The Turret: Starclan Foundation Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Disclaimer

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  THE BEST LAID PLANS Preview

  THE TURRET

  STARCLAN FOUNDATION

  Starclan Book I

  By James Warren McAllister

  THE TURRET

  STARCLAN FOUNDATION

  Starclan Book I

  By James Warren McAllister

  Copyright © 5/31/2013 by James Warren McAllister

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design and Art Work

  By

  James W. McAllister

  Cover Titles and Lettering

  By

  Robyn Dickson

  To my Angel, The Lovely Cindy, who always believes in me.

  I have no idea why, but I’ll take it anyway. Perfection is very hard to resist.

  This story is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead are unintended and are purely coincidental.

  Prologue

  House Of Providence

  Syracuse

  Standard Earth Date June 21 3761

  “Mother Mary, will you tell me a bedtime story?”

  “You just go to sleep, lad. You’ll dream better stories than I would ever tell you.” The old nun bent and lightly kissed the young boy’s forehead as she tucked him in. The poor lad, so brave after losing his parents like that. Well off, but no family nearby at all. Well, no one young enough to raise a child. Father, after all these years, you still pull my heart so!

  She walked slowly out of the room, the walk of the very old. No one in the orphanage knew just how old she was, nor could any of them recall a time when she was not there. Rumor had it she had founded the orphanage almost three hundred years ago, but no one believed that. Once, a curious young priest had begun searching the archives to find out, but every time he left the records room the answer had faded from his mind.

  Mother Mary headed straight to the chapel, mumbling as she moved, one foot methodically and painfully placed just a few inches ahead of the other.

  “I don’t know which is worse,” Mother Mary paused her steps to glance up, then continued as she spoke softly, “the ones you send me that shouldn’t be here, aren’t ready, can’t be, or the times you don’t send me any.”

  “The ones you send, they do make me feel young again. For a time. So much like... Aahh. Triple A! Hah! They kept me smiling, those three! Alex, Allison, and Alistair.” She sighed, nodding her head at the warmth brought by old memories.

  “Each time I ask you, is it time? Now again, I ask you, is it time, at last? I will stay as long as you need me, but please…I am so weary!” Mother Mary winced at a twinge in her hip.

  “As you wish, then,” Mother Mary nodded again. “I have no complaints. I am your servant, your tool, to employ as you see fit, as always.”

  It took a good deal of time and effort for the old woman to reach the chapel. She stayed inside, praying most of the night.

  Just an hour before dawn, she began her slow trek back to the young boy’s room.

  Chapter One

  Near Stonefield Castle, Tarbert

  Loch Fyne, Scotland

  Standard Earth Date July 4 3425

  Commodore Nial MacAlister walked up the steps to his Kintyre country home. The setting June sun cast a pinkish-purple glow over the heather behind the thatch-roofed home; how he loved this time of year!

  As he reached the door of the simple cottage, he heard the sounds he had been longing to hear over the past two years.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” Little Jock threw open the door and leapt into his father’s arms.

  “Jock! You’ll conk your poor father out before I’ve a chance to welcome him properly!” Gwenifer MacAlister smiled as she looked from her five year old son to her tall, handsome husband. She swore he got more handsome each year he was away among the stars.

  “Leave the lad alone, Gwen. You’ll have your own private time to properly welcome your husband home.” Nial’s eyes twinkled as his words smiled at his blushing wife.

  “Daddy, are you gonna stay this time?”

  “Son, a man needs to answer his call to duty. Honor is important, as is truth and courage. Jock, we will be moving soon, near a spaceport in a place called New York. Do ya think you would like that?” Nial cast a quick glance at his wife as he told her and his son of the move. “The Space Force calls, and I must answer, son. It is my chosen duty.”

  “Does this mean we’ll see you more than once a year, Daddy?” Little Jock looked at his father with wide, brown eyes, pleading for more time with the father he so idolized.

  “It could be, my son. It could be.” Nial looked his wife in her eyes as he said this, promising that which they both wanted so desperately.

  Later that evening, after the youngster was asleep, as the husband and wife lay contentedly in each other’s arms, they discussed the move.

  “It will be better for him, Gwen. He’s so smart, the schools here will bore him quickly. There he can learn enough to find his path.”

  “I know, but I’ll miss this country. I’ll miss the views over Tarbert. But you are right. Will you be able to be home more?”

  “My assignment there is overseeing the research into my gravity control systems. I should be able to get home for several days at least twice a month. I’ve bought a place overlooking a lake, I think you’ll like it. Land is reasonable there, we can keep both this house and Glenbarr Abbey.”

  “I like that. Enough talking, Oh Mighty Clan Chief! Come, let your wife finish welcoming you properly!”

  ***

  West Lake Road

  Skaneateles, NY

  Standard Earth Date May 12 3426

  “Oh, Nial, ‘tis a gorgeous view indeed!” Gwenifer MacAlister gasped.

  “Daddy, is all of that lake ours?”

  “No, Jock. The lake belongs to everyone. But we may use it for swimming, boating, and fishing, as long as we respect the laws about such things.”

  “Laws?”

  “Laws are the rules that allow many people to enjoy the lake the right way, without spoiling it. Now, young man, let’s take a look at your new room!”

  ***

  West Lake Road

  Skaneateles, NY

  Standard Earth Date July 25 3430

  “Mommy, what do dreams mean? Do they tell us things for real?” The ten-year-old boy breathlessly tried to interrupt his mother’s needlepoint.

  “That, Jock, is a question people have been asking forever! Maybe if you tell me your dream, my darling, I can help.” Jock’s mother kept her eye on her work.

  “I saw a pretty woman standing with a baby, my baby. Her hair was made of gold, shiny and glowing, mommy, and when she smiled at the baby, her eyes got all soft, like you when you smile at me. And there were five other children there, all smiling and laughing.”

  “Did she say anything, Jock?” Gwenifer asked her son with a raised eyebrow.

  “She said, ‘He’s a part of you, so I can’t help but love him.’ What does it mean, Mommy?”

  Gwenifer MacAlister set down her needlepoint and smiled brightly at her son. “It means you will live a very happy life, my son!”

  ***

  Skaneateles Junior High School

  Skaneateles, NY

  St
andard Earth Date September 4 3430

  “I dare you to go say hello to her.” Don teased.

  “Cut it out! Just because I said she was cute doesn’t mean…”

  “Jock, you don’t have to ask her to marry you! Just go over and say ‘Hi, I’m Jock’ or something.”

  Jock looked at the pretty blonde again.

  “I think I’m getting Bird flu. My chest feels funny. Like tingly and hollow at the same time.”

  “Bwahahahaha!” Don laughed loud enough that the two girls and everyone else in the lunchroom look at him.

  “Hey!” Jock punched Don’s arm.

  “Go on, you know you want to. Ask them to come sit with us, why don’t ya.”

  “Okay, okay. Geesh!”

  Jock walked up to the girls’ table and stood next to the blonde one.

  “Hello. My name’s Jock, what’s yours?”

  “Oh. Dream! You were in my dream!” It’s HIM. From my dream. And he thinks I’m cute!

  “Uh, okay… sure.”

  “Sorry. You just startled me as I was talking to Aggie here, about, em, a show.”

  “So, um, what show was it…”

  “Sandy.”

  “You were watching a show called Sandy?”

  “No, silly, my name is Sandy.”

  “I’m Aggie. Hi. What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Huh? Oh, that’s just Don.”

  Aggie leaned and waived past Jock, “Hello, Just Don!”

  The girls giggled a bit, then Sandy batter her eyes, “Jock MacAlister, What do you want?”

  “Don wants you two to come sit with us at lunch.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I, ah, um, yeah, I do, too.”

  “Will you carry our trays?” Angie winced as Sandy elbowed her ribs.

  “Um, both of them? Uh, well, okay!”

  “We will not sit with with you two. You two may come over and sit with us, Jock MacAlister and Just Don.”

  ***

  New York State Fairgrounds

  Syracuse, NY

  Standard Earth Date August 22 3431

  The banner above the amphitheater read, “REMEMBRANCE.” The crowds pressed in, nearly a quarter of a million people standing before the two hundred foot viscreen.

  “Today as we open the Great New York State Fair, we remember Nili Patera.” The announcer stepped back as the giant viscreen came to life.

  “I am Martina Wells,” the space-suited woman began. “My husband, Albert, said I should record this, in case someone ever finds it. He thinks they need to know what has happened. I don’t think anyone will be left to find it.

  “It all started yesterday. We had been a quiet mining and archeological colony. We exported some light metal ores and some artifacts. We have never been able to identify who or what left them. The artifacts are only artistic: statues, images, sounds, and the like, but never any technology. The best we can determine, they are hundreds of millions of years old.” The woman turned her head, looking over her shoulder, her wide eyes shining with the camera’s light.

  “We were eating breakfast when the bombardment hit. Huge explosions from small asteroids accelerated to hyper-velocities slamming into our settlements. Nili Patera was a small settlement, well apart from the “big three.” So, we got to watch the destruction of Gagarin Base, Glenn City, and Challenger Colony. Five minutes each. Nothing left.

  “Then the alien troops came. They used some beam weapon that melts or explodes everything. We had nothing; weapons were banned on Mars by treaty decades ago.

  “We got out just in time. We are hiding now in an excavation, some kind of art gallery of something.” Again the woman looked over her shoulder. “There is a vault here, and we’ve closed ourselves in. Albert, me, and…and little Martin. We think we can hide, but we have only a little air, just enough to last about twenty-four hours.

  “Martin is only eighteen months old. Why must this happen to him? Why? I can’t stop crying thinking about him. Albert is heartbroken too. He keeps sobbing that he is supposed to protect us. Darling, what could you do? What could…what was…”

  As the woman turned her head, her image flickered into static snow.

  The announcer stepped up to the podium.

  “Today, we remember Bear Mountain Bridge.”

  “My name is Sergei Andropov. I’m from Brooklyn. Gonzo said I should record this. I’ve only got a minute.” The sweaty, camouflaged face of a young brown haired soldier filled the amphitheater’s screen.

  “I sat hunkered down behind the barricade. Gonzales was on my right. I saw him shivering a little in the 90-degree heat. Hell, so did I. I looked back at the bridge and took a deep breath. This even smelled wrong. August on the Hudson River shouldn’t smell like burnt flesh and feathers.

  “We beat them back six hours ago. We made them turn and run away. That felt good. It had never happened before.

  “The clouds were scarce, so we knew they’d hit us with the beams again. Energy beams are not visible. But they still burn through sand, wood, steel, and skin. Like going through so much soft-serve ice cream. We dropped the smoke grades to scatter the beams. Then we just had to deal with their mag-guns.

  “Our mission was to hold the Bear Mountain Bridge. If we managed to do that, then New York City could survive a little longer. If we didn’t, well, then humanity’s fate is up to the French. Downstate New York was all we’ve been able to hold in North or South America. They told us this morning Australia is gone now.

  “The defense had not gone well at all. The three colonies on Mars and Moon Base Armstrong were hit with a bombardment from space, then over run in less than a day. The twenty thousand alien troops arrived on Earth right after a massive bombardment. We think they used asteroids. Now Brazil is just a cratered swampland. The San Andreas Fault even opened up.

  "Most of their troops landed in the Great Plains of the United States. From there they pushed north and south to secure their flanks before fortifying the Rockies in the west. Then they began coming east.

  “We call them ‘Birds,’ though we had no idea of their biology. They stand about four feet tall. Half of that is two backward-bent legs. They’re covered by a light coat of grey/brown feathers. They wear armor that stopped a lot of our bullets, and use a variety of energy beams and projectiles against us. The worst are the beams. The only way we can counter them is with smoke. Sometimes it works. Of course, that makes our shooting less accurate. Their projectiles travel very fast. Soldiers sometimes kept fighting after holes appeared in them. If they miss, you heard a thunderclap as the air slaps together behind the bullet.

  “We didn’t have anything heavy, no tanks or artillery left. We did have a few ancient GAU-21 heavy machine guns. And we had the high ground, at least until the Bird aircraft showed up. A British fighter-bomber counter attack was supposed to tie them up over a staging area they had near Montreal. I guess that didn’t go too well.

  “To my left, I noticed the grim look on Southworth’s face. I took another deep breath and let it out slowly. I scanned the other side of the river. The Birds had to cross the bridge to get the ports of New York and New Jersey. We’ve placed a line of nukes just south of our position, and they know it.

  “When they came, I never saw them until the battle was well underway. Until we had lost a quarter of our men to their beams. Both Southie and Gonzo went silently with several holes through them. The rock ledge behind me had dozens of glowing half-inch wide holes from beam strikes. I crouched down a little lower and waited. My hands were shaking, I was so scared.

  “Our smoke grenades went off just then, and the alien’s hypervelocity mag-guns opened up. I heard dozens of the thunderclaps. The rocks around and behind me exploded from multiple impacts.

  “The Birds were just coming into our range. I could see them gathering on the other side of the Hudson. I looked through my targeting scope, and saw half a dozen birds drop almost at once as their heads exploded. The Birds seemed confused, and another ei
ght dropped. Our snipers were good.

  “The Birds were just at the edge of my range, so I held my fire. Orders were to open up once they got halfway across the bridge. Just as the Birds started moving, my attention was drawn up; something blurred overhead, and I felt a searing heat from behind me. Our snipers were gone.

  “I looked up as the first Birds hit my aiming point. I opened up. Every quarter second burst from my M-46HV carbine fired seven 3mm tungsten bullets at 4,800 feet per second. The high velocity rounds would penetrate most armor at this range. Birds started falling on the bridge, then the heavy machine guns opened up.

  “I was concentrating on the bridge, so I never saw the tanks. They saw us. Heavy rounds hit us at 12,000 feet per second, impacting with the same energy as a heavy naval shell. Hundreds of these hit all along our positions. Somehow I survived. I don’t think many others did.

  “The Birds were pouring across the Bear Mountain Bridge when first French sub-orbital fighter-bombers hit. The Napalm was effective, but not effective enough.

  “Twenty of the French ships attacked. All were shot down. The last dozen before they could release their payloads. We made the Birds pay heavily for the bridge. My guess is about two thousand of them died on the bridge. But another four thousand made it across.

  “I’m out of ammo now. I still have my bayonet. And my knife. And one grenade. Yeah, I’m scared.

  “It’s funny, the things you remember. Near my face is a small patch of damp grass, a little patch of green in this grey, smoking hell. I smell the grass from high school; I’m back at football practice, doing push-ups. I smell the grass each time I let my body down. It smells green and sweet. Just like this grass. Sweet, just like her. What was her name? Linda. We lay down on the grassy hill the night after the last game, gazing at the stars. Holding hands. I wonder where she is. I miss those days. A lot.