Relativity: Aurora Resonant Book One (Aurora Rhapsody 7) Read online

  RELATIVITY

  AURORA RESONANT: BOOK ONE

  G. S. JENNSEN

  2016

  RELATIVITY

  Copyright © 2016 by G. S. Jennsen

  Cover design by Josef Bartoň

  Cover typography by G. S. Jennsen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator”:

  Hypernova Publishing

  P.O. Box 2214

  Parker, Colorado 80134

  www.hypernovapublishing.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  The Hypernova Publishing name, colophon and logo are trademarks of Hypernova Publishing.

  Ordering Information:

  Hypernova Publishing books may be purchased for educational, business or sales promotional use. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

  Relativity / G. S. Jennsen.—1st ed.

  LCCN 2016961089

  ISBN 978-0-9973921-5-9

  For John Herschel Glenn, Jr. and all the Mercury 7 astronauts

  Thank you for showing us the way to the stars

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many thanks to my beta readers, editors and artists, who made everything about this book better, and to my family, who continue to put up with an egregious level of obsessive focus on my part for months at a time.

  I also want to add a personal note of thanks to everyone who has read my books, left a review on Amazon, Goodreads or other sites, sent me a personal email expressing how the books have impacted you, or posted on social media to share how much you enjoyed them. You make this all worthwhile, every day.

  AURORA RHAPSODY

  is

  * * *

  AURORA RISING

  STARSHINE

  VERTIGO

  TRANSCENDENCE

  AURORA RENEGADES

  SIDESPACE

  DISSONANCE

  ABYSM

  AURORA RESONANT

  RELATIVITY

  RUBICON (2017)

  REQUIEM (2017/18)

  SHORT STORIES

  RESTLESS, VOL. I • RESTLESS, VOL. II

  APOGEE • SOLATIUM • VENATORIS

  RE/GENESIS

  Learn more and see a Timeline of the Aurora Rhapsody universe at:

  gsjennsen.com/aurora-rhapsody

  View the Amaranthe and Aurora Maps Online

  View the Dramatis and Alienorum Personae Online

  ANADEN DYNASTIES

  * * *

  PRAESIDIS

  Role: Criminal investigation and enforcement

  MACHIM

  Role: Military

  THERIZ

  Role: Resource cultivation and management

  EREVNA

  Role: Research, Science

  IDONI

  Role: Entertainment, Pleasure seekers/providers

  KYVERN

  Role: Administration, bureaucracy

  DIAPLAS

  Role: Engineering, construction

  ANTALLA

  Role: Commerce, trade

  *

  DYNASTY RANKS

  (Highest to Lowest)

  Primor

  Elasson

  Ela

  Asi

  THE STORY SO FAR

  View a more detailed summary of the events of Aurora Rising and Aurora Renegades online at gsjennsen.com/synopsis.

  * * *

  AURORA RISING

  THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY is the history of conflict. This proved no less true in the 24th century than in ancient times.

  By 2322, humanity inhabited over 100 worlds spread across a third of the galaxy. Two decades earlier, a group of colonies had rebelled and set off the First Crux War. Once the dust cleared, three factions emerged: the Earth Alliance, consisting of the unified Earth government and most of the colonies; the Senecan Federation, which had won its independence in the war; and a handful of scattered non-aligned worlds, home to criminal cartels, corporate interests and people who made their living outside the system.

  Alexis Solovy was a space explorer. Her father gave his life in the war against the Federation, leading her to reject a government or military career. Estranged from her mother, an Alliance military leader, Alex instead sought the freedom of space and made a fortune chasing the hidden wonders of the stars.

  A chance meeting between Alex and a Federation intelligence agent, Caleb Marano, led them to discover an armada of alien warships emerging from a mysterious portal in the Metis Nebula.

  The Metigens had been watching humanity via the portal for millennia; in an effort to forestall their detection, they used traitors among civilization’s elite to divert focus from Metis. When their plans failed, they invaded in order to protect their secrets.

  The wars that ensued were brutal—first an engineered war between the Alliance and the Federation, then once it was revealed to be built on false pretenses, devastating clashes against the Metigen invaders as they advanced across settled space, destroying every colony in their path and killing tens of millions.

  Alex and Caleb breached the aliens’ portal in an effort to find a way to stop the slaughter. There they encountered Mnemosyne, the Metigen watcher of the Aurora universe—our universe. Though enigmatic and evasive, the alien revealed the invading ships were driven by AIs and hinted the answer to defeating them lay in the merger of individuals with the powerful but dangerous quantum computers known as Artificials.

  Before leaving the portal space, Alex and Caleb discovered a colossal master gateway. It generated 51 unique signals, each one leading to a new portal and a new universe. But with humanity facing extinction, they returned home armed with a daring plan to win the war.

  In a desperate gambit to vanquish the enemy invaders before they reached the heart of civilization, four Prevos (human-synthetic meldings) were created and given command of the combined might of the Alliance and Federation militaries. Alex and her Artificial, Valkyrie, led the other Prevos and the military forces against the alien AI warships in climactic battles above Seneca and Romane. The invaders were defeated and ordered to withdraw through their portal, cease their observation of Aurora and not return.

  Alex reconciled with her mother during the final hours of the war, and following the victory Alex and Caleb married and attempted to resume a normal life.

  But new mysteries waited through the Metis portal. Determined to learn the secrets of the portal network and the multiverses it held, six months later Caleb, Alex and Valkyrie traversed it once more, leaving humanity behind to struggle with a new world of powerful quantum synthetics, posthumans, and an uneasy, fragile peace.

  * * *

  AURORA RENEGADES

  Following the victory over the Metigens, Alex, Caleb and Valkyrie set off to unlock the secrets of the Metigens’ portal network. Discovering worlds of infinite wonder, they made both enemies and friends. Planets of sentient plant life which left a lasting mark on Alex and Caleb both. Silica-based beings attempting to grow organic life. A race of cat-li
ke warriors locked in conflict with their brethren.

  Behind them all, the whispered machinations of the Metigen puppet masters pervaded everything. In some universes, the Metigens tested weapons. In some, they set aliens against each other in new forms of combat. In others, they harvested food and materials to send through the massive portal at the heart of the maze.

  But Alex and Caleb found yet another layer to the puzzle. In one universe, they discovered a gentle race of underground beings with a strange history. Their species was smuggled out of the universe beyond the master portal by the Metigens. They watched as their homeworld was destroyed by a powerful species known as Anadens; but for the Metigens, they would have perished as well.

  Back home in Aurora, the peace proved difficult to maintain. The Prevos found themselves targeted by politicians and a restless population desperate for a place to pin their fears. Under the direction of a new, power-hungry Earth Alliance PM, the government moved to cage and shackle them.

  In desperation, the Prevos uploaded the AIs’ consciousnesses into their own minds, fled from their governments’ grasp and disappeared onto independent colonies. Devon published the details of the Prevo link to the exanet, unleashing its capabilities for anyone who wanted to follow in their footsteps.

  Meanwhile, an anti-synthetic terrorist group emerged to oppose them, fueled by the rise of Olivia Montegreu as a Prevo. While the private face of Prevos was the heroes who defeated the Metigens, the public face became the image of Olivia killing a colonial governor and tossing him off of a building in front of the world.

  Unaware of the struggles her fellow Prevos faced, Alex forged her own path forward. Rather than bringing the AI into herself, she pushed out and through Valkyrie, into the walls of the Siyane. Piloting her ship in a way she never dreamed, Alex was able to feel the photonic brilliance of space itself. Over time, however, that bond began to capture more of her spirit and mind.

  On the surface of a destroyed planet, Mesme at last revealed all. The portal network was, above all else, a refuge for those targeted for eradication by the Anadens. And the Anadens, rulers of the true universe through the master portal, were the genetic template upon which humanity was built. Aurora was nothing more than another experiment of the Metigens, created so they could study the development and nature of their enemy and the enemy of all life.

  Alex and Caleb returned to Aurora to find a galaxy rocked by chaos. After the execution of Olivia Montegreu by Alliance and Prevo forces, Miriam had gone rogue. Her resistance force, bolstered by help from inside the Senecan and Alliance militaries, moved against the despotic Alliance PM.

  As Alex struggled with her growing addiction to an ethereal realm, she felt herself being pulled away from reality. Away from her husband, her mother, her friends. She watched as those she loved fought, but increasingly found herself losing her own battle.

  When terrorists staged a massive riot on Romane, Dr. Canivon, the mother of the Prevos, was murdered in front of Devon and Alex. Overcome by her own and Valkyrie’s grief, Alex unleashed the explosive power of the ethereal realm to destroy the terrorists’ safehouse. Standing in the rubble of her destruction, Alex made a decision to sever the quantum connection between herself and the Siyane, choosing a tangible, human life. Choosing Caleb.

  Miriam wrested control of the EA government away from the PM, bringing an end to the Prevo persecution. In the wake of victory, a shadowy Anaden hunter emerged from the darkness to attack Alex and Caleb. Caleb was gravely injured when the Anaden’s power leapt to him, healing his wounds and helping him kill the alien.

  Mesme revealed the ominous consequences of the attack. Soon, the Anaden leadership would discover Aurora. When they did, they would destroy it unless humanity could stand against them. Mesme told Miriam and the others to prepare, but knowing the end game was upon them, asked Alex and Caleb to come to Amaranthe. The master universe. The home and dominion of the Anadens.

  CONTENTS

  PART I

  SUPERPOSITION

  PART II

  SINGULARITY SHADOW

  PART III

  MOTES OF DUST

  PART IV

  MIRROR, MIRROR

  PART V

  GHOST IN THE MACHINE

  PART VI

  VERGENCE

  PART VII

  BIODIGITAL JAZZ

  PART VIII

  KAIROS

  RELATIVITY

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  PART I:

  SUPERPOSITION

  “Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go.”

  — E. E. Cummings

  THE DZHVAR DESCENDED UPON THEM like the shadow of an eclipse.

  The Anadens were not ready. How could they be?

  As one of the more mature species currently evolving in their corner of the universe, the Anadens enjoyed rapid interstellar travel and danced on the cusp of developing practical wormhole traversal technology, a feat which promised to open galaxies outside their own to them. But they had never encountered an alien species as advanced as they, much less one so vastly more advanced that its nature resided beyond their ability to comprehend. For the Dzhvar existed across all dimensions, and among other peculiarities this trait enabled them to easily hide out of sight until they moved to strike.

  The Anadens’ weapons could not harm this fearsome enemy; their shields could not stop them and their tools could not track them. World after world crumbled under the onslaught, but the adversary offered no leader with whom to negotiate a surrender.

  We had no special care as to their fate, for we did not concern ourselves with the affairs of mortal creatures carved of blood and bone. The Anadens were one among billions of life forms and millions of sentient species. If their existence began and ended as a blip on the cosmic timeline, so be it. They would not be the first to rise to the cusp of greatness, only to fall into the silence of history. They would not be the last.

  The universe was eternal, and we had seen it all before.

  But while the Anadens’ fate lacked consequence, this was not true of their enemy. The Dzhvar could not be fought and could not be vanquished by ordinary mortals, because they were pandimensional beings born of the void.

  In many ways, they were the void. Our opposite, for where we created they devoured. Where we seeded, they destroyed. Unrestricted by limitations of distance or dimensionality, they surged across the manifold of space, in their hunger not distinguishing between stars, planets and living beings.

  We came to recognize a horrifying truth. The Dzhvar did not merely devour organics and their habitats. They had begun to devour the universe itself.

  With every star system consumed their power grew. If their insatiable appetite continued unabated, a thousand thousand ages from now they would consume the entirety of the cosmos. They would consume us and, like all the others who fell beneath the Dzhvar’s assault, we would be unable to stop them.

  We were life. We were stardust. We were not warriors.

  But the Anadens were.

  A decision was made.

  AMARANTHE

  YEAR 6143

  12TH EPOCH PROPER

  1

  PRÓTOS AGORA

  MILKY WAY GALACTIC CORE

  * * *

  ONE BY ONE THE PRIMORS teleported into the Prótos Agora.

  The sphere’s translucent walls absorbed and filtered the prodigious spectrum radiation bombarding it. Even so, the room was bathed in the light of the galactic core.

  Myriad celestial objects were created and destroyed, endlessly smashed together and wrenched apart by the tremendous forces generated here at the heart of the Milky Way. The Prótos Agora harnessed that energy to propel itself on an orbital trajectory that circumnavigated the core, forever skirting the periphery of the accretion disk and the pull of the supermassive black hole at its center. The sphere’s motion, a
nd the shield that protected and shrouded it, were driven by the captured chaos of the core itself.

  Praesidis was the last to arrive and the only one who did not require an aperture at the destination in order to do so. His diati dissipated—it never vanished entirely—as he greeted the others with a subtle dip of his chin. There might be no official leader here among them, but if there were one it would be him.

  Upon his arrival and without fanfare their business commenced. They had been doing this for twelve epochs and formalities, if they had ever existed, were abandoned long ago.

  “The permanent gateway to the Maffei I galaxy is nearly complete and will be ready for traversal in fifteen days.” Diaplas pivoted to face Machim. “We have picked up four disparate energy signatures consistent with Tier II or early Tier III civilizations, so standard Advanced Contact Protocols are to be in place during our exploration and evaluation.”

  Machim gave his assent. “Done. Three DS brigades will be at your disposal in twelve days. Their Navarchos is authorized to summon additional forces as needed. Erevna, what is your status?”

  “The prospect of a populated galaxy has volunteers lining up to be of service. You’re guaranteed to have a full complement of personnel equipped and ready to move when you discover worthwhile targets.”