Shards of Unity: Center of Unity, #1

By JD Jones

Enter a vision of the world faced with the end of its hubris. This flowing but evocative story of a near future where humanity has never been entirely alone in the multiverse will hook you in until you've read it through and through. Explore different concepts of the xeno, alternative paths for technology, and the intersection of all of these things with the unbound potential of the human mind. Living, breathing characters will leave you wanting more as they face conflict and find resolutions, as they seek love and commit to battle.

 

How secure is our technology? How confident should we be of the constants of this universe? This is a story of the Earth eclipsed, conquered almost without a fight. Drawn in to become just another Realm in a worlds-spanning polity beyond Terran knowledge . . . save perhaps in myth. We may even have brought this on ourselves . . .

The story is told from the perspective of women and a man confronted with this overwhelming new reality. See worlds through their eyes as they cast their fates to chance and walk their paths seeking to bring their own triumphs from the great defeat.

All this against a background of daily lives and the daily struggles and problems of life, human or otherwise. Laugh and love with our characters, fight and mourn with them. Follow a protagonist encountering crises buried within many of us, writ large for the story but real nonetheless, forced to make questionable choices when the alternatives may be even worse.

Welcome to the Center of Unity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruinoll Impressions
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735623351

Book preview

Shards of Unity by JD Jones

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For all those who didn't give up on me.

Or haven't.

Part 1

One

He stood halted on the path.

Kole Smith was out for an early run, though late enough in the morning that the birdsong had trailed off into occasional snatches. It was already warmer than he liked, full into an eastern Kentucky summer that felt too long already.

The trail stretched out before and behind him.

There was another split up ahead as it branched through and around and over the folds and turns of the long wooded holler. The obscuring foliage of a developed second growth forest, mostly oak and maple here, constricted the world of his vision to the tunnel of the dirt path and perhaps a dozen feet beyond.

What the—?

The words escaped him in a gasp and every hair on his body was on end as he stood there. He tossed his hatchet from hand to hand and then became still, settling his stance into a ready form, with a brief glance down at the tool to check it.

Because of the heat of the morning coming on and in a habit of general simplicity, he had nothing with him but a pair of shorts and the all-metal tool with its leather-wrapped grip. Today he had not even bothered with shoes, choosing to pay the small price in pain and discomfort to toughen up feet grown soft from urban living.

The hatchet itself was a bit of an affectation, but there were always branches and limbs down on the trails somewhere and the normally safe woods did have an occasional black bear wandering through.

Not that he expected to survive a bear attack at close quarters, but at least with the hatchet he might hope to take the ornery beast right along with him in death—and spare the next person from meeting a people-killer.

The mind takes strange turns after spending enough time alone. He stilled his wandering thoughts as well, to just take in the world.

At that moment he was more concerned with the dead silence that had fallen over the woods. There was no wind. No noise from animal or insect. And a feeling, like a sound that was not a sound, was emanating, pulsing, shivering along his bones and coming from somewhere between earth and sky and his own spirit.

It was everywhere, but it did not touch the nature around him. The ground did not quake, though he felt it should be shaking itself apart. The trees stood still, though he felt they would burst into flame to consume the deep wrongness that had overtaken the world. It seemed as though even the clouds above had stopped their drift, as if the sky were about to burst open—

It ceased.

The wrongness did not trail off but instead abruptly ended. He felt as though the world was somehow slanted until he shook himself and it snapped back into focus. Birds exploded into flight in every direction, crying their noise against the sky. He sank to his knees on the trail and breathed deep, waiting, wondering.

Sounds in a holler follow strange paths. They echo off the enfolding ridges in a pattern as irregular and complex as the holler itself and are affected by the trees as well.

He was on a ridge trail along the northern edge of the property. Somewhere ahead, no telling exactly where, he heard what sounded like pick and shovel, like many of them going at once.

Though very weirded out by what had just happened, he was still curious at this. So he eased to his feet and started forward. Nothing had happened to the world that he could see—but it felt as though everything had changed.

Then someone had started digging.

He kept a very slow pace moving generally west along the ridge, placing one still foot in front of the other as he watched and listened.

***

Perhaps an hour later Kole had come abreast of the sounds that had continued unabated as he moved.

He stood on a little saddle in the ridge, where the valleys of new hollers opened up to north and south both. The sounds were coming from below, echoing up the north valley and from not very far, though the trees and brush kept vision close.

He had stopped to consider, as he would be going off his patch. Yet that parcel was mostly unused, just a sometime hunting spread. The noise of what sounded like hand powered excavation had continued throughout, interspersed with a very deep growling voice barking unintelligible imperatives.

He still felt a shiver up and down his spine thinking about whatever it was that had happened. Which had immediately preceded these decidedly odd noises. There was no reason for anyone to be digging in these hills, much less by hand.

He doubted that any of the generally sedentary locals had gotten into a tearing hurry to tap into the not very rich coal beds that follow the folds of these hollers.

Ah hell, he thought, I was getting bored anyway.

He had come out here to detach from the complications of technological living, which spending time camping on a wooded extended property in the hills of eastern Kentucky will greatly facilitate. There were three places he could get a cell signal on the property, and not a very strong one. There was a well he could use, but the pump house was a good quarter mile from his campsite.

Despite working himself hard during the day, clearing brush, repairing trails, and laying in firewood for the owners, he still had trouble getting to sleep at night. Too many thoughts of city life, of his web projects, of friends and of love.

All left behind for the sake of this retreat from the world.

Moving off the trail, he stalked north down the moderate slope and into the trees.

Roughly halfway to the bottom he paused at the flat of an old logging road, overgrown now, to peek around a tree as thick around as his waist and peer through the undergrowth toward the continuing noise.

Noise—a loud, bellowing voice shouted out on his left and his head snapped over to look.

A very large, almost naked, greyish skinned not-man was running at him along the flat, carrying a long club in one hand and ignoring the brush, only jinking aside for the trees. It was mostly ferns under the tree cover but the not-man smashed through rougher brush as well.

Kole sucked in a breath and the world went sharp and slow.

He smelled cordite and then nothing as he swayed around to face the charge—his curiosity over the noises, trepidation from the weirdness, and instinctive fear at this sudden aggression, everything, burned away past nothingness in an instant. The world was one moment and he was all of it.

His mind was still.

The thing's limbs moved with a burly grace as it continued toward him at a full run. A brief loincloth, tan in contrast to the hairless dull grey body, snapped out as it detoured a big maple. There was a flash of red, like a jewel, at its waist. Its wide mouth snarled, on a head that seemed a bit too small for the body, showing flat brown teeth below a nose that was a mere slit in its face.

The eyes, large and black with just narrow bands of white, focused straight at him as the creature moved.

He eased to the left of the tree as it came into range, letting his knees bend and then pushing off, back and to the right as it swung two-handed what looked like a metal club, tipped with a featureless ball the size of his two fists together.

The arc of the weapon was aimed to smash him against the tree but instead crashed into it directly. He spun around the bole, fast. The tree shivered audibly with impact as he moved around it.

The creature was already recovering from what had seemed an unbalanced swing, its eyes wide as Kole's right arm came around at a forty–five and high to strike.

The hatchet followed the torque of his whole body joined to the momentum of his move around the tree, burying itself between the knobby round bones at the base of that stout neck.

There was a flash of heat as Kole moved close to that muscled body and another, much stronger flash as his hatchet swung into it, along with a buzz like a twenty pound hornet.

He let go the handle, which still felt like a live fence wire, as he moved back to let the suddenly limp body of the creature fall to the ground. The wound leather of the grip was smoking, just a wisp but there.

He stood there unmoving for a brief time, shocked and looking down at the thing. It was limp now but still bulky with smooth grey muscle as it lay there face down at his feet.

Soon enough he felt the shakes coming on, but they fell away and his mind settled back into clarity and stillness as he heard more bellowing voices like the first, a dozen of them and all around him.

A quick look back up the slope showed two of them barreling down from the top and the other way were three more pushing hard uphill. Others were coming from either side on the flat toward the tip of the shallow vee where he stood.

Kole hopped, planting his feet on either side of the hatchet embedded in that knobby spine, gripping the leather with both hands as he sprung upward from the crouch. The metal slid free with him and his feet found the ground again before he put his back to the slim tree. He noted the heat of the tool, not quite hot enough to burn his hands. The cumbersome club was still on the ground if he needed it.

His mind drank in the world as he searched for a new pattern of action.

He was about to dart downhill to see if he could jump past the three coming up, in the hope that those on the flat were too close to cut him off, when every one of the charging forms came to an abrupt halt.

Just after that a new voice called out a nonsense phrase in a high tenor, almost a soprano.

The grey creatures eased up after that, sidling around and forward a bit more before stopping again, forming a circle with him at the center. Rough, given the terrain, but cutting off chances of escape while they stood ready. He was still, seeing long odds and no good angle to play. The things were just too fast to break past them while they were all set and watching.

Beyond the creatures, another figure strolled toward him down one arm of the vee of the flat.

It tossed its head as the eyes studied him, shoulder length blond hair swaying out from a thin face with large eyes like glinting sapphires and sensuous lips set in a cruel sneer above a pointed chin. Arms clad in scales of a bronze metal emerged from a deep red plain tunic trimmed in black and obviously covering a full shirt of that same protection. Legs clad in the same scale went down to meet high boots covered in more of the same. The hands wore gauntlets in a similar style, though the scales seemed much finer and were absent from the leather palms. The left hand rested on an odd rounded leather cup mounted on the belt and balanced on the other side by a sheathed dagger. The right hand toyed with the hilt of a weapon jutting at an angle over the right shoulder in a baldric carry.

The pommel of that sword was mounted with a red stone that reminded Kole of the one at the waist of the creature he had killed. He could see similar stones at the waist of each of the creatures around him. They gave an intense red glow that looked to come from the center of the stones, like an LED inside a clear marble.

Still moving with no hurry, the armored figure seemed to be savoring the moment as it slipped between two of the creatures and stopped, maybe three long paces away from him.

It slowly eased a slightly curved sword from the sheathe on its back and held it ready in one hand. The sword was a bronze color as well, or maybe copper, though it shone bright next to the dull scales of the armor. With the sword out there seemed to be a hint of a glow around the figure, that vision of some ancient warrior. Like the sun passed through a tinted lens before reaching it.

It spoke a longer phrase than the first, more nonsense, and then waited, the eyes watching his.

Those eyes had stopped glinting now and he could see that they had no whites, only orbs in shades of blue with slit black pupils, but still sparkling a bit as though off of faceted surfaces. The figure stood a few inches shorter than his own wiry six feet and was somewhat broader and seemed well muscled under the armor. The ears were covered by the hair now, but when glimpsed had reminded him of the whirl of a seashell with distinct points at the tips.

As Kole waited in a half crouch with limbs hanging loose, those lips curled upward into a superior smile and it spoke again. The words came out English this time, but very slow and with an odd accent, slurred and sharp at once.

Fight me, or die. Yes?

As it spoke it raised the sword and moved the point around at the circle of creatures around him, tapping the cup at its waist with its left hand as it did so. The creatures, all at once, let out a basso roar and then fell silent.

A thought floated across the stillness of Kole's mind. This prick seems to be enjoying himself. He's not a bear but I guess he'll have to do.

Yes.

After the single word he straightened slowly and moved toward the other side of the rough circle, ostensibly stretching his arms and back, twisting his torso as he let his eyes and ears and skin soak in the world.

The creatures forming the circle all at once grounded their clubs in front of them, resting one hand on top and another over the gems at their waists. They otherwise maintained the odd motionless stance kept since forming the circle.

Kole looked around slowly as he appeared to ready himself, taking in the dozen or so grey skinned creatures around the circle and the dead one in the middle.

They were all dressed in those brief tan loincloths that he could see was leather of some sort. All had identical long clubs, maces really, grey and smooth—maybe steel or iron and maybe not. The creatures showed some variation, with heights ranging up to nearly eight feet from maybe seven, though all with thick builds not heavy enough to make them seem squat. The faces were difficult to tell apart but still had individual quirks.

As he took in all this and more in the space of those moments he noticed a…film, or curtain, there but not there, of a red color that reminded him of the gem things. It seemed to phase in and out of sight and defined the same circle boundary as the grey creatures.

There but not there, like it was in the stillness of his mind instead of before his eyes.

He thought of the warmth still felt through the leather hatchet grip and discarded the option of darting between two of the creatures to run. It had seemed a slim chance anyway but with the speed he could put on he thought he might at least have gotten past and away for a time—except for the presence of what might be a barrier and might be something worse.

He turned his attention back to the armored figure, thinking of the flash of heat as he had neared the first creature, dead now, and the greater flash as he moved into it with metal.

This elf-thing's head was uncovered and seemed vulnerable, but somehow he didn't think that it was. It still had that reddish half-glow around it.

Those lips curled back into a sneer as those glinting eyes watched him watching it. The cup on that belt could hold a much larger stone than the one on the pommel of the sword, or those carried by the grey creatures.

Kole raised his eyes to the sky and took in that clear summer blue. A good day, he thought, feeling a hint of wistful emotion drift around him in the stillness.

At last, he settled into a stance in line with the armored figure, waiting. It spoke a few words, nonsense again, then moved forward with a serpentine grace, putting the dead creature and that slim tree on its left as it curved toward him.

Those eyes gleamed and sparkled deep blue with the renewed motion.

He curved away, moving right and keeping the distance, then feinted in to just out of sword reach, half raising the hatchet and then back-pedaling as those feet stilled and the sword lifted.

He moved forward again as it started to follow him back, going through the same motions but then back faster and toward the tree. Toward the only other weapon in the circle, that grey club that the figure had deemed fit to arm its own retainers with.

Those lips tightened slightly as it started forward again, somewhat swifter than before.

Kole's right arm snapped around and the hatchet spun forward in an arc, forming a circle of its own as it shot toward the sword arm and he blurred forward right behind it.

The bright mirrored copper finish of the sword blade twisted through a parry, deflecting the hatchet into a higher trajectory and over the shoulder.

There was a sharp red flash and he could feel heat like a fire on his face as he grasped that sword arm at the wrist with his check hand and plunged his right through suddenly burning molten air to pluck the dagger from its sheathe.

Underhand and quick as breathe the dagger snapped across the waist, into the leather of the cup and also the palm of the left gauntlet.

He could smell again, his own burning hair and flesh, as that left hand jerked away and a hiss escaped those lips.

That damned strong right arm forced itself inward against his push, the blade felt as a line of white fire as it slowly entered his back. That mouth set into a snarl as the gleaming blue eyes squinted in pain from the wound to its left hand.

Kole's own eyes were slits against the mounting heat, only moments old and rising fast, his sight a blur as tears poured forth. He twisted the dagger and popped free a sphere of blazing light, twice the diameter of those the creatures wore but seemingly too small to contain its light, red like the pulsing haze of the fire that was burning his body.

As he saw it, something changed in his mind and he let go the dagger hilt to snatch the gem from the air.

Touching it, he felt the fire all around him moving in to the very stillness of his mind.

No, he thought, and instead his stillness consumed the fire.

Then his slow world stopped entirely in a flash of the blazing red of the gem, followed by a white light that rose forth from inside nothingness, and then a darkness that swallowed it all.

Two

International Space Station, tracking above the Indian Ocean. 1430 GMT the next day.

Cassandra Di Cristoforo was working through her task list—checking on some routine astronomical sightings—when the anomaly occurred. As she watched, the reading outputs on her tablet began to return random variables. Then the display on the tablet flickered in time with the overhead lights.

She looked up with a frown, then over at a crewmate. Sergei, do we have any excessive solar activity incoming?

No, nothing, no break in the solar cycle…

The cosmonaut was staring at a pair of displays rippling with bands of interference patterns. He tapped off the wall and began navigating to the module hatch.

I will check on the power supply and the servers.

As he exited the hatch the lights cut off, as did all of the screens and indicators. Cassandra was left in near darkness, the only illumination a diffuse glow from an exterior port. She looked down at her tablet and tried the power button, then pulled out her phone to find it dead as well.

The voices of her crewmates began to ring out and she called out her location and status, but then pulled over to the port to check the exterior view. The station appeared intact from her angle, where she could see a few of the modules and a solar panel extension.

Looking out past that, she saw glory.

Blurring rings of iridescent light appeared to be rotating like a gyroscope around a hole in space—like a black ball of nothingness. The orbit was not matching, but it was just above the station and moving only a bit slower on roughly the same vector.

Her eyes widened as she took in the internal light patterns of the rings and murmured to herself, Almost like a rainbow in fractal form…

She hugged herself, using a foot hooked on a staple set in the floor to keep her position at the port, but stayed silent and watched as the anomaly seemed to grow. All of her instruments were digital and powerless and she had no work more important than observation.

Sounds from the other crew were ongoing as they chattered at each other about the anomaly or about working on the power issue. A NASA crewmate was repeatedly attempting to raise communications with his mission control in a loud and steady voice, though with what she presumed was unpowered radio equipment.

As she gazed at the occurrence, eyes open wide and wearing a slight smile, the intensity of the rainbow light seemed to spike before it abruptly cut off.

The sun was partially eclipsed by the bulk of the earth, but in the angled sunlight she could see that in the place of the anomaly drifted a dodecahedron, oddly bluish in color—but clearly an artificial construction of some sort.

A grin spread across her face as she thought, first contact.

A smaller form detached from the larger shape and her sense of scale shifted as she identified a craft of some sort. There were no propulsive emissions evident from her angle, but lines of glowing amber light pulsed from front to back along the smooth oblong form.

As it moved closer to the station she made out transparent viewports, including a big one at the very front with humanoid figures evident even from her vantage.

The incoming craft was larger than the entire station and the dodecahedral shape was far larger still. The anomaly had been more distant from the station than she realized with naked vision alone.

It moved closer very quickly but then slowed and began maneuvering toward the main airlock. She watched a bit longer, taking it all in, then launched herself through the module hatch and navigated to join the crowd at the lock, smiling through the uncertainty and doubt she saw on a few other faces.

Behind her, some Roscosmos and NASA crewmates were discussing whether or not to distribute weapons. She looked back over her shoulder with a frown, then faced forward again.

Sergei waved at her through the small crowd.

There is no power, nothing. The batteries will not even discharge and I cannot get readings on anything without instruments. There must be a connection. Some sort of disruption effect from their technology?

I do not think that we can assume anything yet, Cassandra replied, but hopefully soon—

She cut off as the lock cycled open. Bulky suited figures immediately wedged metal bars into the hatch runners, blocking the mechanism from closing. She took this in just as she drank in every other detail of the figures in the lock.

A smaller figure, almost tiny in an articulated suit with the helmet latched up, stood between hulking figures with bestial grinning faces visible through their faceplates. The small xeno spoke, showing triangular but flattened teeth in a mouth set below double sets of eyes.

Greetings. As this realm is being brought into the Center of Unity, your primitive orbital station is hereby claimed by the Family Jorlin. As are your persons. Fear not, however, as Family Jorlin recognizes that you represent exceptional members of your species and thus you will be captured unharmed. May I be the first to welcome you into the glorious civilization of the Center.

Cassandra tilted her head with a feeling of puzzlement at hearing the speech delivered in English, accented but smooth. Behind the brutes, already moving forward, and the small figure, she could see another standing at the back of the airlock. It was slender but tall and fully suited.

Through the faceplate she saw almond shaped eyes that almost seemed to glow with an inner green light.

Three

He awakened.

Sounds intruded on Kole's darkness, pushing back the peace of oblivion as a shrill voice yelled out sharp phrases he still did not understand but that were starting to sound more familiar.

He inhaled a slow breath through his nose, feeling his lungs fill and his chest swell, and opened his eyes.

The sun was almost overhead, winking through the leaves above him. He was lying half-twisted on his back with his right arm stretched out over his head. The grey creatures were standing in a tighter circle around him, but facing out with their backs to him.

He started to sit up but then groaned as every muscle in his body seemed to cramp up at once.

The