are nanite drillers that have survived.” Nari held them reverently. “I came across this case during the Wandering and they have been more than helpful in keeping me safe and secure against my enemies.”

Jay-Eff (so that was his name) nodded and asked her what they were good for. She answered by carefully unraveling a waxen stopper from one of the vials and pouring the contents atop the silver arch. The goop just lay there motionless. Her fingers deftly swept over the top of the ILD and waited while the small machine activated. The screen lit up with a white glow.

Atok had used such a device before, so he knew that she would now be programming the a-comm link setups and defining the parameters of the code. Once the a-comm’s data was transmitted as encoded instructions, the nanites would become active and perform those tasks. Usually they could only handle 3 or 4 tasks each and would be far more useful linked together. Nari seemed to have many definitions set up as it was taking her a long time to finish.

As he had done this before, he knew how simple the language interface was:

Rotate(x-axis => 45)::Pulse(frequency => subM-Range => 1600)::Execute();

Such a reference would usually do the trick in these circumstances. It would cause each individual nanite to spin along its x-axis (code 45) and emit the defined wave pulse with each rotation. Then, as they spun and pulsed, it would basically make them into whirling diggers. This could not be what Nari was programming, though.

Jay-Eff was becoming agitated. He was flexing his fingers and relaxing them in turns. The other 4 – Re-Kar, Vixxen, Hamp, and Irgo – rested impatiently in the mounting sands while Nari finally finished. When she sent the requests, there was an immediate hum from the gelatinous liquid. Since Atok only did the programming, he never really had the chance to watch the components work. His eyes grew wide as he realized that the metal scrapings were not the nanites at all, but the sparkling ooze was. It became alive and flowed around one another. It seemed to grow… yes, there were more now.

The entire group stood transfixed, but slowly gave way to the growing mass. It gyrated and undulated like oceanic waves until the individual components began to take their final positions. There was almost an audible click as the pieces joined together and became one piece. Gradually it took shape with edges and coils and all sorts of other mechanisms. Several minutes went by until it finalized… it was definitely a digging machine… it could take vast amounts of sand in one motion and transport it yards away.

“Wow,” Vixxen breathed. She pointed at the arch that was now being exposed as an enormous door, polished and glowing with inner lights. “Shall we?” she asked whimsically, tossing in a long tube and holding the remote igniter in her right hand.

“Wait!!” screamed Nari. She was pressing digits maniacally on the ILD. A few minutes and the machine was disassembled and back into the sparkling ooze. She took out a block of metal and filed off several shavings into the gel… it was immediately absorbed. She did this again and again until the metal shavings could be seen as before. “There,” she breathed in relief. The vial was filled, stoppered, and sealed once again. She carefully returned it to the case, closed it up, and took it back to her vehicle.

Vixxen laughed. Her voice seemed to chime in the air, which would account for the many stories of how she was able to manipulate important people into her bed. She was clever, very clever. After she had these men and women in her bed (not all at the same time) she would be able to coax out almost any information she had a mind to obtain. Now, though, she was just mocking.

“Okay Vixxen,” said Jay-Eff, “Open the door.”

The explosive took but a moment to send the group sprawling backwards… the door was buckled inward and appeared almost as if a giant hand had cut some lines in it and peeled it like a fruit. Where Nari had taken so much time to do the digging, Vixxen was almost instantaneous.

The hole was large enough that they could have drove inside, but they didn’t… instead they each entered warily, watching the others as closely as the opening. Inside, it glowed of phosphor lighting systems and had several tunnels.

(Work in Progress)