Release Date:1st July 2015Publisher: Safkhet
Genres: Sci-Fi
Blurb:
He lives in Bournemouth, close to where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and a few miles from where Mary Shelley is buried. Also living under the same roof are his fiancée Darya and a grumpy Scottish fold cat called Gordon.
At 6'8" Guy is one of the tallest Science Fiction writers in the world. He can sometimes be seen riding around Bournemouth and Poole dressed in unfashionable fluorescent clothing on an extremely large bicycle, which has been likened to a gate. On Friday evenings he usually scrapes away at a 19th century fiddle with a local orchestra, before going to the pub to sink a few pints of Boondoggle. His collection of vinyl records is extensive, and he has a Cure T-shirt for every day of the fortnight.
The aliens from your nightmares are coming. The colonies of
Earth are next. And it looks like nothing can stop them.
A blue star, a dying friend, a kidnap and the dusty contents
of an old room: Septimus Esterhazy’s life is about to change. As he blows
cobwebs from the manual of an old spacecraft, hidden for decades, a Pandora’s
box creaks open.
Little does he know that the universe’s very nature is being
threatened by a powerful alien race. Nor does he know that he is somehow
involved with why the Wraith, destroyers of worlds, are coming.
The self-proclaimed ‘Protectors of the Known Universe’, the
Sassrit, are trying to do everything they can to thwart a Wraith attack. But time is running out and resources are
stretched.
A Sassrit agent, one of the shapeshifting Jarthiala, is
recruited to help. The path he follows leads to the doorstep of a planet called
D, an Earth colony, above which a blue star hangs, its light reflected in the
eyes of Septimus below.
This is a journey which will change Septimus Esterhazy
forever. It will make him question his nature.
He will uncover secrets about his family that have lain dormant for
years. And it will test the loyalty of
those closest to him.
But first he has to watch his best friend die.
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Excerpt:
The swirling, towering clouds of
black which had gathered on the horizon didn’t look right. A writhing movement
within them suggested something else, something more organic than a simple
weather pattern. Bolts of lightning flickered from the cumuli, lightning that
seemed to harness the entire colour spectrum: red one minute, purple the next,
then an iridescent green. The light was reflected in the eyes of the onlookers
on the shingle beach ridge, who cheered as one of the first warships roared
overhead, heading into the fray.
Khail’s fear had escalated to a
level where it was now numbness at the back of his mind. He knew better than
most what these creatures could do. He’d seen their devastation first hand. But
it was only now, standing on this beach and seeing them with his own eyes, that
he knew it meant the probable end for Arkenthria. As if to mark this thought,
the warship was hit by a sheet of lightning and exploded. A gasp of shock
rippled through the crowd. The ensuing ball of fire arced onto the broiling
sea, flames dancing over its surface until they were eventually extinguished by
the waves.
His fellow Arkenthrians watched
aghast as the eldritch cloud continued its approach unabated. Khail wondered
how many actually knew what this was about, how he and his team had brought
this upon them all. Would they be standing next to him in solidarity if they
knew? The images of the mangled spacecraft - those that had made it - limping
back to their planet had been broadcast to every home, as had the ceremonies
for those lost. And then the images of the creatures which had done this,
images that had struck terror into the heart of the planet, had filled their
screens. The research on the creatures since the first attacks had been widely
publicized: Khail’s department.
They’d gathered to face the oncoming
disaster calmly, in unison, in a defiant although probably futile gesture. His
wife stood to the left, his arm draped over her shoulder. She watched, eyes
glued to the horizon. His two boys stood on either side, slightly confused by
the adults’ strange behavior.
A blind man stood nearby, a priest,
kissing the hands of the devoted in a final act of absolution. A strong gust of
wind caught the man’s robes, flapping them around his thin body, before his
tail whipped out to flick them back into place. Someone next to him then began
to jump around in a spontaneous dance, a man from the local hippy commune.
Nearby acolytes began to copy his motions, crunching around on the stones.
Khail shook his head, overcome with
a desire to laugh. His scientific thinking was at odds with these people’s
thoughts, sometimes even at odds with his wife’s more ‘spiritual view’ on life.
He tried to contain it, but something inside burst, deep rolls of laughter
booming out of his barrel chest. As people turned to look, his wife
instinctively nudged him in the ribs. Her desire for them to fit in at such a
time seemed to him more inappropriate than his outburst. But he stopped
himself, the laughter replaced by a wave of sadness which crashed down,
smothering everything. He turned around to look at the other faces, most of
whom were staring ahead, waiting for the end, as they solemnly watched two more
of Arkenthria’s prize warships get swatted out of the way of the incoming
clouds.
Mixed emotions still ran through him
when he thought of the strange man, the alien Huwred. He could hardly bring
himself to think of his name - if that indeed was his name - but found himself
looking up into the heavens, willing him away from the planet, hoping he’d
escaped. There were bigger things afoot here than Arkenthria, this Huwred had
made him see that. There was a whole delicate tapestry out there, mysteries
woven into its fabric; mysteries that he, Khail would now never see. At least
Huwred had shown him that, and had shown him how important a part he’d played
in the whole thing. He’d just been too late to save his own planet, to save
Arkenthria.
The clouds started to approach with
greater speed as they scudded across the ocean, but the perspective looked
wrong. The sun remained hidden in the overcast sky, a faint bright blur in
their cover. As they approached, they ceased to be clouds and became an edgy
swarm: thousands of black winged creatures, swirling around with a furious
energy. Their wings and talons were clear, but their torsos were blurs of
darkness, hurting the eye when it tried to focus. People on the beach began to
wail, plaintive sounds that seemed to carry the basest human emotions in their
tone. The cries of a small child rose in reply, clearly oblivious to what lay
ahead, but detecting the growing unease of the surrounding adults. Those who’d
started the crazed dancing stopped abruptly.
Part of the cloud burst forward,
expelling a shard of coloured fire, which flickered as it tried to hold onto
reality, before crashing into the ocean. The impact caused the sea to swell and
rise, a wall of water coursing toward the pebbled shore. To Khail, everything
seemed to slow, as fear put a brake on time. More buds broke off from the
swarm, issuing similar evanescent bolts of flame. Groups of the creatures
descended from the heavens, attacking the beach directly.
The sky turned dark as the Wraith
swooped over them. The wind ceased, and there was a sudden hush across the
water. Then an impression of sound, rising in volume: the clattering of the
creatures’ wings, like bones being crushed in an ossuary. Khail closed his
eyes, held his head back as the sea exploded onto the beach. He felt a wing
glance his cheek and pulled his wife and sons tighter to him. Searing pain
scythed across his back and he was thrown forward, his wife and sons torn from
his grip. He saw a black talon and glimpsed a blurred, cowled head, mucus
dripping from its angry maw. A black flash of pain, followed by the water
cracking like a whip, then seconds later, Khail was gone forever.
Space moves inexorably slowly. On
its wide canvas, one hundred and twenty six years pass in an instant. And then,
in the vicinity of a planet called D, a blue star blossoms into life. At almost
exactly the same time, perhaps separated by a few milliseconds, something
similar happens in a nearby system. Above a planet called Sanrelick, the
natives look up and see a heavenly body bursting into existence, its wavelength
the same. However, unlike the inhabitants of D, for those on Sanrelick, this
event is something they’ve been expecting. And for some of them, it may be the
defining moment of their lives.
Author Bio:
Guy T Martland has been writing Science Fiction
since he was a teenager. The flow of adolescent words was interrupted by a
medical degree at Trinity College, Cambridge. He subsequently qualified and
then became a pathologist, because he had a thing about cells and microscopes.
Guy's stories have been published in various places, including Noesis, Xenos, Lexikon, Jupiter SF, Bento Box and Albedo 2.0. He is an alumnus of the Milford SF course. He has also occasionally been known to publish poetry.
Guy's stories have been published in various places, including Noesis, Xenos, Lexikon, Jupiter SF, Bento Box and Albedo 2.0. He is an alumnus of the Milford SF course. He has also occasionally been known to publish poetry.
He lives in Bournemouth, close to where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and a few miles from where Mary Shelley is buried. Also living under the same roof are his fiancée Darya and a grumpy Scottish fold cat called Gordon.
At 6'8" Guy is one of the tallest Science Fiction writers in the world. He can sometimes be seen riding around Bournemouth and Poole dressed in unfashionable fluorescent clothing on an extremely large bicycle, which has been likened to a gate. On Friday evenings he usually scrapes away at a 19th century fiddle with a local orchestra, before going to the pub to sink a few pints of Boondoggle. His collection of vinyl records is extensive, and he has a Cure T-shirt for every day of the fortnight.
Safkhet Publishing
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