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A Candle Amongst the Stars
A Candle Amongst the Stars
A Candle Amongst the Stars
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A Candle Amongst the Stars

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In the future, the word "humanity" seems to have lost all meaning. Humans have joined forces with other races, to form the Orion Alliance, and are systematically slaughtering and enslaving all before them in the unending pursuit of power and resources. No one, it seems, can halt the tide of war.

In a quiet corner of the galaxy resides the planet Zerra. High above her surface orbits the Scientific Research Vessel Scientia, where Zerrens and humans work together in the name of scientific advancement. But the tenuous peace between the two races is about to be shattered. Zerra has been marked for conquest.

With no hope in sight, some pray, some dare to question their loyalty to mankind's cause and a brave few conspire. But will it be enough to save Zerra, and ultimately, the human species?

This is the first novel in the Zerra series.

This book contains adult themes and is not suitable for under 18's.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherK. Llewellin
Release dateFeb 2, 2013
ISBN9781301218882
A Candle Amongst the Stars
Author

K. Llewellin

I grew up in the 80's to 00's, during the heady days of terrestrial TV sci-fi. Long-running cult series, combined with re-runs of kitsch 70's shows, ensured I spent my evenings permanently glued to the TV. This had a profound effect on my fertile imagination, and it wasn't long before strange, strong-willed characters were evolving in my mind, clamouring to have their stories told. I ignored them, and somehow managed to get a BSc in marine biology, and a MSc in Marine Mammal Science. But now I've finally given in to the voices, and I'm simply along for the ride....{Profile image (c) K. Llewellin 2021}

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    Book preview

    A Candle Amongst the Stars - K. Llewellin

    A Candle Amongst the Stars

    By K. Llewellin

    Copyright 2013 K. Llewellin

    Smashwords Third Edition

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    All Rights Reserved

    No reproduction, copy, or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

    Front cover: copyright 2013 K. Llewellin

    Main text font: copyright 2000 Neale Davidson

    All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, terrestrial organisms and extraterrestrial life forms, living, dead, or waiting undiscovered outside our solar system, is purely coincidental. The characters are creations of the author’s fertile imagination and are used fictitiously.

    Adult reading material

    ~~~~

    Table of Contents

    Acknowledgements

    Quote

    Prologue

    Chapter 1 - Leo

    Chapter 2 - Sin’ma

    Chapter 3 - Shar

    Chapter 4 - Leo

    Chapter 5 - Sin’ma

    Chapter 6 - Leo

    Chapter 7 - Shar

    Chapter 8 - Kan

    Chapter 9 - Sin’ma

    Chapter 10 - Leo

    Chapter 11 - Tia

    Chapter 12 - Leo

    Chapter 13 - Shar

    Chapter 14 - Talon

    Chapter 15 - Kan

    Chapter 16 - Leo

    Chapter 17 - Tia

    Chapter 18 - Aben

    Chapter 19 - Shar

    Chapter 20 - Tia

    Chapter 21 - Kan

    Chapter 22 - Aben

    Epilogue

    About the Author

    Connect with the Author

    ~~~~

    Acknowledgements

    Thank you Pauline, for spurring me to write.

    Thank you Ronnie and David, for giving me much-needed feedback.

    Thank you You, for reading my first novel.

    ~~~~

    Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.

    William Pitt (1770)

    ~~~~

    Prologue

    When it came to the war, he was, as far as he was concerned neutral, and he was quite happy to sell weapons to either side for a fair price. Okay, so the Alliance had the most money and more than enough weapons as it was, but he had bills to pay. His ship wasn’t top of the line and something always needed replacing. He also took pride in his work. He could enter and re-enter the supposedly-but-never-really neutral sectors undetected and if stopped, his small craft contained so many secret compartments it was unlikely the opposition would find his illegal cargo. More importantly, he worked alone. You couldn’t be too careful who you entrusted information to in a time of war.

    So how did it come to this?

    He was sitting at the edge of a swamp. To his left was a creature of reptilian countenance. Its violet eyes weren’t on him, but instead stared intently out towards the snow-capped mountains beyond, lost in thought and every time it breathed its leathers, or possibly its muscles underneath, creaked. To his right was an equally well-muscled Human sat atop a rock, absent-mindedly flicking pebbles into the turbid waters of the marsh. Neither of these two guards were what was most unnerving about the situation, despite the number of weapons littering their persons. What scared him to his very core was the female he could feel staring intently at the back of his skull. She didn’t have any weapons, she had a look, and he had a strong feeling she was, in all likelihood, inside his head reading his every thought.

    Their ship had attacked as he came out of the Perseus sector, on his way to the Alliance with another shipment of weapons and other armoury. They had been waiting for him. It had taken him only a few seconds to realise he was hopelessly out-gunned, and he’d had no choice but to obey the command to set down on the prairie bordering the swamp. A smaller vessel than the one that had attacked him had landed alongside, and his three current companions had alighted. As a last stand, he had drawn his weapon at them, but nobody had flinched. The female had approached him. The look in her eyes, those big blue never-ending eyes, suggested any further insubordination from him would end unpleasantly, and he had re-holstered his gun. Maybe he had done it himself, or maybe she had done it for him. He wasn’t sure of anything any more.

    The charge was simple. He had been providing weapons to the Alliance, and those weapons had killed innocent people from races that had no ability to fight the oncoming hordes. Unsophisticated races, with basic technologies, that had yet to reach for the stars had found themselves erased or enslaved, and he was responsible. But what of the other gun-runners? he’d asked.

    They are all answerable, the female had said, and their time will come. The verdict was guilty, and he had received his sentence. You have a choice, either join with me in righting your wrongs or choose death.

    A simple choice, he’d thought. And how long will I need to stay with you until my debt is paid?

    For as long as I see fit. Your life and soul will be mine to command. Five years, ten years, perhaps even a hundred, no one can say but me, but then I will not tell you. Only when I feel you’ve paid for you crimes against the innocent will I release you. You will do as I say, go where I say. Your existence is no longer yours, and you will stand with us against the Alliance.

    It wasn’t just her words. Her eyes had drawn him in. They were blue. There was nothing but blue…no iris, no white, just blue. They glowed with an internal light, and he could’ve sworn he had felt her in his mind, testing his thoughts. There had been a notion, in the deep dark recesses of his brain, that if he said the wrong thing he would feel pain. He had felt as if he was poised on the edge of a mental abyss, the leap from which either leading to eternal repentance or a cavernous agony that, whilst instantly swift, would feel like it burned for a lifetime. Just out of interest, how many choose death? he’d asked, with a strained nonchalance.

    The majority. Precious few have displayed the strength of soul to kneel before me.

    So there he was, sitting on his boulder…debating his fate. Apparently, death was the easy option, although how it was going to happen was a matter of question. What of the other option, a hundred years of servitude, or more? He was in his forties, and he had lived quite enough years already. In fact, it was miraculous he’d survived for so long in a war-torn galaxy. Especially in the rust-bucket he laughingly referred to as, his ship.

    Nevertheless, the ancient brain part of him liked living. It clung desperately to life, just as the monkeys of old had clung to the trees while the lions circled underneath. It was the old survival instinct kicking in. The part of him that drove his adrenalin, always keeping him a step ahead of either battle line, screamed at him to run. Metaphorically or physically, it wanted to run, to live, to exist…but his existence would not be his to choose. She would choose.

    The oppressing silence continued. They were on a neo-world and no animal calls could be heard, just the sounds of stones hitting the water’s surface and creaking muscles. With little to distract him, his brain did the impossible, or more likely, the inevitable; it began to address the subject of; what he’d been doing. Undeniably, pretty much all the weapons he’d trafficked had gone to the bigger side, and it was obvious to him they hadn’t really needed them. Then there was the question of the primitive cultures they had wiped out. People who’d only ever beheld the night sky and seen just tiny dots of light had ended up subjugated at the end of his weapons; subjugated by races inhabiting the solar systems around those distant, unassuming stars. Species destined for unknown greatness had vanished, their evolution cut short by conquest and slavery. What he definitely didn’t know was whether these thoughts were his deliberations alone, or whether she was guiding them.

    The trouble was, unlike many smugglers, he did have a conscience. It was there, albeit buried deep within his psyche. Sometimes the thoughts raised their ugly heads, but a nice lump of precious metal pressed firmly into his palm could usually quash them. Unfortunately, there was no sign of precious metal on the horizon and knowing he had nothing to suppress them, the thoughts hammered on the inside of his skull in a desperate bid for freedom.

    He eventually made up his mind. He didn’t know if there was a specific way to voice his answer, so he plunged forward with the first words that came to him Alright…I’ll join you.

    She finally smiled. Good. Come with us.

    He followed.

    His beloved rust-bucket remained on the planet’s surface, its molecules entwining with the planet’s young life.

    ~~~~

    Chapter 1 - Leo

    Ensign Leo Jackson stared out of one of the station’s many portholes to where the planet Zerra shimmered beyond. The electric lights along the thoroughfare behind him meant his view consisted primarily of his face, mirrored in the glass. Blue-grey eyes stared back at him from a lightly tanned face topped with scruffy, ear-length dark-blond hair. The only thing stopping the head before him from looking like it belonged to a mariner just back from deep space was the fact that it was clean-shaven.

    Adjusting his focus, Leo took in Zerra. It was currently daylight over the side they orbited, and the cities covering the surface were indistinguishable in the haze of atmosphere and reflections of sunlight. In another twelve hours, the darkness would be ablaze with the lights of several million dwellings and a billion or more people would be settling down for the night in the safety of their homes. Yet, where that simple realisation should have brought a sense of contentment to Leo, instead it brought a knot to his stomach. Except they aren’t safe, are they? Not any more, he thought. For so long he and everybody else on the station and on Zerra had been far away from the fighting, safe within the confines of the Perseus arm. No longer. The battle line was coming slowly and unstoppably towards them and the looming threat of the Orion Alliance was ever-present in their sector of the galaxy. That knowledge filled Leo with a cold dread.

    In terms of personal safety, Leo knew it shouldn’t bother him too much, he was Human after all, and Humans comprised the bulk of the conquering force. The Humans had reached for the stars as their world was dying, and the Humans were trampling all underfoot as they extended their reach well beyond their solar system. The Human race’s expansion reminded Leo of the long-extinct rabbits he had read about in old Human textbooks. Both species bred as equally rapid, but at least rabbits had once had predators to keep them in check, not so Humans. Of course, the Alliance wasn’t just a Human-only threat. Other races had joined them, races that had proven they were like-minded and technologically advanced enough. They bolstered the Alliance’s numbers and aided in its never-ending drive for galactic dominance. Better to join the winning side than be annihilated by its advancing forces.

    Five years ago, the Scientific Research Vessel, SRV Scientia, had arrived in Zerren space and Leo had been amongst the first of her crew. They had arrived in the solar system shortly after Zerra’s scientists had perfected wormhole creation. The scientific leap had meant any ship, thanks to the newly developed Zerren jumpgates, could reach their region of space, and the Alliance had quickly marked the Zerrens as a technological race worth investing in. Therefore, the Alliance had initially regarded the technically burgeoning Zerren race favourably, facilitating a close working relationship on the station between the Zerrens and predominantly Human crews. However, that was not the case anymore, and it was clear to everybody, Leo included, the tide had changed. The planet Zerra held within her crust and core many rare elements, elements the Alliance could use to bolster its weapons and ships, and the people on the planet’s surface were ideal candidates to mine them. Leo had known the future was inescapable once the communications had come through, messages from the front line leaders, warning ships to disassociate themselves from the Zerren race and that could mean only one thing…Zerra was finally marked for conquest.

    ***

    Leo felt the sense of impending doom well up within him more and more, and he awoke most days feeling nauseated. That morning had been no exception, and in a bid to calm his thoughts, he was heading to the one place he felt mildly relaxed, the arboretum. It was a kilometre-and-a-half long strip of verdant land in a metal tube, topped by a glass dome to let in the light of Zerra’s sun and within whose walls grew the plants of Zerra. Despite his years on the station, Leo had never once set foot on Zerra herself. Yet, he never felt as if he were missing out, for in the station was a giant greenhouse where trees, bushes, and weeds of tropical, temperate and tundra flourished. There, scientists tried to unlock their secrets for the good of the Alliance, discovering new plants for use in food, medicine, and fuel. The calm Leo sought was somewhat tempered by the presence of these scientists for they, Zerren and Human alike, were like the winds of a hurricane, forever dashing from one place to another wearing harried expressions. However, within the scientific storm was the ever-calm eye, consisting of the Human Tia and the Zerren Ken’va and it was these two individuals Leo often sought out, for a coffee and a relaxing gossip.

    On arrival, Leo instantly spotted Tia and Ken’va in animated conversation. More accurately, Ken’va was the animated one, waiving a branch of who-knew-what under Tia’s nose. She, on the other hand, was her usual poised self, nodding and interjecting when necessary. Tia was tall, and to Leo’s eyes, had a slightly lanky quality about her. That was to say, though her torso was pleasantly proportioned, her limbs gave the impression of being slightly too long for her body. She had a heart-shaped face, milky white skin, (in Leo’s opinion) perfectly shaped lips and pale blue eyes that had the starting of crow’s feet in the corners. For many Humans, the signs of ageing in a woman were an unseemly thing, but Leo felt they gave her an air of wisdom, and a life lived, and for him they only enhanced her beauty with their presence. She always scraped her blonde hair back into a severe bun when she worked and despite a lot of time spent rooting around in fertilizer, her uniform was somehow always impeccably crease-free and clean.

    Ken’va was her counterpart and opposite and Leo thought he was a thoroughly likeable old chap. Dishevelled and with an air of mad scientist, he bustled about the place with his hands always full of something organic. The sight often got Leo to wondering about how the Zerrens working in the science labs, especially the plant-based ones, coped with the daily grime that came with their chosen field. The Zerrens were a fur-covered race, with short green hair covering them from the top of their scalps to the end of their narrow tails. In public, they kept the majority of their body covered. They added long sleeves to their uniforms if needed and all Zerrens wore a hood on their head, the same colour as their uniform. Their attire left only their faces, tails, and hands exposed and Leo was sure much of what they handled had to find itself matted into the hair. Yet to him they always appeared less grubby than their Human counterparts did, even at the end of a strenuous working day.

    The dark patterns, on what fur they showed, helped distinguish one Zerren from another, and the shade of their eyes gave their age away, yellow at youth becoming dark orange over the years. Ken’va had eyes of orange and from what little he knew of Zerren biology meant Leo could place the old male’s age at anywhere between fifty and seventy…give or take five to ten years. It was definitely not an exact science.

    Ken’va wore a simple green hood to go with the green shirt of a scientist. Unlike those of other departments, the green shirts and brown pants of the scientists were replete with pockets and both Tia’s and Ken’va’s bulged with any number of electronic devices, along with good old-fashioned pens and notebooks. Something Leo couldn’t help but find rustically charming.

    Not wanting to interrupt Tia and Ken’va directly, Leo instead meandered along the arboretum’s zigzagging paths, taking time to stop and stare intently at an odd bloom or madly flailing vine. After a time observing a plant, which was devouring something that appeared to be a large bird’s leg, he felt an encroaching presence and looked up in time to give Ken’va a polite nod as he scurried past. Tia was also proceeding in his direction, and she smiled at him as she approached, but the demeanour behind the smile was one of deep thought.

    Any new news from the front? she asked, as she drew level.

    I heard the SRV’s Beagle and Terra IV have both returned to Alliance-held space, and the trickle of Human immigrants heading that way is still going strong, he replied.

    Tia shook her head despondently. Dark times are getting darker. Any clue as to when the first push of forces will enter the sector?

    Not as yet. At least I’ve not heard anything new, but then I am well and truly at the bottom of the grape vine.

    Oh well, I guess life goes on normally for a time then. Ken’va has placed an order for three more pallets of Zerren reticulated pond weed, an order which isn’t going to make itself shown until nineteen hundred hours…and guess who gets to catalogue its arrival. She gave a resigned sigh. One would have thought if anything vaguely useful could be distilled out of it, it would have been done so already, but I guess we’re giving it another go. It’s going to be another late night for me, but at least it keeps my mind off other things. Her expression tensed at the last part.

    Leo decided to push forward with the question he’d wanted to ask her for several weeks. Do you think you’ll leave soon? You know…return to the safety of Alliance space.

    Tia regarded him, and he started to feel slightly uncomfortable under the intensity of her stare. After a few moments she eventually spoke. This galaxy is full of wondrous things; people, cultures, plants, animals. Surely, they deserve recognition before the Alliance wipes them from the face of history. No. I will stay out here, amongst the stars trying to find them and when the time comes I will do my best to defend them, even if that means taking a stand against the Alliance.

    Her comment took Leo aback. That kind of talk will have you marked as a traitor of the Alliance. They can sentence you to death.

    The Alliance litters its conquest with corpses, retorted Tia. I will be but one amongst many. I can only hope I achieved all that I could, if and when my time comes…and may my passing take as many of those bastards along with me as possible!

    ***

    The bluntness of Tia’s words still echoed in Leo’s ears long after he had made his excuse and left. Tia had always been a person of tranquillity, but even she had a steely look of defiance in her eyes, a look that was becoming more and more common amongst the Zerrens and even a number of Humans aboard the Scientia. The trouble was, unlike many of the other research vessels returning to the fold, which had Human-only crews, the Scientia was a partnership between Humans and Zerrens. Leo was well aware time had forged close friendships, even a couple of inter-species relationships had burgeoned, and he knew those bonds would be hard to sever. He could sense the overall feeling aboard the vessel was becoming a mixture of fear, confusion, and defiance.

    Not everybody felt the same and Leo knew it was foolish to hope otherwise. There were always those who were eternally loyal to the Alliance and who saw the future invasion of the Zerrens and any race thereafter as predestined. In their eyes it was an evolutionary necessity and conquest was no more than business as usual for the all-encompassing and glorious Orion Alliance. These people he tried to avoid as much as possible as their rhetoric left him feeling uncomfortable and more than a bit sick, and it was clear he wasn’t alone in these feelings. Law and order aboard the station was starting to collapse and fights were becoming commonplace: Zerren against Human, Human against Human. Leo knew it was only a matter of time before all hell broke loose on the station. The only question was, would it happen before, or on the day, the Alliance ships came to claim the solar system as theirs.

    Leo hated what few days he had off, as it gave him too much time to think and to dwell on the inevitable. After a time spent aimlessly wandering around the ship, he returned to his cabin for a nap that never materialised. After he’d stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, he cut his losses and headed back out. His destination…the Bar.

    ***

    The Bar was a dark and greasy dive located in the lower ring of the Scientia. Its clientèle consisted of the shadier members of the Zerren and Human crews, along with a smattering of other alien hangers-on. Leo knew some of the races, whilst others were rarities and oddities just passing through to some other galactic sector. Despite its seediness, Leo preferred the place to most of the other more upmarket bars situated further up the station. Because fewer Humans frequented the Bar, fights were less common, and those that did occur were less likely to be because of his presence, and more to do with the heady mix of strong liquor and whatever passed for alien testosterone.

    He went up to the bar where Talon, the owner and regular barkeep, was wiping the surface with a dubiously stained cloth. Talon was a scrawny, middle-aged Human with a thin face and pale complexion. He had lanky mousy-brown hair that was in serious need of a cut, as it hung below his ears, and he forever had a couple of days’ worth of stubble on his face. Leo opined that Talon’s unkempt hair gave him a permanently dishevelled demeanour, even when partnered with a pressed shirt and clean pants. Talon further distanced himself from respectability with the gaudy gold jewellery he wore. His collection consisted of a ring in his ear, a chain round his throat, a watch on his wrist and a band on his wedding ring finger, though Leo had never heard mention of a wife. Talon’s grey eyes were forever furtively surveying the room, but whether it was for the grumblings before the next brawl, or for something more sinister in the shadows, Leo never knew. He and Talon rarely exchanged words beyond alcohol type and price.

    Leo completed their usual brief exchange, ordering a glass of something loosely described as ale and located an empty table in a darkened corner. After a few sips of the blatantly watered-down ale, he took stock of who else was present that evening. Some Zerrens, most likely from Tech-Ops due to their orange work shirts, occupied several of the tables, along with a couple of Panns in civilian garb who were probably from medical. The Panns all looked the same to Leo. They had dark blue skin covered with darker grey stripes and darker-still blue horns, which protruded from their temples and curved up and over the tops of their skulls. Their eyes were perfectly spherical, with barely a hint of eye socket and were dark maroon. The Pann’s specialities were in literature, philosophy, the arts, science, and medicine. Only two of these skills were of any use on a research space station and as no Panns worked in the research labs, it made sense they were probably from the Medicentre. Despite their decent nature, it was normal for Leo to see Panns frequenting the Bar, even with its unwholesome reputation, and he was sure he knew why. As one of the few unconquered races employed aboard the Scientia, it seemed the Panns had no inclination to socialise with Alliance personnel outside of work. After all, they had no idea how soon it would be before they appeared in the Alliance’s gun-sight. Instead, they sat in the Bar with the Zerrens, in a sullen mood, drinking in silence.

    There were, however, two faces Leo could put names to, because sitting at opposite sides of the room were Shar and Kan. Kan was from his own department, Engineering and was a big muscled Human of nearly six feet seven, with crew-cut blond hair, clean-shaven square jaw, lightly tanned skin, and dark green eyes. Rumour was he was a GE, a genetically engineered Human, created to be the walking brick shit-house he was and looking at him, Leo could well believe the gossip. Because of his rugged handsomeness and prized muscles, most of the single, and many not-so-single females aboard the Scientia overlooked the rumour, and the phrases arsehole and home-wrecker reached Leo’s ears much more than GE.

    Shar was also a name synonymous with philandering. Shar was Kan’s alien equivalent and Leo considered him an impressive, if not terrifying, creature to behold. Standing a fraction taller than Kan, he was a well-built reptilian creature. Green scales covered his body, except for a short-cropped Mohawk of brown, hair-like scales. His oval face ended in a strong jaw and pointed chin and above each brow was a short brown horn. Below these horns were two large green eyes that unnerved Leo, especially in the gloom of the Bar. Shar’s eyes were like a cat’s; black slits in the light, but in the dark huge and round and with an eerie reflective glow. When Leo had entered the bar, Shar had shifted his gaze briefly onto him. He had felt as if he were caught in the glare of two search beams and despite being a regular, it had taken all his willpower not to turn tail and run. However, Shar’s eyes weren’t the only thing about him that scared Leo, as Shar’s biggest notable characteristic was that from his strong torso sprouted four arms, each as well-muscled as the last. Leo didn’t know much about Shar as no one else seemed to know much about him, not even his race, and he was the only one of his kind aboard the Scientia. All Leo had been able to glean was that he’d been making passage through the sector, when he’d stopped at the station for a refuel. He had never left and his strength and aptitude with weaponry had brought him a permanent job within Munitions.

    Despite their commonalities, Leo had never seen Shar and Kan share a table, or even a word of acknowledgement for that matter. They would always sit at either side of the bar, drink in hand, and stare off into space…or at the Fire Twins.

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