Silver Buster, Chapter 1 Preview!
The first chapter of my upcoming book, Silver Buster! Live now on Kickstarter.
I thought that with the campaign in its final 40 hours, it would be a good opportunity to drop a little preview of what’s in store in Silver Buster, Vol. 1. Please note that I’ve got another round or two of edits to do, but it’s not subject to much change at this point.
Interested in the Kickstarter? Check it out here.
Chapter 1 - First Contact
Alarm bells rang throughout the spaceship as the mechanical chants of “Gyah! Gyah! Gyah!” echoed down the corridor. A small creature with hexagonally segmented skin slithered along the grated floor, not daring to look back. To look was to slow down, and to slow down was to be caught. He already knew his pursuers were gaining ground.
He was close to the escape pods, so close. Keeping his lone eye fixed on the way ahead, he hurried as fast as his limbless body allowed. He slithered around a corner and saw the doorway he desperately sought looming before him. He leapt onto the wall and crawled upwards, using his slick and slightly sticky body to grip onto the smooth surface.
Taking a glance at the control panel, it dawned on him that he did not know the purpose of any of the buttons. There was nothing else for it but to try everything. He slammed his mass onto every button in the desperate hope of success, eliciting beeps, boops, and a handful of harsh tones from the panel.
At last, to his great relief, the door opened, all the while the chants grew ever louder. He dropped back onto the floor and crawled inside the chamber towards the nearest escape pod. It sat rigidly, ensnared in the gripping barriers that were the dividing lines between the spaceship and the vast expanse beyond. There were a dozen pods—six on this wall and six on the opposite wall—far fewer than the number of sapient crew members. The creature did not know how great in number the inhabitants of the ship were. He was certain there were at least three dozen, including the clankers following him.
He looked at the pod and the control panel to the left of its door. How could he open it? He had no clue. Opening the door to this room had not involved any great insight on his part; it was a series of shots in the dark. Bold characters were plastered across the control panel and the pod wall, but he could not read a single one of the angular symbols. With nothing else for it, he did as he had done before. He crawled onto the pod and pressed every button he could find, hoping for the best.
“Gyah! Gyah! Gyah!” came the chants. They were in the corridor outside, mere moments away.
A blast of air struck the creature, almost dislodging him from the wall, followed by a loud whoosh from the pod. It was opening, and he may have bought himself a few more precious moments. He would rather die during his attempted escape than spend another second trapped within the confines of that claustrophobic canister that had been his prison while aboard this accursed ship. He could not return to it; he would not return to it.
The creature gripped the wall tightly, slung his body around, and threw himself into the escape pod. He landed with a dulled thud on the carpeted floor and then looked around. As pleasant as the pod interior was with its cushioned red seats and built-in beverage dispenser, comfort was not his concern right now. He needed a way to eject the pod from the ship so he could shoot himself to freedom. He would worry about the trials and tribulations of his unknown destination later.
Before he had the chance to move, there came another whoosh, and the door began closing. What had he done? He had not touched as much as a screw. Was it an automated system? He supposed it did not matter. Something was happening, and he had no choice but to let it continue. Stretching his body forward and clinging to the red fabric before him, the creature pulled himself onto the seat and positioned himself so his eye could see the small window on the now-closed door.
Several sharp tones rang out that caused the creature’s ooze-like body to vibrate. A robotic voice sounded over a speaker, and its nonsensical words left him baffled, as most words did. A second after it finished speaking, a thick brass fist slammed against the window, making the creature recoil in fear. The geraborgs were outside with only a wall of metal and glass separating the creature from his foes.
The fist slammed again. He was terrified the glass would crack and his one chance at freedom would be ripped away, just as it was within his grasp. He saw his silvery reflection in the window. He was a small creature, no more than a foot in length, with metallic skin making up most of his outer self. He had no limbs, no real head, and only his single eye gave any indication that he was more than flexible metal.
In this form, he was incapable of fighting back. He had to get to a planet with life where he stood a chance. Where there was life, there was a potential host. When he had a host, he would not be such easy prey. Should the geraborgs or their superiors come looking for him, he would be ready to kill them.
“Activating language protocol: English,” said the robotic voice, but the creature did not fully comprehend the words. A high-pitched thwip followed the voice, and he felt a sudden jolt as though something had forced its way into his mind. It was painful for but a moment, but something had changed. “Translation frequency accepted. Nearest inhabitable landing zone: Earth.”
The words made sense this time. It was an odd sensation to have a true sense of language comprehension, but he was grateful for it. Earth? He was not familiar with this planet, but it would suffice. If there was a language, there were intelligent beings present, and that was a good starting point. He only hoped their biology was compatible with his own.
“Deploying escape pod momentarily. Please strap yourself in and grip the retractable handles for your own safety.”
Strap himself in? He had no way of grabbing the straps attached to the back of the chair. As he looked around, wondering how to secure himself, he straightened up in fear. A creature with a brass face and dead, lifeless eyes stared through the window. Where there should have been a mouth, there were horizontal slits in the metal. No doubt, it was chanting its usual cry, but not a single sound penetrated the door.
Before the metal lifeform knew it, he was flung from the chair and into the wall as the escape pod shot down a small tunnel. In no more than three seconds, it was cast from the ship and sent flying through space. Although the pod reduced the force he felt from the breakneck speeds, the creature was still unable to pry himself from the wall as he hurtled along.
Right now, however, he did not care that he was stuck. What mattered to him now was that, against all odds, he had broken free. He had escaped from the Kryn Mercenaries.
What a beautiful sight to behold, so radiant and splendorous. Wavy locks of golden hair woven like silk and sparkling eyes that dazzled like the sapphire ocean. She was sitting with her chin in one hand and drumming the desk with the fingers of her other. Was she bored? Enraptured? It didn’t matter either way.
Jeff decided that today was the day to strike up a conversation with her. He would tell her a joke. After all, Miri was always giggling at something so she was clearly a fan of comedy. Who wasn’t? There must be a good joke he could pull from the recesses of his mind; something from a movie or a show. Perhaps something topical. What topics did she pay attention to? Come to think of it, what topics did he pay attention to? What if she asked a question about the content of the joke and he couldn’t answer? That would be an unmitigated disaster.
Ignorant to the world around him and with his glazed-over eyes, Jeff continued to stare. He was an average young man with straw-coloured blonde hair and pale blue eyes that were often mistaken for grey. He stood at no taller than five foot ten, but he would insist he was ‘almost’ six feet tall whenever anyone asked—not that it happened often. He was a perfectly average young man in pretty much every respect, even down to his school performance. His mother failed to hide her dismay when he showed her his exam results a couple of months ago. At the very least, they were enough to get him comfortably into sixth form.
The young man didn’t realise Miss Law, his physics teacher, had noticed him. She raised an eyebrow behind her half-moon glasses and then her expression sank into a frown. Her inattentive student didn’t pick up on the hint and that would not do at all. If uncomfortable silence wasn’t going to be enough, she would have to resort to more drastic measures. She cleared her throat and Jeff’s daze remained. While she wanted to laugh at the gormless look on his face, she held back.
Jeff felt an elbow in his side courtesy of his best friend, Drew. “Eh?” he called out, much louder than he had intended.
The silent class was suddenly not so quiet as the room of sixteen and seventeen-year-olds turned to look at him, laughing uproariously. Even Miri was laughing.
Well, at least he had made her laugh. This was Jeff’s only positive thought as he turned bright red. He cleared his throat and focused on the whiteboard at the front of the class as the laughter continued—even Miss Law was giggling a little, caught up in the mirth. The only person in the room not amused, besides Jeff himself, was Zhane. Stupid Zhane with his stupid scowl. He was just jealous that all eyes were not on him for a change.
“Mr Marshall,” said Miss Law, putting a hand on her hip and pointing her marker pen at Jeff. “Seeing as you were listening to the lesson so intently, perhaps you can answer the question?”
“The question?” asked Jeff, wondering if jumping from the window would be less painful.
“Yes,” said Miss Law, tilting her head to the side and giving him a wry smile. “As a reminder, I was asking if anybody could tell me what a neutron star was.”
Jeff bit his lip nervously. He had never heard of a neutron star before. He would have to guess. “Well, a neutron star is… I’d say it’s a…” This was all he had to offer? He was already flush with embarrassment, but his face had become a volcano at this relentless bout of humiliation. “It’s a… star that…”
Zhane rolled his eyes and spoke up. “A neutron star is a collapsed star,” he said. “If you want the most basic answer, Miss Law.”
“Thank you, Zhane,” said the young teacher, giving him a faint smile. “Perhaps you can tutor your classmate, hmm?”
“I would prefer not to,” replied Zhane coldly. He shot Jeff an irritated glance while Miri and her best friend, Vivi, continued giggling.
The two were as thick as thieves. Almost as close as Jeff and Drew were. It was less daunting talking to Vivi, not that Jeff tried often. She had a more relaxed air about her. It probably helped that the girl with the straight, ash-brown hair wasn’t the object of Jeff’s affection and he didn’t clam up around her the same way. She was cute in her own right, beautiful even, especially when she smiled. There was no question of that. But when she was beside Miri? Well, people who had seen Miri a hundred times still regularly did double-takes when she walked by.
The rest of the lesson passed without further incident, but Jeff spent most of it staring through the board rather than paying the black-inked words and formulas much heed. It was amazing how staring in the correct direction let you avoid the heat, even if your ears may as well have been filled with concrete.
With the school day finally over, Jeff and Drew stood by their lockers awaiting Drew’s sister. “Stupid Zhane and his stupid answers,” Jeff muttered as the young man with jet-black hair closed his locker and departed. “How the hell did he know that? Tell me, Drew. How?”
“Because Miss Law told us to read the first paragraph on page twenty-three as part of our… homework…” Drew froze upon seeing the look on Jeff’s face. “What I meant to say, of course, was that he’s an imbecile and clearly cheated. No doubt he had the textbook or a dictionary out in front of him. I don’t think he’s done homework in his life.”
“I knew it,” muttered Jeff. The two friends burst out laughing. Jeff knew he was being ridiculous but grumbling about Zhane was cathartic for him. He liked the majority of his classmates and there were few people he could consider enemies, but Zhane was the exception.
“Who are we complaining about today?” came the voice of Emma Wheeler—Drew’s sister—as she rounded the corner.
She was a pretty girl with soft freckles dotting her cheeks, standing almost a foot shorter than Jeff and her brother. The Wheeler siblings shared the same green eyes and red hair, except Drew’s was short and bristly while Emma’s was sleek and fell just past her shoulders, persistently held back by a blue hairband.
“Zhane,” said Drew, at which Emma let out an exaggerated groan.
“What?” asked Jeff.
“You should get over your jealousy of him, Jeff,” said Emma. “It’s doing you no favours.”
“Jealous?” Jeff asked. “What have I got to be jealous of?”
Emma smirked as she pulled out a notebook from her bag and pretended to read aloud from the blank page. “Let me see here. He’s taller than you, his eyes are a much nicer shade of blue than yours, he’s better looking than you, he’s much more athletic than you, and he’s smarter than you. Not to mention, Miss Miriam Court likes him more than—”
“Alright, alright,” said Jeff. “You don’t need to cut me so deeply. He’s got a lot going for him and I don’t.”
“Sometimes a harsh dose of reality inspires the greatest change,” shrugged Emma, snapping her notebook shut and shoving it back into her bag. “Perhaps you could take whatever humiliation you suffered today as a lesson and use it to self-improve. Can we go home now, please?”
“What humiliation?” asked Jeff, feigning ignorance.
Emma folded her arms and gave him a weary stare before shaking her head. She turned and walked down the corridor, leaving the chuckling Jeff and Drew to follow.
The trio walked from their school, making their way down two flights of stairs and across the courtyard, passing by dozens of other students who were eager to go home. A couple headed to the nearby bicycle shed, several were making their way to the bus, but many were close enough to walk home. Jeff knew he should have stayed at the school library to catch up on work, his attention span at home being, by his own admission, pitiful. In the library, he would at least get fifteen solid minutes of work in for every hour he was there.
As Jeff, Drew, and Emma cut through Belmont Town Square, Drew abruptly stopped and glanced at the nearby corner shop. With a pleading look at his sister, he nodded towards it and then smiled widely.
“No,” said Emma sternly.
“Just two minutes,” her brother said, putting his hands together pleadingly.
“No!”
“Come on, I’ll wash the dishes tonight instead. That’s a net gain of at least five minutes, yeah?”
“Eugh, fine,” relented Emma, dragging her heels as she followed.
“Cheer up, little Em,” said Jeff, putting his arm around her and patting her on the shoulder. “Maybe when he strikes it lucky, he’ll let you live in his mansion with him.”
“Get off me,” groaned Emma, pushing him away and rolling her eyes as Jeff guffawed.
“He’s right,” said Drew in excitement as he marched towards the shop. “You are going to feel pretty darn silly when I’m a millionaire, dear sister. The nicer you are to me, the better chance there is of me letting you stay in my pool house.”
Drew walked into the shop with a stupid grin on his face and marched up to the counter. “One scratchcard, please,” he said, rapping his knuckles on the desk. The irked woman serving him shot him a dirty look.
“How old are you exactly?” she asked.
“Final year student,” Drew lied. “Eighteen years old as of a month ago.”
The woman grumbled, not caring enough to ask for identification. She grabbed the card Drew pointed to and then passed it over. The gleeful young man put his five pounds on the counter and walked over to his annoyed sister and bemused best friend. He knew Emma was ranting to Jeff about him seconds ago, having heard excerpts of her less than quiet mutterings. Jeff, like a good friend, brushed her complaints off. He would be bequeathed a new car for his troubles.
“I’m in half a mind to tell Mum,” said Emma, scrunching up her nose.
“Go ahead,” said Drew, folding his arms and giving his sister a smug smile. “But just so you know, little Em, I still have that photograph of you holding a lit cigarette and—”
“But that—”
“—before you say anything, I am well aware that you were holding it for someone else. That doesn’t mean it’s a good look for you though, does it? I’m sure our parents would consider smoking worse than the meagre offence that is gambling to pull them out of poverty.”
“Poverty?” asked Emma, her mouth agape. “Listen to yourself. We’re far from poverty.”
“Nevertheless, this is really for their benefit, isn’t it? Just consider the—"
“Hurry up and scratch that thing,” said Jeff, grabbing the scratchcard from Drew’s hand.
Drew snatched it back. “You know the drill,” he said. “We go to the lucky spot.”
“Are you sure it’s a lucky spot?”
“I won ten pounds there last month, right?”
“Yes, and you haven’t won a single thing since. Considering your odds of even a small prize is one in three with these particular scratchcards, that’s pretty unlucky.”
“My friend, you don’t understand how lady luck’s favour is bestowed upon me. She is my muse and I am her simple—”
There came a crash from outside followed by the terrified screams of a few dozen people. As the shoppers hid among the aisles and behind the counter, Jeff, Drew, and Emma ran outside. They looked around as the citizens of Belmont fled in fear of something they could not quite see. As the crowd dispersed, there came the smashing of glass as a large creature leapt through the window of the nearby bank. It stood up, unfazed by the glass it had broken through.
Menacing white eyes scanned the town square and Jeff froze in place as they fell upon him for a brief second. The creature was humanoid, standing seven feet tall and with scaly green skin so thick that it looked like plated body armour. The creature’s arms were bulky and it flexed its long fingers as it broke eye contact with Jeff, still looking for someone or something. While its body lay somewhere between human and reptile, its smooth white face leaned towards a human-like visage. Its thin lips were curled into a sneer and its stubby nose twitched in frustration. The back of its head jutted outwards at an upward angle, creating a thick, but not sharp, horn. The protrusion morphed back into scaly skin that extended towards its shoulders and rejoined its armour-like exoskeleton.
“What the hell is that?” asked Drew breathlessly. His scratchcard fell from his hand and fluttered to the ground as he suddenly lost all interest in the promise of riches.
“Let’s not stick around to find out,” said Jeff, seeing that the reptile was not concerned by their presence. “Go!”
He gave the Wheeler siblings a shove, bringing them back to alertness, and they both broke into a sprint with Jeff following. Drew bolted for dear life, not looking over his shoulder as he hurried from the square. His sister, however, was ill-equipped for running due to her school shoes and the toe of her boot got caught between the cobblestones, bringing her to her knees.
Emma gasped in pain, taking a quick look at her grazed skin. Her knees were red and raw with little blobs of blood slowly forming on them. Emma failed to notice her silver purse falling from her blazer pocket and bouncing across the ground. The glint of silver immediately caught the eye of the reptilian creature.
“You!” he barked in a deep, reverberating voice, addressing Emma. “Do not move!”
Had he spoken English? Jeff froze in place, halfway to reaching for Emma’s hand to help her up. He had definitely used English. Was this creature human? Created by some mad scientist in an underground lab somewhere? Or was he another being entirely and savvy enough to pick up a human language? Whatever the reason was, Jeff didn’t want to know if it meant sticking around and being disembowelled.
The young man lunged for Emma as she finally noticed her purse lying nearby. She grabbed it as Jeff pulled her back to her feet. “Let’s go,” he said, running along with her.
He felt a sharp pain in his back as he was kicked to the ground by a clawed foot. Jeff’s grip on Emma broke and she too fell once more as the towering beast loomed over her.
“I said do not move,” the reptile man growled, his powerful voice chilling Jeff to the core. He wrapped his ugly fingers around Emma’s hand and yanked the purse from her, turning it around and then twisting his face into an angry grimace. “Pah!” he shouted, tossing the purse aside. “This is not it. A waste of my precious time.”
As the creature moved to release the girl, Jeff’s tightly clenched fist met the side of his face. The monster barely flinched and then turned to look at him. What had he done? Jeff couldn’t help but wonder what had invoked such stupidity in him. He had punched a monster; a monster much bigger than he was. And the monster was not happy about being assaulted, even by something so much smaller and weaker than he was.
The reptile threw Emma to the ground and she smacked her head against the stone, falling immediately unconscious. The creature’s body pivoted and he slowly moved his hand up to a paralysed Jeff’s throat. The young man couldn’t even gulp, so dry was his mouth right now. He exhaled a gasp as the creature grabbed him, lifting him effortlessly into the air. Jeff wanted to tell the creature he was sorry and that it was all a big misunderstanding, but he knew it would be fruitless. However, with imminent death looming, he at least had to try.
“I… I…” he tried to say but found himself unable to utter another word. Was it nervousness or the hand squeezing his throat? He supposed it did not matter anymore. The creature was ready to kill him for his foolish attack.
“You,” he growled, “are a very foolish lifeform, aren’t you?” The monster retracted his arm, bringing Jeff closer to him while still holding him off the ground.
“I… I…”
“Your lack of survival instinct disgusts me, boy. You should have had the sense to stay away and you would have been able to walk away from me unharmed. Now that you have wasted my time and driven me to anger, I have no choice but to turn you inside out in the most painful way imaginable. You understand that, don’t you? Seeing as you assaulted me first, I will be breaking no imperial laws. You see now that it is your fault I’m doing this, don’t you? I have no choice in the matter if I am to protect my honour!”
“P-p-plea…”
“What was that?” asked the creature, his deep scowl turning into a thin smile. “Were you about to beg? To plead with me for your life? Oh, not only are you a fool, but you are a coward too. You could have faced your death with honour, but you chose to beg. I cannot wait to be gone from your miserable planet.”
From the corner of his eye, Jeff spotted something moving along the ground. Was it liquid? It was silver in colour with an otherworldly blue glow and a large orange oval within it. It was slithering slowly towards him; it could not have been liquid. It was ooze. Was this bizarre entity this alien’s subordinate? Well, he was going to die either way so the answer mattered little. As Jeff resigned himself to his fate, the silver substance lurched between the monster’s feet and leapt onto Jeff, clinging onto the sole of his shoe.
Interested in the Kickstarter? Check it out here.