Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 TITLE: Thundersoul
PART: 0 of 11 - Prologue
AUTHOR: Big Al
KEYWORDS: nosex ScFi fant
UNIVERSE: Nexus Empire
SUMMARY: A baby boy's destiny begins in the wake of a terrible disaster.
Set in the Nexus Empire, an original space fantasy setting of my own
devising.

   **********

   AUTHOR'S NOTE: Although there is no sex in this brief prologue, all
subsequent chapters have sex, and frequently lots of it.  Tags will
predominantly be incest, size, harem, cons.

   **********


AGE: Infancy
Fireworks sparkled through the void, and a low musical hum resonated
along a public technopathic frequency, as the great papal barge warped into
the Garius VIII solar system.  Highly trained mreeca, insulated against the
void of space by magitech, broke out into a performance of coordinated
dance to herald the arrival of the High Pontiff, their skill displayed

throughout the Nexus Empire by holocamera feed.

   Celebrations were rife throughout the Nexus Empire, but nowhere more
intense than Garius VIII.  The Imperial Jubilee only came once every 500
years after all, and it celebrated the beginning of the ancient emperor
Zalrion's rise to power ten millennia ago - and his journey to a throne
over nine galaxies had begun here, on Garius VIII.

   "Zalrion might've died without an heir, but his empire endures,"
Jihosyah noted with a smile.  He surveyed the fireworks and dancing mreeca
from the private viewing chamber of the papal barge; for this man - an
orange-skinned alien humanoid with four magenta eyes and seven fingers on
each hand - was the High Pontiff of the Godqueen herself, and one of the
ruling Tribunal of the Nexus Empire.

   "And his legend, or the public fascination therewith," a deep rumbling
voice added.

   Jihosyah's smile widened.  "Is that jealousy I hear, Balthazar?"

   The ancient dragon snorted.  His bulk took up most of the view chamber;
it was fortunate the room was contained within a tesseract and thus could
expand to accommodate his size.  "Amusement," he claimed.  "I remember
Zalrion.  He is no legend to me.  My 12th egg hatched for him, and thus my
last son is part of this so-called 'legend'.  Odd that a human would
receive so much acclaim."

   "Well," the High Pontiff pointed out piously, "he did seek and acquire
the patronage of our Godqueen." The supreme goddess of the imperial
pantheon had originally been worshipped only by dragons such as Balthazar,
before Zalrion instituted her worship throughout the nine galaxies of his
empire.

   This reminder seemed to mollify Balthazar, but the ancient dragon
nonetheless shifted his bulk uneasily.  "What is wrong, my friend?"
Jihosyah asked him.

   "I have an ill boding," the old dragon brooded.

   "Oh?  The seers have seen nothing ill in this Jubilee.  Our journey is
safe."

   "Your seers are not dragons," Balthazar said.  "I ken a tug on my fate.
We dragons cling tightly to our fates, far more than you nondragons do. 
Something is coming."

   Jihosyah had no reply to that, and furrowed his brow as he peered
through the flashing lights and performances of the void around Garius
VIII. The speeches had begun.  Grand Lord Meph, the Chancellor and Lord
Regent, was proclaiming the glories of the Nexus Empire, from a plaza on
the capital planet of Tanthor, far away from this system.  The High Pontiff
would give his speech later; but he hardly paid attention, his mood
unsettled by Balthazar's words.

   That was when he felt it.

   A wrongness resonated from a spot in the Garius VIII system.  "There,"
Balthazar rumbled, gesturing with a talon out the viewport.  In space,
surrounded by crackling fireworks, a deadly beautiful woman had appeared,
with chocolate flesh and flaming hair and eyes blacker than the void that
surrounded her.  Her mouth opened in a scream that could not be heard in
the airless void, and...  something burst out from her.  Waves of power,
energy, wrongness, emanating out in blasts of lethal destruction.  Ships
and mreeca disintegrated in a flash.

   "What is that?" Balthazar growled, his eyes glowing as he summoned his
draconic magicks.

   Jihosyah didn't respond, raising his arms to call upon his omnipotent
Godqueen-- and then his mouth dropped open, followed by his arms. 
Dumbstruck, he turned to his ancient friend.  "The Godqueen...  cannot
help."

   "What?" Balthazar's eyes lost their fire as his castings were
interrupted by this shock.

   "She is powerless against this fell creature," Jihosyah breathed the
oracle that his goddess had given him, "and can do nothing save guard the
passage of our souls."

   Potent magitech poised itself against the onslaught of the deadly woman,
if woman she was.  Powerful shielding and recuperative abilities were put
into play, and weapons and combat spells belched defiance.

   The fell woman didn't even notice, and remained untouched.  All weapon
and spell discharges approaching her unraveled in the face of the vortex of
destruction surrounding her.  It expanded outward, creating a shell around
Garius VIII, preventing anyone from leaving, from escaping.

   "What manner of evil is proof against our Godqueen?" Balthazar wondered
aloud, as the two old friends watched death take everything around them.

   Jihosyah had no answer before death claimed them.  The papal barge
disintegrated.  Life turned to ash across the the surface of the planet
below, and the atmosphere melted.  The planet itself began turning to slag,
and slowly chipped away.  The sun dimmed, and petered out.

   And the woman was left alone in the void, screaming amidst whirling
storms of ash and destruction as her hunger gradually ate the planet
beneath her.  And then-- her scream rose, becoming a loud piercing note
that could be heard by psychics across half the galaxy, and the woman
vanished.

   The destructive waves of power vanished with her, and only ash remained,
floating in space, and on the surface of a ruined planet.

   The Nexus Empire reacted swiftly.  The system was cordoned off. 
Information was carefully controlled.  Mindwipes, divinatory obfuscations,
and communications intercepts were employed.

   Several ships warped insystem.  They were sleek, unmarked, and
unadorned. When cloaked they were virtually undetectable by all except the
most sophisticated magitech.  Their scanners surveyed the ruined system in
great detail, cataloguing everything.

   One ship activated a tesserport, and an operative was beamed down to the
surface of the half-destroyed planet.  A half-dwarf, half-cyclops, the
operative was about the height of a human, with a single large eye in the
middle of his face, and fiery red whiskers.  His appearance had earned him
the name 'Eyebeard' from those who knew him; his abilities had earned him
the rank of major in the Wraiths.

   The Wraiths were a division of Imperial Intelligence that vanishingly
few knew of; they were the elite of the elite, and called upon to deal with
situations others couldn't even imagine.  The total destruction of Garius
VIII in only minutes was such a situation.

   An optical scanner was mounted over Eyebeard's single eye, and he
surveyed all around him.  Everything was the same.  Rocky, disintegrated
ruins, with a barely-breathable atmosphere choked by gray ash.  "Phenomena
are consistent with previous Void Witch sightings," he confirmed via
technopathic comm relay.

   A response sounded clearly in his mind.  "That is above your
classification rating, Major.  And shouldn't be discussed over any channels
regardless."

   "It was above the High Pontiff's classification rating too," Eyebeard
retorted, "but he still got killed by her.  And anyone who can tap into an
ultrasecure technopathic channel in the middle of all this ash could just
read our minds or tap into our databanks anyway."

   The voice was weary.  "Major, just do your job and--"

   "Lifesign detected," Eyebeard interrupted.

   "What?"

   "Two hundred klicks," the major continued, ignoring the general. 
"Activating short-transmission tesserport." In an eyeblink he shifted
across the surface of the ruined planet.  It looked just the same, more ash
and rocky ruins.  But now a figure approached him.  It was short, and
glowing.  The ash didn't touch it, swirling away from it.

   Eyebeard frowned.  Other than the fact that nothing should have survived
the Void Witch's purge, his optical scanner wasn't picking up anything on
the approaching figure, save visually.  No magical, biological, or
spiritual signatures were detected.  He was about to enhance the visuals,
when the figure came close enough for his normal sight to see it clearly.

   It was a girl.  A young humanoid girl, with fey facial features and elf
ears.  She looked about eighteen years of age, with boobs nearly as big as
her head contained within her red dress.  Her long locks flowed behind her,
untouched by the ash, and Eyebeard felt momentary jealousy, since his beard
was being flooded with the stuff.

   In her arms she was cradling something.  She spoke to him.  She named
him - his real name, not his nickname.  And she showed him what she was
holding.

   A baby.  A human infant, a boy swaddled in cloths and sleeping
peacefully.  This was the single life sign he had detected, and his optical
scanner was reacting wildly to the boy.  The girl proffered the babe to
Eyebeard and said, "Take care of him.  There is thunder in his soul."

   Then she vanished, as though she'd never been, and all memory of her
fled from the major's mind.

   "Major!  Major!"

   He became aware of the general shouting at him through the technopathic
link, and he finally reported, "A survivor, sir.  A baby.  A human boy. 
Untouched.  Perfect health.  Incredibly strong spiritual signature."

   "How...?" The general trailed off.  Previous Void Witch appearances had
lasted for months or even years before she was sated and vanished again for
centuries or millennia.  But this one had lasted mere minutes...  and she
had left a survivor.

   Eyebeard figured it out first.  "He drove her away.  Somehow.  Something
about this boy made the Void Witch flee."

   "The psychic scream," the general mused.  Telepaths all over this galaxy
had been overwhelmed with the Void Witch's rage and fear and pain when she
disappeared.

   "Taking full readings of him now," Eyebeard said.  "Labs, orphanage, or
slavers?"

   "I'm consulting with the Chief Minister of Intelligence now," the
general answered.

   Eyebeard waited, and sorted through the wealth of information from the
telepathic scan.  "Aldric," he murmured.

   "What's that?" the general said.

   "The baby knows his name - his first name, anyway.  Aldric." The general
had no further comment, and Eyebeard reflected on the unusual name.  He
didn't know what it meant, but he'd never heard of anyone bearing that name
before.  Seemed like a cross between Old Imperial dialect and the djinni
language.

   "Major," the general finally said.  "The Chief Minister and I have
determined that the boy is to go to slavers, so long as he remains within
the Nexus Empire.  Set up and maintain surveillance on him, beta-4
protocol. These are your orders, Major.  Make it so."

   "Aye aye, sir," Eyebeard said.  A quick tesserport up to one of the
Wraith ships artfully refrained from taking any ash residue along with him,
so he was thankful to have a clean beard once more.  He requisitioned a
pirate corsair, and the nearest Foundry tesserzapped it into the Wraith
ship's hangar, where the half-dwarven cyclops boarded it with his new
charge.  The major had traded his uniform for an outfit with pirate
markings.

   There were sites known to Imperial Intelligence where pirates pawned off
their ill-gotten gains.  It was at one such site that Eyebeard,
masquerading as a raider, sold baby Aldric to slavers.  The infant was put
with the other slaves, and a teenage girl among them was put in charge of
his care during transit.

   At a slave market in the sector near the capital planet Tanthor, the
newly acquired slaves were put up for auction.  The Merchantress Sopha, a
14 year old girl elf girl with unmatched financial brilliance, won the bid,
and triumphantly cradled the babe before giving him to one of her servants.

   "He will make an excellent playmate for my sister," Sopha remarked.

   Nearby, unseen by anyone, a girl with long hair in a red dress watched
the infant closely.

   **********

   COMMENTS: Like many authors, I love hearing positive feedback and
suggestions!  If you like, email me: big DOT al DOT author AT gmail DOT com
   NOTE: All characters are 18+