The Wandering Star (The Vega Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  THE

  WANDERING STAR

  A Novel by A.L. Mengel

  THE VEGA CHRONICLES

  Parchman’s Press, LLC, United States of America

  COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER

  Parchman’s Press, LLC Publisher since 2013

  Copyright © 2016 by Mengel, A.L.

  All Rights Reserved. This book, or parts therof, may not be reproduced, in any form, without permission of the author or publisher. Mengel, A.L. – © 2016 PP/AL

  Cover Design by Shoutlines Design, LLC. Seattle, WA, United States of America. Title Page(s) by Shoutlines Design.

  Author Photo Rudicil Photography, Des Moines, IA, United States of America.

  Published by Parchman’s Press, LLC, United States of America.

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  All rights reserved. All characters and plot elements originally created by author. Other elements of this book are based on scientific theory. Neither the author nor publisher endorse any theoretical content as fact, nor makes any claim for developing the theory. Any similarity to any other work in any format, written or filmed, published or released; unpublished, unproduced or unreleased, is purely coincidental and unintentional. All elements of this book, for the purpose of storytelling, are fictional in this novel.

  All characters are originally created by A.L. Mengel. Any similarities to any person, living or deceased, is also unintentional and purely coincidental. Any similarities to any other fictional character, from filmed, published or unpublished work is unintentional and purely coincidental.

  This is a work of fiction. A.L. Mengel holds all rights to this novel, including television and film rights. Film and Television interests should contact Parchman’s Press, LLC, the author or designated representatives. This novel was published in the United States of America by Parchman’s Press, printed by Createspace and distributed by Amazon and Barnes and Noble Booksellers, among others.

  ISBN-10: 0-9963269-3-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-9963269-3-3 ASIN: B01AYM5STQ COR

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  FOR MEHKI –

  The One Who Wanders Among the Stars.

  THE BOOKSHELF

  Ashes Parts I-IV (The Transformation, Dirty Little Secrets, The Coming of the Green Mist, Nesmaron’s Egg)

  The Quest for Immortality

  The Blood Decanter

  Curtains and Fan Blades

  The Other Side of the Door

  #Writestorm

  BELOVED FRIENDS,

  I had no intentions of writing this novel.

  It was a quite unexpected jolt of inspiration that brought on the formation of this story. I had always thought of myself as a Horror Novelist. Paranormal Fiction, mostly. I always had fun with the supernatural, and thought about how I might apply that to science fiction, another passion of mine.

  This book challenged my researching and writing abilities like no other has in the past. I chose to step outside my comfort zone, and tell a story that, for me, was something I had not written about before. I had to train my mind to think differently – and to write different words that I had not written before.

  The inspiration for this story hit me directly, all at once. It was during the period after The Blood Decanter had been submitted to the publisher, and I had chosen to take several weeks off from writing. I needed to decompress after writing such an intense story. At the time, I felt creatively drained. I needed a break.

  But then, after a very brief period, I felt the twinge of inspiration for this story. The Wandering Star was initially envisioned as a short story. I felt, at the time, that I would begin my Science Fiction storytelling career with a short. Easy to manage. But then, as I sat and wrote, I knew that things were growing.

  And so I used my Writestorm methodology of writing, and started with a blank, composition notebook page. I pondered about the characters, and they started speaking to me. They told me that this story was far wider in scope than a simple short story. So I then thought that this might be a novella. It wasn’t until weeks later, while writing, that I knew this would be a novel.

  And then a series.

  So enjoy The Wandering Star, the little story that grew…and grew.

  - A.L.

  The Wandering Star

  THE SHIFT OF THE SEAS | 15

  ARRIVAL OF THE SCOUT | 31

  THE MESSAGE | 123

  THE JOURNEY BENEATH | 191

  THE STAR | 277

  REVEALING THE KEY |303

  PART ONE

  THE SHIFT OF THE SEAS

  MANY OF THOSE who remained living on the planet Earth could still remember the days when the oceans shifted towards the poles; and when the sea levels rose, higher, seemingly before their eyes, but certainly within a generation.

  For the citizens of the planet, their memory of the water shifting was real and recent; and even years and decades later, many would recall the Great Shift. It became dinner table talk, bedtime stories. Those who were too young to remember the period of the Great Shift were told of the days when the wave came.

  In those days, it was when the mass exodus from the Northern states was plastered over every news channel; every blog; throughout the internet and on every street corner. In the years during which the shift took place, and as the rotation of the planet slowed, the coastal population was forced to relocate to inland cities. Those in the Northern Hemisphere (and equally so in the Southern Hemisphere) would relocate a short distance from their previous coastal residence, and then, several years later, would be forced to move once again, as the sea crept closer…and closer…to the population.

  As the planet slowed even further, and it became inevitable for those located nearest to the poles that their cities were slowly being inundated and swallowed by the Earth’s waters, it came to a point that entire countries had to be abandoned as great cities were reclaimed by mother nature.

  The people of the planet recalled watching in horror as the waters retreated from the tropical zones and spilled towards the North. It wasn’t until the Northern cities were completely swallowed, and each metropolis would fall into memory and would lie beneath vast depths of seawater, that the inhabitants of the remaining dry areas towards the equator felt the twinge of uncertainty.

  Until then, when the cities were lost, it had simply been disbelief.

  Some cites, like Atlanta or Rome, with a more southerly location, were not spared entirely from the assault of the waters, but the skyscrapers, and some crests on taller buildings rose from the sea. Those cities were partially inundated and still abandoned. Others, closer to the poles, were completely submerged – under a mile of water in some cases, and sentenced to decompose in a watery grave. London, New York, Toronto, and Moscow – all were lost. Santiago, Sydney, Cape Town…all underwater.

  Forever.

  The cities closest to the equator were also not spared.

  For there, where there had once been oceans, now faded away to new, vast swaths of land as new arid deserts were born on a massive super-continent which reached around the center of the planet, spanning the equator. Once tropical zones, the land was no longer fertile; nor was it habitable. It was a harsh, sandy landscape with a blistering, relentless sun. The failing troposphere caused increasing radiation levels in these areas during sunlight; the levels lowered during darkness.

  The super-continent was devoid of water, for the seas which had once surrounded cities like Havana and Mumbai, had flowed towards the poles. Areas that had once had healthy water tables experienced extreme dry conditions; muddy swamps became sandy deserts as the face of the land changed as the ocean retreated.

  The phenomenon, which created new inland cities, on
ce coastal communities, blessed with sea breezes, now were landlocked, dry and hot, many miles from the nearest water; and the air, which had thinned tremendously in the center regions of the planet, became unbreathable as the atmospheric layer of gases, which once blanketed the planet, faded. For the sun – once a harbinger of warmth and sustenance – shined at such a ferocity as to cook any mammal or reptile, and serve as a catalyst for radiation from a dying sun heading towards supernova.

  Millions perished around the world, either by drowning, asphyxiation or starvation. There were some that heeded the apocalyptic warnings.

  Many others maintained a sense of complacency.

  The newscasts barked almost constantly about the impending doom, but until the water spilled over the shores of the coasts, and until the radiation had been felt and measured through a decomposing atmosphere, the people of the planet ignored the problem.

  Until the problem became insurmountable.

  It was not a cinematic horror like on the film medium; people did not tear into the streets and burn up in the sun; their skin did not boil, or slither off of their bones, nor burn and char. But the population was forced to abandon the cities closest to the equator and develop cities beneath the surface of the planet.

  But there were some that ignored the warnings; their stubbornness against the reports and subsequent denial served as a catalyst for their demise – and on one particular day, the ocean rose dramatically in a very short period of time. The surge came forth like that of a cataclysmic hurricane; a giant wave was spotted in the ocean, speeding towards the coasts of the world, flowing towards the north and south poles, threatening to flatten any remaining infrastructure; for the rotation of the planet had slowed to a point that it had nearly stopped.

  The wave only gave enough warning for the newscasts to break the news – World’s Coastlines Inundated – and shortly after that, the deed had been done.

  Millions drowned who didn’t heed the warnings; the warnings of the event were many, and provided over the course of decades, if not longer. Scientists insisted that the slowing of the Earth’s rotation could very well possibly reach a point where it would slow significantly in a short amount of time, creating massive tsunamis throughout the planet as the oceans displaced.

  Man knew that this cataclysmic event was on the horizon, yet it was not understood.

  Many could recognize the signs, over the years, indicating that the event was already in progress. But man – as an entirety – did not understand the cause behind the sudden acceleration, whether it was a slow build to a dramatic crescendo, or a sudden, unprecedented cataclysm of change; no matter who commented on the events, whether it be the slow transition or the sudden shift, it did not matter who it was, whether it was those who had been educated their entire lives on the topic, or which stellar University he or she had attended, or how specific a Degree; or how many decades of research they had performed no matter how generalized or specific. It was beyond scientific explanation and reach of man.

  No one knew why the change in the planet was taking place, nor did they understand the direct cause of the shift of the oceans. Many who populated the planet during the years of the Great Shift had been studying it (or at least witnessing it) their entire lives, and the generation before them had already witnessed changes in the coastlines – beaches closer towards the poles were getting smaller, while those near the equator were enlarging. But as one generation passed the torch to the new, the problem remained: Had the Earth been truly slowing its rotation? And what was causing it to happen?

  Man did not know, nor did man understand, but the scientists knew the wave was coming. For some phenomenon was slowing, and eventually stopping the rotation of the planet, and the hypothesis had been plentiful and the theories were many.

  But when the period of the Great Shift arrived, all the people of the planet knew was how to get out of the way, and find new, more hospitable places to live.

  The wave wiped out all coastal cities in the Northern Hemisphere, along with cities in the Southern Hemisphere – in particular those closest to Antarctica and others cities inland. Rivers and tributaries, especially those linked to oceans, even indirectly, and well from the main bodies of water, flooded catastrophically.

  And while the water initially retreated, it was a sudden surge of water; a gigantic wave, similar to a tide rolling into shore, but on a global scale, forming a new, massive super-continent which spanned the center of the Earth, spanning the equator, reaching thousands of miles from the North Ocean to the South Ocean. After the Great Shift, the terrain was like none of the survivors had ever seen before.

  There were those who did not perish in the shift. Others died in the south from the exposure to an unforgiving sun nearing death and supernova; cities near the equator baked in temperatures which soared to several hundred degrees Fahrenheit. With the protective layer above the planet in those areas nearly dissipated completely; those who ventured out into the sunlight were burned severely within minutes or exposed to patches of radiation.

  Beloved cities located near the equator – Miami, Caracas, Barcelona and Cairo, among many, many others – all were nearly abandoned, surrounded by miles of relentless, barren land, with soaring temperatures that no human could withstand for a minimum of six months of every year, as the rotation of the planet came to a full and complete stop.

  Underground colonies began forming across the center of the new super-continent.

  During the period of the initial shift and before the Great Shift, vast underground colonies were built and established underneath cities that were becoming increasingly dry as the years passed; elevators had been dug and built, which led to lower levels, each level an expansive colony in and of itself, with artificial light, vegetation, housing and a recycled environment, as the skilled were able to use a vast array of equipment and resources available to construct these underground colonies; those who had been in cities inundated by the wave used their skills to develop the underground cities near the equator. And over the years, the colonies developed, completely underground, as the cities above wasted away. The levels were carved in the ground, the filtered air was recirculated throughout the colony, along with indoor parks. Artificial sunlight was added, and the new below-ground cities were completely self-contained.

  As the Earth started to die outside, and as the conditions above ground became increasingly toxic, inside the walls, in cities where the water table had once been too high for a simple basement, now had their own self-contained culture beneath a skeleton of abandoned skyscrapers and neglected buildings.

  *****

  But that had been years ago.

  And man reached a point where the colonies were no longer sufficient. Supplies were running short, and the colonies struggled to sustain themselves. The environment on the planet above ground was getting increasingly hostile as the rotation of the planet continued to slow, and eventually had been expected to stop altogether. During those years, especially during the years when the supplies were getting dangerously low, rumors of a ‘habitable zone’ outside – on the Earth, on the surface, in the fresh air, in a green and lush landscape – started to circulate throughout the colony.

  Some of the remaining survivors in other colonies were rumored to have traveled to the ‘habitable zone’, which was thought to be an area of the planet believed to still be able to support human life. That there was an area on the new, super-continent that was still protected by an atmosphere that was still intact; that there were others who were already there, colonizing the land, and that the temperatures were more moderate and tolerable.

  Discussions took place – and those who were rumored to have found the area were thought to have traveled through miles of treacherous earthquakes – land splitting in fissures, through ferocious sandstorms and tremendous gaps as hot lava spilled out in locations that had never previously experienced any seismic activity. But those who did venture out, those who did not initially seek the habitable zone, did so
under great duress, and on some days, did not make it far, and were forced to return. The travelers could not leave in the sunlight – for it was too hot. Radiation from the sun seeped into the atmosphere from a weakening atmosphere without warning, and the months of light became deadly. So they could only leave during the six months of darkness, for during the six months of daylight, temperatures soared to several hundred degrees. The months of darkness, however, were unforgiving in their own right. Temperatures plunged well below freezing in the equatorial regions of the Earth; and with a new, unexplored, undiscovered terrain, thousands of miles from Ocean to Ocean, those assumed that those who did venture out either succumbed to the freezing temperatures, or became lost in new, uncharted land.

  And so during the debate about the existence of the habitable zone, there were those who managed to survive living underneath the southern cities. Their resources were low, and rationed, and more often than not, many went hungry.

  And water was scarce.

  Fights broke out, almost daily, over something so small as a bottle of water or a loaf of bread. But still, despite the regression, the survivors managed to build a new society of sorts, and started living in an underground catacomb during the months of sunlight – for if they ventured above the earth, they would surely be baked alive.

  And during the months of darkness…when the earth froze…could be their only hope for survival…

  PART TWO

  ARRIVAL OF THE SCOUT

  THERE WAS A GROUP of survivors gathered around a large, long, wooden dining table, in the center of a stone, windowless room.