Age of Secession: The Lost Kindred: Genesis

By Roger Ruffles

“She said that many a final move is made before the game has even begun.”

The Lost Kindred were abandoned.

It all began centuries before the Age of Secession started, but it will come to a head now. As the colonised galaxy turns upon itself, the Thirteen Kindred will return in greater force than ever before. This is the story of how that came to be.

Following its bloody birth, the young, new Red Empire is secretly trying to reach other galaxies. The Roanoake Expedition is launched in the southern part of the galaxy under the watchful eyes of the Red Emperor Himself, but the ships are apparently lost.

In a new galaxy, the survivors crash-land. They have no way of communicating back home. As they struggle to forge a new way of life, they look hopefully outward into the stars from the creation of their new refuge.

But the real danger lurks much closer, both within and without.

What were the strange xeno-form ships sighted on their first arrival? Why do the forests seem to change overnight? As the secrets of time are unlocked, so the Kinsmen struggle against themselves, the aliens who were there before them, and finally ... the abandonment by the Red Emperor.

Will this be the Genesis of the Kindred?

Or the beginning of something much, much different ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Ruffles
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005512002

Roger Ruffles

I was born in 1980, in Cheshire.Despite that, I view myself as a Manchester lad, having spent most of my adult life in the city. I developed a keen interest in science fiction at a very early age thanks to a very popular time travel series on BBC1. This has led to a life-long interest in the genre, which continues to this day, proving that the licence fee is worth it after all. The appeal of science fiction, and fantasy, is in the escapism, the look at what could be, and the sheer imagination and suspension of belief it requires – and how despite its groundings in the far-fetched, real-life often comes to imitate the imaginings of those insane enough to love science fiction.I completed my first book at 15, and attempted but failed to get published. Looking back on it, this is probably more of a relief to those who like to read. It certainly allowed me to do more boring things, such as work, first in banking as an office junior, then in utilities in procurement, then manufacturing and latterly construction in commercial roles. It's more logical than it sounds written down.Writing is and always will be a hobby first and foremost, a love and a way to express. An escape from reality, whilst holding a mirror up to all that is good and bad in the world. I hope you enjoy reading my books, almost as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Book preview

PART I - BEFORE

Throughout history we have colonised where there was life before us. Sometimes we did so without care of who or what was there before us, and when those civilisations were primitive it had little consequence. Sometimes we did not know there was something there before us, or recognise their intelligence until it was too late. Each time with the Thenn Val’Duhn, the Ar-Krghan and to some extent the Suartre, we had no idea of their existence or intelligence. Each time, we should have been more careful where we left our tread. Each time, we failed, and so we suffered as a consequence. We brought this destruction upon ourselves.

- Grand Inquisitor Julia Ramirez Gavain, 79 MY / 406 AE

Prologue

Unknown Place

Thenn Territory

Unknown Point in Time

The Greatweave was a place in nowhere, and no time.

It was not a place as it had no physical dimensions or existence, and it had no existence in time as a mere mortal, time-locked and spatially-bound human would understand the term.

For all that the Greatweave did exist in the minds of the Thenn, and at all times they were all present within it. The shape of it changed as existences changed, as time and space ebbed and flowed around their race. The boughs of the Thenn race may alter, their identities may be amorphous and exist at one moment but be different and always had been different the next, but the Greatweave continued for time eternal.

At least, that was what this heavenly otherworldly concept had been once.

As the Greatweave ebbed and flowed, there was a darkness growing, a terrifying cancer that spelled anathema and the end to them. It was a blackness, something they could not see beyond or comprehend. It scared them greatly, a Changing of the Ways they had not seen and had successfully avoided many countless times before. This time however, two of the great big black unknowing and intimidating voids of nothing loomed before them. All paths were becoming stained by the taint, their strands and weaves being pulled more and more towards annihilation.

It may not be annihilation, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla of the Thenn Val’Duhn said, barely recognising that its bough had suddenly seemed to have developed an identity. They all had, and that was a bad enough, barely remembered changed in the last instant. It could feel the pull into different Manifests of itself, existing at various points in time and space, and was aware that they were becoming less and less. It was being killed through a thousand cuts as the various Manifest forms of itself ceased to be, the thinning weaves snubbing it out of existence. It was only one of the first, one of many.

Look at you, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Brau said. It too was developing a ‘personality’ in the Greatweave, more – what was the word? – confrontational, perhaps, than that of the Thenn’Arla Primogenitor. Look at us. We who never change, are changing, and the bleak desolating blackness of the Changers of Ways grow have stained the Greatweave. Our race is under threat.

No-one would argue with that interpretation, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Dral whispered, its voice echoing and ghostly in the minds of all Thenn, across all time. With these new personalities they had suddenly developed, it seemed distant and deadly. Any great Changing we foresee in the weaves of time and space alters us forever. These two approaching us, have no future where we survive.

Where we survive as we are, pointed out the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla, pressing the point. Evolution is the way of all things, even for beings such as us, outside of time and space. It appears unavoidable, every possible weave we try leading to the blackness of one of these Changes. The multiverses were not, then they were. We are, and we may be not. Or we may just become something we cannot, presently, see or understand, beyond these Changes of Ways.

ENOUGH, the mental voice made the Greatweave tremble throughout all of time and space. The Originator was very rarely heard on the Greatweave, and the awakening of this Thenn myth and rumour showed how portentous the two Changes approaching them were. ONCE WE WERE NOT, NOW WE ARE. A CHANGE CANNOT AND WILL NOT BE AVOIDED. CHANGE DOES NOT YET HAVE TO MEAN THE END OF THE THENN. CHOOSE, MY CHILDREN, AND CHOOSE WISELY, BEFORE THERE IS NO OPPORTUNITY TO AVERT THAT END OF ALL OF US.

The Originator of myth went silent, their ‘god’ having spoken.

The Greatweave continued to tremble, all the voices of all the Thenn making it sing. Over countless aeons it quietened and returned to almost-harmony once more, with just those odd discordant threads whispering in the background.

With yet more sense of self than before, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla looked around itself in the Greatweave’s heart. Its people were frightened. Time continued to shift, and every shift brought the two black nothingness’es of the Change closer. The ephemeral consciousness of the Primogenitor, the first of the bough of its branch of the Thenn, stared forwards and searched the weaves. Something else had changed, a glowing pathway of weaves penetrating the Changes. It continued and came to an end through one, but on the other – if it had breathed, it would have caught its breath.

Life, it saw. Perhaps not as they understood it, and vastly reduced from what they were once. But also, perhaps better, maybe. For beings that could see all, to face the unknown was something not heard of. But just because it was unknown, did not mean there was no continuation.

A test, spoke the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla. I, it tried the unfamiliar sense of self the word implied, will volunteer to lead our people into the next plane.

You choose to become this new …. Planebound? Asked the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Omgi, incredulously.

My Closest Sirings, my Continuations, my Widenings and my Furtherings all agree, said the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla, my bough has spoken and we are as one. For the good of the Thenn, we volunteer to be the first to Change. If we survive, if the Changefirsts I can feel seeding in ourselves already grow, we can speak to the Greatweave of what is to come. Our decision is made, to honour the Originator’s direction.

You see beyond the Changes, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Lmba said, accusatorily. And it has already started to change you as your timestreams and weaves diminish. We do not see as you do. You alien heretic, you are differing already. You are not of us.

The words made the Greatweave tremble. Untold of discord, disharmony in the Greatweave, once unthinkable but now something that had always been and always would be.

This is true, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla said, with some sadness. Its race recoiled from it. My existences change, and I become something else. I am fracturing. All we can do to save the Greatweave is to allow it, and I will sacrifice myself to tell you what lies on the other side of the Change. I have already been trying various strands, and see where they go. None end well, but there is more hope one way in particular.

Explain to us what our choices are, the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Brau said, but the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla could detect a hint on the weave that the former was secretly looking forwards to this division. Not all would resist change, thought the Thenn’Arla, and then with a shock realised it had just had a thought that had not been shared with the rest of its race. I have changed much already, it thought.

One Changing of Ways involves the Ar-Krghan, and although the changepoint varies in time and space, it can be avoided. The Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla felt shock. That is why we cannot prevent these Changes, they intersect; the Ar-Krghan Change can be stopped by this humanoid offshoot, the Kindred they call themselves, and the Kindred Change can be stopped by the Ar-Krghan. But we have a choice to make, which one we interfere with at certain points in time.

The Thenn would Change, and the Changefirsts were already growing in presence amongst his own bough of the Thenn’Arla of the Thenn Val’Duhn. The Changefirsts would lead to the Planebound, fractured, tortured versions of the Thenn that existed in time and space’s fixed points, with beginnings and ends like any mortal. How terrifying.

How refreshing, thought the Primogenitor rebelliously.

The Planebound could either be moulded in the shape of the Ar-Krghan, which led to utter destruction, or in the way of the humans, which lead to more destruction but with greater hope. Uncompromising certainty led to doom, and the embracing of change led to hope.

Which perhaps, thought the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla, was the whole point of the thunderous message from the Originator. It was asking them to make a choice, but the answer was in the message.

The race of beings that preyed on them from time to time, the Ar-Krghan which had temporarily eliminated many boughs by destroying their Primogenitors, had never really succeeded before. Another bough would arrive to replace that lost. But they had developed or could be allowed to develop something, which spelled the end for that replacement. Over time, the blackness and end of the Change of Ways would become eternal. The Thenn would still survive, but from what the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla could see, the strands were few and not many boughs would survive in any form. Their development was poison, and the bleakness was all-consuming.

The other Way, was through a choice to be yet understood involving the humans. These things would come to them if time was manipulated, and could be made to happen earlier if the Kindred were brought into being through their own early time-meddling forays. Very different these humans were, and the creation of the Kindred different again. They were more individual, and copying them was a better path than the sheer viciousness of the Ar-Krghan. There was evil on both sides and in both races, but at least there was a way of influencing and reasoning with the humans the Kindred could lead them to.

The Gavain bough, thought the Primogenitor. The Keise bough. The Bebraugh bough, and the Adare bough. Constantin bough. Towers bough. Tibermann bough. The Logan and Borhaffe boughs. So many different boughs, numerous beyond counting which could all affect the widening weaves the Primogenitor was beginning to see beyond the blackness of the Change. These were fractured and confusing people, and perhaps in that chaos laid hope.

We have always relied on order, thought the Primogenitor. Maybe now our hope lies in the chaos to come.

The best choice we face is in a place called Scaran. A choice, between the Ar-Krghan’s end, and the Kindred end on offer. The Changes loomed closer than ever on the Greatweave, more weaves and strands being sucked into their all-consuming abyss, beyond which no Thenn except possibly the Primogenitor of the Thenn’Arla could now see. It was perspective, it realised. I have begun to embrace change, and so I see what the other Primogenitors do not. The weaves continue, just not as they had.

We have been changed by these people, whether we all realise the extent of it or not. If some of us most become lost to the type of Thenn as we were before, so be it.

At this ‘place’ of Scaran is where I choose. I shall meet my fate, and make the choice.

PART II – ARRIVAL

We arrived in fire and flame when we crashed into the Mandragoran Galaxy; it was a portent of what to expect in the centuries ahead of us.

-First Allkinlord Malcolm Nevo of the Grey Wolves, 3 MY / 26 AE

Chapter I

Close to the Southern Slingshot, Tarantulas System

Red Empire of Mars, Terran Galaxy

0 Mandragoran Year / 11 After Empire

Despite the many attendants, servants, guards, House Senator Lords and Ladies packed onto the wide observation deck of the space station, the expansive room of several hundred people was deathly silent. There was a sense of anticipation and nervousness in the air. As one, their faces were turned towards the wide metaglass windows, bodies tense with the excitement of what was to come. Eyes were wide, hands clasped in prayer or clenched with tension. Each one was here by invitation, handpicked to be present because they were trusted to keep silent if it all went horribly wrong.

Horribly wrong again.

The room was darkened to a level that made it easier for the naked eye to see what was happening out there in space. At the moment the great planet was bristling with energy, the world of Tarantu having been converted into a gigantic slingshot capable of hurling ships untold light-years across the expanses between galaxies.

The pearl-white planet was not terraformed like others in the system, looming large and dominating in the background. The thick alkaline cloudscapes whirled at speed around the considerable orb, the conducting pylons and worldwide structures built by the Red Empire of Mars hidden in their depths. The atmosphere was lethal to human life, but despite this its rare interior make-up had made it perfect for the slingshot technology that it was hoped would transform faster-than-light travel. For several days now the planet had been preparing for today’s launch, whilst the control station high in space and beyond orbit had readied itself for what the Emperor had decreed would be the last attempt after so many other failed ones.

Above the planet of Tarantu the colonyships were gathered. The expedition had been named ‘Roanoake’, after a similar attempt in millennia past to found new colonies when mankind had been planet-bound and restricted to dwelling on Earth. The colonyships were of immense size, bigger by far than the largest of the Red Emperor’s victorious fleets of ships-of-the-line. They were unsightly, built for capacity and functionality rather than ascetic beauty, and were capable of holding tens of thousands of people. They could insert themselves into atmospheres, land and spread out organically, creating new cities in the space of hours. Like lifeblood their people would begin work immediately on landing, bio-vat farms exploding into action and producing the new crop of accelerated-growth cybernetically-enhanced colonists within months. Those colonists would join the ones who had travelled with them, and so would begin the endless cycle of growth, the city expanding as its populaces did. Thousands would become millions in a short space of time, and then in a year or two millions would be billions, then trillions and more.

They had to land first though, the scientist-in-chief thought with a feeling of dread.

The scientist in charge of the mission stood by the side of the Red Emperor on his throne, sweating profusely. He was under no illusions as to what would happen if this failed like all the others. The Red Emperor was not a forgiving person, and the first Emperor of Mars’ face was set in stone, no indication of what He thought about the forthcoming launch being displayed. The scientist had not realised that the Red Emperor would bring so many dignitaries to watch this, the final launch of so many unsuccessful attempts in the recent past.

The twenty colonyships were all named after the Aztec calendar, and each captain had been reporting that they were ready for launch for hours. All non-essential personnel were in stasis, as a precaution against the non-standard forces they would be exposed to. The rest of the colonised galaxy thought this was an expedition being sent normally beyond the frontier, with no idea it was being sent outside of the Terran Galaxy, and the media had publicised it greatly as being the start of the Red Emperor’s new policy of expansion. The Third Expansion was underway, and the scientist in charge of Project Scarlet – itself within the wider arc of diverse scientific initiatives collectively known as Project Light - knew he was about to slingshot twenty colonyships on a path that numerous attempts previously had proven to be unsuccessful.

The propaganda machine of the Red Empire of Mars had faked the launching ceremony, so history would record it as being from a distant system. It would drive the conspiracy theorists wild, if they cracked the doctored images. The Red Emperor did not fully trust all of his House Lord and Lady Senators, and knew he had his detractors. If this all went wrong, He had no intention of giving them more ammunition, with his recently-born Empire still smarting from the wars of conquering and formation.

Reading the data being provided to him, the scientist cleared his throat and with a cracked voice, squeaked, We are ready, Emperor. All twenty ships are ready to launch.

As one the crowd held their breath.

, the Red Emperor decreed, in a thunderous voice that was like a god’s commandment.

The planet that the assembled great and good of the Red Empire had gathered to observe suddenly released its pent-up energies. Under the pearly-white clouds the extended sky-pylons energised, power crackling as it was released rapidly along the masts that poked above the cloudscape. A net of powerful, coruscating, light-blue lightning jumped in a second to shroud the entire globe, appearing out of nowhere. The clouds reacted to the sudden surge of emerging, swirling and contorting in confused, frenetic whorls.

The main quantum capacitor hidden on the surface of the planet fired, the local white and light green moss that had covered it since its construction blazing into flame and burning off in a second. The immense, barrel-like telescope-shaped construction released its power, firing a seeking energy beam up and through the crackling net swirling far above it. At the same time, and at multiple locations around the planet, manticular injectors increased the rotation of the special core of the planet, artificially controlling and spiking the energy the quantum capacitor was projecting.

The power from the core spread up along the node pylons, the sudden lightning in the clouds above taking on a new hue of orangey-red energy. The control station communicated rapidly with the Quantum String Locator on its mountaintop, identifying the string of interlinked particles that would form the pathway through time and space for the twenty colonyships of the Roanoake Explorators. The string location was apparently successful, and the precise details were transmitted to the Gateway Caster. It too exploded into life, the planet-mounted construction resembling a gigantic dish, and the Caster opened up the invisible portal in time and space, just beyond the planet’s atmosphere.

The colonyships jumped forwards towards the planet. It would usually be a fatal mistake to jump at faster-than-light speeds into the gravity well of a planet, as those ships tried to translate into hyperspace. It was just one of the many reasons why so many of the slingshot attempts had failed so spectacularly and explosively at first, with a plethora of uninhabitable and destroyed planets a testament to earlier attempts to cross galaxies.

At the precise point when the colonyships crossed over into hyperspace, they were caught by the extended net of energy from the pylons, and their jump was translated into something which spun them rapidly and at speeds that were still faster-than-light around the planet.

A red-hot blur was visible in the pearly-white, tingling with the black and purple of exposed hyperspace bleeding into realspace. The quantum shifting fleet of ships were catapulted in around its gravity well, bent in a curvature that would have ripped the planet apart if it were not for the space-mounted Field Restrictors and their ground-mounted equivalents. The angles of the jump translation and the quantum shift had to be precise, correct to unbelievable degrees, or the result would be a catastrophic mis-shift.

The twenty colonyships disappeared part-way on their circle around the planet, their blurs ploughing through the gateway that had opened on the other side, shifting towards a slightly earlier time and completely different location in space.

They had shifted to another galaxy; it was to be hoped.

House Lady Senator Malgorzata Zielinski was old by standard biological terms at eighty, but young by today’s standards with a life expectancy more than triple her current age. She was one of those rare creatures, an unaugmented humanist that had also not yet had to rely on anything more than rejuvenation treatments to make her appear as if she were twenty. As she stared through the metaglass observation windows at the red streak encircling the planet, the image reflected at her amongst the hundreds of people could have been one of a twenty-year old woman. It was not that which made her so notable however; it was the fact that a humanist such as her was so close to the inner circle of the anti-humanist, borgite Red Emperor. Humanists were tolerated for the sake of the Red Empire of Mars, so many of the conquered colonists relying on the borgites that ruled supreme in so many corridors of power. It was rare for a humanist to be held so high in the Emperor Constantin’s estimation.

The policy of expansion was favouring borgite colonists, with notable humanist exceptions, Malgorzata knew. The third great expansion had been announced and was already well-underway now the wars to bring the Empire into being were over, and House Lady Senator Malgorzata Zielinski had a feeling that the future was not going to be kind to humanists such as her. As long as she and her family were safe, she cared not though. The Red Empire had brought peace, eventually. That had to be better than the insanities of the Dictator Perepolous.

Malgorzata glanced to the woman at the side of her. How curious, she said. No disasters. The shift went perfectly.

The woman who in the future would become the Imperial Concubine – not that Lady Senator Malgorzata knew this, although she would one day come to look back on this day with a different understanding – said nothing. She was as equally as young-looking as Lady Senator Malgorzata, with raven black hair tinted with a rainbow-coloured sheen, a modern-fashion the old-fashioned Malgorzata did not particularly like. Where Malgorzata Zielinski went to great effort to appear older than she was and was at least classically good-looking, this woman was naturally beautiful by any person’s stretch of the imagination. Her skin was perfect and soft and seemed to reflect the light at times, her eyes entrancing whatever colour they were that day. Malgorzata already had wrinkles.

Malgorzata knew that much of what this woman at her side appeared to be was not as she claimed, something which did not help people believe in her incredible powers. In that, though, time and time again this woman had proven to be correct in her foresight more often than not.

This was obviously not one of those times that Rebeccah Layton-Stone’s remarkably prescient gifts of scrying the future were going to be found correct. The beautiful Rebeccah walked forwards and put her hands on the metaglass windows. I do not understand, she whispered.

What do you not understand? House Lady Senator Malgorzata asked.

The shift was supposed to go wrong, Rebeccah was still whispering. The planet was to be destroyed as they crashed and burned, and then nothing would be as it … she trailed off. I have failed.

House Lady Senator Malgorzata would remember those words but mistook their meaning today. Your future-telling powers are real, she said, I know that. Ironically it is just a shame that the jump went as intended. He may be angry, she added, almost fearfully. It is so hard to tell with this young Emperor.

No, Rebeccah Layton-Stone said, No, no, no, her voice was rising, No! No! All of a sudden, she collapsed, screaming loudly as she hit the floor. Some people who had not seen this before exclaimed in surprise, and someone called for a medical expert, one of these new medicae professionals.

Lady Malgorzata’s lips pursed. She knelt quickly by the seer. You were wrong, she hissed, Your future-telling was inaccurate, the colonyships made the jump and did not fail to shift. Don’t do this, not now …

In a voice like someone else, the seer of the future exclaimed, The expedition ships, they burn still. They crash. The timelines have changed and we are on a different path. I see them, I see what is coming. They shall return to us and bring terror and destruction. The future is not averted. They survive. The Kindred! The Kindred are born!

Cease your babbling, House Lady Malgorzata Zielinski hissed. Inside she knew this was a disaster. The Red Emperor would not be pleased.

the Red Emperor asked, on a private datasphere connection to his closest circle of advisors.

said his Director of the Exploration and Colonisation Corps, House Lord Senator Gennaro Lucchesi, dismissively.

the Red Emperor said.

the ExCol Director Lucchesi said.

the Red Emperor, who would one day be referred to as the True Emperor, replied.

the ExCol Director replied.

the Red Emperor said, a hint of malice appearing in his thoughts.

the Director Lucchesi said. He gestured physically at the collapsed woman on the floor.

The Red Emperor regarded his Director with an unreadable look; but He decided to let the comment slide.

The Red Emperor diverted attention to other matters, staring out across the room. He was satisfied, and hopeful that the quantum shift would successfully launch the Roanoake Explorators into another galaxy. He had so wanted to meet this enticing, entrancing seer-woman though, but he had stated to his advisors that her predictions had to be demonstrated to him.

A shame, the Red Emperor thought. She is so beautiful, and I rarely have time to appreciate such things.

*

Red Palace, Mars, Sol System

Red Empire of Mars, Terran Galaxy

A few months later

The Red Palace of the Red Empire of Mars was immense, sprawling atop the Olympus Mons caldera in the midst of the biggest city on