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  Book of the Guardian

  Home – Part One

  By Ben Winston

  Copyright © 2015 Ben Winston

  Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Disclaimer

  Dedication

  Chapter 01 – Moon Day (First Day)

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04 – New Day (Second Day)

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  About the Author

  Connect with the author or Blue Space Publications, LLC.

  Books Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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

  Dedication

  This work is dedicated to all of our brothers and sisters, parents and children that have served in the armed services - past, present, and future. Without whom we would not have our many freedoms.

  Chapter 01 – Moon Day (First Day)

  He sighed as he crested the hill that gave him a wonderful view of the valley that was his destination. The relatively small farming town was just visible to his enhanced vision, miles in the distance. Behind it, taking up most of the horizon, was the super-gas-giant planet, Bethel.

  He reset his duffel and once again began walking. He could have run the distance in a little over an hour, but he had been asked by his former commanders to try not to use his enhancements.

  He had opted to undergo de-enhancement and return to civilian life. That didn't go so well; at least he was 'retired'.

  Back when mankind had finally left old Earth and reached out to the stars, they got their hands slapped by the first race they ran into. That slap had almost finished humanity. With nothing left to lose, and only death to look forward to if they remained on their now destroyed planet. Humanity did the one thing they've always been good at. They fought back.

  Now, in a one to one fight, a standard human soldier had almost no chance against the beings of the Tammerain Dominion. So, while they fought to keep the conflicts in space where they had a chance, human scientists discovered a way to enhance a human bio-system to the point that they could survive, and win, in a hand to hand fight. The side-effects? Immortality, and the forfeiture of intimate contact with other humans.

  Basically, you would live forever, but you couldn't ever fall in love. Well, more accurately, you could love, but not in a physical way. The enhanced strength of a soldier would literally crush a sexual partner, not to mention what the exchange of bodily fluids would do.

  The scientists assured all of the volunteers that the procedure could eventually be reversed. They kept their word. For most soldiers that survived a couple of centuries of war, the scientists reversed the process and they lived out their lives. Most found a wife and had kids. Thus the human race built back up from the brink of extinction, and eventually became the ultimate rulers of this entire galactic quadrant.

  His enhancement was a long time ago, and John could still remember every moment. Hell, he even remembered the campaign to take this planet, although that was nine centuries ago.

  John was one of the ‘Temporal Guard’. That was the name given to those who had served the longest, and he was one of the last surviving, original soldiers from the first few batch’s enhanced. Unfortunately, when the med techs began applying the reversal, John had almost died on the treatment couch.

  John Jacob Aster had been enhanced on the last day, of the year twenty-forty-one, by the old calendar. Using that same calendar, it was currently January twenty-ninth, fifty-five sixty-two. He was the oldest living human on record. The Human race had come far, and the road had been paved in blood – not all of it alien.

  When John’s decommissioning failed, the Crown called a national day of mourning, proclaiming that John had died during the procedure. None of the techs and doctors that knew the truth would ever say anything, they had too much respect for John and his teammates. Of course the royal command helped too.

  The King himself had been present at his 'decommissioning' ceremony, along with the other four remaining soldiers of the Temporal Guard. All five of them looking no older than the young men and women they were when they volunteered for enhancement. The King was actually the youngest of them; his enhancement date was two thousand years after John and his teammates. He had even been one of John's troopers for almost five hundred years.

  The King had the utmost respect for the Temporal Guard. Each member had an honest to goodness, hand-painted portrait hanging in the main audience chamber of the palace on Alpha Prime. So when John began to have problems, he became very upset.

  “What the fuck is going on! Save him! I don't care how, just do it!”

  None of the techs replied. They were working to save John's life. After stopping the de-enhancement, and reactivating his own body's damage repair systems, John stabilized, but it soon became obvious that members of the Temporal Guard could not be de-enhanced as originally promised.

  So, on the orders of the King, John was ‘retired’, and the crown would cover all of his expenses for as long as he chose to live. He was asked to keep his enhancements a secret for as long as he could, since the population as a whole believed that no enhanced Soldiers were living free among them, and they liked it like that. Most believed that the enhancements made the soldier insane and, as such, to be feared as nothing more than killing machines.

  He was almost recovered from the decommissioning attempt, when he received a special visitor. He should have known who it was when the guards took up positions inside the door to his room.

  “Hey John, how are you feeling?” the man said. He was wearing a plain business suit, which belied his actual position.

  “Sire! You honor me!” John replied, as he tried to get out of bed and kneel.

  “Stop! You’re no longer in the military. Please, just call me Mark. You don’t kneel to me ever again!”

  '‘Mark’ he said, like they were the best of friends. ‘Mark’ could never truly have friends. Why he chose the path that led him to where he was, was beyond John.

  His Highness, King Marcus Candlewood the First, smiled hopefully at him.

  To John, this man's every word was a direct command. So his mind was warring with itself. Obey the order, or follow protocol. Orders won out, but just barely, and John nodded. “Thank you, Mark. It would have been difficult for me to follow protocol right now.”

  Mark nodded. “I understand, that’s one of the reasons I did it.” He placed a small holo-projector on the side table, and activated it. “You’re original plan was to retire to the rim world of Bethel’s Anvil. We have connected your lineage to a now abandoned farmstead near the village of Johnstown.

  When John groaned, Mark chuckled. “Yes, they named it after you. Face it, you’re a legen
d and a hero to those people. Hell, you’re that, and more, to a lot of people, myself included.”

  Getting the discussion off of him, John looked at the hologram of the area he had chosen to live in.

  “It sure looks a lot different than it did the last time I was there!”

  “It better, it was a class ‘A’ bitch to terraform!” Mark replied snorting.

  The comment surprised John, this was supposed to have been a planet almost identical to Old Earth, except it was three times Earth's size. “It's been terraformed? I thought it was a class M to begin with?”

  “It was. However, the war caused so much damage, it had to be reclassified as Class N, almost a K, really. It was so far gone we had to terraform it to bring it back. If it had been left alone, there is a good chance it would have died. That would have been the worst thing to have happened,” Mark replied. “From the images I've seen, it's doing really well.” He indicated the hologram.

  “That town looks a lot like one of the old farming towns my grandmother showed me from when she was a child. I can still remember what Earth was like before the attacks began. This planet looks very much like that,” John said. “Except for Bethel in the sky.”

  Mark sighed, and looked John in the eyes. “As much as I wish this was only a social call, it's not. I have a huge favor to ask of you.”

  John smiled back at his King. “Mark, I'm still duty bound to you. Although I'm listed as dead now. I'm still a soldier. All you need to do is command me.”

  Mark shook his head. “Not anymore, John. I will never give you an order again. It’s one hundred percent voluntary. You're retired, among other things, it gives you not only the ability, but also the right, to tell me no.”

  John nodded his head. “I understand that, Mark. However, I also understand that I am something of an albatross for you, and I would like nothing better than to prove the trust and faith you've shown me. You would have been well within your rights, and duty, to order that I be disposed of.”

  Mark shook his head. “I could never do that to any of you. There are only five of you left. I believe, and so do the history books, that if it weren't for you and those of your brothers and sisters that are no longer with us, we simply wouldn't be here. Once we are sure you’re stabile, you’ll be getting a new software update reflecting the changes.

  “You know as well as I do that there is an unwritten and unspoken compact between a Nation's soldiers and the Nation they defend. A faith in that the Nation believes its soldiers will protect them, and a faith from the soldiers that the Nation will not turn its back on them after they've seen too much horror, lived too long in Hell.

  “While I am still on the throne, I will not allow anyone to break faith with you,” Mark said, finishing.

  “I think you've forgotten your own time in hell, Mark.” John said reminding his lord that he too was a still enhanced soldier.

  Mark shrugged. “We've gotten away from my favor. John, we have good reason to believe that there is a spy somewhere on Bethel's Anvil. It’s still considered to be a frontier planet even though it's been peaceful for a thousand years.

  “The Tammerain Dominion is amassing ships and building an invasion force well behind the breakline. We only know because a few traders have passed close enough to get a scanner lock on some of the ships. However, they're still using pulsed tachyon communications. We've scanned and searched both of the other planets that could be housing the communications node, so it has to be on Bethel's Anvil... somewhere.”

  “Sire, I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think we have enough time for me to search the entire planet,” John replied evenly.

  Once again, Mark chuckled. “No shit, even with your vaunted luck, I don't suppose we do. No, I only want you to keep your eyes open, and perhaps take a swim or two in that big lake. If you agree, you will be getting an additional firmware upgrade tonight in your sleep.

  “You'll also be receiving a gift from 'Uncle Mark' of a hover barge. To the casual snooper, it will look exactly like what it is. However, the kick panel under the inside controls have a built in scanner plate that will only respond to your DNA and enhancement signature. The panel covers a crawl space that has not only another set of controls for the barge, but all the scanners we could think of to stuff into it. Even a couple of experimental ones that the bright boys think will penetrate the natural subspace scattering effect of the water.”

  John nodded. “By the time I get there, it’ll be too late in the year to plant, so the only thing I can do is get the fields ready for next season. I planned on doing some fishing and maybe some swimming anyway, so that'll fit right in. I assume you'd like me to check the old, abandoned base in the lake?”

  “Well, that would be the safest, and most likely place for them to hide a communications center. The question is, who's running it for them? None of the Tammerain races are even remotely human.”

  John nodded agreement. “They didn't have any humans, but that was thousands of years ago. If you remember, they did take some of our colonists. I would assume we're dealing with their descendants. If we are, in fact, dealing with humans at all. It could be one of the lizards, with a human accomplice to get its supplies,” he finished. “If the old base is the place they’re using, the lizards would be the ideal race to man it.”

  “This is why I wanted to ask you to look into this; you know how to think things through. If it matters, you'll be drawing pay from the Ministry of Information through a front company...”

  John interrupted him. “Excuse me, Sire. A wage is not necessary, and might arouse suspicion about my fake past. The town will know I've brought my entire life savings with me. I can survive the winter and still carry out the mission. I'll be pretty much broke, but I should make it. I might have a problem getting seed in the spring though.”

  Mark smiled like a shark. “The afore mentioned wage, will be paid through a Ministry of Information (MinFo) front company that sells seed, and is trying to get into the market on Bethel's Anvil. They will not only be giving you all the seed you need, all harmless hybrids of course, but will be paying you to farm and write a report on how well the seeds do.

  “You'll be contacted by a ‘company rep.’ that will have you sign a contract with his company for a year, with the option to renew. He will actually be from MinFo, and function as your liaison for this mission. Several other farmers in the area will also be contacted and offered the same contract you'll sign.

  “All the data is available in the MinFo secure net. I've already made sure you have access via your enhancements. The data isn't formatted for that, so you might have to modify it on the fly,” Mark finished.

  “I'll deal with it, Sire. It won't be the first time I've gotten unformatted data. May I ask what the time frame is for this mission?” John asked.

  Mark sighed. “Indeterminate really. But we'd also like to know as soon as we can, so we can try to counter whatever it is that the Dominion might be up too.” he paused. “If you run into something larger than you can handle, the 29th and 15th fleets are in your sector and can respond in less than a week.

  “For a more immediate need, the rest of the Temporal Guard and the 282nd Special Action Team will be in orbit shortly after you arrive. They'll stay there until you call for them or dismiss them, you're the operational commander. If you get this handled without them, just dismiss them, and they'll return to the task force. But if you do call for them, they'll drop right on top of you, so you might lose your cover story.”

  “I'll keep that in mind, Sire.” John replied, and changed mental gears. “You know Mark, you are always welcome to come for a visit. Get away from the hustle and bustle of the Capitol for a week or two.”

  “Somehow I doubt that the Royal Guard would be very happy with me, if I just trotted off to a frontier world; especially right now with the Dominion being sneaky again. But I really do appreciate the offer,” Mark replied. John could hear the real longing in his voice and see it in the way he looked.

/>   “It won't be like this forever. Once we get the Dominion to calm down again, you should come out. We can go fishing. I'll work it out with your guard,” John replied, grinning.

  John was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of a hydrogen powered ground vehicle approaching. He moved over to the far right of the 'road' to get out of the way, but the vehicle stopped beside him.

  “Excuse me, are you going to Johnstown?” A pretty young woman asked from the controls.

  John nodded, and gave her a small smile.

  “That's where I'm headed, it's a few miles yet, how would you like a ride?” She asked.

  'Blend in, you need to be a normal person now', he told himself as his smile broadened. “That would be a blessing, thank you. It sure is warm today!” John replied as he eased his duffel into the cargo area. “My name's John. Thanks again for the ride, miss.”

  She smiled at his friendly manner. “I'm Gloria Saint. The Crown pays me twenty royals to drive over to Threshold every day to pick up the post.”

  John nodded. “I thought you weren't supposed to pick up strangers?” he asked as she started off down the road again.

  “I'm not, really, so I'll have to drop you off just before we get to town. I hope that's alright?” She asked politely.

  “Anything to save me the walk! I'll keep your secret too.”

  “You don't sound like you're from around here. Can I ask where you’re from?” She asked just to make conversation.

  He was loath to lie, but he needed to keep his real identity secret since the town they were going to was named after him. They knew damn good and well who John Aster was. Still she did ask him a question.

  “Certainly, I'm actually just in from New Terra in the Beaumont system. My Uncle left me a place here just outside of Johnstown, and there really wasn't anything for me on New Terra, so... here I am,” he shrugged.

  Her eyes got big. “I didn't know any liners had been here this week! Besides those tickets are like gold! Are you rich?”