Empire's Son: An Epic Science Fiction Novel Series

Excerpt From the Chronicles of Emperor Adar Zahn Tavereus Volume 1 From the Early Years to Ascension Chapter 4 The Return to Ethia

Earth Edition and Translation © 2278

I remember the time before my return to Ethia with fondness. I was in that state of happy bliss of ignorance that I often sometimes wish I had once more. It was a time of infancy when I did not know myself in any sense of the word. I was swaddled in good intentions and wholly dependent on my parents like any infant would be. And then in a brilliant flash of revelation, I was forced to grow up in an instant, and I was not ready for the life I was being asked to step into, but step into it I did, because the alternative was too terrible to imagine.

"What do you think they want?"

It was the question on all our minds as we stared at the television with shock and disbelief. I'm not sure how long we had been like that. Time seemed not to exist since we first glimpsed the alien ship on the jumbo flat screen at the head of the conference table. It seemed like the impossible had finally happened, and none of us could quite comprehend it.

"Based on all the movies, I'm pretty sure we'll all be dead soon," muttered another person at the table. The already high tension in the room skyrocketed, and it felt like it might choke the air right out of me.

It was finally enough to jolt me out of my shock, and I looked around the conference table to see the panic I was feeling mirrored in all the faces there. Tony Winters, the man who had spoken, was a doomsday kind of guy.

"It's a hoax. Someone CGIed the whole thing," one of the newer staff members speculated.

"Then why is it on every damn network?" Amanda Grove, who'd been at the company since its inception fifteen years ago. She was a no-nonsense kind of person, and by the set of her mouth and the stiff way she was sitting in her chair at the head of the table, I could tell this was vexing her to no end.

When Kyle, her assistant, came bursting into the room to interrupt the morning meeting to tell us to turn on the television, she had just glared at him with all the might of her research and development department head title, until he swiped the remote and did it himself. After that, a tight-lipped Amanda had shuffled through the channels with a firm grip on the remote she'd snatched back from Kyle. After the tenth channel of the same blaring news story, she stopped. If it was a hoax, it was a convincing one.

"You really think they are the peaceful kind?" the guy who had spoken up first gave a hopeful look at the eleven other people in the room.

I saw a few give similar looks of anticipation, but the majority still couldn't take their eyes off the television. Those expressions locked in fear and dread, which only increased my own. I felt my anxiety starting to turn to hysteria and immediately closed my eyes to focus on my breathing. I had been prone to panic attacks since childhood, and my mom had done a lot to teach me tools to help manage them. So once I felt a familiar warmth of calm, I latched onto a positive thread on the subject at hand. Just like my mom had taught me.

"Frank, I think that until we see otherwise, we should consider this a positive thing for us all. This will change our world." I offered.

"What if it's not? And they destroy us." Tony glared from his seat across the table.

No one seemed to have a comment for that, and the conversation around the mahogany table stalled out, either from fear of the question's answer or not knowing how to follow that up. I decided to stay silent. I really didn't want to get into an argument with Tony. It was all I could do just to keep myself together. I turned my attention squarely to the television.

The sixty-five-inch screen was full of the thing that had grabbed our attention after Kyle had raced into the conference room with the news. A monolith of a black and gray ship that was clearly not made by any person on Earth hung in the bright blue Georgian sky. It was too big and strange in design.

As if to get a better idea of size, the current camera shot showed several news helicopters hovering in the not too far distance, taking on the appearance of tiny annoying bugs next to the colossal ship. A massive rectangular vessel tapered to a curve at each end, obscuring its bow and stern. The most fascinating distinction of the alien craft was the large swirling silver loops engraved deep into the hull, and seemed to shimmer and move in the glint of the mid-morning sun.

According to the ticker tape down at the bottom of the newscast, the alien ship had made a sudden appearance over the middle of Lake Thurmond for reasons no one had yet to determine. A red counting clock on the screen's corner showed that the single ship had been hovering there for the last thirty-three minutes.

I wondered whose brilliant idea that was. As if we needed more to be nervous about, the counting clock was inevitably a reminder of a ticking time bomb. Once again, I decided to ignore it and focus on the positive. Yes, it was scary, but it also meant a major paradigm shift for our world.

There really was life out there. Earth wasn't alone. This was first contact. A day for the history books. In my whole twenty-five years of life, Earth had been alone in the Universe, and now that wasn't true anymore. How would this change things for us now and in the future?

"Michael," Dad appeared in the doorway of the conference room.

I looked up at him, calling my name. I was not prepared for what I saw, and it caused all my optimism to evaporate like smoke. My gut twisted in a knot as I took in his harried expression. I could feel the hysteria creeping back.

My dad had been perfectly fine twenty minutes before when I'd left his office to get my plans for my new drone specs to present at the company's weekly research and development meeting. This new side of him gave me significant pause. I had never seen my dad like this, not even when a spy at New Horizons had disclosed confidential information to a rival tech company last year.

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The others around the conference table saw him, too. They saw their usually good-humored yet authoritative CEO in near panic. Now the tension in the room climbed so high it was like a monster of fear trying to strangle me dead right there. I gripped the arms of my chair and I put my attention on the feel of the smooth, hard plastic under my hands. Yet another tactic my mother had taught me. To focus on something, anything other than the panic.

"Let's go. We need to go," he waved me out of the room.

I slowly stood up. My stomach rolling like I were on the high seas. I stood up straighter and willed my legs to move me forward. I wasn't going to lose it, not in front of all these people. And even though Dad wasn't showing it, I focused on attempting to echo his usual calming strength.

In all my life, I had not once seen him back down from a challenge. I had never seen him show fear of any kind. Now, to see his face so white with terror, it shook me to my very core, and yet, it was the strength he had shown through my youth and young adult years that seemed to take an eerie control of me. It at least kept me from falling apart––for now.

I nodded numbly as I made my way to him and the open doorway of the conference room.

"What about the rest of us? What do we do?" The doomsayer Tony Winters asked in a quavering voice.

My dad addressed the room. "Go home. All of you go home and wait it out."

I paused at his last words. Wait it out? What the heck did that mean? Wait what out? The invasion? How the hell did you wait out an invasion? Shit. There I go right to the worst-case scenario, and yet, seeing my dad's pale face and the sheer terror in his eyes, I couldn't help but make that leap.

Dad turned to me and waved impatiently. "Let's go. We have to go."

I wanted to say that he had already said that and ask why we were in such a hurry, but I did as instructed and moved toward him. I gave one last hurried look to all the people in the room, wondering if I would ever see them again. Was this it? Was this the end? I shivered at the idea and decided to lock down that line of thought before I really lost it.

Once I was in the hallway with my dad, he led me toward the bank of elevators at a quick pace. I had to jog to keep up with him.

"Where are we going?"

"We need to get to your mom and sister."

"Why? What's the rush?"

"Just do what I said, Michael."

I came to a stop as we reached the elevators. Dad slapped the down button.

"We are waiting it out with Mom and Emmaline then?"

Dad threw me a confused look. "Waiting what out?"

"The invasion?"

Dad's face paled even more than it was, and his jaw tightened. He was saved from answering as the left elevator opened with a ding.

We both stepped in, and Dad slapped the button for the underground parking garage. The door closed, and we traveled the twenty-two floors down as elevator music played in the background. It felt strange and eerie to hear something so normal, so regular, when it felt like everything was changing, and I didn't know how or in what way.

I latched on to the calmness of the music. I used it to help soothe the storm within, which was almost a joke because I'd been after Dad for quite some time to turn that damn music off. It had always been such an irritation to me. Now it felt like a lifeline.

All too quickly, the door opened, ending our short ride. Dad led the way into the semi-dark garage. We didn't have far to walk. His car was parked in the CEO spot, only a handful of steps away from the elevator door. He tossed me the keys.

"You drive."

I caught them without a word, even though I had many questions racing through my head. He normally didn't let me drive. He loved his BMW too much for that. Yet another sign things were not well. I tried to ignore it as I hit the button to unlock the car, opened the door, and then slid onto the dark leather waiting inside.

Normally, I'd be grinning like a Cheshire cat as the straight-six turbo engine rumbled to life. It wasn't often I got to be in the driver's seat of the sleek silver and black thing of beauty. It almost seemed like yet another cosmic joke on my behalf. I clicked my seat belt and shifted gears.

"You really think the alien ship will be a problem?" I asked, hoping to get him to talk as I rolled out of the parking spot. "Or is this about something else?"

Normally, my dad thrived under pressure. It was how he had built a multibillion-dollar technology company that had put many similar companies out of business over the last fifteen years. That sort of man didn't show fear. That sort of man thrived on uncertainty and saw opportunities in every situation. But something was striking pure terror in my dad. I could see it almost crackling in the air around him. Could it be from the arrival of the alien ship? Was it really shaking my dad that badly? It just didn't make sense unless he knew something everyone else didn't.

"Just drive," he said, not even bothering to put his seat belt on.

Dad was always a stickler for that kind of thing, and it only caused my concern to heighten. The car beeped at Dad, reminding him to put his belt on, but he ignored it as I pulled out of the company garage. After a few moments, I silenced the annoying sound myself with a press of a button. We rode in silence through the city for several minutes before I couldn't take it any longer.

"Dad, please. What's wrong? I mean, I know this whole alien ship thing is a big deal, but it seems like there's something else going on. Do you know anything about this?"

It was possible. New Horizons had a lot of contracts with the government, and communication was one of the company's biggest departments. There were more than a few satellites orbiting Earth right now that had parts from New Horizons. I couldn't believe that an alien ship would just pop into Earth's orbit without someone at least getting a heads up.

Long moments passed, and I wasn't sure I'd get an answer, but eventually my dad let out a long sigh, and spoke.

"Son, there are things going on that you don't understand. I don't have time to explain it all. You're just going to have to trust me. For now, we need to get home. If there is time, I will explain more."

My heart hammered in my chest, and the surrounding drivers blared their horns as I swerved around a car that had stopped suddenly in front of me. I managed to right the car without killing anyone or destroying property, but my hands were shaking and I felt more than a little sick to my stomach. It was a whole minute before I said a word.

"You got a call from Riker?" I asked.

General Riker was a good friend of the family. Had been for years. He was also Dad's contact with the Department of Defense and one of New Horizons' biggest clients.

I looked over at my dad just in time to see him shake his head. "No. Riker didn't call."

"Oh," but his response left me baffled.

If he didn't have information about what was going on, then why was he acting like this? Was he just that freaked out about aliens coming to Earth? No, that wasn't right. There was something else going on here. I could feel it. I just couldn't name it.

I stepped on the gas even harder as I raced through downtown New York, which wasn't an easy thing to do in the middle of the day, but I got a little creative with backstreets and I may have hopped a curb or two. None of it fazed my dad. He just sat in his seat, staring out the front windshield as if he had just lost his best friend or something.

Finally, I made the turn that put us on the street to our family residence. A few moments later, I rolled into our garage and turned the car off. I sat there for a moment, listening to the pinging of the car's engine as it cooled down.

Surprisingly, Dad hadn't moved to exit the vehicle. He sat as if paralyzed in his seat. I gazed at the side of his face, trying to will him to talk to me, but he just sat there as if reliving a bad memory. It was then that I saw a tear sliding down his cheek.

My heart stopped beating. My breath froze in my lungs. I was terrified to move or say a word, knowing something was wrong, so very, very wrong.