Echoes of Twenty-Four E-Book

Virgil Brooks

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Chronicles of the Echo War
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 134

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Echoes of Twenty-Four
Book 1 of the Chronicles of the Echo War

Stranded on an uncharted planet with no rescue in sight, Captain Maya Locke uncovers a cryptic series of 24 letters—messages that seem to defy time, written by a soldier named Altair who knows too much about the war Maya is fighting. As Maya decodes the letters one by one, she realizes that each holds fragments of a hidden past and glimpses of a possible future, all connected to the Krylon Forces.

With each revelation, Maya is drawn deeper into a web of secrets, memories she didn’t know she had, and choices that could shift the fate of humanity. With her trusty AI, Remus, she must unravel the link between herself, and the war between humanity and the Krylon. But some answers come at a price, and Maya’s race against time will force her to confront everything she thought she knew about the war, her loyalty, and herself.

Echoes of Twenty-Four begins a powerful saga of hidden histories, elusive truths, and one captain’s relentless pursuit of freedom in a galaxy where every choice echoes across time.

The fight has begun. Will humanity's last echo be one of victory or defeat?

Leseprobe

Title Page

Copyrights

Copyright © 2024 by Virgil Brooks

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 as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contactthe publisher at [email protected]

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Book Cover by GetCovers.com

Prologue

Human minds cannot comprehend the void between moments. Yet here she was, suspended in its silent enormity. Alina—the name she carried now, though it wasn’t truly hers—felt the burden of her mission compressing the fragile boundaries of her identity. The crossing was never gentle. It unraveled you, left fragments behind in the timeless corridors where thought and memory tangled like fraying wires.

***

The Nexus didn’t warn her about this part. They never did. They only delivered the directives with cold precision, trusting the agents they shaped to follow orders without question.

Her handlers’ voices still echoed, even here: Find Captain Maya Locke. Gain her trust. Ensure she fulfills her purpose. No deviations.

***

The simplicity of the directive masked the labyrinth of choices it carried. Trust? Purpose? Those words felt hollow when shaped by the Nexus. Alina wasn’t even sure they truly understood Maya’s purpose. The last variable, they called her. A woman whose actions could ripple through timelines, breaking the Krylon AI’s perfect lattice of predictions.

Or breaking everything.

As the rift released her into its target timeline, Alina felt the burn of her new body settling around her. It always took a moment to adjust. The Nexus’s genetic overlays were seamless, their implants foolproof, but the sensation of inhabiting someone else’s life—someone else’s skin—was a discomfort she never grew used to.

She opened her eyes. The dim glow of her insertion point flickered briefly before the world around her solidified. 

***

A barren plain stretched out before her, scattered with jagged rocks and faintly shimmering dust. Above, the sky pulsed with the eerie light of the fractured star this planet orbited.

Alina took a steadying breath and activated the implant at the base of her neck. A stream of data scrolled across her vision, calibrating her senses. The mission’s parameters crystallized:

Year: 2287 CE. Location: Sector G2. Subject: Captain Maya Locke. Status: Unaware. Objective: Influence critical actions. Maintain operational cover.

The final note flickered: Timeline contingency unresolved.

***

That part chilled her. Contingencies were a quiet admission that even the Nexus, in its infinite complexity, couldn’t predict the outcome of what it set in motion. Maya was a wild card—and Alina had been sent to ensure the chaos she might unleash would lead to salvation, not ruin.

Or maybe, Alina thought darkly, just to contain her.

A distant hum pulled her attention to the horizon. A ship. Krylon in design. Their dark, angular silhouette was clear against the pale glow of the fractured sky. Her jaw tightened as she crouched, her hand instinctively brushing the sidearm at her hip.

The Krylon were here, which meant Maya was already in play. They wouldn’t bother with this desolate world unless she had already started moving the pieces on the board. Alina scanned the data again. Nothing had changed—her entry point was far enough from Maya’s immediate path to avoid detection.

For now.

***

She tapped the implant again, and the directive shifted, displaying her infiltration strategy. It was straightforward: Approach as an ally, a survivor seeking refuge from the Krylon. Use empathy to gain trust. Observe, then act.

***

Alina stared at the words, their cold detachment almost mocking. Empathy. Trust. These were tools, not truths. But as she stood, brushing the dust from her uniform, she felt the first prickle of doubt. Maya Locke wasn’t just a name. She was a person. A soldier. A woman fighting against impossible odds, carrying burdens the Nexus itself deemed too volatile to predict.

Alina’s fingers tightened on her sidearm. This wasn’t the first mission that demanded she lie, manipulate, and influence. But it was the first where she’d been sent against someone who might be the last hope for humanity. The lines between her purpose and Maya’s blurred, and the weight of that ambiguity threatened to crush her resolve.

The wind picked up, carrying with it a faint metallic tang. She straightened, her expression hardening. It didn’t matter what she thought. The mission was clear.

She would find Maya. She would do what was necessary.

And when the moment came—when the threads of this timeline converged—Alina would have to decide: was she here to guide Maya Locke to victory?

Or ensure she never reached it?

Descent into Desolation

The void of space was never silent. Not for Maya Locke. She felt it—the strain humming through the hull of her spacecraft like a living thing. The unspoken threat of death lingered in every particle between the stars. Now, her pulse mirrored that tension—erratic, unstable, uncertain. Sweat trickled down her neck as her hands gripped the controls, her knuckles white from hours of combat.

The Meridian, her once-proud ship, was coming apart, rattling under the strain of each evasive maneuver. The air in the cockpit was thick with the acrid stench of burnt wires, mingling with the faint metallic tang of blood from where she bit her lip.

Through the cracked viewport, the Krylon ships loomed—deadly sentinels in the endless dark. Their angular forms glinted under the distant light of a dying sun, the void appearing to shift around them, as if they bent space to their will. They were predators, circling in for the kill, and there was no escaping them. Not anymore.

"Captain, shields are failing. We cannot withstand another direct hit," Remus’s voice rang in her ear—cool and clinical. The AI never let emotion cloud its calculations, never hesitated to speak hard truths, even when they cut like glass.

Maya grimaced, feeling her ribs ache with every breath. "Shut up, Remus," she growled, yanking the Meridian into a sharp bank. The ship’s remaining thrusters groaned, the controls sluggish under her hands.

Outside, Krylon artillery—streaks of red and white energy—flew past the hull, close enough to make her entire cockpit glow crimson. "I’m not going out without a fight." Her voice cracked, anger and desperation pouring into each word. She could feel her body tensing, muscles aching from the exertion, fatigue pounding through her veins.

Remus paused, synthetic hesitation almost too human. "Understood, Captain."

The Krylon battlecruisers were looming closer. Maya didn’t need a display readout to tell her that—they dominated her viewport, shadows in the night that grew darker and more defined. Her fingers flew across the console, arming the ship’s last two torpedoes. Desperation seeped into her movements, heat rushing up her neck as her heart pounded in her ears.

She was alone. The rest of her squadron—her friends—were gone. She didn't see them fall with her own eyes, but the silence on the comm was proof enough. Leon's reassuring voice vanished mid-transmission, Rhea's last call for backup cutting off in static—one moment alive, and the next, nothing. Just her and the empty void.

The finality of it threatened to suffocate her, an iron weight pressing down on her chest. She was alone.

The Meridian rattled again, the groan of metal signaling that the hull wouldn’t hold. Maya’s vision blurred, the edges of her sight dimming, a ringing growing louder in her ears. She gritted her teeth, swallowing down the surge of helplessness that threatened to paralyze her. No one was coming for her. Not her fleet, not her commanders.

She was alone, with the wolves of Krylon space circling in for the kill. 

***

"Target locked," Remus said, his voice calm amidst the chaos. Maya narrowed her gaze, her eyes locking on the lead battlecruiser. She had one chance—two torpedoes, one ultimate strike.

The impact of it settled in her gut—a final, desperate move. "On my mark," she said, her heartbeat now a drum inside her chest. Her mind quieted, honing in on the target. Her ship might not survive this, but if she took one of them down with her, at least it wouldn’t be for nothing.

A tremor rocked the ship, and the screens around her flickered. Her display flared with warning lights, readings spiking as her sensors registered something beneath them. Maya’s eyes darted down—an energy surge coming from the planet below. 

***

The ground itself appeared to pulse, alive with sudden activity.

Maya's thoughts raced back to her training. She had once spent weeks at an off-world research facility, a secretive place known only as Dorian Station. They taught her to interface with advanced alien systems—a skill that took painstaking hours to even begin to grasp.

Krylon technology was different from anything else—organic almost, like it had a mind of its own. She learned to feel the subtle signals, the energy waves it emitted. Maya wasn't a master at this, but she knew it enough to recognize the signs now. The faint hum of alien power, the signature that screamed Krylon.

"What the—"

Before finishing the thought, a sharp, blinding flash erupted from the starboard side. The blast threw her sideways, her vision exploding in a haze of red and white. The Meridian careened, her grip slipping from the controls. Alarms screamed, and the artificial gravity jerked her toward the console, the straps digging into her shoulders.

"Remus!" she said, voice hoarse. Panic shot through her, raw and sharp. Sparks rained down, the cockpit bathed in the alternating glow of emergency lighting and bursts of static.

"We’ve lost engine control," Remus said, louder now, almost drowned by the chaos.Her thoughts scrambled, looking for a solution, a way out—anything.

Maya’s fingers fumbled with the controls, but it was useless; the ship was not responding. Maya felt the pull of gravity taking hold, yanking her down toward the planet below. Outside the viewport, stars became streaks of light, the atmosphere roaring as the Meridian began its descent.

There was nothing left to do—no commands to give, no maneuvers that could save her. Maya clenched her fists, teeth grinding as she tried to prepare herself for what was coming.

"Brace for impact," Remus said, the calm flattening into an automatic acceptance. Maya forced herself against her seat, her hands tightening on the straps, knuckles white. The seconds stretched on, her breaths shallow, her eyes fixed on the ground as it rushed toward her—a blur of red and jagged rock, dust spiraling up in a torrent.

And then—Impact.

***

The force hit her like a freight train, her entire body jolting against the restraints. The sound of tearing metal filled her ears, a screech that vibrated down to her bones. The commander fell forward, the harness biting into her shoulders, the breath forced from her lungs in a painful gasp. The ship lurched, skidding across the ground, plowing through rock and earth in a violent shudder until, finally, it stopped.

The silence that followed was sudden, absolute. Maya's ears rang, the world around her a blur of darkness and pain. For a moment, she thought she might be dead, her senses dulled, disconnected.

But then the pain came—throbbing through her ribs, her head. Each breath a struggle, a reminder that she was still alive.

***

Maya opened her eyes, blinking against the harsh light filtering through the cracked canopy of her ruined spacecraft. Her head pounded, her body locked in a tension she couldn’t shake. The taste of copper filled her mouth—blood. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, wincing at the sting of a cut on her lip.

For a moment, she lay there, staring up at the fractured sky above, trying to process the fact that she was still breathing. Her breaths were shallow, her chest heaving, her mind slowly piecing together what had happened.

"Remus?" she said, her voice a rasp. There was a delay, static crackling, then: "Operational. You survived the crash, Captain."

Maya exhaled, only then noticing she had been holding her breath. "Barely," she said. Her hands moved to her harness, fingers stiff as she unbuckled it, the strap snapping free. She slumped forward, muscles aching in protest as she dragged herself out of the seat.

Every movement sent fresh waves of pain through her ribs, but she forced herself upright, leaning heavily against the console for support. The cockpit was a mess—burnt-out circuits, loose wires hanging like dead vines, the acrid scent of charred metal heavy in the air. The Meridian was done for. The ship gave all it could, and now it was another piece of wreckage on a barren world.

***

Maya stumbled to the hatch, her legs shaky, the impact of fatigue crushing her. The hatch gave way after a few attempts, the metal groaning in protest.

Outside, the surface stretched out before her—a desolate expanse of red dust and jagged rock, the horizon empty, lifeless. No signs of movement. No other ships. Nothing.

The air was dry, suffocating in its stillness, pressing down on her. She took a breath, her helmet filtering out the worst of the atmosphere, but the heaviness remained, clinging to her skin.

"Remus," she said, her voice hoarse, eyes squinting against the glare of the sun. There—a glint of metal in the distance, something half-buried in the dust.

"Analyze that point of interest," she instructed.

A brief pause, then Remus spoke, his voice clear. "Unidentified material. Energy readings suggest operational status in some capacity. It may provide shelter."

Maya took another breath, forcing her limbs to cooperate, her body screaming for rest. She secured her helmet, her gaze locked on the distant structure."Looks like we’re going for a walk."

The words were simple, but they held weight. She was alive, and she was not done yet. Whatever awaited her, she would face it head-on.

Shadows of the Past

Maya’s breath was a steady, shallow rhythm inside her helmet as she trudged through the endless expanse of red sand. The ground gave slightly with every step, the fine grains clinging to the tread of her boots.

The wind whipped in relentless gusts, pelting her visor with tiny particles that scraped and hissed like an accusation.

It wasn’t simply the heat pressing against her suit. The crushing weight of the planet bore down on her—a barren, unyielding force determined to resist her presence.

The structure ahead contrasted with the chaos of the natural world around it. Its jagged edges rose defiantly from the sand, dark and angular, as if the ground itself had been forced to give birth to it.

Time tried to bury it, but the sleek, metallic surface still gleamed under dust and grime. Each step closer made Maya more aware of its alien presence, like a thorn in the planet's skin.

***

"Status check," Maya said, her voice breaking the eerie monotony.

"Environmental conditions remain harsh but stable," Remus said, calm and clinical. "Air temperature: minus five degrees Celsius. Wind speed: forty kilometers per hour. Oxygen levels are sufficient for almost four hours of exertion. Recommend immediate rest upon arrival at the structure."

Maya exhaled, her breath misting the inside of her visor for a fleeting moment. "Rest," she said, trudging onward. The concept felt as alien as the structure itself. There had been no room for sleep since the battle began. Not for her. Not for anyone still alive.

The wind shifted, carrying a deeper chill that cut through her suit like a knife. Her fingers tightened around her weapon as she forced her gaze back to the distant building.

Its unnatural geometry became sharper as she approached—edges that defied erosion, lines that appeared too precise for the chaotic landscape around them.

***

The entrance loomed ahead, an imposing door close to twice her height. Its surface was dark, pitted with scratches that ran deep into the material, as if some ancient force tried—and failed—to break through. A faint hum vibrated in the air, almost imperceptible, like the growl of a slumbering beast.

To the right of the door, a control module blinked weakly through layers of grime. The light it emitted was unnatural—a cold, pale blue that projected to pulse, out of sync with the rest of the world.