Element of Change: Book 1 of the Creation Files of the X.C.U.

By Shane Fudge

Nanotechnology is 100 years away from realizing its greatest potential, until a meteor lands in the Arctic and is discovered by Dr. Sarah Reeds. Despite her warnings, the military uses the meteors incredible nanotech elements to create the Xtreme Combat Unit, a superhuman fighting force that is secretly controlled by a shadowy group, until Reeds helps the XCU use their new powers to unleash hell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shane Fudge
• Release date: Mar 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452376943

Shane Fudge

Shane is from Canada but currently resides in Australia, writing whenever he has time, which lately is seldom, but hopefully on the rise for the futre.

Book preview

Book 1 of

The Creation Files

From the

X.C.U.

Xtreme Combat Unit

Shane Fudge

Published by Shane Fudge at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Shane Fudge

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 1

High within the Arctic Circle, over a hundred miles past Ellesmere Island, the last reaches of man’s domain, an intensely cold wind blew across the barren snow plains. It penetrated every nook and cranny of the jagged landscape, unrelenting in its quest across the ice. It howled and screamed in the darkness that was beginning to wrap this land for another five months.

It twisted and winded its way around huge piles of ice, tossed high in the air to form small mountains by the frigid sea underneath it. Around channels and gorges cut into the glacier surface it blew, constantly working its way towards the next set of white peaks. This land was like the surface of another planet, full of bizarre shapes and landforms that confused the eye and minds of those who witnessed it.

The cold temperatures here were enough to freeze exposed skin in thirty seconds. Extreme hypothermia could be achieved in minutes if someone were to fall into the black icy water haphazardly exposed by the shifting ice packs in the less dense areas. Only the hardiest souls, and most efficient adapters, survived here.

This was man’s last frontier, once called the last unexplored part of the Earth by many prominent adventurers. Expeditions here were launched often by people from all over the world. Some were successful, some were not. Some found glory and honor in navigating the frozen wastelands at the top of the world. Others found only death, in a frozen cave, or from a fall into the bottomless pools that swallowed them whole.

What was sure was that this place was inhabited only by those with clever ways of surviving, and spirits that would never break under the most extreme conditions. Only the strong survived here, the rest were quickly disposed of by the frigid elements, or its more successful occupants.

The latter definitely helped the male polar bear that was plodding his way across the ice pack. The bear was enormous, almost 2000 pounds, a walking eating machine, that had seen many of these long winters come and go over its lifetime.

The bear was a testament to the land and the type of creatures that inhabited it. It was tough, determined, and undeterred by the solitude of its surroundings. The bear had lived a long time, almost 15 years. For a polar bear in the time of global warming and climate change, that was an eon.

Nosing its way into the wind that was pouring down the side of a snow-swept hill, the polar bear paused in its trek. The wind blasted down into the bear’s side, battling with its thick fur. It pummeled the bear from behind, shrieking indignantly that its icy touch was being ignored.

But it was no bother to the old bear; he was used to trekking these plains endlessly. He had put up with the wind, the shifting ice, and the cold waters for his entire life. Living a solitary existence of walking, hunting, and eating, the polar bear was used to these conditions, and he simply faced off into the direction of the wind and continued his climb up the snowy hill.

Normally the bear would have found a cave to curl up in by now, and ride out the worst of the winter darkness, which lasted for six months this far north. The hunting, despite the melting ice, and diminishing prey, had been adequate to allow the bear to store up enough body fat to hibernate through the winter.

This year, however, something was different. Perhaps the bear felt the weight of his many years on his broad back, and knew a change was coming.

He had been living in this ice world for so long; there was no wind, no scents, and no sounds he was not familiar with. Indeed, in this place, the polar bear was a true king; no other predator met his match.

Seals, fish, penguins, even other bears, all of them felt fear at his approach. There was nothing in this wasteland he could not handle, or defeat if necessary. Over the years there had been battles with starvation when the food was low. There had been fights with other males over food, mates, and pride.

There was very little in this place that could startle him at this point, or more laughable, make him feel ill at ease.

So why was he still out and wandering the white desert, when all the other bears had snugged themselves into their dens?

Because several days ago he had awoken to a feeling that he had not felt in a long time, not since he was a cub taking his first unsure steps across the ice; a sense of unknown change. It was a sense that his time of wandering the ice was drawing to a close.

Usually when that feeling came over a bear they simply accepted it, and allowed their death to overtake them as a natural process. As a creature of nature, unencumbered by the many wants and desires of their human counterparts, this was much more accepted by the bears.

But this old behemoth was not a normal specimen. He was much larger and more intelligent than his relatives, something that no doubt had added to his longevity in such a vicious environment.

He had always known when to leave a hunting ground before it ran out of food. He had always known he could defeat a challenger for his mates too. Indeed, he had sired many offspring over the years that could potentially be as great as he was, but living alone his entire life he would never know, and that was fine with him.

His strength and stamina had always outdistanced him from his brothers. An even greater talent though, was his ability to sense when change was coming.

People always talk of animal’s ability to sense danger, fear, happiness, and other changes to the emotional environment around them. It is a well-known fact they can sense a change in the mood of the environment around them, much to their greater chance of survival.

Everyone has seen dogs and cats know when something is wrong before their human owners. Whether it’s a storm, or a person’s mood, the animals sharing this planet have always kept a closer touch to the auras of things around them, and what the subtle changes in it could mean for them.

Considering how good domesticated pets can still connect with their natural environment to know when a danger threatens them, it was no surprise the bear’s abilities were even keener.

He had always known when the next cold wind would begin to blow, or where the seals would pop up next so he could sink his massive teeth into their soft, rubbery flesh. He knew when the ice would break before it did, and he could sense the doubt and fear in the other bears he had fought to maintain his place at the top over the years when they had eyed his considerable size, knowing he could crush them with his huge paws or massive jaws.

His mystic connection to this land was complete and secure, as unbreakable as iron. The bears ability to know what was going on over the hundreds of miles of freezing, shifting ice was as solid as most people’s knowledge that their morning paper would arrive on their doorstep without looking out the window.

So it had been a mystery to the bear when he had felt, once the wind started to howl, a need to continue to wander, instead of burrow into the ground. Fear was something that had left him long ago, so he was fairly certain that wasn’t it. Fear was something that killed quicker than the cold out here. There was no room on the ice for creatures with fear.

But he definitely felt something not right in the thought of going to sleep this winter. There was no reason, other than the weight of his years, but he refused to believe that he would go to sleep this time and not wake up, like so many others did.

No, that would not be the way he died. Not him, the king of this frozen land. He had fought the elements and everything in them his entire life. His skill, strength and ferocity had allowed him to win, and he would die fighting, even if he had to fight death itself.

So he walked on, continuing to stay ahead of the wind. He still was not sure what was chasing him, or what it wanted him to see in this desolate place, but if it wanted him, it would have to catch him, and battle the life out of him.

His steps had taken him far out of his normal ranges, as great as those were considering polar bears usually stayed close to their food source. He was in uncharted lands now even by his reckoning, but that was not a bother, one snow encrusted peak of ice jutting up from the pack was pretty much like every other one.

The snowy mountains might not resemble the ones he had traveled over for years, but the wind was the same. It howled and whispered all around him, always pushing him forward, promising a surprise at the end of this journey he would never forget.

It hammered him with its incredible strength, which had seemed to be growing over the last few days, until it was almost hurricane-like in its need to topple everything in its path. But the bear was not one to bow to anything, so he kept on.

He still had no idea what he traveled too, or what he would find at the end of this journey, but he knew with a certainty that only animals had, that this would be the last trip across the plains he would make in his lifetime.

He let out a sigh to that effect, the only sound other than the wind and the cracking ice to be heard for miles. It was full of his thoughts, and carried the weight he felt, to struggle on until his end.

The wind’s response was a howl not quite unlike laughter. It ripped around the bear ruthlessly, teasing him with its promise that soon he would face something that would upset even his greatness.

Growling in the face of his tormenter, the bear turned his back to it once again to survey his surroundings. Strange as they were, he still felt a draw to continue in a certain direction, the unknown world of perception and feeling telling him which way to go. To his right, endless plains of ice, unbroken for thousands of miles, continued unabated. Their white emptiness was staggering in its sheer scope.

To his left was an ice shelf that dropped off for hundreds of feet to the open water below. Even if he was to somehow navigate down its sharp decline, the ice pack that stretched out across the water was swirling and churning with the obvious signs of deep currents, the kind that made riding ice floes a guaranteed death.

Straight ahead, several miles across a rolling set of snowy hills, raised a few clustered mountains of ice. They were massive, some of the biggest he had ever seen. Comprised of many jagged peaks, intersecting each other at crazy angles, they were fearsome and resembled the type of place that nightmares often called home.

He knew his path before his feet began moving. The bear turned his back on his paw prints behind him, most already filled with snow, and started towards the mountains. The wind came with him, swirling around him now as if it couldn’t wait for him to see the events that were about to unfold.

Not far from where the giant white bear was heading into unknown territory, deep under the ice it navigated by foot, Navy Private, First Class, Cal Renny was lounging back in his chair, not paying attention to his station as his duties said he should be.

Renny was a new addition to the USS Discovery, a massive nuclear submarine recently commissioned by the United States Navy. He had just finished basic training 6 months ago, and had been eagerly awaiting his first deployment, but not because he felt a necessary duty to do so.

Renny had felt the Navy was a perfect place for him. He had been average in high school in Iowa, so much that he had no options of a scholarship when it came to college. His parents being struggling farmers their whole lives, there was not much available in private funds to send him anywhere. His average height, and looks, with plain brown hair and eyes, did not mean a modeling contract was about to fall into his lap either.

With the prospect of living in his tiny farm community the rest of his life, he had realized his future with bleak certainty; working in town at the local supermarket forever, settling down and making farm babies with some local girl he had known since first grade, quietly drinking himself to death as he gave up on anything exciting ever happening to him. Renny felt he had two options; find a way out fast, or drop the toaster into the bathwater with him.

The armed forces were not an option that Renny would normally have considered. He was not, at heart, a violent person. He had never gone out for the team sports emphasizing brutalizing opponents like football or rugby. Actually he had done very little of any team activities, making his decision to join an organization like the Navy confusing for those who knew him.

In his mind it was simple. Take into account that the U.S.A was embroiled in more armed conflicts around the world than it could handle in decades, getting into the forces would be easy; they would take what they could get. An underachiever like Renny would slip comfortably under the cracks, just the way he liked it. He was an expert at not being noticed, in his mind, if you weren’t noticed, you couldn’t get blamed when things went wrong, and things always went wrong eventually, no matter how much you tried, in his opinion. So, the best thing to do was not try too hard, and just skim by, taking advantage of the perks of those around you who worked hard.

He would take advantage of the free education and training, do his four years, see the world, get out, and get on with his life. In terms of the area in which he would face the least risk, he figured the Navy was a safe bet, there was no chance of being shot like if he were to invade on foot like those crazy-ass Marines. That was far too much work, and outright danger, for him. He had never enjoyed flying, not to mention flight school was way too much work too, with all those tests, and rigorous screenings, so the Air Force was out.

But the idea of being on a massive, indestructible ship armed to the teeth, with the latest in technology and many other people around to pull the trigger for him, was a great option for Renny.

He had always enjoyed the family’s trips to the lake, where jet boating was his favorite pastime. It was about as far away from the boring life of the farmhand, with its dry, dusty days, as you could get. Why not multiply that by a million and get on an aircraft carrier? Those things never sink!

So Renny joined up with the intention of serving out his tour of duty sailing around the world and seeing the sights with the Navy. He had envisioned tropical beaches, lots of time at port where the beer was cold and the girls spoke very little English, and thought American sailors were their heroes.

He had joined up and gone through basic training. In his mind it was like high school again. Lots of jocks in the showers making life miserable for the smaller guys, getting screamed at by drill sergeants in what seemed like a never-ending gym class.

Renny had always been good at cruising though, and made friends easily by being unoffending to everyone.

He got through basic with only the usual punishments, and moved up a few steps, but not too far to actually be scrutinized for not working very hard. He stayed away from the areas that would have him doing the fighting, and found himself being trained on radar and communication systems.

Soon he was qualified to be an air traffic controller for the ships flight decks, but quickly got out of that since his days would be full of constant pressure to perform.

Instead he moved over slightly to become a skilled technician at the enemy detection radar systems. These were the systems that were used to detect long range threats, conduct search and rescue operations, and monitor the skies and seas around them for hundreds of miles for possible threats both above and below.

This was perfect for Renny, if anything slipped past him, it would be detected eventually by the dozens of other radar operators manning the screens in the command center. He had no problem being a first line of defense, very little pressure there, but being the last line, no thanks, that was heavy. Renny was a firm believer in that the buck should never stop with him, for the sake of everyone involved.

His ticket looked like it would be punched, straight through to cruising the seas, far away from any war zone.

That was until he was summoned into his training commander’s office one day. Renny did not have a healthy relationship with this person, a squat, stolid older man by the name of Admiral Emmett Gravis.

Gravis had grown up in the Navy and given it everything he had, including his wife and kids, now long forgotten after they left him years ago. He had been through some of the roughest wars of the last few years, and absolutely hated every new recruit like Renny, who only put forth enough to coast through, rather than actually trying to be all you can be. Gravis was a slogan man, a true believer.

Renny! he barked, in his usual gruff commanding voice, you’re being shipped out tomorrow, I’ve got you a nice little assignment that someone with your…talents, and initiative, will absolutely love.

Renny shifted nervously, not liking the undertones of the statement.

Assignment, Sir?

Yes damn it, did you think you would never get one? What the hell else would I be calling you in here for, except to discuss more reports about your lack of enthusiasm for completing the officers testing, which I see once again, you’ve skipped out on, the older officer grumbled in a ruff voice.

Renny doubted there was anything about himself that Gravis would actually want to call him in here to discuss at any point in his life.

Where will I be serving, sir? he asked, suppressing a twitch.

Oh, don’t you worry about it, Private; I’ve arranged a special tour for someone with your obvious enthusiasm for the Navy, somewhere where your skills on the comm’s will force you to finally help out your fellow sailors, Gravis said, and leaned back into his chair with a very satisfied smile on his face.

Renny felt his face whiten.

Will I be going to the front somewhere sir? he asked.

Jesus Christ, no! Gravis barked, the front is where we send our top boys who really want to see action. Your talents and ambition are obviously set elsewhere, but don’t you worry Private, I won’t let the Navy give up on you, you’ll serve a purpose yet. We all have a purpose.

Renny felt like he was about to undertake a mission that he was most definitely not ready to handle. All his careful planning to keep himself out of harm’s way was about to go up in smoke.

24 hours later, and he realized that Gravis had indeed thought of a place to put someone of his nature. Instead of a nice floating-on-the-surface warship that would probably never see the enemy up close, he was now a part of the crew of the USS Discovery, a newly commissioned nuclear powered submarine that was about to set off on her maiden voyage.

Renny was part of her new crew, and was stationed on LRE/WRD, (Long Range Enemy/Weapons Radar Detection) Unit. This meant he spent his days looking at a green fluorescent screen, using the most advanced radar and satellite detection equipment available to spot and identify any and all sorts of objects that came within 500 hundred miles of the sub, and more, depending on its signature.

The people manning these important stations were given the endearing nicknames of blips, because they spent their time looking at blips on the screen.

This in itself did not bother Renny; it was more of the fact of the Discovery’s mission. As a new ship it had to be tested out first, a trial run before being sent to the war zone’s the U.S. currently occupied.

The problem here was the Discovery was to be testing out some of the military’s new technologies. In order to see what was worth spending more money on, the sub was loaded with all sorts of new gizmos designed to help blow stuff up, in Renny’s opinion.

So, according to military logic, instead of shipping out to test this new technology in the sunny waters of the Caribbean, they would be going someplace else that Renny had no desire to see. The Discovery would be patrolling the frigid waters off the coast of Greenland, with frequent trips into the Arctic Ocean, to test its abilities in a frozen wasteland, deep under the ice packs, where there were few enemy spies to see what worked and what didn’t.

So for the last six months, Renny had languished at his station. There was ice, ice, and more ice to look at if he went above decks during their infrequent trips to the surface to blast through the ice sheet in his off time, so that quickly became a non-option. The sub was confining, and not much fun, especially when you did a night time duty, which he frequently did.

During his duty they ran constant tests to see what the sub could do, all sorts of exercises to push the limits of what was on board.

For Renny this meant analyzing every sound and echo the sea could conjure up for him for leagues, which, he now knew, were endless in a sea full of shifting ice. He figured that eventually he would be able to detect the differences in one piece of ice over another, or simply go crazy tracking everything they ran across, no matter how benign. The captain wanted readouts on everything, and he was not one to be taken lightly.

With the blips on his screen never ending, and never important, he quickly began to drift off while on duty. This was the case during one of the nights he was trying to sleep when not noticed.

With his feet up on the desk, conveniently blocking the glowing screen from his view, he was drifting in and out of sleep in his small corner of the tiny area his station occupied. He was one of just a few sailors in the area, as was the case during night shifts when only the necessary personal were on staff. How he was necessary at this time he had no idea.

I guess if a whale farts in its sleep I’ll be the first to know, he muttered to himself.

In all, the trip was boring, so much that even someone with his small amount of drive was beginning to tire of it. In the middle of this huge, cavernous sub, in the middle of the black waters of the ocean, surrounded by nothing but frigid waters and insanely cold temperatures, Renny found that for the first time in his life, he wished there could be a little action.

And then, as if on cue with his thoughts, all hell broke loose for Cal Renny.

Chapter 2

WOOP!!WOOP! WOOP!! The siren was incredibly loud, and pierced Renny's brain like an ice pick driving through a soft fruit.

He fell right out of his chair, gasping and floundering on the floor for a few seconds like a fish that had been unceremoniously hauled into a boat. He regained his knees, got his hands on the work stations desk, and peered over the edge, trying to comprehend the noise, which was continuing without pause, and was now being joined by a red flashing light above his screen.

What the hell!? he spluttered. What was that?! What’s going on? What was that noise? Big noises….bad noise, oh crap, big bad noise coming from MY station! He tried to get a hold of what his screen was saying to him. Its all right, man, its all right, just remember the training, this is a test, just a test, their jerking you around, getting payback for me being lazy. Yeah that’s it; this is Gravis, playing some joke on me half a world away, that son of a bitch! If this is his idea of funny I’m gonna track him down and kick his ass! All this and more ran through his mind while he ran his hands and eyes over his instruments.

Being the middle of yet another peaceful, thoroughly boring night for Cal Renny, he had been deep into his routine- napping on and off instead of monitoring his station- only waking when the sound of footsteps seemed to approach his post.

Had he been more alert, or perhaps more of an initiative kind of guy in the first place, he wouldn’t find himself in the position he was now in.

The monitoring equipment of the Discovery had picked up an incoming signal that he had not detected, until it had gotten close enough to trip every long range sensor Renny had at his disposal. The sonic and seismic wave transmitters, long range radar, sonar and GPS homing systems had all, at the same time, detected a massive disturbance at the edge of their ranges, and compiled that data into the alarm that was now beginning to feel like it was ringing inside of Renny’s head.

In layman’s terms, the system has gone batshit crazy, Renny thought, as he was given readouts on the screens.

The systems were designed to detect minute signals that work on the usual frequencies and emit the usual wavelengths at extreme distances. They normally showed up as Renny’s friendly little blips, accompanied with polite warnings as to what they could be, this information was then deciphered by the blip sitting at the screen. From this information the threat assessment was determined.

Of course, this situation being far from the normal, the system had encountered something at its edges that lit the gauges up like the fourth of July, which in turn had the computer telling Renny the threat assessment was somewhere in the realm of nuclear warfare. And, it was coming straight at them.

This is so bad for me right now, he whispered to himself.

The speed at which it was approaching was phenomenal, ruling out a plane or any type of fighter jet, friendly or otherwise that was currently invented outside of a comic book. One good thing, he mused, while watching the readout of data on the screen. It was still saying the thing coming at them was off the charts in any kind of measurement.

What do I do now? Renny wondered frantically, do I call someone? Who do I call? Everybody? It’s the middle of the night and this may be a false test, who the hell should know about this? Is it even going to hit us?

He probably would have stayed frozen like that, trying to decide what to do until time stood still, except for the fact that he was on a submarine. An alarm that loud was rarely unnoticed by crew for any significant amount of time.

The duty commander, a Lieutenant named Steaves, came in first.

What the hell is the racket in here, Blip! Lt. Steaves roared above the blaring alarm.

Uh, I’m trying to find that out right now sir, Renny replied, wishing he was anywhere but there.

Find out? Don’t you know what it is; it’s coming from your goddamn station, Renny! Steaves bellowed at the top of his lungs over the siren. He was then joined by a group of other sailors, both technicians and various other officers drawn by the noise. Behind them came a sharp command, and the group parted to let in the captain, a solid man in his forty’s, with graying hair and a no-nonsense demeanor when it came to matters pertaining to his sub.

Can someone tell me why the whole damn sub is now awake with what sounds like the end of days, or do I have to do it myself? the captain asked. He didn’t shout over the sirens like Steaves did, but his serious voice, used to ordering men for years, cut across the noise like a knife.

Yes Captain Cress, sir, it seems Private Bli-Renny’s console has picked up something on long range sensors, Steaves replied quickly. No one kept Captain Cress waiting long.

Is that so, Mr. Renny, well then, how about you tell us what’s going on before your system goes into cardiac arrest, Cress’s tone indicated he expected a full explanation as to why his sub was going cuckoo in the night.

With everyone now looking at him quite closely, Renny tried very hard to sink into the floor and disappear. Nothing happened. Oh well.

He took a deep breath. Just tell them what you got; they can’t get mad if I tell them it’s all I’ve got, right, he wondered. With Cress staring holes through him, Renny seated himself at his console, feeling the eyes of many following his every move.

Captain, the long range sensors, all of them, have picked up a massive disturbance almost 500 miles out, sir, its registering across the board, the readings are red hot sir, she’s coming straight for us.

Enemy missile? Cress asked sharply.

No sir, too fast, too fast for anything we’ve got on record sir, its lighting up the system like a Christmas tree, all spectrums, all frequencies, its not supposed to happen like that, I’ve never seen anything like this Captain.

What are you talking about Mr. Renny? Cress implored.

Sir, usually jets have their own signature, missiles another, whales and other organics in the water, they have their own too. Our equipment can detect the distinct signature of all those things and differ between them, but this one is showing all the types all together.

Renny kept going now, as everyone stared at his screen which was showing a sizable blip racing across it.

The frequencies for everything are distinct as they show up in the sonar, its how we know the difference between solid mass and living mass, or a mechanical device, but this is triggering everything, as if its using all frequencies, its just not possible Captain, all these readings don’t combine like this, they don’t work together or feed off of each other in anyway sir! his words rushed out of him in an uncontrollable torrent, fueled by fear.

Calm down son, tell me what it’s doing, and if it’s a danger, then we’ll figure out what it is, Cress soothed, as much for all gathered as for Renny.

She’s heading down through the atmosphere sir, tripping every satellite sensor along the way, just dropping like a stone. Getting close to the surface now sir, its got a trajectory the computer can track now, its heading is close to us…its going to hit the ice soon, sweat stood off Renny’s brow as he watched the projected arc of the blip on his screen, watched it hurtle down from the sky towards the ice surface above them.

Getting close now Captain, really close, descending at a dead fall, it’s got terminal velocity for sure, and it’s smaller now, like it’s broken up some.

Everyone held their breath as the blip came close to passing the center of the screen, which represented the location of the sub and what surrounded it.

Ok, Ok it’s passed over us 1,000 feet, 750 feet, 500 feet, 400, 300, Renny counted down the descent as it unfolded in front of him.

Down and down the object went, racing towards the surface with unrelenting speed.

Whatever’s in its way is going to get flattened, someone in the room said.

Coming down Captain, Renny said tensely, as if he could feel the impending impact.

100 feet, 50, impact! he shouted, louder than he had intended too, it hit the ice surface Captain, just over 450 miles away.

It had to have come from orbit to be that high up, with that speed Captain Cress mused, maybe it broke up so much there was nothing left for the impact.

But Captain, that much strain on the readouts and triggering of the radars, that was like having a warhead go off in our bathroom, there’s no way that was a little rock from outer space, Renny remarked.

Well, it’s early for speculation, Mr. Renny. Steaves, I want a full diagnostic of the systems, radio NAVCOMM and CINCCOMM, get them on the horn, let them know what happened, odds are someone else heard that thing too and get…

Renny was still watching the screens when he saw the wave of pressure heading towards them too fast for the systems to comprehend fully. They might not have been able to witness the crash in the submarine, but it’s after effects were about to hit them in a way that could not be ignored.

Captain, incoming impact! he screamed, too late.

In mid-sentence Cress cut off as a deep rumbling seized the sub, shaking it like a child’s toy in the bathtub. An angry groan rattled every part of the sub as the lights began to blink on and off, men cursed and fell to the ground, rolling on top of each other as the sub lurched to the side violently. The groaning of the ocean pressing against the steel hull like a giant vise, seemed to take them from all sides.

Renny gripped the sides of his console for dear life, so frightened by the last few minutes he had no idea what to expect, except this could be it for him if the sub turned into a watery grave. The job at the supermarket and the baby-making suddenly seemed like a great idea after all.

But the shaking and groaning stopped as suddenly as it began, and the sub righted itself slowly. Its design held up to the abuse and the lights came back on, one at a time down the row of screens. The huge cylindrical ship floated in the water, reeling from the immense forces that had battered it, as they passed them in a wave.

Men got up off the floor, muttering fearfully about what just happened.

Get me full diagnostics! Everything and everybody on deck now! We’re not moving until we know our status, and get command on the horn now! Red alert status! Cress was in full captain mode, his sub being threatened by an unseen force, and he reacted accordingly.

Men and women rushed all around Renny now, frantic to begin the task of assessing possible damage to the sub. Renny continued to stare at his screen, the green glow bathing his face as he was temporarily forgotten, one more blip in a sea of blips, unnoticed by those around him.

He knew the thing that had hit the ice had caused the shock wave, but what could have caused something like that? It’s crazy, he thought to himself.

I just hope this is the end of whatever this thing had in store for me tonight, he thought dazedly. The screen continued to blink and scroll up data as to where the object had come to a rest.

Renny stared at the spot, not wanting anything else to do with it, but knowing in the back of his mind that the likelihood of him not having to worry about it anymore was far from likely. Perhaps there is something to the notion of being vigilant in your work; it might save me from getting stuck in a situation like this ever again he mused. He began to silently ponder that thought as his little green blips blinked at him innocently in the middle of the chaos.

The polar bear was very close to the base of the ice-covered snow mountains, less than a mile inside of being at their very foot. He sensed that whatever had drawn him here was at hand.

He was tired, the long march in the extreme conditions had sapped the last bit of his immense strength, and he was glad it was almost over.

As he neared the crest of a small rise, a sudden shift caused the wind, which up until now had howled unrelentingly all around him, to cease all together.

Grunting and nosing the air in front of him keenly, the bear stood confused as to what would happen next.

His ears picked it up first, their sharp senses picking out in the dead silence a sound that resembled the rushing of the ocean as its waves bore down on the shoreline.

It grew and grew, a build up of sound that was almost an absence of sound, as if a great damn was about to burst.

The bear looked behind him, in time to see what looked like a giant fiery ball, smaller than the sun but still very bright, rush over and past his head, the force of which knocked the giant bear to his feet as the air rushed past him.

An airplane passing overhead couldn’t have created as much pressure as this thing did, as it tore across the sky, lighting up the darkness all around for miles as its path led it straight into the mountains of ice.

The bear regained his feet with a roar of indignation at being upended by whatever it was. He got up just in time to see the object crash into the mountains with frightening force. The ground shook as the speed and power the thing carried with it caused the immense pillars of ice to come crashing down in and upon themselves, exploding outwards as well as they toppled in a cascade of ice and glacier stone.

Pieces the size of houses crashed and bounced past the bear as he watched the mountains disintegrate into nothingness as the object from above completely destroyed them. Mist, ice, and water shot into the sky hundreds of feet, the noise was deafening, like a hundred buildings being blown up all at once. The whole thing was eerily illuminated by its fiery trail, which was dissipating in the thin atmosphere quickly already. The last vestiges of the once tall and menacing ice formations were gone, a cloud of mist covering the area, as a quiet stillness descended on the plain once more.

Even as the bear stood transfixed by this event, unlike anything he had ever witnessed, a second sound came from the now demolished pile of ice blocks. It was a groan that built upon itself as it grew. The earth shook, and splintered, fissures and geysers of water exploding from the ice plain all around the polar bear, as if a million icebergs were being formed all at once. The whole plain shook with it as it emanated out from the crash site, as if the whole plain would split and dump itself into the sea.

This was it, the end, the final challenge of a foe only seen once in a lifetime for the bear. He roared back at the sound, and raised himself up on his forelegs, almost 12 feet tall, all muscle and ferocious teeth and paws, bellowing at the top of his lungs at this unseen force that dared challenge him at the end of his days! He would die defiant, as he had defied the snow, ice and the cold that had tried to defeat him all his life. As king of this land, it was his duty. He could do what no other like him could, he had proven it over his long life. Now his final act of duty would be stand tall against this unknown force.

The shock wave that came out of the huge pile of rubble passed along the ice shelf like a giant carpet being unfurled. On and on it came, a gigantic wave of power, towards the towering, bellowing polar bear, who showed no fear, not now, not at the end.

The wave and the white giant met head on, and he met it with every bit of strength in his massive body, full of the power that led him to rule the ice for his entire life, as the whole world came crashing down upon him.

Far away from the shuddering ice plain and the submarine, as both were being rocked by unseen forces, a high rise building in New York stood in silence in the city’s downtown core. In the dark night shadows, its silhouette could have been mistaken for the icy giants that had just been destroyed by the crash landing of the mysterious object from above.

A lonely window was lit up against the night sky, its yellow outline lost in the maze of others scattered across the immense city’s many buildings. The business of the man in this office was one better suited to darkness and anonymity anyway. Most people who dealt with him had no idea what his real name was, and it was a precautionary measure that was a part of the business he participated in.

People with power had to protect themselves, from threats both near at home, to the ones that were far in the distance. He looked like he was in his fifties, and he was well used to being in charge, with a confident and powerful set of movements for everything he did. He was not someone who spent his life waiting for others, but instead he led the way through his own designs, gaining considerable power along the way.

He was reading an email, his computer one of the few embellishments in the sparse office. Had anyone walked into this office at any time, they would have assumed it was just another administrative cubby hole, like the millions that dotted the buildings around it. That was good, he knew, he had no desire to attract attention to his surroundings and their possible business, as some of the senior partners did. They were growing foolish, forgetting they were still vulnerable to threats, despite their enormous wealth and power. He would never make that mistake, it was the reason he was always one step ahead of everyone else.

He was reading military reports that most Generals were not allowed to see at that very moment, doing just that, keeping his intelligence one

Reviews for Element of Change

[JimNash · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

got a little loose with a rock giving super powers. but it was a Damon good book. I look forward to the sequel