The Awakened: A Wandering Stars Novel Read online

  The Awakened: A Wandering Stars Novel

  The Awakened [1]

  Jason Tesar

  4shadow, llc (2010)

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Christian, Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Military, General

  Christianttt Science Fictionttt Fictionttt Fantasyttt Militaryttt Generalttt

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  Product Description

  Over five thousand years ago, a renegade faction of angels abandoned the spiritual realm and began their inhabitation of earth. Worshiped as gods for their wisdom and power, they corrupted the realm of the physical and forever altered the course of history. Amidst the chaos of a dying world, a lone voice foretold the awakening of a warrior who would bring an end to this evil perpetrated against all of creation. But with the cataclysmic destruction of earth and rebirth of humanity, the prophecy went unfulfilled and eventually faded from the memory of our kind—until now! The physical dimension is fractured. What remain now are numerous fragmented worlds moving simultaneously through time, sharing a common history, connected only by a guarded portal. On a parallel earth, a child is rescued from prison and trained in the arts of war by a mystical order of clerics. When he returns to his home in search of his family, he becomes entangled in a brutal conspiracy to gain control of the Empire. Racing to unravel the secrecy of the enemy’s identity and motive, he is haunted by the memories of his past and drawn by the destiny that awaits him. In his debut novel, Jason Tesar delves into the heart of an ancient legend, launching an epic saga that will journey from earth’s mythological past to its post-apocalyptic future, blending the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and military/political suspense.

  The Awakened: Book One

  Jason Tesar

  Published by 4shadow Publishing

  Copyright 2008-2010 by Jason Tesar

  Books One through Three are available in a single print edition at most online retailers. For more information, visit http://www.jasontesar.com

  Scripture quotations taken from the Authorized King James Version, Public Domain, 1611

  Quotations taken from the Book of Enoch, Not in Copyright, Translation by R H Charles, 1917

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Carly, my love

  You are my light and laughter

  Without you this book wouldn’t exist

  Foreword

  By the Author

  I began writing The Awakened in the winter of 1998. The company I worked for at the time closed down every year between Christmas and New Year’s and I suddenly found myself without responsibility for a period of time. For years I’d been toying with a storyline in my mind—inventing characters and visualizing scenes—but had yet to venture beyond the confines of my imagination. As my body moved through the motions of a physically laborious job, my mind wandered, unengaged and unchallenged by my work. The characters became real to me as I spent countless hours experiencing their lives, living their passions and struggles. In the back of mind, I always thought that someday I’d write it all down.

  And then someday happened. As the snow fell outside, I sat in front of a computer with a cup of steaming coffee and began typing the first scene that I had already witnessed a thousand times in my head. Every last movement and word of the characters, every detail of their environment I could see as if they were right in front of me. But I struggled, coming quickly to the realization that writing is much more difficult than imagining. There is no explanation in imagining. The scenes just play out and make sense because you are both the author and audience. But writing is altogether different. Writing means commitment. Writing means exposing yourself through words that someone else may read. And for an introvert like me, that was a scary concept. Still, I pushed through and after several days I had a very short stack of papers to show for my effort. It was more than I had ever written for a school assignment and it gave me a measure of satisfaction at getting something out of my head and down onto paper.

  New Year’s Day came and went and the pace of life sped up once more. Until one night, maybe a year and a half later, my wife asked, “What ever happened with that story you started writing?” We began talking and our conversation didn’t stop for several hours. I told her about my characters, where they had come from and what they were going to face. I explained the geography of the Empire, the main plot and subplots. I even told her about the prequel to my story and that one day I wanted to write that as well. When I finished, she was almost speechless. I say almost because she did say something very important, something that changed the trajectory of my thoughts and actions.

  “You have to write your story—like right now! You can’t just keep it in your head! When you’re eighty years old and sitting in a rocking chair on our front porch, do you want to be the person who always thought about writing a book? Or do you want to be the person who did it?”

  Hearing those words and seeing her excitement was like pouring gasoline on a fire. That was it. I was going to do it; I was going to write my story. From that night on, I committed to myself that I would write at least one night a week. Though a seemingly insignificant amount of effort, it was a major turning point for me. Writing was slow-going at first, but over time I saw improvement. I was gradually becoming able to express my thoughts without struggle. I no longer spent hours agonizing over a few sentences, but could write a couple pages in an evening.

  This continued for years until, by an interesting coincidence, I finished my story roughly a week before my first child was born. As the sleepless nights began, I put my writing on the shelf and didn’t return to it until a year later. That’s when I realized that my story was far from complete. Though I had a few hundred pages, I realized it needed some resolution, and the characters and scenes I’d planned as sequels would need to be pulled in to accomplish it. This was daunting at first, as I realized that I wouldn’t be satisfied until I got the whole storyline down on paper. But as I started on part two, I quickly settled back into the routine of writing and found myself looking forward to it. It was like reading a good book, only much better because it was the book that I’d wanted to read but couldn’t find at any bookstore. All week I would plan out the scenes and work through the dialogue in my head, so that when I sat down to write I was able to write five pages on a good night.

  Two years and a few hundred pages later, I reached a stopping point once again as my second child was being born. And like before, I took a break for about a year. But when the time came for me to start on part three, my passion and commitment were already growing at an exponential rate. Now I reserved two nights a week for writing. And when that wasn’t enough, I started getting up early on weekends to squeeze in a few hours before anyone in my house was awake. It didn’t take long before this behavior began to spill over into the weekdays also, as I looked for every available moment to continue my story. It was addicting. To make up something out of thin air and then watch it come to life. I finished writing part three of The Awakened in the fall of 2007. What had previously taken me years to complete with the first two parts, I accomplished in six short months. It was a major accomplishment for me and I found I could breathe a little easier having released the story and characters from the prison of my imagination.

  But even as I took pleasure in the realizat
ion that I’d just accomplished what might otherwise have been a life-long unrealized dream, my imagination refused to be satisfied. Already I was thinking of a prequel. Like a monster that grows when you feed it, this was not just a book I’d written, but the start of an epic saga requiring several series of books to fully bring it to life.

  So that is how The Awakened came to be. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And if you find that the story finishes sooner than you want it to, don’t worry, there’s more to come—much more!

  —Jason Tesar

  The History and Prophecy

  (a)…the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation…wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

  (b)And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them…

  (c)And they were in all two hundred; who descended.

  (d)And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them…

  (e)…taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them…

  (f)There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

  (g)…whose height was three thousand ells, who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood…

  (h)…and as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven...

  (i)Therefore, I will raise up one from among those you despise. And I will awaken his eyes to the mysteries which I have hidden from men since the foundations of the world. His feet will I make to tread upon the paths of destruction and his hands to make war. He will uproot the seeds of corruption which you have sown throughout the earth. And then you will know that I am the Lord and my justice is everlasting.

  The Book of Enoch 6:1-2(b), 6:6-8(c), 7:1(d), 7:2-6(g), 8:1(e), 8:3(h)

  The Epistle of Jude 1:6, 1:13(a)

  Genesis 6:4(f)

  From the writings of Ebnisha(i)

  Chapter 1

  The young analyst glanced quickly around the room, his eyes darting between the flickering computer screens and scores of other technical personnel. His knee bounced with nervous energy, resonating with the frantic mood pulsing through the communications center. As he waited impatiently, he reached forward and grabbed his coffee mug and took a quick swig. It had gone cold. From a television on the wall to his right came the sound of yet another news reporter trying to present a different perspective on the same story that had dominated the media for more than a week.

  “…as ocean levels continue to rise across the globe. This only adding fuel to the already heated environmental debate that is drawing new lines of separation between members on both sides of the aisle. But while some argue over the potential cause of this global catastrophe, others believe that the issues of greatest concern are the ghastly death toll and the millions of displaced people in nearly every country, seeking refuge by moving inland. Already, the burden of supporting these refugees is being seen…”

  “What did you want?” sounded a coarse voice from behind.

  The analyst jumped, spilling his coffee. He quickly wiped at his wrinkled slacks but the coffee had already soaked in. Giving up, he turned to address his superior. “Have you been watching any of this?”

  “I’m well aware of what’s happening,” the older man said, his eyebrows wrinkling into a scowl. “It’s on every news station on the planet. But we still have jobs to do. And yours is to gather data on your target.”

  “But that’s why I called you over here. They’re the ones that caused it!”

  The older man’s once impatient body language softened. “Show me.”

  “Ok–so, I was going over the surface contour data from the satellites when I noticed that the ocean levels were rising faster in the southern hemisphere. And that gave me the idea to run a simulation, comparing the current mapping data to the…”

  “Skip to the point, Matthews!”

  Setting down his mug, the analyst leaned forward and grabbed hold of the mouse. Frozen on one of the four screens at his workstation was a distorted satellite image. “This is their South American facility,” he mumbled to his superior without making eye contact. He pecked a key and un-paused the video footage, the distortion disappearing immediately.

  “This is last week,” he said. “Watch the atrium roof.”

  The older man stood with his arms folded, watching the screen.

  In the midst of a lush jungle was a compound with high fences topped with razor wire. The interior of the compound had been cleared of all vegetation. At the north end sat an enormous rectangular building with a circular glass roof at its center. A six digit time display showed at the bottom right corner of the screen with the seconds ticking by.

  At 10:06:54, the glass roof exploded upward, scattering shards of debris in every direction. A dark object materialized in the void where the roof had been. When it sprouted wings and began to rise in elevation, it became obvious that it was some sort of bird.

  The analyst paused the footage and increased the magnification. “You see this rectangular box on the roof?” he said, pointing to the screen. “It’s an air-handler manufactured in Germany. I tracked down the schematics and got dimensions. It measures sixteen feet on its longest side, which…”

  “…puts the wingspan at about thirty feet,” the older man interrupted. “What the hell are they doing down there?”

  “…synthetic biology? Who knows?” replied the analyst, un-pausing the footage. “But watch this.”

  When the time display read 10:07:22, a geyser of water came bursting through the hole in the roof. The analyst zoomed outward, showing the compound engulfed in water in a matter of seconds.

  “The amount of water is just unreal. Check this out,” he said, typing in a new time signature. The footage jumped forward a few hours, showing the entire valley flooded.

  “Where is all that water coming from?” the older man mumbled.

  “I don’t know. It’s way too much to be an underground river or something. But it stopped,” the young man said simply. “Here, look at this.” He punched in a new date and the image switched to the present, showing a live feed. He clicked a few times with his mouse and zoomed in again.

  “See? The water used to be surging all over this area like it was still coming up from underneath the building. But now the water’s calm…” The analyst trailed off as he noticed something new. “Hmm…,” he said, clicking the mouse to zoom in even further.

  “That’s a dive team,” the older man said, leaning closer to the screen. “…five of them, and a boat.”

  “…four,” the young man corrected.

  “What?”

  “There are only four divers. The fifth isn’t in a wet suit. See how he’s swimming away? It looks like they’re chasing him.”

  “Go back!” the older man said. “Show me how he got in the water.”

  The analyst quickly scrolled the footage backward until everyone disappeared, then played it again. “There’s the dive team arriving. They’re getting in the water,” he mumbled as he carefully moved through the footage. “And there. The other guy just comes up out of the water a half hour later. And there’s the dive team coming after him.”

  The older man squinted, then stood up straight and grabbed the analyst’s phone from his desktop. He punched a button and waited for the call to be routed.

  The analyst grinned. “Are we going to take
him in?”

  The older man nodded. “We have six teams in the area on standby. This could be a major breakthrough for us.”

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  The chopper skimmed low over the treetops, flying parallel to the undulations in the terrain. The large-leafed vegetation bent low from the downdraft. A hundred yards ahead was a gap in the otherwise thick jungle treeline. Seconds later, the helicopter passed over the clearing and a two-lane blacktop road that ran east and west. The chopper swung around to the east and descended into a nearby meadow. When it was still several feet from the ground, five men jumped out and landed in the knee-high grass, moving quickly toward the road. Their camouflaged clothing blended perfectly with the surroundings, as did the camouflaged tape wrapped around the automatic weapons slung across their backs.

  The team leader took point and ran for the treeline on the opposite side of the road, while the others followed. Once inside the cover of the vegetation, the team changed direction and began to move west, keeping the road a few yards to their right.

  They moved quickly and silently through the dense jungle for a hundred yards before the team leader held up his hand and brought them to a halt. He put a finger to the spiraled cord coming from his ear and listened, then motioned for the others to move toward the road. Two of his men continued another twenty feet up the road and laid out a spike strip before returning.

  As soon as they were in position, the team leader could hear the distant roar of an engine. It grew slowly in volume until an uncovered green jeep came into view around a bend in the road. He summed up the situation with only a glance.