Lokians 1: Beyond the End of the World

Aaron Dennis

The Lokians series Copyright 2011 by Aaron
Dennis

2
^nd
edition Published by
Storiesbydennis.com September 3
^rd
of 2016

Smashwords Edition published September
18
^th
of 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may
be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any form, including
digital, and electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for
brief quotes for use in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Characters,
names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

A note from the author-

Lokians started out as a series of short
stories I wrote mostly for myself. By August of 2011, I had
compiled the stories into a novel and started shopping for literary
agents. None were interested at that time, but an independent press
name Eternal Press was, and so I submitted my manuscript.

They said they employed editors, people to
help me clean up my work, and truthfully, I thought they were
amazing, the editors, but this was before I understood how to
write. Once the manuscript was cleaned up by their standards,
Eternal Press put me in touch with their cover artists, and they
were unable to provide what I wanted, but we settled on some
garbage cover with a praying mantis on top of a planet, before a
space backdrop, with a ship, that if you looked closely, was
Photo
s
hopped
so poorly, the stars from the space
backdrop were actually visible through it. They also chose the font
and over all design, and while I wasn’t really satisfied, they
claimed it was the best they had in store, and since I had already
signed he contract, and was eager to sell, sell, sell, I accepted
the cover art, and waited for the next step.

Red flags should have gone up when—during the
formatting process—they sent me my manuscript to check it and see
if it was everything I wanted it to be, and I found extra spaces
between words or letters, spaces removed from between other words,
the wrong punctuation, half of pages blank, and shifts in the
orientation. I simply jotted down everything I saw, tried to fix
it, and sent it back, thinking that mistakes happen, and there was
probably just some issue with the copying and pasting of my
manuscript from one word document to another. Well, the trouble
didn’t end there.

After formatting, the book was released, and
to my utter amazement, the print copy was priced at nearly twenty
two dollars, US, and the e-copy was priced at almost seven dollars,
US; this was to me at once outrageous- pricing an amateur author’s
book so high, from an independent press, no less. I knew right away
people weren’t going to risk that kind of money on my work, but
contracts are contracts, and there was nothing to be done.
Unfortunately, though I hated selling my work at such a high price,
I still needed to find readers, so I did my best to advertise, to
try and land some reviews by way of free giveaways, raffles,
contests, whatever, and for the most part, everyone enjoyed the
story, but there was one problem that everyone noted; a lack of
editing, and yet the editor’s name was right there, below mine, and
the reviewers were kind enough to blame the lack of editing on the
publisher rather than me, but it bugged me, and so I went through
my work, reading it, and found that several of the mistakes I had
noted during the formatting process were back.

Well, I’m glad to say that after five years,
I have my rights back, and I can present to you
Beyond the End
of the World
as it was meant to be, and by way of an apology to
those who spent their money on it in the past, the e-copy is here
now for free. Thank you and enjoy.

• Prologue
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Chapter Twenty
  
• Chapter Twenty One
  
• Chapter Twenty Two
  
• Chapter Twenty Three
  
• Chapter Twenty Four
  
• Chapter Twenty Five
  
• Chapter Twenty Six
  
• Chapter Twenty Seven
  
• End
  

Prologue

Man yearns to explore, learn, perceive, and
break beyond the bonds of limitation. Great, philosophic minds
pondered such implications, giving rise to questions with no
answer. Who are we? Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?
Are we alone in the universe? Can we reach for the stars?

A decade into the Twenty First Century, a
space exploration program known as NASA retired their shuttle,
stating their space station, the ISS, was sufficient to advance
man’s knowledge of space; no more flights to the moon were needed,
probes were built to reach other planets, yet a question was
raised; was NASA truly marooning their scientists in Earth’s orbit?
Was there, really, no shuttle in reserve for emergency
protocol?

What no one knew was that a new vessel had
already been designed and produced. A drone shuttle carried
equipment to the ISS, building materials, and there, the engineers
constructed new probes. Launching them from beyond Earth’s
gravitational pull allowed the tiny machines to explore without
immense fuel requirements. New studies had commenced.

Survey satellites were then built and
released to specified coordinates. Their role was to relay any
information gathered by probes back to Earth. It took little time
to obtain great findings. Less than a year into the program, the
probes detected abundant deposits of precious minerals in asteroids
both inside and outside the solar system. The next step required
mining probes to retrieve the deposits. A new age began when humans
no longer needlessly harvested their own planet’s resources.

A few decades down the road, survey probes
revealed more than just resources; asteroids, moons, and planets
were deemed acceptable for colonization with little cost or effort,
however, there was always the obstacle of time. A journey from
Earth to the closest sites meant decades of travel. Great minds set
their combined efforts on the task, and a solution was proposed;
send colonies to midway stations on small asteroids.

It was no surprise to NASA that very few
volunteered. Many citizens of Earth were comfortable and happy in
their lives. A move to a colonial life in space was practically
permanent, and traveling for years only to live in the desolation
of space was frightening. Then, the military stepped in, looking to
soldiers for support.
Project Safe Haven
was announced.

In the year 2111, almost fifty years after
the first successful colony, Admiral John Lay, the overseer of
Safe Haven
, commissioned Captain Riley O’Hara to lead a team
of scientists and engineers aboard the
Phoenix
, a vessel
orbiting a planet called Eon. The new ship and the new crew were
set to break new ground;
The Horizon Project
was employed to
begin colonization of the first planet outside the Sol system.
O’Hara was beyond psyched.

Chapter One

O’Hara sat in crew quarters, little more than
rows of beds, tables, chairs, and lockers utilized by eighteen,
military occupants, which included O’Hara. There were also ten
scientists aboard the
Phoenix
—a mixture of geologists,
engineers, climatologists, and biologists—and additional ship hands
contracted by the Navy. Of the soldiers, O’Hara found the ship’s
pilot, Sara Day, the more pleasant for conversation.

“
Excited? This is our big break,
Captain,” Day said, beaming.

She was short and fair. Her light skin
blended perfectly with her flowing, blonde hair, and glimmering,
green eyes. O’Hara smiled back, looking her over; she was a young,
pretty Lieutenant at twenty one years of age.

“
Bursting at the seams, Day. I still
find it hard to believe Admiral Lay put me in charge instead of
Rear Admiral Shaw,” the captain replied as he furrowed his
brow.

He was rather tall, and of a darker
complexion, older, twenty four, and though he lacked real, world
experience, his intelligence and determination shone through almond
colored eyes.

“
I heard he’s assisting Lay with the
next step,” she remarked.

“
Colonizing a planet…we’re really doing
something here.”

“
Yeah, I can’t believe they think were
ready to do this,” Day sighed.

“
First thing’s first, we need to
determine the cause of those magnetic disturbances.”

“
Swain’s working on it?”

“
Yeah. Logically, it’s some sort of
magnetized, metal deposit, but there’s always the risk of
radiation. There’s just as much we don’t know about Eon as we do
know….”

A voice came over the
Phoenix’s
intercom. The Automated Monitoring System, or AMS as it was
commonly known, stated in a robotic voice that entry into Eon’s
atmosphere was taking place in two hours.

“
Better hit the chair, Miss Day,”
O’Hara smiled.

They stood. She saluted, he returned it then
she ran to the bridge. It was not uncommon for a ship to have such
a young pilot. All colonial children were enrolled in military
schools, receiving the best of education. Once they excelled in a
certain area, they were trained specifically for that field. Day
was no exception. She also had the added comfort of the AMS
assisting with small calibrations. At the bridge, she sat in the
helmsman’s chair.

The
Phoenix’s
bridge was a cold, steel
structure. The only decoration in the room was the burgundy,
carpeted floor. From the suede chair, Day checked the screens
mounted in the console before her. She looked at the large monitor
displaying their surroundings.

A tri-sectional screen calibrated to three
cameras revealed a 180 degree perspective of the ship’s
environment. A fourth camera revealed the vessel’s six, but the
bridge officers marveled at the beauty of the purple and green
sphere on display. Day smiled to herself before brushing a few
strands of blonde hair from her face as she double checked the
landing coordinates. Everything was in order, so she took manual
control.

Maneuvering the
Phoenix
under
atmospheric pressure was simple, especially since a location had
already been programmed into the AMS. It was set to land about
three miles away from a dig site. Any closer and the ship ran the
risk of damage by magnetic interference, the same interference
Swain was studying. While the
Phoenix
had its own
anti-magnetic, field generator, O’Hara preferred playing it safe,
ordering a three mile trip from the site.

He was anxious to set foot on the surface and
lead the scientists to the dig. It wasn’t simply O’Hara’s first,
serious mission, it was the first time his feet were to grace
genuine soil, and that was something he wanted to enjoy to its
fullest. He and the others were suiting up in crew quarters as
Lieutenant Commander Albert Swain walked by. He was their premier,
tech expert.

“
Swain,” O’Hara said, removing his blue
and gray Navy uniform. He folded it neatly before placing on his
footlocker.

“
I’m pumped, baby,” Swain grinned from
ear-to-ear.

Replacing their fabric uniforms with tactical
armor, Swain, a tall, black man with large arms and hands like a
bear, struggled to buckle the straps in place, pulling laughter
from his friends. Fortunately for them, he was not only of sharp
mind, but of an easy going humor, and his participation was of key
importance.

“
All that puddin’s’ gone to your waist,
pops,” one of the men joked.

“
Stow it, Marty,” O’Hara chuckled. “You
only wear half a suit as it is.”