Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1)

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1.
Prologue
2.
Prologue Part 2 - First Steps
3.
Prelude to Despair
4.
Child of Errikus
5.
The Undertow
6.
Eulogy
7.
The Purge
8.
Seraphim
9.
Trinity
10. Living Space
11. Unrelenting Tasks
12. Memoria
13. Evac
14. Hand that Feeds
15. Depths
16. Depravity
17. Machina
18. The Pawn
19. The Sword of Sorrow - Aelia
20. Tremulous
21. The Consul
22. The Dead World
23. Black Island - 1944
24. Addict
25. So Much for Subtlety…
26. Eden - 3
27. Departure in Transit
28. Antliod
29. Lore
30. Terminus
31. The Bridge
32. Driveshaft
33. The Core // Lose of Control
34. Limbs
35. Many Worlds
36. Sever
37. Lasting Damage
38. Epilogue

Appendix
Special Thanks
About the Author

“We have drank Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light,
the Gods discovered…”
- Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith from The Rigveda (8.48.3)

Forged in the name of vengeance under the guise of hope at
first the ship
had no name. When it began life hovering above the orbit of Phobos three
hundred years ago it was just another silly little project under development by
one of dozens of space agencies that no one really took too seriously anymore.
Designed for deep space exploration it was one of the many being worked on
by several corporations and agencies throughout the world in hopes that the
human race would spread out among the stars and discover new worlds. We
must have felt so proud back then. Dreaming of projects that would change
history as we began to venture around, explore, and colonize our own small
solar system. Finally after many years it was finished at a secret research post
above the dwarf planet Pluto and given a name. They called it the Erebus.
The Erebus was our shining star. Our greatest triumph. Drifting at the edge
of our solar system in the darkness of space. The name was poetic in a way.
Erebus also said Erebos was the greek word for ‘shadow’ or ‘deep darkness’.
The Erebus, our flagship, our starship of hope that would explore new worlds
and travel far beyond the edge of the sol system and into the stars. If only
they knew the truth.

Alien civilizations were out there. Life wasn’t quite as rare as we
thought. Most worlds were primitive, inhabited by nothing more then wild
animals. We knew (or rather we soon discovered) that beyond most planets
there were cultures full of different species, religions, even genders. Some
even asked us to join them either out of spite or fear (we refused of course
deciding that their conflicts were not our own, we had plenty of problems to
deal with ourselves). Other’s refused us.

The Erebus was the largest one of three ships. The other two; the Aelita
and the Tritan traveled in front of it. Together the three ships were
nicknamed ‘The Trintiy’. On each ship slept thousands of humans in stasis
(also known as cryo or the ‘deep sleep’). When the three ships left the solar
system they began a journey to a place called ‘Eden’. It was a journey that
would take hundreds of years. Those that came onboard believed that they
could sleep the whole way through while others accepted the facts. The truth
was no one from that original crew would survive (and they all knew it). The
Erebus, Aelita, and Tritan were seed ships, in other words they were made so
that the descendants of the crews onboard would one day reach their
destination and in doing so ensure the survival of humanity. Only the
bloodlines of those onboard would survive. Giving up their homes, their jobs,
their accomplishments thousands gathered to come aboard the three starships
believing the sacrifice was worth their lives. It was a pilgrimage to a new
world, a new dawn. Giving up the lives they had was the first great sacrifice
humanity had made. The second, the reason we built the ships, the reason we
ran; the second sacrifice was unforgivable.

colonize our solar system) social media and the ‘net’ blew up with hash-tags,
news, conspiracy theories and more. People questioned the ‘real’ purpose of
‘the Trintiy’. The project took many years and soon the enclave of news died
off with much of the public unconcerned or uninterested in deep space
colonization after all that was a job for scientists and dreamers. Breathless
bodies stood still standing straight up lining the dark corridors of the ship. In
a way I was there, I feel like I can remember it. Through the eyes of a
stranger I sat still in the silence, in the dark checking the vital signs of my
crew. Many were healthy; most of the crew was a mix of refugees taken from
countries and colonies throughout the ‘Sol System’, others were socialites and
‘elite upper class’ who paid their way onboard (either by bribing or paying for
the construction of the three ships). Their blood runs through my veins, each
one of them could have been an ancestor of mine - the best of the best. ‘The
Trinity’ had no room for the weak.

It didn’t matter that there were no crews, no onlookers or journalists on
inside the port when we launched. The port itself was abandoned during our
exodus from ‘Sol’. This was what the Erebus had been built for. It was a
freighter filled with cargo. The computer controlled the course, sophisticated
artificial intelligence rigged with organic hardware for speed and accuracy.
The Erebus folded time and space and began creating the tear that would
allow humanity to spread throughout the universe.

The ‘tear’ was actually a dimension that sat on top of our own we called
the ‘immer’. With enough power (and the three ships each generated a
massive amount of power using anti-matter and exotic technology far too
complicated to explain right now) we could tear a hole for a tenth of a second
just large enough to take a starship through. The space inside the immer was
unlike our own, many suggested that it actually laid on top of ours folding
space and time. If our universe was an apple we would be sitting on the outer
rim while the immer was the core inside. Distances between point A and
point B were cut in half, a journey that would take years would only take
weeks or days. Traveling through pathways inside the immer (the immer was
not like ‘real’ space, so straight lines were not always the best way to travel)
was as close to faster than light as we had ever come. It was the biggest
breakthrough in our history.

The Erebus (as well as the Aelita and Tritan) had no
fleet numbers even
though they were heavily armed (and for the most part military) ships. If it
had been possible they would have been built in secret but their massive size
caught the eye of journalists (and amateur astronomers) everywhere. The
Erebus itself was the size of what was once New York City (and divided
much the same way). After the first invasion, the invasion by the aliens
known as the Skrav the three ships were an easy sell. We knew we were no
longer alone in the universe. Each ship as a monument, a symbol of our
complete victory over an extraterrestrial force that dared to see us destroyed.
Not to let the conspiracy theorists down, the three ships were in fact reverseengineered from remains of destroyed Skrav warships. The Skrav technology
introduced to us several new kinds of metal that we were able to recreate on
the molecular level, self-replicating nanites, and organic materials made from
biological DNA twisted and manufactured into a hard casing. Inside the three
ships looked like an H.R. Giger painting, a mix of metal and organic walls
that recycled air and water. Advances in organic processing ensured that the
ships would never break down, rust, or wither away.

The Erebus was immortal.
Each ship was alive, or at least they seemed alive. The artificial
intelligence took commands by Captains (who later became known as
‘elders’). DNA coding ensured that the three ships could never fall into
enemy hands. The technology was ours by blood. The Erebus itself was both
our child and our slave. Through a strangers eyes I stare as the Captain of the
Erebus looked up and exclaimed, “Ready our forces! We are set to launch!” I
still remember the first jump. The first time the human race set sail into the
universe, into the wild. The pilgrimage just as it begun, just as it was now, just
as it was designed, it all started with blood and war.
“Skrav forces are heading in our direction, a warship has just appeared
out of the immer, ships are descending towards us now!” A soldier yelled out
grabbing my arm as a blast from the Skrav warship knocked against our hull
threatening to destroy us before we even exit the gate. Together that soldier
and I fell to the ground our eyes bloodshot from the adreno we had taken and
lack of sleep from the night before. The Skrav were upon us. Their assault
fighters had begun attacked the hull of the ship. I could see it in my mind, the
small black Skrav fighters like wasps stinging at the sides of the ship hovering
around us like we had just kicked their nest. The hull must have looked like it
was infested. The port we were docked at had fighters but they wouldn’t be
enough.
Things after that are a blur. In the archives there is historical
documentation that talks about the brave souls that gave their lives so that we
would not be struck down. Brave souls that sacrificed themselves fighting
against the Skrav in the vacuum of space. The battle that triggered our
escape.
Accelerating hard the Erebus took to the stars, it like the rest of ‘the
Trinity’ disappeared form the port above Pluto into a dark black void. The
three starships had their first real orders, they were simple, “Run, run far
away and never return, never stop, our future is in your hands…”
The Captain shouted, “Jump into the immer now!” and just like that the
stars disappeared. The immer was full of a variety of colors (usually hues of
purple, red, and orange), dust, and clouds but most of the time it was solid
black with no light. A few seconds after the first jump the three starships
reappeared back into the ‘real’ (normal space). A few of the human and Skrav
fighters that had gotten caught in the jump burned up around the hull turning
to ash. Small ships back then were incapable of taking the inertia and
pressure of a jump. Pieces of debris hit along the side of the ship and echoed
through the bridge. It was like we had been caught in a hailstorm. In the
distance where the sun should have been there was nothing. Scans had shown
a giant white light as we dropped into the ‘real’ and then even that seemed to
fade after a few seconds. If a human had been watching (aside from going
blind) they would have barely seen the flash as it was over in the blink of an
eye. It was the first part of a prophecy that had been set into motion hundreds
of years before the ship had even been designed.

“One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one
is still alive”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Time passes. The inside of the Erebus had become chaotic. The change
however was good. People adapted to the new environment. No longer where
we creatures bound to a single planet, we lived in an artificial world, a tomb
of our own making. Everything was recycled from the body of a dead corpse
to the urine in which we drank. Even the various races on the ship had begun
to mix into one. Our lungs even adapted to the pressure, the stale air. Our
muscles became stronger in the artificial gravity though our bodies stayed
slim and healthy (due to the amount of daily exercise required by all who
were awake). Everyday children were being born in space never to know
what the Earth or any of the early colonies man had made would look like.
Never would they know the brush of cold air against their cheeks or the taste
of rain as it fell on their tongue.

There were those however that would know all the good (and bad) that
the world had to offer. The gifted ones, the meta humans, the seers, they had
many names but for the most part they (we) were simply called ‘users’. Their
blood held the key to the determine the fate of the human race for they alone
had the ability to use an alien element discovered long ago named the ‘nexus’.
They like the ‘Sons of Sol’ the group that secretly funded the creation of ‘the
Trinity’ and set in motion the events that would lead us to ‘Eden’ could see
into the past, present, and future (nearly one in every ten tries) through
someone else’s eyes.

For all intents and purposes each and every member of ‘the Trinity’ were
the ‘Sons of Sol’ as each of us were all that was left of the human race. The
population was small even including the ones who slept we barely numbered
past ten thousand. We were an endangered species - - but we were alive.

Every once in awhile, especially in the early days you would have a small
group of people that would break away or try to start wildcat colonies.
Remnants and runners we called them. Other more extreme humans
augmented their bodies in ways that made them truly alien. Many of these
deserters disappeared in the first decade when politics and old world thinking
onboard the Erebus made people believe that we could stand our ground
against any threat that came our way. Other deserters disappeared when we
made contact with different (friendlier) alien races. Stories about humans
fighting against themselves or for the control of the ships or even against the
autons (robots we created to tend to the ship) filled the archives. After three
hundred years many of these stories seemed like fiction. Each story carried
with it a moral. It was always when we forgot why we were running that
everything seemed to turn to shit.