Revelations: From Dawn to Dusk

By Robert J. Hamilton

Save your daughter or prevent the apocalypse?

Megan Knight awakes on a ship fleeing the Earth to discover that her best friend has been leading a double life, and her little girl, presumed dead for the last four years is alive and well on the dwarf planet Sedna.

With her former comrade having pirated a futuristic spacecraft and foresight knowledge of future events, the zealous Dawn of Revelations cult now have the means to decimate the Earth as described in the events of the Holy Bible.

Now captive, Megan needs to expose the Dawn's evil plans back home and give Earth a fighting chance in the Revelations war. But faced with constant threats to her daughter's life, will she choose between saving her or the lives of the people back home?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9780994282286

Book preview

End

Chapter One

Megan struggled to open her eyes as a dull pain washed over her head, sharing a dance with vertigo. A spot on the back of her skull struck her as uncomfortably hot. Grimacing, she rubbed through something damp and pulled her hand away. Blood.

Her heart quickened on hearing an argument nearby. ‘Where am I?’ she croaked. Through ringing ears, the familiar hum from an engine told her she was in a shuttle—or starship of some kind.

‘Damn it, Storm!’ an angry woman husked. ‘We need that half-light drive operational now!’

Megan pushed herself up on the armrests of her seat and looked towards the cockpit to find a man with sandy coloured hair piloting the craft. The woman slapped him hard across the back of his head.

‘I’m trying!’ he fretted, mashing on the controls. ‘The light is green. I don’t know why it’s not working.’ An error beep sounded. ‘Damn it!’

Megan now recognised the ship. The electric blue walls with flashing monitors and sophisticated seating told her she was in an A1 class cruiser, a vessel which was brought back from almost four hundred years in the future. There were a total of six seats over three rows: two rows at the front followed by a short corridor, with the last pair of seats at the rear where she found herself seated and strapped.

The woman up front had her intrigued. She was outfitted in a tattered and torn silver latex top, covered in splotches of mud. Her golden blonde locks appeared frazzled with dirt, but something was familiar about this girl.

‘I thought you uploaded the codes from the SSA!’ the woman shouted huskily.

‘I did!’ he yelled, slamming his fist down on the console. ‘I should have access!’

Megan recognised the husky voice. It was Chloe—her friend, but why was she so angry? Blue skies transitioning to black space caught her attention from out the viewscreen. She brought a hand to her forehead, wondering on the events that transpired to bring her here. The last thing she remembered was being at a party held at Sol System Alliance HQ in Florida, and still wore the lime green dress she attended it in, but was confused as to why her head was bleeding, and why she was on the A1 cruiser heading away from Earth.

As they reached the depths of space the vertigo Megan felt began to dissipate. ‘Chloe?’ she said, grabbing the edges of her seat. When the girl turned to face her, she gasped. Her friend’s face was hardly one she recognised—blood had pooled into the sclera of her left eye, as well as congealing from her mouth and nose. She remembered now. Chloe, her best friend, had attacked her.

‘Stay where you are’, she shouted. ‘I’ll deal with you later.’ Chloe turned back to her console.

‘Are you . . . kidnapping me? Where’s John?’

Staring down at her controls, Chloe flatly replied, ‘Dead.’

Megan froze. She vaguely recalled being in a cave filled with ice which started collapsing all around her as Chloe took her away. She heard her name being called out—John’s voice, her captain, and the man she loved.

The pilot swung the ship hard to port. ‘Shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘We have ships incoming! They’re firing!’

Storm hunched and tensed his shoulders, but only a slight thud knocked on the hull. He blew a puff of air out his cheeks and wiped his forehead. ‘Warning shot’, he informed.

Chloe frantically re-entered the sequence code to enable access for the half-light drives. The lights on her console once again blinked green, but the mechanism to engage it was still locked.

‘Attention, fugitives’, a voice cracked through the comm.

Chloe and Storm’s eyes met.

‘This is Captain Gerard Quinn of the Hyperion. I am authorised to use deadly force upon your vessel if you do not surrender and return to Earth immediately. I’m giving you—’

Chloe thumped her fist on her panel, terminating the call. ‘Stupid ship. Why won’t it damn-well engage the half-light?’ she yelled.

‘Two cruisers incoming’, Storm informed. ‘Designation—the Redwood and Ironbark. They’re charging weapons!’

Chloe inputted a command on her console. A blue mesh laser field began criss-crossing over the A1’s hull, and through the windows she saw it glowing stronger and brighter until they abruptly vanished. ‘Barriers charged at ninety megawatts.’

‘Barriers?’ Storm questioned.

‘They will protect us from enemy attacks for a limited time—technology the starship Destiny acquired whilst in the Andromeda galaxy.’

Storm saw the Ironbark shoot past, then strafed to port as it fired its laser. He instinctively raised a hand but witnessed the electric blue glow of the barriers absorbing the impact.

Megan unbuckled herself and rose from her seat, firmly holding onto the headrest of the chair. ‘Are you trying to access the half-light drive whilst still engaged in terrestrial mode?’

Chloe looked back at her and clicked her fingers. Her bloodshot eye sent shudders of pain through Megan. ‘Of course!’ She thumped her friend on the shoulder. ‘Idiot, Storm, you should’ve noticed that. I’m switching to spatial mode. Okay . . . wait—authorisation code?’

Another laser, this time fired by the Hyperion, smacked the barriers. ‘We’re hit!’ Storm panicked and sent the ship into a twirling evasive dive—a manoeuvre he hadn’t attempted since flight school.

Chloe inclined her head in Megan’s direction and unbuckled herself from her seat. ‘You’re a commanding officer’, she said, marching towards her. A vibration tremored through the flooring as the Hyperion once again struck the cruiser. ‘Storm! Return fire!’ Chloe pulled Megan’s arm and yanked her off her chair. ‘Get up front and input your command code so we can escape.’

Megan contorted her face into a puzzled expression as she made her way up the craft. ‘I still have questions! What is going on here? Why did you attack me? Where are you taking me?’

‘I’ll answer all your questions once you input your command code.’ She shoved Megan down into the seat next to Magnus. ‘Enter it.’

Megan stared at the one she used to call friend. ‘You’re a member of the Dawn of Revelations, right? A cult that follows a corrupted version of the Christian faith, where believers think it’s up to them to bring about the end-times as described in the Bible?’ She crossed her arms. ‘No way, I’m not doing it.’ The flooring beneath Megan’s feet trembled with an electric buzz as Storm attempted to evade the Hyperion and the Redwood’s fire. ‘I won’t let you take this ship and use foresight knowledge of future events to bring your apocalypse on Earth.’

‘Barriers down to forty-four megawatts’, Storm read. ‘I’ve inflicted minor damage on the Hyperion.’

‘You’re prepared to die?’ Chloe snarled.

‘For all the people of Earth? You bet I am.’

The laser mesh barriers glowed dully as the Hyperion swept its fusion laser across the ship’s bow. ‘Barriers are weakening!’ Storm fretted.

‘If you want to see your daughter again, you’ll enter it’, Chloe said.

Megan’s mouth dropped. ‘Zara?’

‘Meet the man responsible for murdering your husband and snatching your kid’, she smirked. ‘Megan, this is Magnus Storm—Magnetic Storm as he likes to be called.’

Megan looked at the pilot, her face flushing with anger. He briefly darted his ice blue eyes towards her and she noticed a scar splitting his left eyebrow in two. He focussed back at the controls, banking hard to the right to avoid a torpedo from the Ironbark. He returned fire.

Megan’s blood boiled and she bared her teeth. ‘You monster!’ she screeched, lashing fists upon his head. Magnus leaned back as far as he could, crossing his forearms over his face to shield himself from her attacks. ‘You took my family away!’ she continued, pounding.

Chloe stepped in, grabbed Megan’s arms, and slapped her across her cheek. ‘Enter your code and I will take you to your girl. Otherwise, she dies.’

Megan rubbed at her stinging cheek and huffed. ‘You’d better be telling me the truth.’

A massive jolt shuddered through the ship. Magnus wiped sweat from his brow. ‘Barriers are gone!’

A short high pitch beep sounded. ‘Spatial mode engaged’, the computer’s female voice confirmed.

‘They’re coming around for another pass!’ Storm shrieked. He scored a direct hit to the Redwood’s bow, and an explosion sent it into an uncontrollable spin. Chunks of debris flew off before the engines erupted in whimpering flames.

‘Engage the half-light drive’, Chloe commanded.

‘In three,’ Storm counted, ‘two . . . one. . . .’

The Hyperion fired, striking the A1’s port wing before she accelerated to maximum velocity.

‘Whooo!’ Chloe cheered, clapping her hands. But an alarm flashing red on the console in front of Megan diminished her glee.

‘Carbon dioxide converter is critically damaged’, Megan read.

‘How bad?’ Chloe asked.

Megan peered closer at her screen and pressed a button. ‘It’s now operating at twelve percent efficiency. Excuse me.’ She unbuckled herself, wiping her nose as she stepped past Chloe and moved back to her original seat.

Storm sighed. ‘Father in heaven, pray for us.’

‘Can the converter function to sustain all of us as it stands?’ Chloe asked, plonking back into the front seat.

‘No. We have roughly fifteen, maybe sixteen hours of breathable air if we’re lucky. We’ll never make it. However, if we dispose of her,’ he said quietly, yanking a thumb behind him, ‘we should have—’

‘We’re not killing Megan’, Chloe interrupted. ‘We have our orders.’

The pilot shrugged. ‘Then how will we get home? Sedna is at least twenty-five hours away at half-light.’

She picked up a maroon coloured data pad under the shelf of the console. ‘We’re not going to Sedna.’

Magnus blinked. ‘What?’

Chloe uploaded the contents of the data pad to Storm’s console. Three-dimensional images of various Sol System Alliance branded starships appeared to float above his screen, each one rotating upon itself and highlighting differing features as it spanned around. She pressed a button and a shrouded, gassy, orange globe with sporadic patches of brown popped up.

Chloe grinned. ‘This is where we are headed.’

Storm squinted, peering deep into the blurry ball. ‘We’re going to . . . Titan?’

Chloe nodded. ‘I have been to the future. The Dawn of Revelations from that timeline will attack Earth, which is set to take place on the first of January next year, but,’ she said, jabbing her finger at the cloudy world, ‘this moon is the reason why they ultimately failed.’

Magnus read the text that scrolled through the air, ‘Jana outpost. A secret starship production facility?’

‘Yes. From what I’ve learned everything was going on track for the Dawn, but the tide turned back to the sinner’s favour. There’s like . . . fifty advanced warships hidden below the fog on that outpost, and I plan on annexing that facility and using those ships for our intent and purposes. If I can’t, I’ll destroy it.’

Storm grinned. ‘The leader will be pleased.’

Pangs of guilt stabbed Megan’s stomach as she questioned herself as to why she didn’t allow the Alliance to kill them. Have I just doomed Earth? she wondered. What would John have done? What if she was lying about Zara, using her to get me to cooperate? Even so, Megan realised her daughter’s life was not worth the destruction of Earth. I have to fix this. . . .

Scanning the room, Megan spotted the airlock door on the port side of the ship. She eased herself off her seat, creeping by the microns to avoid making any sounds as she edged towards it.

She reached the control panel. Chloe was still engaged with Storm, showing him all the different ships and schematics from Jana. Knowing that pressing the button would make an audible noise, she took a breath.

A sharp beep sounded. Chloe turned her head.

The computerised female voice said with an occasional scratching click, ‘Warning: Pressure differential exceeds the maximum safety threshold. Do you wish to proceed?’

Megan pressed, Yes.

‘Insufficient power to perform operation due to damaged relays. An additional twenty-one percent required. Select systems to shut down and reroute.’

Megan saw a list of systems pop on to the screen but didn’t care about any specific system to divert. She quickly tapped on the bars Life Support and Weapons to achieve the necessary power requirements.

‘Input command code to proceed.’

‘Err. . . .’ Megan whispered in panic as she hovered and wriggled a finger over the panel, fighting her brain to remember the first sequence of her code and hurriedly typed, Delta-290-KNIGH—

Just before she could press her final letter a violent force tackled her, sending her crashing to the floor. She swore to herself on being so close to unlocking the door and simply chose to lie on the ground, her will defeated. Chloe growled as she hurried to climb on top, but Megan was too weak to resist and too tired to fight back. She wanted out of this life. The last thing she saw was Chloe raising her fist high in the air, before it screamed towards her face.

Chapter Two

Megan awoke to the coppery taste of blood, finding herself strapped back in her seat. Not dead, she thought. Through the viewscreen the crown jewel of the solar system, Saturn, dominated her view with its glory, its white glistening rings prominent.

‘Right on time’, Chloe cheered, smiling at her.

Megan found the girl looking far more decent than last she saw her. Her face and eyes had been cleaned up, and now she had outfitted herself in an official Sol System Alliance Engineering outfit—black pants and a top with her collar, cuffs and the SSA emblem lying over her heart in green.

‘Here, wear this’, Chloe said, tossing a second uniform at Megan. This one, however, had a commander’s rank. Instead of green, the colouring on her trims were red.

Megan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Out the back in storage. I need you to put that on so our mission on Titan will be successful. I would love to be the one wearing red, but my credentials wouldn’t stack up if they were to run a background check. But the colour’s not important. You just remember who’s really in charge.’

‘And just what makes you think I’m going to help you succeed in your mission?’

Chloe nodded with a sly grin. Titan started coming into view as a small, growing dot.

‘Come to my console. I want you to see this.’

Megan wanted to refuse in protest, but there was something in her tone that compelled her to comply. She grudgingly unstrapped herself and hopped off, taking a seat next to Magnus who leered as she did so.

On the centre screen of her dashboard a still image from a paused video showed a young girl with brown locks, dressed in an orange vermillion neck-to-knee dress inside a dark dusty interior lit by numerous flickering candle flames. She stood by a desk where an old man in a regal purple cloak with gold trimmings sat with a Bible out before him. Megan recognised who he was: Gabriel Locke—a man of almost ninety—and leader of the Dawn of Revelations. Behind him, a large window pane revealed a cratered rusty sienna coloured landscape lit by floodlights against a blackened sky.

‘Zara?’ Megan whispered, staring at the girl. She had grown so much in the four years she thought she was dead. Her hand shook as she reached the screen to play.

‘How was class this morning?’ Gabriel asked in a strident tone.

Zara rubbed her left arm and look down towards the floor. ‘Great Leader, the teacher had me stand up in front of all the students and lashed me five times for the report I handed in.’

Megan’s hand shot to her mouth that such an act could be committed against her daughter.

‘What was it on?’ Gabriel asked.

‘It was about a man who was found to be gathering sticks on the Sabbath. The Lord said to Moses, The man shall be put to death, and all the congregation must stone him with stones outside the camp, or something like that. I said in my report that it was wrong that an insignificant act such as picking up sticks should cost a person their life. How is one supposed to learn that way?’

The old man stood and walked over to the girl, placing a hand sympathetically on her shoulder as he crouched down to one knee. ‘My child, his death was meant to serve as a lesson to others. Exodus 31:14 states that we are all to observe the Sabbath for it is holy to us. Anyone who profanes it must be put to death. It doesn’t matter the severity. Understand?’

Zara scratched her nose. ‘I . . . I suppose so.’

‘Good. Now, remember the speech I gave the congregation last Sunday?’ He shuffled back behind his desk and sat down.

Zara squinted an eye, thinking back. ‘Was it the one about you taking the Dawn into a new direction after the war?’

Gabriel nodded. ‘That’s right. When the Earth has been cleansed of all sinners I will reign over the new Earth as King, and I shall need to select twelve apostles.’ He paused while tapping his index finger continuously on the desk. ‘With your coming of age, I was hoping that you—an Earth-born, would become my lead apostle and help spread and teach the word of God for the next generations to come.’

Zara looked puzzled. ‘Apostle? Me? But. . . .’

The old man swatted the air and shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, we have a huge problem.’ The man rose from his seat, leaning forward with his hands pressed on the desk, his fingertips and knuckles whitening. ‘The starship Destiny, one in which your mother served on was reported as lost, possibly destroyed in November of last year, a week before your tenth birthday. Now, the Destiny is back home. Your mother is still alive.’

Zara’s eyes lit up. ‘My mother? Wh . . . why is that a problem?’

Gabriel shut his eyes for a few seconds, and continued, ‘I thought Destiny vanishing without a trace was a sign from God of your cleansing, but . . . no child brought into this sanctuary who surpasses the age of ten shall be accepted into the Dawn if their parents fail to pledge their allegiance to the Revelations, or unless both are deceased before the child’s tenth birthday. As your mother is still alive and has not yet taken the oath—that makes you unclean.’

Zara shot a finger to her mouth. ‘But—’

‘My faith dictates that I cast you out from the Dawn and eject you to the surface!’ Gabriel yelled, locking his gaze on her whilst pointing back to the desolate landscape behind him.

Zara cringed, shrinking her shoulders back as her eyes welled with tears at the sound of his booming voice.

‘No!’ Megan screamed. ‘She’s just a child!’

‘However,’