The Hannaria Series Book 2: Legacy--Prologue and Chapter 1 (Also Includes Link to View the Entire Series Online for Free)

Introduction by Jernard

“Do you know the difference between a hero and a villain, Jernard?” he asked as he took his boot and made a line in the wet sand in front of us.

Everything seemed real as I glanced around—the scent of saltwater, the waves breaking on the shore just before ebbing near my left foot—I even felt the sand squish between my toes as I took a step toward the line Paronis had made.  Looking down, I realized I was barefoot—and that my feet were those of a child.

I knew that I was dreaming.  Paronis had never known me by the name I now use—he had died over a thousand years before Rhaynan and I went to Earth.  Yet here I was looking up at him in his black Hannarian guard uniform, and my mind refused to allow me to wake up.  Having no other choice, I decided to play things out.

“A hero has a solid moral line that guides him,” I replied, hesitating for a moment because my voice sounded childlike as well. “He can push himself to that line—get right to the edge of it—but if he crosses it, it will wreck the very core of his identity.”

“You’ve been listening for once,” Paronis laughed as he then took the flat part of his boot and smoothed the line in with the rest of the sand. “A villain however doesn’t need to worry about crossing a line he doesn’t have—unless he creates one by choice.”

He took several steps closer to the ocean and made another line in the sand.  The waves overtook it within seconds, and he made another line.  After he did this several times, I sighed and walked up to him.

“So what happened to you?” I asked, a feeling of anguish making me forget none of this was even real. “Was the wave that hit you too big, or did you just get tired of drawing that line over and over again?”

“It was both,” he replied as his eyebrows rose, and he turned his head away from me and looked out at the horizon. “I took for granted that because I was doing a lot of good that I didn’t have to maintain that line anymore.  If the earthquake hadn’t happened, I might have found my way back—it was bad timing, but my choices were still—”

At that moment, Paronis groaned in pain and grabbed his chest, collapsing face-first into the ocean.  I rushed over to help him out of the water but stepped back as his body started to convulse and mutate.

“This isn’t real,” I said to myself, but my defense system wasn’t convinced as I felt a surge of energy hit my body. “Paronis is dead, and I’m on Earth.  I have to wake up.”

“You stopped me,” Paronis growled as he rose up out of the water, now towering over me at almost nine feet tall. “The question now is can you stop yourself?”

The monster leaned over to where we were face-to-face, water dripping off its yellow reptilian skin.  Its exhale blew my hair backwards, and my heart pounded as I saw my adult reflection in its shiny black eyes.  Its eyelids narrowed into a glare, and my own eyes glowed blue in terror.  My friend that I’d known for over three hundred years was gone forever—and replacing him was this evil creature that had killed at least a thousand of our people before it was stopped.

“I am not you, Paronis!” I shouted at the monster’s face, angry at my own subconscious. “You hear me?  I’m never going to be like you!”

The monster rose up, and for a moment it just looked down at me without making a sound.  Then it smirked, and I realized it wasn’t Paronis inside it anymore.

The monster was me.

Introduction by Matthew Verin

In my position, I’ve dealt with monsters before—but they were always of the human variety.  Last month, I met something that was not human.  It acted like one—and under other circumstances he probably would have fooled me just like he has everyone else on the planet.

I’ve tried to track him, but he’s learned how to cover his tracks now and destroyed all the previous evidence I had of his existence.  This thing is intelligent—clever—and I have no idea what it really is or what it wants.  All I know is that I have to try to stop it before it kills again—but if you’re reading this, it means I failed.

I hope one day you’ll forgive me and understand.  I love you, Ashley—and I’m sorry my obsession over this has hurt you and the boys so much.  That was never my intention—I just didn’t know what else to do.

Tyler and Will—I’m so proud of both of you, and I love you.  Take care of your mother, and be careful who you trust—I don’t mean to scare you, but this thing may come back to Washington.  After everything that’s happened, I’m sorry I’m not going to leave you both a better legacy than what’s going to seem like the rants of an insane man.

If you are someone who has the ability to do something about this, here is what I’ve learned over the past twenty-four days:

1)  You are looking for what appears to be a human male between the ages of 17-22.  He uses the same first names often—Jernard, Jerry, and Simon.  The last name always matches someone in the surrounding neighborhood or community that people know and trust.  This gives him credibility as most people just assume they’re related.

2)  Although he will act inept and vulnerable at times, he does this for a reason—so you will let your guard down.  Do not trust anything he says to you.

3)  Bullets will not kill him.  Running him over with a truck will not kill him.  At this point, I don’t know if—

I have to go.  It’s here.

Hand-written letter by Detective Matthew Verin, found in his abandoned car on October 14th, 1999—just under 114 years before the official contact date with the Hannarians.  Verin was never found, and no body was ever recovered.

Chapter 1—Jernard

Hannarian Transport Olemdi

October 7^th 201 B.C.Earth Time

“You’re crazy—you know that, right?” Paronis laughed as he checked my wrist cuffs and shook his head. “After what you’ve done, Ashner will do well to get reassigned to guarding the palace restrooms. How did you get by him anyway?”

He sat down in the pilot’s seat to my left and started the transport’s engines. Considering how close they had been when I was younger, I was surprised that Paronis wasn’t more upset that I had caused his younger brother so much torment.

Paronis and Ashner were the only set of identical twins I knew, though Paronis always claimed to be the older brother because he was born first. Their personalities couldn’t have been more different however. I couldn’t stand Ashner, and part of me hoped Paronis had been pulled from border patrol to go back to his old assignment of keeping me out of trouble. At least he hadn’t been a jerk about it, whereas Ashner approached the position like I was a prisoner—not the Ambassador to Aliond’s son.

“Are these necessary?” I asked as I held my hands up and jingled the cuffs, which were strung through the armrest of the co-pilot chair. “It’s not like I can go anywhere once we reach orbit.”

“Let me think about it,” he replied with a smile, then focused his attention back on the transport controls. “So have you figured out your big mistake yet?”

I looked away from him and out the front window as the ship took off from Kydena’s main spaceport. I’d been hiding on the planet for almost six months with no one from Hannaria knowing I was there. I could have stayed there even longer—but the price of keeping my secret would have been too high.

“I wouldn’t call rescuing Rhaynan a mistake at all,” I replied, still wishing I was at the hospital with her. “We almost died—I even thought I was dead at one point. I didn’t know I could heal until yesterday—I just thought I had Dad’s language ability, and that was it.”

“Then you’re even crazier than I thought,” Paronis said as he leveled the transport then put it on autopilot for a moment so he could turn around to look at me. “This girl must be something for you to run into a burning building after her. Why in the world did she run inside in the first place? It sounds like you two are made for each other.”

I felt my face flush as Paronis grinned, making me even more embarrassed.

“A lot of her family’s animals were inside the building,” I explained, looking down at the cuffs to see if I could find some way to unlock them myself. “By the time we got them all out, the smoke started getting to us. Rhay passed out, and I was barely able to get us both outside before the place collapsed.”

Paronis nodded, and his expression turned more serious. He took a small remote out of his pocket and pressed a button. The cuffs unlocked and fell to the floor.

“Is Rhaynan going to be all right?” he asked. “The doctors seemed so busy when I got there that I didn’t want to distract them.”

“They told me she’ll be fine,” I replied as I rubbed by wrists to get circulation back into them. “They just have to keep her in a coma for another day or two until her lungs heal. I donated some of my defense chemical in case they needed to use it, but they said her own body can handle it. It’s just going to take longer.”

Paronis leaned back into his seat and turned the autopilot back off again. I could already see Hannaria in the distance, and we were going to be there within thirty minutes. A wave of dread swept over me as I realized just how much trouble I was about to face.

“I know you want to be there when she wakes up, but I promised Cryuse I’d bring you back,” Paronis said as he glanced back and forth between me and the controls in front of him. “It’s nothing personal—in fact, Ashner had been bragging so much about replacing me at the palace that I was getting tired of hearing him. Out on the border, that kind of arrogance will get you killed. Ashner needed to learn not underestimate people—even spoiled brats like you. You’re even worse than him, but at least you have an excuse. I don’t see how Cryuse just expects you to turn out right without any adult guidance.”

If it had been six months earlier, I’d have taken offense to his comment and made sure word got back to the Emperor and my father on what he’d said. Having a greater degree of responsibility and freedom on Kydena had changed me however—I hoped for the better.

“You’re right,” I sighed as I looked down at the floor. “Except maybe now I’m tired of having an excuse. So was that my big mistake that got me caught—arrogance?”

He smiled like he was trying to fight from laughing.

“Your girlfriend’s mother,” he replied. “She’s Jicah’s aunt. Your father’s known where you were this entire time.”

I rolled my eyes, now realizing this had nothing to do with the fire like I’d thought. Looking back with this new knowledge, I had been arrogant—and just plain stupid.

Jicah was a few years older than me and second-in-line to the Emperor. Dad had been mentoring him on trade relations since before I was born, which had never bothered me until my mother died from cancer. I was a small child at the time—my family’s youngest son—and Dad had still not sat down with me and talked about it. Since Mom’s death, it even seemed like he’d been avoiding me on purpose—staying on Aliond to mentor Jicah and only coming to Hannaria about once a month to make sure I still existed and was going to school.

All of this had hurt so much that I’d been willing to do almost anything to get Dad’s attention—even stealing a Hannarian royal guard transport and taking it to another planet. Though I was thankful Paronis had been sent for me instead of Ashner, I was disappointed that Dad hasn’t come himself—even if he’d been furious with me, it would have meant some actual communication.

“So what’s going to happen to me?” I asked. “If Ashner has restroom guard duty, I hate to think what I’m going to be assigned—Ambassador to the Marimoots?”

“Those fur balls are annoying enough—I don’t think they need any representation from you,” Paronis laughed then paused for a moment like he was debating whether to tell me something. “The Emperor does have an assignment for you—it’s some planet beyond the border that doesn’t even know we’re out here yet. It sounds kind of dangerous in my opinion, so I’m not sure why they’re in such a rush to send you instead of your father or maybe Covey.”

“The Emperor wants me to leave soon?” I asked, shaking my head. “I can’t—Rhaynan…”

Paronis sighed.

“You’re talking to the wrong guy, Bardin—I wish I could do something about this, but I can’t. Even at fifteen, you’ve got more power that I’ll ever have. You’re what—fortieth-in-line or something? I know Ashner and I are so far down we might as well not even be on the list.”

I looked around the ship for a second, now aware because of what Paronis had called me that I was in the middle of reliving a memory—not a dream or nightmare. Bardin was a shortened version of my real name. I rarely used it on Earth, since it tended to bring up a lot of bad memories for me. I sighed and turned back around to face Paronis, hoping this particular memory would end soon. I already knew what was coming.

“I’m somewhere around ninety-fifth at this point,” I replied, and I noticed he seemed relieved by this. “Don’t worry, I never want to be in charge—being an ambassador is going to be enough to handle…”

I could have said anything to him at this point, but my brain would not have changed his responses or the outcome of the memory. I wondered if there was a reason behind this—like my brain was trying to show me something. I wasn’t even sure what had triggered this memory or where I was when it happened. My main hope was it wasn’t in the middle of a busy intersection.

“You’re a smart kid,” Paronis said with a concerned expression on his face. “You just need more training. Cryuse should have been mentoring you along with Jicah this entire time. I don’t know what you’d think of the idea, but if you’re willing to accept my help and talk to the Emperor I have a century’s worth of leave built up. That could at least stall things long enough for Rhaynan to get better and for you to go to that planet together—if that’s what you both want for your lives long-term.”

I sat in a stunned silence—realizing that despite everything else that happened later, Rhaynan and I would have never married and gone to Earth together if it wasn’t for Paronis offering to help me. If I had went alone at fifteen under our previous Emperor’s orders, most likely I wouldn’t have survived on Earth for a month. Why had they wanted to send me to Earth that soon? It didn’t make any sense.

“Thank you,” I managed to say as we started to enter Hannaria’s outer atmosphere and headed toward the palace city. “I don’t understand, though—why do you even care? I’m not even related to you.”

“Because I was an arrogant brat once, too,” he replied as he slowed the transport down to prepare for a vertical landing. “Look, I know what you’re going through—Ashner and I lost our father when we were twelve, and our mother had a hard time, too. Your dad does love you—he’s just a wreck right now and doesn’t realize it. Every time he looks at you, he sees your mother—you resemble Myla more than your brothers and sisters. That’s why he kept avoiding you just before you left—he’s still grieving and won’t let her go. It’s not anything you’ve done or haven’t done, Bardin. Your father is going to have to deal with all of this—hopefully before he damages his relationship with you beyond all repair.”

“How do you know all of this?” I asked, trying hard not to lose my composure in both in the memory and my current consciousness. “Did Ashner tell you?”

Paronis hesitated for a moment, then decided to trust me.

“I read Cryuse’s mind when he asked me to bring you back,” he replied. “Most of the time I leave that ability turned off because it’s distracting and as a courtesy to people’s privacy, but I didn’t with him. Ashner just leaves his on all the time, which is why I was wondering earlier how you managed to escape and steal his transport.”

I smirked.

“I’ve found a loophole in your abilities,” I replied. “I’ll show you when—”

“When what?” Paronis asked, and then his eyes grew wide and began to glow almost pure green in horror as he turned to where I was looking.

This was like a nightmare—too unreal and terrible to be something that could ever happen. Only it was real, and it had happened. The entire city was collapsing right in front of us— ancient skyscrapers were topping over, and cracks were developing in the surface right in the middle of the city and trailing through the surrounding countryside.

People were running out of the buildings, but there was still nowhere for them to go to escape the debris. Even over the sound of the transport’s engines, I could hear them screaming and calling out for help—and we could sense thousands of people already trapped in the rubble below us. Paronis pushed the override button on the transport’s landing system then pulled up using the manual controls just before we were going to be on the ground.

“What is this?” I asked, my heart pounding faster as my own defense system kicked in. “An earthquake?”

“I need to get down there right now,” Paronis replied as he nodded. “Can you fly this thing? Just keep circling until it’s over, then find a safe place out in the fields to land. Got it?”

Before I could protest, he jumped up from his seat and ran back to the cargo bay. I moved over to the pilot’s seat just as I heard the back door opening. The entire ship depressurized, and I kept my hands on both of the main controls as the ship began to shake. A few seconds later, the door closed back, and the shaking stopped.

When I circled around the first time, I spotted Paronis outside what used to be the palace’s west courtyard entrance. He had leapt out of the transport and landed on his feet without having any device to slow him down—yet another thing I didn’t know he and Ashner could do.

“Can you hear me?” he asked over the communication system, and it took me a moment to find the right control I needed to respond.

“Yeah, I can hear you,” I replied. “Are you all right? Is it over?”

“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice was shaking. “Listen—I need you to land the transport then bring me as many medical supplies out of the back as you can carry—there are two large kits underneath the back passenger seats you should get first. I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t even know where to start, but there are people trapped everywhere down here. I have no idea where the other guards are, and we don’t have a lot of time to get them all out.”

“I’m on my way,” I said, then spotted an area just outside the city that looked safe to land. “How do you get this thing switched back to automatic again? I’ve never done a manual landing before—I don’t know how.”

“You don’t want to switch it to automatic, Bardin,” he replied, but I had just located and pressed the button as he said it.

The transport’s engines changed positions too fast, and the ship spun around and toppled out of control. I tried to pull up but became disoriented by the streaks of color in front of my vision. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the impact.

When the transport hit the ground, I felt something sharp jab through my stomach. The metal plating around the control section creaked and closed in around me, and a sharp pain shot through every nerve in my body before my defense system could take over to dull it. When I opened my eyes, the only light I could see was coming from behind me. I couldn’t move anything below my waist—I was either pinned, paralyzed, or both.

“Help!” I shouted. “Can anyone hear me? I can’t move!”

I smelled fuel—it was leaking somewhere above me. Then the ground began to shake again—an aftershock—and I felt the entire ship drop down about another ten feet. I screamed out in pain from the movement and shivered as my body began to feel colder.

My defense chemical was keeping me alive, but the wound I had was not going to heal until whatever was in me was taken out. I felt like I had an hour—maybe two if I was lucky. What was worse was I had now become yet another victim to rescue, and Paronis was on his own with no medical—

“What part of ‘you don’t want to do that, Bardin’ did you not get?” an annoyed voice said above me, and I heard metal began to bend above me until Paronis had pealed back the last piece of the transport's plating. “Are you hurt, kid?”

“I can’t move,” I replied, then I looked down in shock at the now visible steel beam that had impaled me.

“Great,” Paronis sighed, and it was the last thing I heard before I passed out.

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Book 1, Out of the Gray, is available through Amazon.com (Kindle Version) and Lulu.com (Paperback and Adobe Reader ebook).  Legacy will be available in novel format in November 2009.

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