Rebellion on Planet Sarvage

By Frelon Bartley

Under a death sentence on two planets, a hero, an outcast, the sole link to an ancient civilization, and the Champion of All Larches, he's Elias of Earth. He's an experienced explorer, a clever scientist, and a terrible planner. Another plan gone amiss pushes him to escape through a quantum portal to the planet of Sarvage, where he finds an alien race rebuilding after a devastating war.

With the help of an alien AI embedded in his skull, Elias seeks to blend in, help rebuild, and maybe find a home. Except that each plan leads to more trouble until he finds a research lab on an isolated mountain. Will he be the assistant...or the test subject?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frelon Bartley
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781734409208

Frelon Bartley

Frelon Bartley has an MFA from Spalding University, an MBA from Lawrence Technological University, and is also an FAA licensed aviation mechanic. He attempts to fill his stories with fun, wonderment, and unexpected twists as he writes from his home in Michigan, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

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Rebellion on Planet Sarvage

Atavistic Fiction

by Frelon Bartley

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Rebellion on Planet Sarvage

Copyright © 2019 Frelon Bartley

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-7344092-0-8

No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the express written permission of the author.

Cover art (c) 2019 Howard David Johnson. All rights reserved

www.howarddavidjohnson.com

Dedicated to my wife, Melchora, for her incredible strength, insight, and patience as I worked on this book.

And to my daughter Abby, always a delight and inspiration in my life.

CHAPTER ONE

Ambush

Elias sat with his back against a mossy tree, fishing pole in hand as he relaxed in the afternoon breeze. Nearby, his crude tent sat in front of a fire pit, slow drying a selection of fish and meat, supplies for his next trip through the quantum portal. He drew in a deep breath of the rich, fragrant air and imagined if this was what Earth was like a thousand years ago. Morning mists chased off by golden rays of bright yellow sunlight, warming his face while watching his line drift lazily on the crystalline stream, native wildlife chirping, and the scent of his cooking smoke wafting along the shore.

A gentle breeze rustled his dark brown hair, grown longer than he preferred to cover the nodules behind each ear, unwanted gifts from his first alien encounter. The nodules were bone growth over artificial intelligence implants grafted into his skull and used for mind control through direct brain wave manipulation. A rival alien race helped Elias reprogram the implants so that he could channel his fierce will to prevail over their mind control. Elias was 5’11, hazel eyes, a month’s growth of beard, athletic build, and on the lean side, but six months fighting for survival on a high gravity planet developed additional bulk and density to his muscles. He wore leather moccasins, leather pants, and a dirty white synthetic shirt, durable and quick drying, from the water planet of Hosushab.

His relaxed gaze shifted from his fishing to movement in the bushes on the other side of the broad stream, movement too consistent for a random animal. Perhaps his cooking fire attracted some local natives. A moment later, a dozen figures emerged from the bushes, moving hesitantly on the shore. Elias checked the notes on his wrist computer, scrolling through the extensive data he collected about each planet he visited. According to their size and features, they were Hyeneum. That was his name for them based on the light brown color and spotted markings of the hair that covered their neck and backs and reminded him of hyenas. What were they doing standing in the open?

They were primitive, aggressive, and very numerous in this area. Elias didn’t know if they had a true language, as each attempt to communicate with them ended in violence. They were humanoid in shape, over five feet tall, wiry figures, tanned human skin except for the thick hair that covered their neck and back. The most distinctive feature was the shape of their heads, bearing a crease down the center of their skull, from the forehead straight back along the top. They were stalking hunters that used their hairy backs as camouflage, hiding in the bushes to surprise their prey. This group seemed lost and out of place, standing out in the open.

Elias was unconcerned by their presence on the other side of the stream, at least eighty feet across at its narrowest point, too far for their crude stone-tipped spears to reach with any accuracy. They were another reminder of the primitive lifestyle of this planet. It was refreshing at first, but several months of exploration revealed only the backward nature of the few outposts of what they considered civilization: nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers, settled coastal tribes relying on fishing, and a few inland communities of cities controlled by an autocrat of one title or another. The species of this planet were simple, undeveloped, and too boring for his inquisitive mind, and yet, it was too soon to go back to Hosushab; there were emotions there that needed more time to cool. So ever onward, he pushed, eager to explore the outermost boundaries of the universe. Elias hooked a fish, pulled it in, and added it to the string he kept in the shallow water by the shore. A few more fish for his next trip through the quantum portal.

The beep from his wrist computer indicated another download from his drone. This latest update from the drone completed the mapping of the planet. His algorithm parsed through the new data, and it indicated one location with a high probability of a quantum portal: a mass of atoms entangled on a quantum level sharing the same space across galaxies throughout the vast spiral of the universe. On Earth, he was a divorced Ph.D. candidate working at an elite research facility in Canada when he noticed an odd side effect during an experiment using Earth’s magnetic field. The anomaly that others dismissed, he stubbornly pursued, and it led to his discovery of a quantum portal connecting planets across galaxies. The first trick was identifying small groups of atoms that retained their entangled property, then, when a cluster of entangled atoms is energized with a combination of extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation at a specific wavelength, the connection between planets is temporarily restored.

The first portal from Earth led to a dead planet, Deximeis, with an ancient civilization long obliterated from an expanding red sun. From the dead planet, he found a portal to the world of Zelnarus, ruled by the master race of Kaarx, who controlled citizens by direct brain wave manipulation through circuitry attached to their head. With the help of a rival group, Elias was able to break the control but paid a high price with the alien AI implants permanently embedded into his skull. Breaking control was one thing; breaking free was another. From Zelnarus, he found a portal to Hosushab, the water planet of a thousand kingdoms.

Though the people of Hosushab were friendly, Elias did not mesh with their culture. On Hosushab, the people were so desperate to prove their independence they would rather crawl alone than walk together, where love was an immature emotion, and where a queen offered to make Elias her king if he used his knowledge to crush a rival kingdom. His rejection was not well received, pushing him to find another portal. He ended up here with dense green forests, sparkling blue streams, and fragrant mountain air—and the best fishing on five planets. Here on the planet the natives call Dal Amonga he found relief from people, politics, and society. Yet, his restless heart, always looking for answers without questions, for peace in worlds of chaos, and for a place to build a future, still searched for another portal, another chance to find the missing piece of his soul.

Previous trips through his quantum portal were frequently on the run to escape from an immediate danger or future threat. Experience taught him that food and water were often scarce in the early stages of exploring a new planet, leaving him scrambling to survive in an alien environment. This time his elaborate planning would make a difference; he had proper shelter and bedding, a selection of tools, and would soon pack several weeks’ worth of food.

Across the river, a taller tribesman emerged from the bushes. His head was round, without the distinctive crease of the others. While all the Hyeneum were naked except for a loincloth, this man wore a colorful animal skin across his back and carried a short wooden staff that he used to whack the men to obedience as he shouted orders and directed their movement. At his command, they turned their attention toward Elias, shouting, jumping, and throwing rocks and sticks.

Phronema, can you translate?

Phronema report: Sample size insufficient. Based on their vocal modulations, they are aggressive and violent. I suggest increasing spatial separation. Phronema, the AI embedded into his skull from a civilization a thousand years ahead of Earth filtered through the collective wisdom of a billion souls, the last remnant of a dead planet, and the key to his escape from the Kaarx. He only needed to move the muscles in his throat in mock speech to communicate with the AI, though she did also respond to vocal commands.

His line bobbed, and Elias gripped the pole, pulling back to hook his fish. On the opposite bank, the group of Hyeneum jumped about and shouted at him. Elias slowly pulled in his catch, ignoring the jabbering sounds from the other side; they were like neglected children trying to get the attention of busy adults. He had no doubt they would tear him to shreds if they could, with fangs and claws that matched their hyena-like features and disposition, he was also sure they still recalled their last interaction with Elias. A few weeks ago, he met a group of a dozen on a hill path, and when they charged at him, his laser erupted on the leafy path, singeing feet and forcing their abrupt retreat. He sensed their curious eyes from hidden lairs, but there had been no trouble since that fiery encounter.

Elias honed his observation skills in hazardous unearthly environments, developed advanced pattern recognition of alien civilizations, and used his embedded AI to fill in technical details, but above all else, he trusted his gut instinct. There was something off about the usually stealthy Hyeneums’ behavior: noisy, exposed, and throwing rocks and sticks that didn’t cover half the distance needed to hit him. He ignored them as he pulled in his fish, strung it on the line with the others, recast, and settled back against the tree.

His indifference irritated them all the more as they screamed louder, then ran farther along the bank and threw rocks at his beorse. He’d captured the sad-looking creature by luck while exploring in the nearby mountains. While cutting quartz with his laser, Elias started a small rockslide, lost his footing, slid forty feet, and landed on the beorse. He dug it out and, feeling responsible for its’ injuries, nursed it back to health. It followed him everywhere since. Its head and front paws reminded him of a bear while the rear looked more like a horse, so he called it a beorse. It turned out to be strong enough to carry Elias and his supplies, but it was as docile as a puppy, and just as easily spooked by the erratic Hyeneum.

Annoyed that they threatened his beorse, he yanked his line out of the water, snatched up the string of fish, and stalked back toward camp. Everything about this planet was annoying except the fishing, and now he couldn’t even enjoy that. He set the laser, a compact cylinder he wore on his right wrist, to low intensity and swept it across the group several times until they howled and scattered back into the bushes. They were gone, but the uneasy feeling in his gut stayed. He soothed the beorse, gave him a fish to eat, and decided to start his pre-journey checklist early. As the beorse held the fish in his bear paws and settled back on his horse haunches to gnaw on the fish, Elias arranged the rest of his catch on the rack over the fire. The Hyeneum were gone, but the edgy mood they created lingered. The picturesque start to his day gave way to an unsettled feeling, an internal itch he could not scratch.

He poked at the fire logs, stared at the red embers glowing hypnotically through the dead gray ash. After his latest fiasco on Hosushab, Elias decided to stay out of planetary politics, religious ruminations, and interpersonal intrigue. He was no hero, no savior, and no equalizer of injustice. He was an explorer, a scientist, and maybe a sort of galactic historian as he captured detailed notes on each planet he visited. It felt later than the midday sun’s shadow indicated as if he were late for some important task. Fishing was the only enjoyable thing on this planet, and the primitive Hyeneum ruined it, howling and acting like wolves on a hunt. Elias froze at the realization, acutely aware of the oppressive stillness of the forest, and the utter lack of noise.