Proteus - Dark Universe (Book Four)

By Alexander Nassau

"It has been four months since the events of the Neo Alphius Saga and things on Beletrix have settled down and with both Saya and Miras nearly ready to begin their work of exploring the stars and helping to bring their civilisation back to its former glory. With the unexpected rescue of survivors from Alphius Prime, things are not entirely harmonious though with an old feud between Zenni and Talisha Betar being reignited however things are about to take a dark turn for our friends as they are dragged in to urgent rescue mission when Lunar, Miras's younger sister ship suffers a terrible disaster mid jump and is stranded in subspace.
Mother and daughter working together must try and rescue Lunar before she is utterly lost and a daring plan is formed however within subspace itself, things are moving that should not be in this empty lifeless dark universe as a new and menacing threat emerges. With time against them and lives at risk will Zenni and Saya be able to save the Lunar and her crew, and what terrible discoveries will they find hiding in the space beyond our universe?"

Following on from the Neo Alphius Saga, rejoin Zenni and Saya with the rest of the crew of the Proteus series as they embark on a darker and more disturbing path. This first part of the Endless saga will have ramification in Symbiotica, Dystopian Detective and Pentalore as a new threat from beyond our universe is revealed, a threat to Earth, Aemus and Beletrix as well as all life in our Galaxy.

Dark Universe is a fast paced and dark scifi thriller which will turn the world of Proteus inside out as the Alphians face off against a militaristic race living in subspace who are more technologically advanced than they are and who seem to lack compassion or morality, threatening everything in their domain.Now in its Second Extended Edition with over 30,000 words of new content Dark Universe has been heavily reworked and revised. This Extended Edition takes the original story of Dark Universe and paints a far more vivid picture as you follow the cast of Proteus facing a new and dark threat that may well consume everything in its path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alexander Nassau
• Release date: Jun 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370096725

Alexander Nassau

November News: I know it has been a while and this is probably a surprise, but I have finally released a new book. Alphius Prime - Of Beasts and Monsters is an epic fantasy style book set on the world of Alphius Prime more familiar with my fans for being in Symbiotica and Proteus. Set in a medieval world you follow the epic journey of Echo Sana and her rather unusual family she was adopted by... unusual in that they are Kinar Beasts. There is a free preview to be had, so take a look and I hope you enjoy! I am pleased to see that I am currently rated as a 4.5 out of 5.0 Author on Good Reads. Thank you to those who took the time! It is really good to see the appreciation my fans have and that does spur me on to do even better for you! If you have any questions I am on Good Reads so throw me your thoughts and I will be happy to answer! Thanks for reading! _________________________ Finally, I am very pleased to say I actually produced a proper website and blog. Covering all my titles, with artwork, sneak peaks and so much more, it is the best place to find out exactly what I am up to and what books are coming soon. Like me on facebook now too! The link is easy enough to find on the page. Enjoy your reads! Alexander Nassau is an established science fiction author and artist with many well known mainstream works to his name, best known for his detailed and strong character driven stories. With a keen scientific mind and a strong attention to detail, he also is a commercial artist with a strong creative drive. Living in the UK, he spends his down time with his family and has something of a passion for classic Volkswagens.

Book preview

Proteus: Dark Universe (Extended Edition)

The first part of the Endless Saga

Second Extended Edition

Copyright © 2017 / 2018 Alexander Nassau

Published by Alexander Nassau at Smashwords

ISBN: 9781370096725

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

"For Professor Stephen Hawking

I bought your book when it first hit shelves of the University book shop. A Brief History of Time. I didn't understand it at all. It was just full of weird and strange ideas. Then I read it again, then again and kept going until those weird and strange ideas actually made sense. Suddenly I could see at least an insight in to how you saw the Universe. Without you, Symbiotica, Proteus and all my other works would not be here. You inspired me. You inspired the world.

You dreamed far grander than us ordinary folk and the world will be a quieter place without you. I hope your next adventure will bring you more questions."

See More from the Author on my Blog

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 recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Prologue

Chapter One - Start of a New Day

Chapter Two - Ship Shape

Chapter Three - Wrecked

Chapter Four - Bold Venture

Chapter Five - Without End

Chapter Six - The Whole Truth

Chapter Seven - Strategic Exit

Chapter Eight - Chaos Theory

Chapter Nine - Licking Wounds

Chapter Ten - Dark Horizons

Chapter Eleven - Safe Haven

Epilogue

Catch up on the Endless Saga - Preview of the other books release alongside this one

Continue the Adventure - Continuing the Endless Saga

Authors Retrospective - Dark Visions

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

Look up in to the night sky, there is more out there than you could imagine, worlds of creatures so familiar and so strange it would leave you in awe and wonder. Stranger still is that our own world is secretly part of that community, even if most of the population are oblivious to the fact.

On one particular world called Beletrix lives a race of creatures hard to understand. They are a joined race, a partnership of a host and a symbiote. Where life gets more unusual is that the hosts are not all the same species. While their native hosts are a race of nine feet tall aliens called Usha, there are some who have bonded to humans.

Beletrix while being their home world is not where they came from. That world was Alphius Prime, a world where the native life faced the terrible fate to burn in fire. It was this reason the population tried to escape building great ships to flee the demise of their home.

These were not ships like any you could imagine. They were living creatures designed to save their people. While each ship is an individual life in its own right, they share the family name, the classification given to them by their creators.

They are the Proteus class of star ship, but things did not go as planned.

The eldest sister and the smallest of the fleet, a quirky ship called Koli managed to escape and searched the stars for three hundred years until she found Earth, a world where a small number of the indigenous intelligent life was capable of bonding with the ten survivors.

The flagship of the main evacuation fleet, Terrik, barely survived limping to safe harbour where she stayed for three hundred years, damaged and dying until her sister returned for her, answering her distress call and rescuing the survivors.

This is where it gets a little complicated, as Koli worked out how to transfer Terrik's mind to something they call an avatar and while Terrik was beyond repair, her mind lived on in what most people would see as a human being, even if underneath she was a technological marvel.

With roughly three hundred survivors of Alphius Prime now living on Earth, the situation got a little more complicated for three reasons.

Firstly, while searching for Terrik, Koli had dropped out an orbital satellite around their desolate home world. As the dust settle on their daring rescue Koli made a most disturbing discovery. She found on the surface of the world the remains of two of the three Titan's, the giant leviathans that were assumed to have not survived, most of their population aboard. On careful investigation though, Koli found one of the Titan's may have escaped.

Secondly, the situation on Earth was growing tense. The tentative alliance between the nations of Earth faltering as their human allies tried to subvert their technology for their own dark purposes.

Finally, when the orbital satellite picked up an alien ship coming in to orbit of Alphius Prime and then proceeded to desecrate the remains of the two Titans, the survivors on Earth had to consider their options. With Koli seriously injured from her rescue of Terrik she was unable to fend off these pirates.

So they did the unthinkable, planning to build Terrik a new body, an improved version of her original design, but as usual things never go to plan. They ended up with twins as sweet little Lunar joined their family.

With these two new ships, relationships on Earth deteriorating and the threat of these pirates, they revisited a world Koli's crew had settled on only to realise their automated construction drones had been rather busy after they left.

That world was Beletrix, and they arrived home to find the ghost city of Verlon.

At this point you are probably thinking they did a lot, and you would be right. You could easily write several whole books on the subject, if not more.

However, there was one major point missing. What happened to the lost Titan and in a way that is where this story started, on a dark world far distant.

Unexpectedly the survivors on Earth found themselves with a shocking revelation as an utterly unknown ship arrived, a young second generation Proteus class vessel called Saya, carrying a familiar crew and her pilot, Zenni Quinett.

The former pilot of the Titan class ship Miras, they had arrived on a mission to rescue the crew of Terrik, even if they were a little late however they brought the news of the fate of Miras and the twelve thousand survivors she carried along with their desperate plea for help.

The surprises didn't stop there as they tells the story of Neo Alphius, a world they had settled on only to fall victims to a parasitic plague that afflicted their people reducing them to creatures they had called Necrotites, monsters that were their own people, trapped in a living hell. Perhaps the greatest revelation of all was Saya's origins. She was a naturally conceived and born, a life far surpassing the artificially created Proteus ships.

A rescue plan was formulated to not only cure those afflicted by the plague, but also rescue Saya's mother, Miras. Cutting this quite long story short, they succeeded making new friends along the way and having breathed life back in to Verlon city on Beletrix, Zenni, Miras and Saya finally got the opportunity to rest in the safety of their new home.

The Proteus family are reunited. Koli is repaired, the Twin's are working hard and that left Saya and Miras to get some much needed refitting and rest time.

However with much work ahead, their civilisation finally beginning the long task of rebuilding, this rest was only ever to be a temporary one.

Previously in Symbiotica A Matter of Time...

Following a series of mysterious deaths, Ella, Tie, Koli, Flip and their new friend Sheriff Sellie Lofthouse are forced in to a galaxy spanning investigation, the fate of Northern California's population hanging in the balance as temporal singularities threaten to mummify everyone. To their surprise they find the source in the last place they expected, their former home world, Alphius Prime.

Beyond reason, the team find survivors from the end of the world, a group of scientists that devised an astonishing plan to hide in a pocket of time itself waiting to be rescued. Led by the insane and disrespectful genius Talishia Betar, their plan for escape was the source of the temporal singularities. Our heroes put an end to this threat and rescue the survivors, amongst the group one of the most fearsome predators of their home world, a Kinar beast amusingly called Fluffy. Returning the twenty lost souls to Beletrix, California is safe, even if the group have more questions than answers.

With the survivors settling back in to their new lives, things have settled down and new adventures await them and it is fair to say the galaxy is full of wonders to stir the soul.

For those too curious though, there are also terrible nightmares that move in the darkness.

And that is where this story begins...

PROLOGUE

It was an eternal question that had been asked for thousands of years.

Was there intelligent life out there?

As a young student he had always pondered this, but he had no answer.

Legend had it that the sky was once full of stars, strange glowing balls of gas that produced light through nuclear fusion. There were no stars in his sky, just the never ending ripples in the endless ether that went on for eternity.

What he would give to see such a spectacle, to actually see stars.

This bleak universe had been his home for all of his life, a reality far less enticing. Space here was chaotic and strange and most certainly most unforgiving. He had apparently been born to the world when there had been stars in the sky, but like the rest of his people had been put in to stasis as only a baby, protected from the Great Upheaval. Woken he had been raised by his brothers, taught the art of survival in this unforgiving space, his duty to protect those that slept in readiness for they when they would return. He had risen through the ranks but he always knew he was different. The others seemed to be utterly focused on their duty but in his own private time, he dreamt of stars. They did not. He did not understand why he looked different, although he had been told in whispers that he was not like those that had woken him and raised him. It was not hard to see the physical differences.

At this moment on the bridge of the Rathan, he was on duty and it was a chance for some distraction from their commitments. Under the General's orders they had ventured out away from the fleet in to the void. There should have been nothing out here of any interest and the General's request was unusual. They had no reason to venture from their home and this mission had its own dangers. A ship could easily get lost in the void, but it seemed the General's wisdom had once again proven why he had risen to be their leader, Captain Larrilon's curiosity piqued by strange readings on the long range sensors. There was something out there.

He looked over the data the ship was feeding back, puzzled by what he was seeing. Pouring over the data it looked like the usual eddies from the ether that surrounded them, the flow of space itself but there was something unusual. The readings revealed echoes in the fabric of reality itself, different from anything he had seen before, so tiny that they would have easily been missed but the Captain seemed to know something he didn't.

As they drew closer, the readings started to clear up as a picture started to form. It was astonishing, unlike anything he had ever seen before.

Report Commander Tath, the Captain barked from his seat as he glanced over to him.

Sensor readings register exotic particles the likes of which I have never seen before, he reported trying to get his head around this strange event, I am seeing foreign materials sir. Things I thought were only considered theoretical. Particles of matter are corrupting space itself, hydrogen and other complex elements. If the sensors are correct I am also detecting tachyons and what seemed to be tiny amounts of antimatter however I am also seeing something stranger. The readings however must be incorrect.

I asked for a report Commander, the Captain growled, Spit it out.

He checked again, unable to get a clear picture from this distance but what he was seeing made no sense.

I cannot be sure sir, but I believe we are seeing a breach of the universe itself. I am detecting an object of considerable size however behind and in front of its path there seems to be another universe. Readings are clearly showing matter beyond these breaches, radiation in the Gamma spectrum and while unclear at this time, what may be the signs of naturally occurring nuclear fusion.

Helm increase speed and get us to the site of this event, the Captain barked urgently, shooting up from his seat in a way he had never seen before.

Sir, we are already at maximum thrust. If we push harder it could cause damage to our engines, the helm officer reported with a hint of fear in his voice however as the Captain let out a deep growl, the officer complied as the ship started to shake as it pushed through the thick ether.

The closer they got, the more data started to stream in and as the truth finally dawned on him, he turned to look at the view screen in utter and complete awe.

Before him was the most brilliant light show, two halos of pure energy rippling in to the ether as between them was something impossible, like nothing he had ever imagined.

It was a ship.

Not one of their own but something utterly alien. He turned and checked the data again and it only got stranger. The scans did not lie. It was a living creature with what seemed to be smaller life forms inside its body. Returning his attention back to the view screen it was only then he saw it as he took in the full picture feeling himself almost freeze to the spot.

At each side, within the arcing disks was everything he ever dreamed of.

Barely visible was a dark universe beyond these breaches, but a universe where flecked in the darkness like brilliant gems were pricks of light.

There were stars!

He watched as this ship slowly moved forward until it finally disappeared, the breaches sealing up until all that remained was the ether.

Captain Larrilon growled under his breath as the helm officer backed off, slowing the ship down to save the engines. This spectacular event was over almost as quickly as it began, but he didn't care.

For the first time in his life, he had seen stars and they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

CHAPTER ONE

Start of a New Day

As she opened her eyes, she could see the sunlight pouring in to the bedroom, filling it was a soft blue ambience. It was just as she remembered it, as if those three hundred years had been nothing more than a bad dream and now she was finally home. Outside she could hear the sounds of nature filling the morning with their chorus and as she looked to her side, as usual finding herself alone.

She knew that things in her life were returning to normal as for the last week her sleeps had been peaceful and restful, their ventures in to the realms of the unconscious world no longer blighted by those terrible nightmares that had plagued them both. It amused her in a way as she looked around the bedroom, the style of the lodge so similar to Zenni's cottage on Neo Alphius. She had helped her to build it all those years ago and she remembered that while it was an exile to her, she did enjoy a simpler life than what their people were used to. Beyond a small generator and a few luxuries, this place was as basic as things could be.

Perhaps more amusing was how different they were at times. Sorash always woke up before Zenni did, enforcing the fact she was not a morning person, yet for her she always woke up before Padra. It certainly made their morning interactions interesting, and at the same time it had given her a chance to get to know Sorash a little better. She was probably one of the sweetest people you would ever meet and she understood why they worked so well together. Zenni did have her rough edges, which was not unexpected really as they all gained their bad habits over their long lives.

It had been nearly four months since she had come to this world to start her new life and it was pleasing that she had been able to repair so much of Padra's nervous system after the horrors they had suffered at the hands of the parasites on Neo Alphius. Given time they could put that whole mess behind them and move forward.

Zenni had been happy to return to her life here and perhaps more important to her on a personal level was for them to affirm their affection for each other, something that had eluded them through circumstance for so long. They were considering making it official, although that was something for the future.

Of course their life was far from quiet. With regular trips in to Verlon City on official business and their most unusual house guests in the form of Saya and Miras, they had a busy life, but a rewarding one. With the plantation now fully established and the first deliveries of Borra being sent to the city, life really was returning to normal, or at least as normal as they could hope for.

As the door to the bedroom opened she looked over to Zenni as she pushed in with a tray in her hands, what looked to be a warm plate of breakfast and further to her surprise was the fact it was Zenni, Sorash's tendril blushing with a warm pink as she smiled at her.

Good morning Captain Quinett, she teased as Zenni put the tray down on her lap, sitting next to her and giving her a kiss before pouting at her.

I thought I would bring you an earth delicacy, she purred looking in to her eyes, They call these muffins with jam and some orange juice, which seems odd as it is orange.

Well, these look wonderful, she replied smiling at her lovingly, You know you don't have to give me a peace offering though. I know you feel guilty for leaving the plantation but you have your responsibilities and Saya needs her pilot and her friend.

This isn't me being guilty, she replied smiling at her, I just wanted to remind you that I love you. As for the plantation, the team you helped assemble and train are more than capable of looking after this place. Besides, I still have that Science Officers post open.

And you will have that Officer ready to report for duty, when she feels up to it, she replied laughing softly, I think by the time you are going on missions Padra will be well enough to join you. Although, if you keep up this pampering I think I may recover a little faster.

Putting some of the jam on the warm muffins, as Zenni had called them, it all smelt so wonderful as she took at tentative bite, the flavours so intense and delightful as she gave her such a thankful and loving look of appreciation, savouring every moment.

So, it's the big day, and I don't want to bring this up again, but as you as going to be in Verlon are you going to go see Talishia? she said not wanting to spoil the moment.

"Look, I know she is back from the dead, I know she has been commended for her actions and the Council have forgiven her and, I also know she wants