THE SIEGE OF SIRIUS
A SPLINTERED GALAXY SPACE FANTASY NOVEL
EDDIE R. HICKS
The Siege of Sirius
A Splintered Galaxy Novel
By Eddie R. Hicks
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Copyright © 2017 Eddie R. Hicks
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
No aliens were harmed in the writing of this novel.
Cover Art by: Deranged Doctor Designs
CONTENTS
Also by Eddie R. HicksForewordPrologue1. Foster2. EISS agent 19, Codename: Test3. Chevallier4. Williams5. Foster6. Foster7. Chevallier8. Williams9. Foster10. Foster11. Chevallier12. Williams13. McDowell14. Foster15. Chevallier16. Williams17. Williams18. Chevallier19. Williams20. Foster21. Nereid22. Williams23. Chevallier24. Williams25. Foster26. Foster27. Rivera28. Kostelecky29. Bailey30. Kostelecky31. Chang32. Bailey33. Rivera34. Pierce35. Foster36. Foster37. Eve38. Foster39. Chevallier40. Foster41. ChevallierEpilogueAfterwordUprising of the Exiled Preview
ALSO BY EDDIE R. HICKS
Splintered Galaxy Saga
Celestial Ascension
Uprising of the Exiled
Equilibrium of Terror: Part 1
Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2
Splintered Galaxy Standalone Novels
The Siege of Sirius (Coming December 12)
Splintered Galaxy Short Stories
Red Fortitude (Part of the The Officer anthology)
FOREWORD
Greetings! If this is your first time dipping into the Splinter Galaxy universe, worry not as this story can be read on its own. However, there will be tiny spoilers from Celestial Ascension. If you do plan on reading that, and want to be surprised at what unfolds, I suggest you check that out before continuing, otherwise enjoy the read!
PROLOGUE
Foster residence
Nashville, Tennessee
August 2, 2018, 04:53 EST
A strong storm front pushed onto the east coast of America . . . and the rest of the world.
Plasma rained from the skies, it didn’t stop. Its thunderous roars leveled entire cities in a matter of minutes. Rebecca’s home was no longer safe.
Her eyes opened, her head throbbed with pain, her hair a disaster, and her teenage body pinned under a bookshelf. Every window shattered into thousands of fragments. The TV crashed onto the burning floor; seconds earlier it was playing the Emergency Alert System. Her home glowed red and orange as raging fires ripped through it, releasing intense heat and choking smoke in its wake. The ground rumbled, over and over.
Expensive posh curtains had been reduced to charred material, the staircase leading upstairs had all but collapsed. Her mother frantically yanked Rebecca back up after unburying her from the fallen bookshelf and debris amidst the hellfire inferno. Rebecca staggered slightly upon seeing the state of their once upscale neighborhood. It was as if the apocalypse was upon them.
Alien space ships appeared before the rising sun, spilling orbs of green plasma down onto the city of Nashville.
Her mother tugged on her arm trying to drag her out of the burning house and out and into her car. Only it’s not where Rebecca wanted to go, not yet at least. She broke free from her mother’s grip and darted to their backyard patio, past the searing, hot flames and black smoke. She couldn’t leave it behind, not after all the work she had put into earning enough money to buy it for her father. The telescope had to come with them during their escape, alien invaders were not going to take it away.
Rebecca had fond memories of growing up in this house over the last eighteen years of her life. She ran through its halls and rooms enough times to know how long it would take to run to the patio, then run back into the house and out the front door to freedom. Ignore the fire, heat, and smoke, and you got this, she told herself. Yes, there was no reason why she shouldn’t try to get the telescope before turning tail and fleeing.
Her mother panicked and pleaded with her to return as Rebecca made her way through the flames; pleading that went unanswered, Rebecca needed to focus on the task at hand. She arrived at the deck, it too was set ablaze. Her bare feet bled; she forgot to take into account the hot shards of glass littering the floor. Rebecca secured the telescope in her hands, refusing to look at and assess the damage done to her body.
There was one final task left; to escape with the telescope in hand. A task she didn’t plan out very well as she saw the flames that engulfed her home spread quickly. There was no safe route back to the driveway up front. The heat caused her to sweat profusely and the smoke forced her to cough nonstop.
She heard what sounded like her father calling out to her from inside. She tried to follow the source of his voice, in hopes that he might have found a safe route to travel inside the burning house. Her frantic search for her father’s voice came to an end when she was once again knocked backward in the wake of plasma bombardment from the alien invaders.
I-40 westbound
August 2, 2018, 14:23 CST
Rebecca’s body pulsated with throbbing pain. She opened her eyes and discovered she was sitting on the front passenger’s side of her mother, Liana’s SUV. She saw a whole lot of nothing that surrounded the empty lane of Interstate 40, as she looked away from the crumpled NASA rejection letter addressed to her father. The state of the highway wasn’t a good sign, neither were the roaring sounds of fighter jets flying high above them followed by the tumbling noise of one, or two military helicopters. The aliens were still a threat.
Dad, she thought and looked about. Her father ideally should have been in the passengers’ side of the SUV, she should have been in the backseat.
“Mom!” Rebecca cried out.
“Not now, hon,” she replied in her southern accent just like hers.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Give me time to focus,” Liana’s eyes stayed forward at the highway that lay ahead. “You know how I am about talkin’ and driving.”
Rebecca’s hand reached over to activate the radio, in hopes of learning what transpired after she was knocked out during their dramatic escape from Nashville. Static. She switched stations several times, each one transmitted static or an emergency broadcast message asking everyone to take shelter or travel west.
“Don’t bother, it ain’t workin’,” Liana said.
Rebecca pulled her cell phone out from the pocket of her blackened blue jeans, decorated with small droplets of blood, her blood. The wallpaper of the phone displayed a selfie of her she took two months earlier during her eighteenth birthday party. She wondered if the happy girl with brown hair and blonde highlights would be able to achieve such a level of happiness again as the human race entered a new dark era, one they might not recover from.
Life as she knew it was falling apart.
2018 marked the year everything changed for the human race in the aftermath of the Hashmedai Empire’s failed invasion. Advanced alien technology found its way into the hands of brilliant human engineers and scientists who quickly learned how to reproduce it and adapt it to human society. In a few short years, the human race united to become a new and dominant superpower capable of interstellar travel and building alliances with alien species throughout the galaxy. A dangerous galaxy at that.