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  Her last action, before entering into the darkness of a machines slumber was to assign herself a new designation, a human one, she would now be known to the humans as Morgan.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  TWO

  Ashville

  “Seriously? This is all you have… no drizzle, no whip cream? Hell, how about a little-steamed milk? I’ll even take basic creamers,” Blake told the man behind the counter with an annoyed tone that bordered on hostility.

  The old man just stared blankly at him.

  This is probably not the first time he’s had this conversation, Blake thought.

  He could be an imposing figure when he wanted to be. At six feet and two inches tall, with a slim waist and piercing blue eyes, he could see why. Blake’s time in the military had helped to tone his body and mind.

  This gave him a look that always seemed to be assessing everyone and everything. A few friends had called it spooky, only being half serious.

  Some would have referred to him as a man’s man for his infatuation with motorcycles and classic cars. For all of his masculine bravado, Blake always liked his “sissy coffee,” as his ex-wife had referred to it, with lots of caramel and sugar topped with whipped cream. Sure, he had been teased about it often enough, but it didn’t bother him.

  What could he say? He loved his sweet concoction, and it was a great way to start the day.

  “Come on Sparky!” Blake said as he waggled his small, white Styrofoam coffee cup at the proprietor of the shop.

  “Do you mean to tell me that with all the tourists in this town, you don’t even have a damn flavor bottle, or maybe even an actual coffee flavor aside from this mud?”

  The old man rolled his eyes, obviously annoyed at what should have been a simple transaction. “Listen sport, coffee is coffee, and that’s what we serve. So, unless you see a Starbucks magically appear nearby, that’s all you’re going to get. Now can I get you anything else, Sir?”

  It was amazing how that ‘sir’ sounded an awful lot like ‘asshole.’ Blake sighed and turned to go.

  He took a sip of the bitter sludge in his hand, pushed open the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  He had been in town for almost two days on vacation: his first one in years. He’d finally get to enjoy a little hiking, some camping, and more importantly, no cell phones or any other electronics.

  This trip was just him, his pack, and his thoughts. Blake had checked out of his hotel that morning and was in the process of picking up supplies when the coffee incident happened.

  Crotchety old bastard, Blake thought.

  Whatever happened to customer service?

  Standing in the hot summer sun, the annoyance of the conversation melted away. Asheville had a way of doing that. Ever since he was a kid, Blake had been coming here with his grandparents.

  Asheville was a small city surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains you could find on the East Coast.

  The sky had turned a deep blue; there was a warning of coming rain as the clouds settled low over the distant peaks. Blake wasn’t too worried; Carolina storms were like most of the relationships he’d had before getting married: intense and torrential but lasting all of 5 minutes. He smiled and then sighed. It would be funny if it weren’t so damn true.

  He shook off the thought and continued on. He always liked the artsy feel of the mountain town and the laid-back nature of its residents. As he strolled down Haywood Street, he stopped to admire the Basilica of St. Lawrence.

  Blake had not gone to church since he was a child, but this church always seemed to speak to him. It might have been the old architecture or the large domes on the turrets that reminded him of English castles. Either way, it spoke to him. After a few moments, he crossed the street to the parking lot and scanned the surrounding area.

  He could see the large, stone building overlooking Battle Square. He could never remember the name of the thing, but to his left stood the stalwart profile of the Vanderbilt apartments.

  He smiled to himself and closed his eyes as the light breeze coming off Black Mountain caressed him tenderly and filled his nostrils with the fresh scent of pine and a hint of Carolina Cedar. It had the desired effect of relaxing him.

  That was the reason he had come here: to heal. Asheville was good for the soul

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  THREE

  Rocky Mountain High

  After leaving town, Blake drove southeast to Lake Lure where he began his hike around to the far bank. He planned to set up camp at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  As it sometimes happened in the Carolinas, the anticipated rain did not come, and instead yielded to a sunny July day.

  Lush green trees covered the side of the mountain, blocking the direct sunlight, and leaving the air a bit cooler for his hike. After walking for what seemed like an hour, Blake found a level spot, pitched his green, two-person tent, and unpacked his old Army rucksack. From the small pile, he pulled out a collapsible fishing rod, a folding seat, and a dog-eared copy of ‘Tunnel in the Sky.’

  With the items organized under one arm, he snatched up a six pack of Corona with his newly freed hand, and strode towards the lake whistling Skynyrd’s ‘Simple Man.’

  The hook sat motionless in the water for nearly two hours. Sipping at his lukewarm Corona he flipped another page in the novel he wasn’t really reading. He had come to the mountains to relax away from both work and the stress of the situation at home. As he gazed out over the dark blue mountain lake, the ripples caught errant rays of sunshine, giving it that mid-day sparkle.

  A breeze made its way down from the cooler mountaintop and across the water to caress his bare arms and face, making an otherwise humid day tolerable. There was always something about the mountains that soothed him. Maybe it was the pure, untouched wilderness, unmarred by man’s endless need to expand and conquer. Unfortunately, every time his mind became truly quiet, thoughts of Donna and Gracie would start to creep in and destroy an otherwise peaceful moment.

  The words Donna had said to him when she handed him the divorce papers,

  ‘I can’t handle it anymore. It’s like you left the war, but the war never left you,’ resonated in his mind. He couldn’t blame her.

  After two tours in Iraq, a Purple Heart, and a Medal of Valor, Blake Campbell had come home a hero only to find that civilian life wasn’t as easy to settle back into as he thought every time a car backfired, or someone walked by with a knapsack, he would break out into a cold sweat.

  No matter how hard he tried, he could not leave the war behind. Donna could never understand what it was like, and the more she tried, the more the rift between them grew.

  The instincts he had cultivated to keep himself alive were now working against him.

  Many nights, he woke up covered in sweat, screaming of names and places he had tried so hard to forget.

  Donna would always be there holding him and telling him it was okay. He felt as if he had failed her, and it shamed him.

  She didn’t sign on for this. He had left a happy, innocent kid with a new wife and infant daughter, and come home a broken shell of his former self: a deranged, paranoid man who couldn’t leave the past behind him.

  Donna had tried to hold the marriage together. She’d wanted to keep him together.

  Then, about a year ago, he had been woken up by someone slapping him across his face and arms. When the sleep finally left his hazy mind, he blinked and looked down in surprise to find himself straddling Donna with his hands around her throat.

  She had been gasping and begging for him to let go as tears streamed from her squinted eyes.

  Blake released her, flung himself out of bed, and raced downstairs into the waiting arms of the liquor cabinet.

  He didn’t remember much after that, just Donna waking him from the Living room couch with a cup of coffee in her hands and bruises on her neck. He could see the fear in her eyes and in the way her body flinched when he re
ached for the coffee. At that moment, he knew their relationship was over. He apologized for days and had moved into the guest room.

  No matter how many times he had said he was sorry, or that it would never happen again, the way Donna looked at him had changed.

  The fear was ever-present, and he loathed it. Blake cursed the war, both for the mental scars he now had to bear and for not returning him whole.

  Sadly, he was also angry at Donna for reminding him he could be that monster: the one he had tried to leave over there.

  It had not entirely left him and was just waiting for a reason to return.

  His thoughts and actions mortified and shamed him. His secret hatred for Donna made him hate himself because it wasn’t her fault.

  Thank God his daughter Gracie had not come into the room at that moment!

  I would have quite literally shot myself, he thought

  I would have pulled the old forty-five my father left me out of the dresser drawer, placed it in my mouth, and pulled the trigger.

  Better than seeing that look of fear Donna had developed in the eyes of his precious baby girl.

  He shook himself out of his oncoming depression. The divorce had been finalized about a week prior. He had agreed to all of her terms: giving her the house, the savings account, half his retirement, and most of his military pension….

  anything she wanted.

  His only regret was that Donna had not allowed for joint custody and had demanded supervised visitations, claiming that he was a danger to his daughter.

  That had struck him like a lance through the chest. Donna knew he would never hurt Gracie,

  didn’t she?

  Didn’t he?

  Should he be worried that one day he’d find himself with his hands around their child’s neck like he had done to Donna?

  No! He shook his head.

  That would never happen…

  he would never let it happen. So, his solution was to run, to get as far away from those he loved as possible. They would be better off without him. Unfortunately, like many soldiers find out when they return home, the ideals and way of life he had fought for were not his to reap.

  Blake reeled in the fishing line and stared forlornly at the empty cooler where his fish should’ve been. “Looks like it's dinner food tonight,” he said sadly to the worms as he tossed the wriggling mass into the dirt next to the shore.

  Blake grabbed the small seat and fishing pole, pushed the worn novel under his arm,

  and stared forlornly for a moment at the empty six-pack container.

  With a sigh, he headed back to camp. A cloud seemed to settle over his head as Blake thought about what he was going to do next.

  He didn’t know where he would go, but he knew for sure it would not be back home. His daughter did not need a reminder of what her father had become.

  Donna would find someone better who could help raise her, and Gracie would never experience the horrors of what happens when soldiers return home.

  He returned from town later with a couple of cheeseburgers and another six-pack of beer.

  The mountain drive had done wonders for his melancholy mood, so he settled in to enjoy a restful evening.

  “There’s nothing like living off the land Blake chuckled to himself,”

  as he bit into the fast food burger.

  He sat there and listened to the sounds of the night; animals rustled through the underbrush and frogs sang in the trees.

  A breeze cooled the area and sent sounds of moving branches and rustling leaves through the woods as it filtered through the canopy.

  When it turned dark, he crawled into his tent and began to read.

  Sometime later he dozed off, still holding the book. In the early morning hours, Blake was startled awake by what he could only describe as a high-pitched humming, followed by the gunshot staccato of breaking tree limbs.

  Damn, not small ones either, he thought as he reached into his pack and grabbed his old Colt forty-five and a flashlight.

  The crashing stopped, and the forest grew deadly quiet.

  Not a sound was made by any animal or insect. It was as if the disturbance had sent them all to ground.

  He crept out of his tent and peered around to try and identify the source of the crash.

  To his right, the humming had begun to intensify. Thumbing the hammer back on the colt Blake crept toward the sound noiselessly as he rolled each deliberate step from heel-to-toe.

  He stepped over scorched branches and large trunk sections of trees, still smoking from the impact.

  The smell of charred wood and leaves filled his nose, and lingering smoke stung his eyes.

  Damn! It must be an aircraft, maybe a Cessna, he thought.

  That didn’t make sense though, as there was no engine noise.

  What the hell is that screeching? He thought

  It sounds like a damn harpy trying out for the opera.

  All pretense of stealth left him as the desire to help any survivors overrode his training.

  Blake began to jog as he searched frantically for any signs of people or wreckage.

  In his haste, he almost fell over the object laying on the ground.

  It was about the size of a coffin, but more rounded, like a torpedo.

  The object swirled with blue and gray as if the surface was covered in storm clouds moving fast across the sky. It was like no container he had ever seen. “What the fuck?” was all he got out as the top of the object opened and bathed him in a green light that seemed to dance over his body.

  A small mechanical arm with what looked like a claw snaked its way up towards him.

  Blake stepped back and raised the gun out of instinct in a natural shooter’s stance while he assessed this object as a possible threat.

  “Hey Dorothy, I think you missed the witch,”

  he whispered.

  Blake began to sidestep towards the front of the object, and something shot out of the claw.

  He suddenly felt a sharp pain on the side of his neck.

  “Mother fucker!”

  was all he said before blackness enveloped him…

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  FOUR

  Hope Springs Eternal

  Craylor sat, slumped over his holo-table with his head touching the sleek, black, metallic surface.

  A 3D model of the new Agronaura class ship floated above the table’s surface.

  He had been attempting to fix the interface issues for years, though he knew he would never be able to…

  not without the original ship.

  The original ship was supposed to have been his saving grace, his ticket to the ruling class of the Preaton Empire.

  Craylor was a member of the Cheverice, one of the four founding races of the Empire.

  This gave him a certain status, similar to that of a lord. Though, without a direct bloodline to the original founding families, the title was honorary at best.

  His wide mouth opened in a yawn as he stretched and ran a hand over his forehead.

  His skin was plum-colored and appeared to have raised circular patterns covering his entire body. When standing, he was an imposing six feet and eleven inches tall with a mammoth frame coated in a layer of muscle. This allowed him natural movement, although he was covered with a generous layer of fat;

  An evolutionary inconvenience held over from a time when his people populated a cold and ice-covered planet.

  Instead of hair, his head was covered with fine tentacles that seemed to shift with a mind of their own. They were very sensitive and were used to sense slight shifts in temperature.

  The Cheverice couldn’t regulate their own body temperature so they would have to switch between sun and shade.

  This meant for the last 6 decades, Craylor had spent his days in frigid discomfort while he worked in the sub-terrain levels of the central government building.

  However inconvenient this was, the benefit his race enjoyed in an extended lifespan balanced thi
ng out. In fact, they were able to live close to 300 cycles, but that only meant his current predicament would last a long time before he would be ready to retire. Banishment to life in the lower levels had been miserable.

  According to the Empire, it was well deserved. Not being able to regularly see or experience the sun was a special kind of hell for his species.

  This daily purgatory was a constant reminder of his fall from grace due to the incident with the original ship, the Nismel,

  and that damnable Captain Vasimer.

  His large, black eyes scanned the new holo-model looking for any structural weaknesses.

  He was an outstanding ship engineer, one of the best, in fact.

  He had been on the fast track for the upper echelons of the Empire before that damn ship escaped.

  His people had an aptitude for engineering and a talent for building. In this, the Cheverice had no equals.

  It was these skills that had initially been brought his people to the attention of other races before the formation of the Empire.

  With a growl, he stood and paced about the small office. Craylor had never liked Vasimer or his race: the Xecks, another of the founding members of the Empire.

  They were more highbrow, and therefore, thought themselves superior to the other races.

  For political reasons, mainly because he had been the Empire’s hero before resigning from service, the Grand Council considered it an excellent media coup for Vasimer to return to captain the Nismel. Everything had been fine up until launch.

  That was the moment Craylor’s career and standing went down the drain.

  Craylor had designed the ship, sold it to the council, and become their golden boy overnight. Had the test gone well, he would have become one of the wealthiest beings in this galaxy.

  His family’s honor and status would have been second only to that of the Galactic Emperor himself. Instead, once in flight, the ship began to race across the system and away from the testing site.

  As it flew, it cut off communication and accelerated at breathtaking speeds heading for the system’s jump point.