Sky Wars

By Ryan Carriere

"Sky Wars: An Action-Packed Dystopian Thriller" is a heart-pounding, page-turner that will leave you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

 

Follow Aero, a fearless cyber assassin, as he becomes caught in a dangerous web of lies and deceit during a war between two powerful alien races. With the fate of the district at stake, Aero must uncover the truth behind a sinister plot to destroy everything he holds dear and solve the mystery of who is trying to kill him.

 

This fast-paced adventure takes place in a dystopian, near-future world where advanced technology and extraterrestrial life collide, adding even more intensity to the already thrilling narrative.

 

As Aero navigates a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse filled with unexpected twists and turns, he must confront his own beliefs and loyalties in a war that could mean the end of everything he knows.

 

Get ready for a wild ride in this explosive sci-fi adventure that will have you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ryan Carriere
• Release date: Feb 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215956878

Ryan Carriere

Ryan Carriere grew up with a love for drawing and writing - especially scifi and superheroes! He loves rpg's like Mass Effect, The Witcher and many more. So it's no surprise that he is writing two fiction series simultaneously. One is Assassin Rising: The Alien Gene, which is a young adult scifi series filled with cyberpunk and superhero aspects. The other is the Heroes of Atlantis series and is a historical fantasy filled with monsters, magic, and legendary creatures. Also, check out my nine-year-old son's book Diary of a Minecraft Noob, taking Amazon by storm! https://www.amazon.com/Diary-Minecraft-Noob-Unofficial-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0924ZPVQ2 Sign up to his mailing list and download a free ebook: http://www.ryancarriere.ca

Book preview

SKY WARS

THE TIME GUARDIAN

Ryan Carriere

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Thunderbird Books

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Published by Thunderbird Books

www.ryancarriere.ca

Copyright © Ryan Carriere 2022

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by Canadian and U.S. copyright law.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be hired out, lent or resold, or otherwise circulated without the author’s/publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover, other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9798366508711

Printed in Canada

This is a work of fiction. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

Part 1

1. Chapter 1

2. Chapter 2

3. Chapter 3

4. Chapter 4

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

7. Chapter 7

8. Chapter 8

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

11. Chapter 11

12. Chapter 12

13. Chapter 13

14. Chapter 14

15. Chapter 15

16. Chapter 16

17. Chapter 17

18. Chapter 18

19. Chapter 19

Part 2

20. Chapter 20

21. Chapter 21

22. Chapter 22

23. Chapter 23

24. Chapter 24

25. Chapter 25

26. Chapter 26

27. Chapter 27

28. Chapter 28

29. Chapter 29

30. Chapter 30

31. Chapter 31

32. Chapter 32

33. Chapter 33

34. Chapter 34

Part 3

35. Chapter 35

36. Chapter 36

37. Chapter 37

38. Chapter 38

39. Chapter 39

40. Chapter 40

41. Chapter 41

42. Chapter 42

43. Chapter 43

44. Chapter 44

45. Chapter 45

46. Chapter 46

Part 1

2 years A.A. (After Ascension) — 2044 —

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1

Central District

Missing a kill shot is never a fortunate thing.

Especially now, when the world is in such…turmoil.

Bracing for an impact that never comes, I feel the searing heat as streams of red plasma hiss by.

Chunks of hempcrete explode all around me: It’s complete and utter chaos. Just an average day in the life of an Assassin.

Fletcher’s gentle yet scratchy voice sounds in my ear. Breathe deeply in…and let it out. Slowly. Calm your mind, Aero.

Kinda busy now, Fletcher, I say aloud, dodging a searing chunk of shrapnel. Sometimes I hated being so connected to everyone, but I guess that comes with the territory of being an apprentice Assassin. Privacy for convenience, not that we had a choice…

As my mentor and Prime Assassin, it’s Fletcher’s responsibility…no, his ‘duty,’ as he says, to lecture me.

Now, Aero, what did I tell you about breathing…

Goddammit, Fletcher, I huff, flipping over a half-crushed and capsized sani-drone. I’ll call you back when I’m not fighting for my life. With that, I manually disable our Neuralink connection.

Fletcher’s voice rings once again. I don’t appreciate when you hang up on me, Aero. This is an important Z-drop. Our hosts insist we recover it—at any cost. Also, see if you can reclaim one of the Anarchist’s goggles. With that, Fletcher disconnects.

Neuro-telepathic communication, being one of the many technical marvels our new alien hosts have granted us, not for free, of course, but I’ll get to that later.

With all the technology innovations in the past two years, I feel more like a guinea pig since the Ascension. In a nutshell, Earth now has alien overlords, and we, the Assassin’s Core, are their dogs. We fetch, we heel, and we get fed. Simple.

Although Fletcher gets pissed at me when I say that, but it’s true. He prefers the term ′servants of order.′

Stop, you little cyber-bloodsucking shit! the red-masked, time-shifting Anarchist yells.

Turning with a cocky smile, which he obviously didn’t see because I have my stealth mask set to chameleon, so I blend into the environment. Regardless of that, I spit out, Who are you calling little?

A piercing ringing surrounds me, threatening to engulf me, and I know the Anarchist has used some kind of pulse-wave against me, but I can't let him get the best of me, so I retort. And I don’t technically suck blood, jackass. With that, I see my next move as it projects in front of me like a virtual map of future happen-chance. This part of the New World Order, I do like. It’s such a confidence booster.

My Neuralink activates just in time to calculate the trajectory, speed, and timing necessary for me to pull off my now late but still death-defying kill shot.

Transparent lines project and light up my vision and create overlay geometries all around me. The data and statistics predict the success rate of each of my potential decisions: All calibrating and re-adjusting in real-time. Neuro-geometric overlay, another cool feature of my Neuralink. If the overlords ever heard me gushing like this, I’d never live it down. Not like I’ve ever met them, though.

Fletcher, albeit annoying at times, is a genius and is the mastermind behind all the Neurotech innovations. Despite that, though, he, too, has never met our masters.

Should I jump? Swerve left or right? Stop or keep running? Neuralink has ranked these as the most practical options. As I contemplate, Neuralink runs scenarios in the background, giving me constant updates.

Another option, deemed less successful by Neuralink, is to launch myself off a solitary sani-drone who is autonomously cleaning the busted rubble the Anarchist just pulverized.

My decision is obvious.

I launch myself up and over the drone, knocking it off kilter. As I twist through the air, dodging three poorly aimed, red-hot plasma streams while simultaneously executing a backflip over a stray cyber-rat on a beat-up hoverboard. The cyber-rats are parentless, displaced kids that overran the Central District years ago. These days, they seem much more like cockroaches than kids. I know this because I was one recently. These poor fools were the ones whose parents refused the vaccines when they came out. Now, though, they infest the district, just out of reach or care of the Assassin Core.

My breath calms, and I zero in on the Anarchist’s carotid artery for the insta-kill. Everything slows down.

Now, I’m Zen. Fletcher would be proud. Of course, he has selective timing and misses this show of athleticism, as usual, or by purpose, I haven’t yet decided.

In mid-air, I see the cyber-rat’s buggy, COVID-X-ridden eyes follow me, his face stupefied under the thick layer of soot.

He mouths something, but I can’t make it out or don’t pay attention: I’m in the zone, as Fletcher would say.

Before I hit the ground, my psi-dagger slices through the man’s neck, cauterizing it instantly and delivering the no-mess, kill-shot.

My psi-dagger, an absolute must for any Assassin worth his coin, is a highly versatile and compact weapon. The blade isn’t solid; it uses psi-energy pulse tech—think, precise, and high-devastation electrified laser knife. Another cool tech from our hosts. The way I’m yammering on about them, you’d think they were great, but I don’t see it that way. Something isn’t right…

Like an old-school boomerang, it inverts with several clicks, spins, and snaps back into my open hand just before I land. I clip the now unarmed psi-dagger safely into my belt.

I have exactly one minute and thirty seconds to retrieve the Z-drop from the Anarchist’s body before it self-detonates.

Kneeling, I examine the red goggles and contemplate whether I should attempt to pry them off again. Last time, I received a ferocious shock. Unsure of the tech used to hot-wire these goggles, I know one thing: if you don't do it right; it hurts like hell. My gloved fingers wiggle with anticipation, like they instinctively recall the pain. Maybe if I used my psi-dagger. But that might damage them, and Fletcher needs them undamaged. Decisions, decisions.

Shit, one minute before detonation.

Unclipping my psi-dagger, it instantly energizes, and I carefully bring it to the base of the Anarchists' goggles without contact.

I can see the electromagnetic forces of both the goggles and my psi-dagger repelling one another, causing sparks. I need to decide quick. Time is running out.

To hell with it. I jam the dagger under the thick frame of the red goggles. Instantly, a searing charge shoots up my arm and spreads throughout my whole body.

Instantaneously, I regret my decision.

After a bloodcurdling and guttural yelp, I see stars, then nothing at all. Everything’s gone black. When I open my eyes, I see the Anarchist’s body from several feet away and groan.

Shuddering like a gentrified old fart, aftershocks of the electrocution temporarily immobilize me, but I’m grateful for my Assassin suit; otherwise, I’d be dead. Lying there, I groan but cannot move just yet.

Ten seconds later, I feebly crawl back to the lifeless body. Fletcher’s gonna hear about this one. I’m done with those stupid goggles until the Core can develop some kind of anti-shock protocol.

Intensely, as much as my traumatized body allows, I rake him in search of the elusive Z-drop. Finally locating the disc around his neck, hidden in a cheap chain tucked under his jacket, I rip it off. See, like I told you before, we fetch things for our masters.

Standing on wobbly legs, I stuff the glowing, alien metal-alloy disc into my Z-drop cylinder housing unit on my belt. That is the technical term Fletcher calls my belt container: It’s really just an old-school, magnetic coin-roll tube soldered to my belt.

Not as fancy as Fletcher makes it sound, but what it contains, though, that’s the mission and is the purpose of the Assassin’s Core.

What we’ve found so far is that each Z-drop predicts the next and ultimately leads us closer to understanding who and why these Anarchists are terrorizing the Central District. And not only that, our masters, who seem to know everything about humanity, do not know how to contain these Anarchists. Or at least, that’s what we are led to believe.

Each Z-drop contains an EDMC, or encrypted digital messaging code, and is carried by all Anarchists we’ve searched so far.

Pulling my jacket sleeve back, I look at my wrist, and the 7:45-50 STT—or Solar Transition Time, as our hosts would say, flashes in bright blue letters on my skin.

Ten seconds before, the Anarchist detonates and makes a mess all over the corner of 12th and 12th, Central District.

That miserable sanitization drone will have a generator failure scrubbing that mess, although I’m not too concerned because those drones are almost as plentiful as the cyber-rats. Search-and-scrub, search-and-scrub, the life of a sani-drone seems futile. But then again, as an Assassin, I’m required to fetch, heel, feed, rinse and repeat. There must be something more…

Turning the corner, I hear the telltale hiss of the detonation algorithm: Three seconds later; I feel the rumble of two-hundred pounds of organic matter discharging all over the hempcrete facade.

Like I said before, it’s disgusting.

I’m Aero, a CyberGen-X Assassin who hunts time-shifting Anarchists in order to recover and decode these elusive Z-drops.

2

Hobbling into the lab for maintenance a day late, Ben, the head Neuraltech, scolds me. You’re late.

As the head Neuraltech for the Assassin’s Core, Ben’s obligated to ensure the safety, integrity, and longevity of all assets in the Assassin’s Core. As one of the most ‘expensive’ and ‘reckless’ assets, as Ben says, he is extra scratchy with me.

I grunt in acknowledgment.

Lay down, Aero, Ben nags as he adjusts his Neural-exoscope, which is basically an external symbiotic prosthesis. Tiny metallic tendrils flow from his ear apparatus and wrap across his face. At the ends of the tendrils, sensory nodes amplify Ben’s internal thoughts and actions into data streams that are then fed into the AI Core. A system that basically runs everything in the Academy.

It sort of resembles a mechanical spider hugging his face. When I see him, I’m glad my sensory systems are internal. Hence, the expensive part he complains about all the time.

Sorry I’m late. It’s chaotic out there lately, I say, climbing into the medi-chamber. My genetic superhero strength is all but drained, and I feel queasy and nauseous. This happens every time I’m late for maintenance, but will I ever learn? Probably not.

Scanners energize all around me, scouring for any mutant strains of COVID-X that may harbor on or in my body.

Red lights flash, and within seconds, the disinfectant protocol begins. These are not the mRNA vaccines of old, the ones that basically decimated Earth’s population before the Ascension. Who would have known that vaccine booster shots would sterilize the population and cause a never-ending mutant variant plague of ever-stronger COVID-X strains? The stuff that Ben sprays me with is a concoction the hosts gave us. Basically, Ben says it's a deionized silver and gold mist with bonded nano-particle UV rays. This stuff kills anything but leaves your cells alone. It’s a medical miracle. And I'm the lucky hamster who gets this shit sprayed at him every week. This all sounds very bleak and unforgiving, but that's the central district for you. It's not for the faint of heart. I've accepted my lot in life the best I can and although it all seems too much sometimes, its better than the alternative. I shudder as I think of the life of a cyber-rat.

Got a little haphazard out there this time, Aero. I watched the holo-feed of your last excursion. You know, Neuralink provides you with success rates for a reason. Use it, Ben lectures. His shiny bald head reflects the flashing red lights.

I grunt, But did I die?

Ben shakes his head in disapproval.

And does the disinfectant have to smell like a cyber-rat’s ass?

Busying himself with the initiation protocol, Ben sternly replies, Don’t be ignorant. You’re fortunate we have been granted all this tech from our hosts. Count your blessings, and mind your manners. If it wasn’t for the Ascension, we’d still be headed for the apocalypse.

My mind skips back three years to 2041. A hell of a year: The Ascension.

Before the Ascension, humanity was in despair: Climate change had pushed most nations inland away from the oceans, all clambering for high, dry land.

People who lived near the equator couldn’t take the