Charger Chronicles 2: Charger the Weapon Read online

  THE CHARGER CHRONICLES

  Book 2 CHARGER THE WEAPON

  by

  LEA TASSIE

  Copyright 2016 Lea Tassie

  Published by Lea Tassie at Smashwords

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without

  prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the

  author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or

  dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1 Dart speaks to Reader

  Chapter 2 Creating a new Eden

  Chapter 3 The plumber brothers go to war

  Chapter 4 The Tasker massacre

  Chapter 5 Charger on Mars

  Chapter 6 Charger linked to Taskers

  Chapter 7 The Grays invade

  Chapter 8 Night of the black rain

  Chapter 9 Charger on patrol

  Chapter 10 Charger on Neo Terra

  Chapter 11 Dart speaks to Reader

  Chapter 12 Charger in flames

  Chapter 13 The magic city

  Chapter 14 Creation of the Prime

  Chapter 15 Deleray has a visitor

  Chapter 16 Finding the god fragment

  Chapter 17 Expedition to Earth

  Chapter 18 Preparing for war

  Chapter 19 Pennington becomes Pope

  Chapter 20 Attacking the Grays

  Chapter 21 Charger erupts

  Chapter 22 Disaster looming

  Chapter 23 Revenge of the god

  Timeline

  Glossary

  About Lea Tassie

  Other Books by Lea Tassie

  Preview of Book 3

  Acknowledgements

  Heartfelt thanks to all those people who helped make this a better novel: Leanne Allen, Anna Becker, Sharon King-Booker, Phil Sutton, and

  most of all, to my science guy.

  We may go to the moon, but that's not very far. The greatest distance we have to cover still lies within us.

  Charles de Gaulle (1890 - 1970)

  Chapter 1 Dart speaks to Reader

  Are you ready for the second installment of humankind's history, Reader? I hope so, because time is growing short. The forces that want to destroy Earth and mankind will be here within a few days. But we at least have time to test your memory on the first one, Charger the Soldier. What do you remember about that?

  Yes, we're living in the year 4800 CE and I'm one thousand and eighty-three years old. And yes, I'm also the last man to walk the face of Earth. But that wasn't quite what I was looking for.

  Oh, you don't like exams? But everyone has to take exams. It's a condition of being civilized. Or maybe a condition of being educated. I really don't remember.

  How do I know all this history if I didn't live through it? Charger himself told me some of it and Charger is my father, so I was told. The rest I learned from the Tasker and Dinosauroid records.

  Now, Reader, I'm supposed to be the one asking the questions. Tell me what you remember from the first installment.

  Yes, the alien Gray race landed on Earth millions of years ago and messed with the DNA of both dinosaurs and humans. Though, personally, I wouldn't call it 'messing.' After all, the Grays were so advanced that, in comparison, humankind looked like worms.

  Ha ha! Earthworms. All right, Reader, you're feeling pretty frisky this morning, aren't you? Of course, you already know that Charger is going to save you from the forces of evil. But what will happen to me?

  Oh, you think Charger will save me because I'm his son. Reader, you don't know Charger!

  But let's revisit the 'Earthworms' for a moment. Just imagine going back to cave-man days with a time-lock device, for example, or let's push it a bit and say a Bic lighter from early in the twentieth century. Flick that lighter and produce flame in front of cave people. They'd worship you as a god because you could make flames come out of your hand. The point is, we're so advanced there's no way we could explain to a primitive human what a time-lock device is. And the same applies to us in comparison with the Grays.

  That's right! All advanced technology looks like magic when you've never seen anything like it before. Now, tell me about the Mahoud-Earth war.

  Yes, it was humans killing humans, as usual, except that Earth people thought Mahoud people were aliens and many of them went on thinking so, even when they learned the Mahouds were human. Yes, very human behavior, trying to bend the facts to fit with their prejudices.

  You'd like to see the big underground forest cultivated in Somalia by the First Ones? I'm sorry, but that isn't possible. Our limited time is not the only reason. You'll learn the other very soon.

  Did the spaceship Loki reach planet GHQ179? Eventually. Much later than they expected to.

  One last question. What do you think of Charger now?

  He's a hero? Not a killing machine?

  Well, I will admit that he did what humans told him to do because he wanted to save them. And because he obeyed orders, humans came to regard him as a hateful monster and wanted to destroy him.

  Yes, I'm sure if I were treated that way, I'd be angry, too. I can't deny that his solution to most problems is to simply wade in and kill everybody.

  Am I glad he's on our side?

  You bet!

  Now, let me tell you what happened to the Mavens who stole the old alien supply ship and escaped into space.

  Chapter 2 Creating a new Eden

  Elvin and Eve sat on their second-floor balcony, as usual during the evening and discussed the events of the day while their internal video cameras played back a colorful sunset vista of the red dwarf sun slowly disappearing below the horizon. They both still spent long hours on research and organization, but never missed taking that break at the end of the day.

  "Things are going so well now," Elvin said, "that sometimes I forget how scared we were – and how ignorant – when we stole that cargo ship."

  "I'll never forget, even if it was thirty-five years ago," Eve agreed. "I was terrified."

  Along with forty-five of their Maven friends, they had managed to slip aboard the alien transport ship without triggering any alarms. While the others were exploring the rest of the ship, she and Elvin went forward to the bridge. He had looked around, nervously at first but, hearing no alarms, started fiddling with the control panel.

  "We need to start this thing and get out of here before they find us," he shouted, desperation underlining every word. He'd banged his fists in frustration on the housing. This random act of violence suddenly sent out a high-pitched frequency, which seemed to emanate from the entire outer surface of the alien craft. Within a few moments, his friend monitoring the base called.

  "I can't see any movement on the base now," he'd said. "Absolutely zilch. Maybe that high-pitched tone rendered all the scientists and military personnel unconscious."

  Eve had asked, "Was that suppose
d to happen?"

  Elvin said, "God, I don't know. I hope I didn't kill them. Do you remember how that engineer managed to start this thing?"

  She moved past her boyfriend and placed her small hand into a slot on the panel. The craft surged to life.

  "Okay, great. I will go tell the others we're leaving," Elvin had said, as he moved from the central hub, known as the pit, into the cargo hold. The ship had been the only alien craft captured intact during the Mahoud-Earth war, and a low priority item for the invaders. It was just a simple supply ship, programmed to do just one single task, travel between Earth and a distant planet in the galaxy.

  It had been a glorified dump truck, traveling back and forth to the resource planet. The onboard Taskers, biomechanical drones programmed to carry out assigned tasks, piloted the ship and collected the supplies the aliens needed. But, dump truck or not, it had brought them safely to that same resource planet.

  They called the planet New Eden, for it allowed them to escape their servitude to General Harris, who had attempted to create a horrific super-super-soldier by combining DNA from saber-toothed tigers, apes, and humans. The planet felt like an Eden, too, compared to the war-torn Earth they'd left behind. Now they were building their own world, with every intention that it remain peaceful.

  She remembered how startled they'd been after lift-off to discover Taskers still aboard the craft. But the drones, with no messages reaching them from the aliens, had remained dormant until some weeks into the trip, when Nigel learned how to activate them.

  Eve reached out and took Elvin's hand. "It's been years and I'm still doing this."

  "Me too," he said, and squeezed her hand. The pressure sensors in their limbs were finely calibrated and extremely sensitive. "I guess it's part of the pattern, part of being human."

  They never regretted coming here, though it hadn't been easy. Their group was brilliant and privy to everything the scientists knew, since they were an integral part of computer programs designed to understand and deconstruct alien technology. They were all test tube Albert Einsteins, Eve thought. The name the scientists had picked for them, Maven, was apt. And they all agreed that Earth was not the place for them. They had stored food and clothing, oxygen and computers, tools and other essentials they felt they would need to start life over again, living in peace on a new world.

  "We had plenty of problems before we got here, though," Elvin said, apparently following her train of thought.

  It had hardly been an epic adventure. Several Mavens died en route; some from disease and some from careless actions. Thus the journey had turned out to be less of a noble trek to paradise than a typical human ship of fools setting out to take a new land. The travel time had been grossly underestimated, so the journey through space used more of the craft's resources than anticipated. They gained speed by placing the ship in stasis and using drones as a means of increasing resources. But a trip calculated at one year had taken them three to complete and, with no way to control the vessel, supplies were depleted quickly.

  "I know," Eve replied, "but it wasn't all bad. We did learn a lot."

  They had planned for enough food and water to last the group for at least a year on the new world, which they hoped would be enough time to find edible food. However, three years in space with only a one-year supply of oxygen meant that water had to be used for conversion into breathable air. Their one shining accomplishment on the trip was to learn the methods and technology of the craft they lived in. Nigel made the breakthrough in the fourth month of travel. He figured out how to make the ship create a paste that could be ingested for food. A few days later, the fact that beds were available was discovered by somebody stumbling into a button placed low on a wall. This let a flat surface slide across the floor, creating a bed.

  One single room aboard ship was used for waste disposal, and later they discovered it was a source for recycling, as the waste was deconstructed and converted into food and breathable air. The smell the conversion produced was another thing entirely, much like burning truck tires mixed with concrete dust. So it was not surprising, after three years of travel, that the smell of fresh air on the new world made several of the kids vomit. But the air was wonderfully breathable. The sun was a small red dwarf, and strange plants grew in abundance everywhere. It seemed that they had truly discovered an Eden.

  Elvin said, "No, it wasn't all bad the first few years, though I still miss some of those guys we lost on the trip."

  Only thirty-eight of the original group survived to reach their new home world, but these few were just as determined to make a better world as when they first set out. After a few months, permanent structures had been created by Taskers reprogrammed to new commands. New Taskers were created by taking apart the supply ship for raw materials. The discovery of edible foods and good sources of fresh water aided them in building a town, complete with schools and parks with fountains.

  The first fourteen years had been really good. They accomplished much, including having many children, enough to fill that first school.

  Then the cicadas hit.

  Eve could remember the terror that swept through her friends as billions of the insects emerged from the ground and darkened the sky, filling the air with their shrill crying. They sought trenches where they could lay eggs and find fluid for food. For those purposes, they found human skin every bit as appealing as tree branches.

  Some of the Mavens found shelter inside buildings until the onslaught was over, but those who didn't make it into a shelter died. Later research revealed that while trees recovered from cicada attacks, though often scarred, the cicadas carried a bacteria fatal to humans.

  Again, it was Nigel who had found an answer. In a brave experiment, he took one of the sick Mavens, a man close to death, and partially conjoined him with one of the Taskers. The Tasker robots were infinitely complex and biomechanical in design, perfect as host bodies for humans to merge with.

  The experiment had been a success. Deep in a cave, far from curious eyes, Elvin and Eve watched as Nigel activated the Tasker containing the consciousness of the sick man. He seemed awake and cognizant.

  "How do you feel?" Nigel asked.

  "You three don't look the way you're supposed to. No wait, it's my vision. I'm seeing things differently. Oh, now I understand. I can see you in the infra-red spectrum, and now in the ultraviolet," Sheldon replied. Only hours before, Sheldon was lying on his death bed, almost comatose, only moments from succumbing to the bacteria infecting his body.

  "No, the question I'm asking, Sheldon, is how do you feel?" Nigel repeated.

  "I don't feel sick or in pain, if that's what you mean," replied Sheldon as he twisted his new mechanical limbs in several directions, trying to get an understanding of how this new body worked.

  "Look, Sheldon, read my lips, how are you feeling?" Nigel spoke slowly.

  For a moment Sheldon had no answer, then he realized what Nigel wanted. "I have no feeling. I feel nothing, no sense of touch at all."

  "I think he was too far gone to save," Nigel said to Elvin and Eve. "He should be able to feel. The pressure sensors in these mechanoids are quite remarkable."

  Elvin sighed. "I'm afraid you're right. The bacteria must have reached his brain."

  "But do you think we should proceed with this experiment?" Nigel asked. "We'd have to give up a lot of what it means to be human."

  "I don't see that we have much choice." Elvin took Eve's hand. "We'll still have our brains and those are the most important parts of us. Do you agree, Eve?"

  She had nodded.

  "Start the conversion process," Elvin said. "Those who don't want to be converted will have to be put in stasis for their own safety. And about Sheldon..."

  But Sheldon was lifeless and his Tasker body dormant. Nigel flicked a switch on the control panel.

  Elvin, Eve, and six of their friends were the first to be given Tasker bodies. The control of existence on New Eden shifted to their hands.

  Eve remembered bein
g both fascinated and revolted at being combined with a Tasker. They didn't look like humans, being a mix of alien biology and mechanical constructs, similar to a cross between a spider and a bat. They had multiple limbs for motion and dexterity, mechanical wing structures that operated like a hummingbird's wings, and a head without eyes. They used hearing for guidance, as well as sensors, cameras for sight, and radio frequencies for speech.

  The eight original Taskers found in the ship were vibrant blue in color. These eight were redesigned to be merged with the elders of the Maven group. The Taskers made from the supply ship materials, larger and less colorful, were merged with the Mavens most learned in science, medicine and engineering. The remaining eight Mavens decided to go into stasis and await some other solution to the toxic effects of the cicada bacteria.

  On Earth, the Mavens had been bred to fill a role in problem-solving the alien space craft, not in the art of survival. However, the Great Eight, as the eight elders became known, soon realized that their blended bodies were stronger, faster, and better at dealing with everything on their new world.

  Eve glanced down at the 'hand' holding Elvin's. Her revulsion had long since evaporated, replaced by a welcome strength and contentment. She might eventually even forget how it felt to have flesh touching flesh in affection.

  ***

  Years passed and the colony flourished, expanding to cover the planet, roughly the size of Earth's moon. Millions of inhabitants were cloned from the eight Mavens in stasis and were now biomechanical drones answering to the Great Eight. Each city was led by one of the twelve constructs, all loyal and devoted to the betterment of New Eden. The vast resources of this world, so long plundered by the so-called alien invaders of the past, were now plundered again by the brilliant children of Earth.