Shards of Aether: The Chaos Splinter

By Joseph Barone

Long ago there were five Shards of Aether: Time, Energy, Order, Chaos and Magic. No one truly knows when the shards shattered into billions of pieces. Some remains were as small as powder grains, and some were as large as splinters.

The world is now in chaos. Something has upset the delicate balance. It's almost as if a splinter of Chaos had gone missing...but where? How? And why?

Shards of Aether: The Chaos Splinter is an introductory. multiple-narrator fantasy novel about the struggle to restore Order and the many players involved on each side. Some sides are hidden, lost in the ether...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joseph Barone
• Release date: Nov 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310604768

Joseph Barone

I'm a Brooklyn author with many different likes and styles of writing such as fantasy, Scifi and other speculative genres, horror, etc. I have a passion for the act of writing and a beautiful family, each of which make me paradisiacally happy. My first novel, Harold the Imp, was published last year and I'm currently in the process of working on a sequel. My family is why I write, and they have always been extremely encouraging. I'm in the process of making things happen in the publishing space and looking to grow my brand bigger and better. To that end, I've been putting a couple of things on Smashwords for free so that readers can get a sampling- something that says, "If you liked that even a little, you'll LOVE what this guy can do with his pay books!" That last part was a little cheeky to ensure you were still reading. If you'd like to connect to collaborate, network, or are interested in an editor, ghostwriter, ?pen pal? - Then email me at [e-mail]

Book preview

The Chaos Splinter

Copyright 2016 Joseph Barone

Published by Joseph Barone at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

Prologue

The Current Chaos on Rhea

Malaki and Jarden

Decimus the Keeper of the Shards

Malaki, Jarden, Talon and Hellion

The Laniakea Corps

Apollo and Hermes

Hades

Damsel and Decimus

The Knight Shade

Apollo and Jarden

Decimus, Damsel and the Alchemist

The Wraith and the Money Man

The Alchemist

Apollo and Hades

The Scout and the Scoutmaster

The Money Man and the Badger

Sandy Galagos

The Second Chance Saloon

Victor Gage and Sheut Ka

Badger the BRUTE

Decimus Rex

Doran's Speech

Prologue

A long time ago, there were five Shards of Aether: Time, Energy, Order, Chaos and Magic. At some point, no one truly knows when, the shards shattered into billions of pieces and the remaining powder was dispersed throughout all the realms that were suspended throughout the Aether.

Order and Chaos affect one another, Time and Energy affect one another, and Magic both affects and is affected by the other four. For the most part, the remaining pieces of the original Aether Gem were exceedingly small, like grains of fine powder. But there were some rare, larger splinters where the powers held within were thickly concentrated. All splinters were thought to be accounted for and safe...until now.

This story begins in the middle, on a planet historically named Earth, or Terra, or Gaia. Most recently it's been known as Rhea, named after the titan daughter of Gaia. It's a familiar place that resides in an unfamiliar part of the Aether.

The Current Chaos on Rhea

The Doomsday Clock was half a second to midnight. The world was close to zero hour, after which only the rats and the roaches would have any use for time. President Martin Findlay was pacing the floor of the Oval Office, alone or so he thought. He looked down at his manicured nails facing up at him, hovering above the recently washed carpeting. The North Koreans are forcing my hand, he muttered, justifying once again what he was about to do. Both of us are playing 'Chicken' but neither of us is blinking. There's nothing else I can do. No 'out' but a nuclear option.

#547 and 548 were also in the room, but invisible. They had decided to wait until the last possible moment to intervene. It was their charge- to protect civilizations from destruction throughout the galaxy. However, destruction was not yet a foregone conclusion in this case. There was still a chance of avoiding it. There was still a chance of hope, small as it might have been.

General Red Adesso stormed into the office without knocking. To hell with decorum in these precarious times, the diminutive army general thought. Mr. President, we have an hour to consider our options. But before we commit to a first strike which is sure to trigger an immediate counter maneuver, I want to show you something. The President looked at the General as if he were crazy. Maybe that was true. And yet, any distraction was a good distraction.

547 and 548 looked at one another and decided to follow behind. Rhea had come close to the brink often and had always turned things around right in the knick of time.

Army General Adesso was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and therefore the head of the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense was a liberal idiot according to Adesso, so he stayed out of this current situation. They walked together down a secret corridor which lead to a garage below the White House. Soldiers were waiting in humvees and jeeps. Adesso pointed to a vehicle in particular. This one might look like the rest, but unlike the rest it can take a direct hit with a rocket. We're getting in that one. We'll be at the Pentagon in under 5 minutes. They entered swiftly and the other soldiers also entered other vehicles to form a motorcade.

They began to drive at high speed through the secret tunnel from one seat of power to another.

Before Adesso could speak, President Findlay raised his hand in frustration. What do I do, Red? I'm the most powerful man in the world, in charge of the world's most stable country. We have no allies to turn to. Europe is in a mess of civil war. Russia's economy is balls-deep in the toilet and its people are starving. China's teetering and on the verge of collapse. In all this rubble, the North Koreans find an opportunity to mount an assault on the only country on Rhea with any scrap of order left.

Adesso didn't reply. He knew that Findlay wasn't yet done saying his piece.

How many boats do they have? Have we found all of them? And how soon until they get in striking distance?

Red took a deep breath. "Two hours. We've counted about 120 small boats so far. It's lucky that we intercepted that communication about them miniaturizing warheads and using fishing speedboats to try and ambush us. We have dispatched our entire Navy and Coast Guard but it will take them time to get there. Time we don't have.

We have Air Force and Marine aircraft searching the borders of our waters. All it takes is one that we miss and there goes an American city. Nuclear war has never been so close, not even during the Red Scare. He spoke matter-of-factly. He calmly leafed through some official-looking papers.

I can't believe they have 120 warheads. Findlay held his head in his hands.

They probably don't. Just like in this motorcade, some might be decoys. But who's to tell which ones? We've sent out emergency signals for all friendly vessels to return to their nearest port and head away from the United States in haste.

Findlay finally raised his head. What is it that you want to show me? What can be so important? Do you have something that can avoid an absolute catastrophe? Lately the President spoke almost exclusively in questions.

They arrived, disembarked, and walked down another long corridor. There were many steel doors with sophisticated security equipment on each side of them. Where are we? the President asked. I've never been in this sub-basement, even as a Congressman. And I come here often.

The short army general smiled. Black Ops R&D. Specifically, Project MDNA. The 'DNA' stands for DNA. The 'M' stands for 'Mutagenic'.

He stood on a small pedestal and put his eye to a machine which apparently verified the retinal match. He put his hand on a screen and the machine again blinked green. He then keyed in a pass-code, but at that point it might as well have been 1234. No one could enter unless they had the general's eyes and hands. And could guess 1234.

Shall we? They walked in unaccompanied. The President had expected to see clones and embryos suspended in man-sized test tubes, but instead found something of a surprise party.

Who the hell are all these people? Findlay asked. They all looked back at him intently. Some indeed looked odd. One looked like a plant-man hybrid, and another looked like a half woman, half tiger.

This group of fine specimens is what I call 'Brute Squad One', not to be confused with BRUTE, Wendy Wright's special forces. This team is run by Senator McArver, who's at the Capitol right now. It's made up of the most powerful of our enhanced humans, and some last-minute volunteers.

Volunteers? For what?

They're volunteers to tip the scales in our favor. We began our program over two decades ago, getting better and better at making enhancements to an already viable genome. First we worked on enhancing regular humans and we nearly perfected that. But the real breakthroughs came when we started engineering mutagenic creatures from scratch. That gave us the freedom and the potential to really get creative.

The US President looked at everyone in a gape-mouthed, wide-eyed fashion. He then appeared to compose himself and addressed Adesso. "Who are the most powerful and what can they do? I'm sorry to have to skip over the