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  Shattered Light

  Universal Wilderness: Book Two

  Fredrick Niles

  Fever Garden Publishing

  Copyright © 2020 by Fredrick Niles

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  SHATTERED LIGHT

  First edition. August 7, 2020.

  ISBN: 978-1-950021-08-6

  Fever Garden Publishing

  Cover design by

  TheCoverCollection.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. The Void Tunnel

  2. Desia

  3. On the Shores of Lovelorn

  4. Byzantine Jackson

  5. Invasion

  6. Capture

  7. Prisoners

  8. Counting Down

  9. A Song Over the Radio

  10. The Inflamed

  11. Defenses

  12. Terminal

  13. What it Means to End the World

  Also by Fredrick Niles

  About the Author

  “The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.”

  Tom Clancy

  “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

  John 1:5 (NASB)

  Prologue

  Seamus Clark, the Minister of Defense for the People’s Union Coalition, sat in a sparsely furnished room with twenty-five other officials for the weekly Strategic Planning meeting. They all sat around a long grey table with the brand new reclining chairs that had recently replaced the aluminum ones after the last budget was pushed through and Clark noticed that the tone in the room had very quickly jumped from hostile to friendly and was now easing back into hostile.

  It was absolutely preposterous that the quality of seating was something he had to consider when submitting proposals but here he was. Naturally, there were far greater variables to consider—public awareness of the riots in the Onyx System, opportunities for funding, and the President’s approval rating for starters—but in his nineteen years of experience as Minister of Defense, he had learned that mood decided everything. He had learned that his proposals were received more positively in the afternoon after people had already eaten lunch and weren’t prone to the irritation of hunger. Mondays were best for Strategic Planning meetings because everyone in this room was a schemer at heart, and schemers didn’t like to have to alter their plans halfway through the week. Then, most importantly, young ambitious senators with their I’m the only one who can save the universe attitude were easy to lead around by leaking information to the media and gaming public opinion, while the slovenly comfort-protecting old guard could be manipulated by leaking new information to them directly and allowing them to assert their relevance.

  As far as today’s proposal was concerned, he would be pursuing the old guard. He had already won a few of the younger senators over by convincing them that the Pillon System was a backwoods cesspool of separatist rhetoric that needed to be bolted shut and shoveled full of dirt if they wanted to stop the riots in the Onyx System and regain political control. Violent race-based crimes had been occurring more and more frequently, and if they wanted to clamp a lid on it they’d have to stem the flow of information to that area.

  So now he’d be pursuing the older bureaucrats that had an ax to grind with the Pillon System and wanted that thorn-in-the-side removed before they retired. And that was the key: young politicians would ignore the truth for the sake of ideals while old politicians would outright lie for the sake of settling old grievances. And the Pillon System had certainly racked up their fair share of grievances with elected officials.

  So today he’d be focusing on getting this proposal pushed through with this room of babbling ingrates, most of whom comprised the old guard. So his strategy would be to exploit their sensitivity to time.

  “The Pillon System is the last system existing outside of the net,” he said, addressing the room. “Most of their communication is word-of-mouth and we all know how reliable that is. So not only are they constantly misinformed about current events but they then spread that misinformation back into the other systems. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but the public’s attitude toward the Pillon System is steadily tilting away from them being a quaint outer colony and towards them being a breeding ground for separatist sentiments. Most influential public figures think we’re already dragging our feet on implementing regulations and have begun to blame Pillon for the riots and ideologically motivated crimes in the Onyx System. So if we can launch a blitz attack—get in there fast and hard—and get a Light Wire up and running before news of the action begins to filter out by word-of-mouth then we can count the operation as a victory towards progress and hopefully get the Onyx System under control before the next election cycle.” Clark leaned back in his new office chair. “But the clock is ticking here guys. The situation in Onyx is unstable and if we don’t get this under control now, then who knows what it’ll look like in a few months.”

  “Doesn’t it take a long time to build a Light Wire installation?” asked a willowy white-haired man named Bick Johnson. Johnson was the Secretary of the Treasury, and while Clark would have liked his approval, it probably mattered the least of all.

  “I have a group of operatives on the ground on Desia who have already built the installation inside of an abandoned iron refinery. All we need to do now is switch it on.”

  Clark was proud of that. Getting operatives who could be both trusted and discreet onto a planet like Desia was no easy task, and then smuggling in all of the materials necessary for the construction of the Light Wire had been monumental in itself. Over the last few years, tiny pieces of equipment had to be slowly filtered in shipments of building supplies through a non-regulated company who took fistfuls of cash under the table and—by the time this was all done—a few well-placed energy bolts to the head.

  That was for later, though. Right now, Clark just had to get the Wire up and running.

  The Light Wire was something of a new technology that used Light Cores to instantly transmit information to other Light Wire Facilities and Light Cores, which could then transmit to any station in-system. Light Cores were rare and required special circuit grounding to contain, they were also what allowed ships to travel through Void Gates.

  People still had a few Tesla Arcs tucked away, which were the previous form of Void navigation hardware, but most had been confiscated when the People’s Union Coalition or PUC had outlawed all private Void travel. Most of the arcs had then been repurposed to power the onboard weapons systems for the PUC’s naval fleet. Now, the only ships left that could legally jump from system to system were logistical, military, and public transit vessels. All of these were closely screened and anyone trying to travel without the correct authorization would be detained without trial under the Union Protection Act, one of Seamus Clark’s greatest achievements. The UPA had cut down violent crime numbers by over 60%, owing mostly to the heavy restrictions on unregulated travel. It also gave law enforcement officials strict quotas and an ambitious violent crime rate threshold that they couldn’t exceed without losing funding.

  That wasn’t what Minister Clark was focused on now, however. What interested him now was the final and most important goal of his career: the control of information.

  Each Light Wire facility was owned and operated by the PUC government, which meant that nothing
could pass through it without being given the “okay” by a censorship official. Most people didn’t realize it but the PUC’s biggest war wasn’t fought with energy bolts or Tesla Arc bombardments but with information. Information and misinformation created civil unrest and led to riots, hate crimes, and generally misinformed voters. Even things like robbery and assault fell under Clark’s jurisdiction, so if he could manufacture systematic solutions to those by getting the right people in office then he’d be saving millions of lives.

  And the Pillon System was the last refuge for separatist sympathizers that would rather bury their heads in the sand and play a deadly game of telephone with vital facts and news. If Clark could secure Pillon, then he could secure every planetary system under PUC control.

  “If it’s as easy as throwing a switch,” said Vice President Kurtz, a heavyset man with sharp blue eyes, “then why don’t you just do that? Why do we need to bust down their door?”

  “Because it would be taken down almost immediately,” Clark said, trying not to lose his patience. “Desian authorities would have an armed response team on the premises in under ten minutes and from there all they would have to do is rig up a few pounds of C4 to bring it down. Plus, if we can get in there fast enough, I’d like to broker a deal with those in charge. If we can have televised images of the Light Wire going up with their endorsement, then that could go a long way.”

  “A deal?” Kurtz scoffed. “Desia barely has any authorities. You’ll be shaking hands with some powerless shell of a figure.”

  “So to be clear,” President Richard Cole interrupted from his spot at the head of the table. Clark watched the man recline in his new chair with just a twinge of satisfaction. “You are proposing an attack? Not a political takeover but a full-scale naval invasion. Am I correct?”

  Clark nodded. “I am. I suspect there will be some level of casualties and general loss of life, but weigh that against the long-term security and stability of an entire interplanetary system and I think you’ll see the math works heavily in our favor.”

  “Mmmhmmm.” The President looked down at the table. “Will you be using combat synthetics or PUC personnel?”

  “PUC personnel,” Clark answered without hesitation. “Synths won’t be good for much other than standing guard after all of the fighting is over. Now, it should be over relatively quickly, I should add, but the point is: this attack is going to be absolutely crushing and overwhelming. But I’m not looking for a bloodbath. I need control, not dead bodies.”

  “And what if public opinion changes? What if our actions in the Pillon System are seen as an aggressive act of imperialism?”

  Clark shook his head emphatically. “This is progress, not imperialism. Imperialism is what happened before the People’s Union Coalition was formed. If anything, what these separatist fascists are doing is imperialistic. They’re holdovers of an inherently oppressive structure that was founded in conquering new worlds through force and domination. What we’re doing is eliminating any vestige of that. And with the Light Wire we can get on top of all news and dissemination of information. There will be the occasional conspiracy theory, sure, but those sources have already cried wolf so many times that it would almost be suspicious if they didn’t.”

  “And if something does leak? Say one of your Marauders guns down a civilian in the streets and someone takes a video of it and spreads it around to their friends? Then their friends spread it to their friends and so on?”

  Anger flashed through Clark’s head and he hoped it didn’t show on his face. “Marauder” was a slang term for the Surgical Equalizing Unit Program he had worked on as a General with the former Minister of Defense. Whenever someone in this room used the word, it was almost certainly derogatory. On more than one occasion, Clark had considered submitting a proposal for the term to be put on the banned speech list as it undermined the public’s opinion of his special forces assets and thus, endangered the lives of the people he was trying to protect. In effect, the word was an act of literal violence.

  “Video footage can be easily fabricated these days,” Clark replied, filtering the scorn from his voice. “There are already hundreds of those videos floating around, all of them forgeries. Evidence isn’t proof of anything anymore. It’s just political ammunition.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about. What if our political opponents get ahold of it?”

  “I don’t think you’re understanding me,” Clark said, then immediately regretted it. “I see your concern: you’re worried about this operation undermining our credibility. But if I may speak honestly, I’ve spent years pouring over footage that has been released from the Pillon System and let me assure you of this: there’s so much of that shit coming out of there already that it would just be white noise.” He held up a hand. “Pardon the language.”

  “I see,” the President said. “You’re actively trying to stop harmful information from being disseminated, not provide another opportunity for it to be created?”

  “Yes, sir.” Clark nodded and was pleased when he saw the lights turn on in a number of other people’s faces. Most had just been slowly nodding along, likely running over their own proposals, but now he had their attention. The President got it, and if they could get in on the ground floor quickly enough, then they could share in the glory.

  “So how many vessels are we thinking here?” asked Martha Ramiriz, the Commissioner for Defense Contracts.

  Clark answered all of their questions while the President leaned back in his chair. The time was about 13:00 and a few of the officials at the table had joined President Cole for a private lunch prior to the meeting. Clark watched with satisfaction as Cole’s eyelids grew heavy, the comfort of the room seeping into his very bones.

  When seventeen-year-old Lucas Clark’s father got home from work he rushed to meet him at the door. Waking up this morning, he had known that today was the day—today was the first official step towards a peaceful universe. Soon, they’d be on Desia in the Pillon System and then the Light Wire would be switched on. And then?

  And then the entire universe would be connected by one network.

  “How was work?” Lucas asked his father, almost breathless. He had asked the same question every day for the last two weeks. He knew that his father would be proposing action on Desia soon, but not how soon.

  “Went well,” his father answered, facing away as he hung up his coat. Lucas tried to read him.

  “Anything of note?” He prodded.

  “Nothing I can talk about.” His father turned around, a big smile on his face, and Lucas knew. The man before practically radiated pride. His bearing was that of a man performing at his peak.

  “Could it be related to a certain planet in the Pillon System? Maybe, about dragging it into the modern age?” The question was brazen. Lucas hadn’t intended on asking it outright, but he needed to know. Needed confirmation.

  His father visibly blanched. A look of worry etched itself into his lined face and Lucas was quick to deflect scrutiny.

  “It is, isn’t it?” He said. He slapped his knee. “I knew it. As soon as you walked in the door, I knew it. You’ve been working on something for months. Very secretive.”

  “What makes you think it’s about Desia?”

  “Simple process of elimination,” he answered, turning around on the couch. He was a good liar, but not his dad was good at rooting out the truth. Better to hide his face. “You’ve been trying to lock down the flow of rhetoric from Pillon for years. That independent journalist on Desia just inspired a hate crime on the Onyx System. You’ve got probable cause now. Public opinion is turning in your favor. It was just a matter of time, really.”

  The truth was that, in the dark pre-dawn hours of a day almost two years ago, Lucas had overheard his dad speaking with someone on the phone. Peering over the top of the stairs, Lucas had strained to hear the words his father was issuing forth into a small black burner phone he had never seen before. Lucas hadn’t been able to pick up much, but
he had gleaned enough. Something about secretly shipping equipment into hostile territory. It could have been any number of conflict-ridden planets within PUC space, but Lucas didn’t think so. The level of secrecy, his father’s body language and voice; it had all pointed at something bigger. Something grand.

  The final move in a long game of chess. The endgame.

  Ever since that night, Lucas had paid close attention to the tiny breadcrumbs his father had dropped in passing conversation. A hint of something here. An off-comment there.

  Lucas had no real proof of his father’s plan other than the fact that one day, almost four years ago, he had suggested it himself. With the unsophisticated mind of a 12-year-old child, Lucas had come right out and said it, “Why not just invade Desia and build a Light Wire.”

  His father had laughed the idea off, claiming that the reality of the situation was much more complicated. The Pillon System wasn’t some toothless population eager to step into the light of modernity. They were a hodgepodge of reckless, often violent militias. Possessing very little overarching structure, the five planets that made up the system practically thrummed with a taste for violence. That, and the planets’ geographies were well-suited for guerrilla warfare. The PUC could invade and secure them easily enough, but could they hold them?

  Seamus Clark had explained all of this to Lucas, and Lucas hadn’t argued. Instead, he had kept the coals of that conversation hot. Over the years, they had revisited the topic and Lucas had perceived a noticeable shift in his father’s demeanor. He had gone from being skeptical to theoretical planning. What if they could secure a Light Wire on Desia?