The Ascendant Stars - Michael Cobley [0]
Humanity’s Fire
Seeds of Earth
The Orphaned Worlds
The Ascendant Stars
COPYRIGHT
Published by Hachette Digital
ISBN: 978-0-748-12565-4
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Cobley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London, EC4Y 0DY
www.hachette.co.uk.
Contents
Also By Michael Cobley
Copyright
What has Gone Before
Main Characters
Main Sentient Species in Humanity’s Fire
Civilisations
Prologue
1: Greg
2: Catriona
3: Kao Chih
4: The Construct
5: Greg
6: Julia
7: Kuros
8: Kao Chih
9: Legion
10: Theo
11: Chel
12: Robert
13: Julia
14: Kao Chih
15: Chel
16: Theo
17: Greg
18: Robert
19: Kao Chih
20: Julia
21: Catriona
22: Greg
23: Julia
24: Greg
25: Chel
26: Kuros
27: Kao Chih
28: Greg
29: Theo
30: Kuros
31: Legion
32: Robert
33: The Construct
34: Julia
35: Chel
36: Greg
37: Theo
38: Catriona
39: Julia
40: Robert
41: Julia
42: Greg
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
For my dad, Michael John Cobley,
still in the game, kickin’ and scratchin’!
WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE
BOOK ONE: SEEDS OF EARTH
In book one, the discovery of the lost Human colonyworld of Darien set off a chain of events, unveiled mysteries, political sparring and assassination. The Earthsphere ambassador, Robert Horst, arrives on board the cruiser, Heracles, as does High Monitor Kuros, a senior official from the Sendruka Hegemony. The Hegemony is a vast, stellar empire allied with the human-dominated Earthsphere; both have their agendas yet it is the Hegemony’s plans which prove the more ruthless.
On Darien, archaeologist Greg Cameron’s work at the ancient Uvovo temple site on Giant’s Shoulder is disrupted, first by an assassination attempt and later when his uncle, Major Theo Karlsson, appears with Robert Horst, the Earthsphere ambassador. Horst is framed for the murder of the Brolturan ambassador and Karlsson and Horst subsequently take refuge in a newly discovered chamber beneath the Uvovo temple. This wakes an ancient guardian who seizes Robert and transports him away.
On the forest-moon Nivyesta, Catriona Macreadie finds herself forming a telepathic link with Segrana, a vast and millennia-old entity which inhabits the interwoven ecosystem of the continent-wide forest. She comes to identify with the forest, strengthening the bond with Segrana, and helping the humanoid Uvovo natives when several Hegemony mercenaries try to infiltrate the depths of the forest.
Chel, or Cheluvahar, is a scholar of the Uvovo and a good friend to both Greg and Catriona. He undergoes a ritual whereby Segrana gives him strange new abilities and tells him to prepare the Uvovo for war. From ancient myths he learns that the Giant’s Shoulder temple houses a ‘warpwell’, an ancient Forerunner weapon which defeated a savage enemy many millenia ago. The warpwell would provide access to the lower levels of hyperspace and much faster travel between the stars, an advantage that would make the Hegemony’s already formidable warfleets invincible.
While events unfold on Darien, Kao Chih begins his journey to Darien. Kao Chih’s people are the descendants of another of the three original ships launched from Earth 150 years before. Their world, Pyre, was seized by a Sendrukan Hegemony corporate monoclan which ruthlessly mined and stripped it of its resources. A few hundred colonists fled in a handful of ramshackle ships, eventually finding refuge in a star system home to a race called the Roug. When news of the discovery of Darien reached the Roug’s orbital city, Agmedra’a, the Roug hosting these Human descendants also decide to send emissaries. And soon Kao Chih and