Chapter 1

John’s mind was wandering as he rode through the rough mountain country. He was only a few miles west southwest of Colorado Springs, Colorado but, for all intents and purposes, he was alone in the world. There was no sign of other people or civilization. As he rode he thought about the recent past and wondered if he could have done anything to prevent the heartbreak that descended on him.

This was supposed to be the happiest time of his life. In May he passed his licensure examination and became eligible to work as a Physician’s Assistant. Yesterday he was supposed to marry the love of his life. All at once John heard a huge clap of rolling thunder much like a sonic boom. There was a flash of light and he felt as if a semi truck rammed him before he fell into a pit of blackness. When he next noticed anything it was Eerie silence in the forest and a ringing in his ears. He could barely see because of the bright flash of light. His horses were going wild from fear. He could see them running in the near distance as he picked himself up from the forest floor covered with pine needles. After several minutes, John finally managed to catch both the stallion he was riding and his mare packhorse and get them under control. It took even more time before he calmed them enough to resume his trip. He was truly pissed at the asshole pilot (he assumed) that flew so low the sonic boom knocked him out.

Before his mishap, John had been riding through the national forest with his pair of Australian Shepherds and his pack mare heading for a month long camping and fishing expedition. He would have normally used a mule as pack animal but the mare was about to come in season and he wanted to breed her to his prize stallion so she got to come on this trip. He was a big man and needed the big stallion to ride so couldn’t leave him home with the mare.

Beginning today, for the next month, John was supposed to be on his honeymoon but three days before the wedding date he found out his fiancee was a cheating skank of the highest order. It seems like she and some of her close friends decided she deserved one last fling so they decided to turn her bachelorette party into an orgy. He didn’t know who, but someone videoed just enough to end their relationship. He never would have thought to try and put two cocks into one pussy, especially not his fiancee’s! At least he only received a short video clip of the orgy via e-mail, although there was a link to click on that led to more video if the message was correct. He never used it but heard many of the other addressee’s did. After he received the clip he went to her parent’s home where the cunt was staying and confronted his ex. Her parents gave him hell for making her cry and even more for breaking the engagement until he showed them the clip.

Instead of heading up into the mountains today, he was supposed to be heading for Florida and a resort and ocean cruise to celebrate his nuptials. Thank God for travel insurance. The refund on the resort and cruise more than paid for his month long trip into the mountains.

After his animals were calmed down, John looked around. He didn’t recognize where he was, but that was no surprise. He had never been here. What was a surprise was all the freshly downed trees dropped helter skelter in among the growing trees. And, to top that off, the down trees were still green and there didn’t appear to be any holes for their root balls to have come from. It looked as if someone had pulled them up like they would a tall weed and then threw them down. What the FUCK? All at once, he had a splitting headache. His dogs Blue and Shadow were whining and rubbing their heads as they looked around the area in which they now found themselves.

John pulled out his GPS and map to locate himself. To his surprise, the GPS said “no signal”. He rode on, checking his GPS occasionally and finding the same message. Thankfully he had learned map reading while he was in the Army and could get a rough idea of location by using an old fashioned compass and terrain association. He was glad now he had talked some of his buds into getting him military maps of his intended route and camping locations. He had maps of the entire four corners area of the United States from just east of the rockies to Flagstaff, Arizona.

ABOARD THE FLEET FLAGSHIP CONCORD (Translated)

The Guard said, “Halt. The prisoner will stand at attention,” as he stopped in front of the room with his charge.

A court officer looked at the senior officers sitting at a table in the front of the room. The Admiral seated at the center of the table of 5 nodded his head. The officer then said, “Commander Kowlic, while serving as navigator and standing watch as Officer of the Deck on board the cruiser SPEEDRUNNER, you are accused of negligence, dereliction of duty, failure to follow lawful orders, operating a FTL interstellar vessel in a careless and unsafe manner, and exceeding the speed limit within a system occupied by sentient beings. You passed too close to the planet Earth and allowed the time distorting cone from the FTL drive to impact the planet. The wake of passing so close to the planet damaged much of the primitive technology both orbiting the planet and upon its surface. The distortion of your vessel’s wake also changed the orbits of the planet and its moon.

“The time distortion cone’s tangental impact with the planet also caused the involuntary temporal relocation of one higher level and four lower level primitive intelligences on the planet Earth in the SOL System. There were additional relocations of non sentient flora and fauna as well. This relocation and orbit change could potentially change the mentation of those beings, the development of the planet and, consequently, the course of civilization on Earth. You are also charged with failure to report the infraction of said regulations to higher headquarters. How do you plead?”

The Commander said, “Not Guilty. Those beings are so primitive it is questionable whether they can be called sentient. Consequently, their location on the planet in question or in its time stream is of minor consequence. Why they don’t even have a permanent presence on their moon and their primitive space station is a joke. They cannot even reliably detect our ships as we traverse their system or fly through their atmosphere. They still classify sightings of our vehicles in their atmosphere as Unidentified Flying Objects. For all intents and purposes, therefore, this system does not meet the requirements to be considered occupied by sentient beings. That being the case, I have violated none of the regulations and laws I have been accused of violating.”

John travelled a short distance further after he encountered the strange disruption in the forest. He estimated he rode almost two miles before he was out of the affected area. From a high point he looked behind him and saw the devastation stretching for as far as he could see. When he came to a good campsite on a high gravel bar between a stream and moderately tall bluff he stopped for the day. He and his animals still felt “off”. His headache was slightly less but his body (and especially his head) ached for some reason. He set up his camp and took out his fishing rod. He thought a nice mess of fish and some fried potatoes and onions sounded good for his evening meal today.

John walked downstream a few feet from his camp to a deep pool and began fishing. He was shocked at the ease with which he managed to catch fish. The size of the fish was amazing also. It was almost as if no one had ever fished this pool. The fish were hitting his bait as soon as it was in the water. It only took about fifteen minutes to catch enough fish for supper and breakfast the next morning.

John cleaned up his dishes and pans as soon as his evening meal was completed. He felt exhausted after his days ride and drifted off to sleep just before full dark, waking only once during the night to relieve himself. The next morning he woke at dawn. He built up his fire and put on some coffee, cared for his horses and fed the dogs, then headed for the stream for the fish he left on the stringer for breakfast.

As he walked out of camp he stumbled. He would swear he heard Blue say, “Pack Leader goes.” He looked toward the dogs to see them trotting out of camp with him. He pulled the two nice fish from the stream, cleaned them and returned to camp.

After his meal John cleaned up, broke camp, packed and began his ride farther into the mountains.

As he rode he kept track of his location on the map. Many of the small trails shown on the map were unrecognizable and some of the larger roads were only minor trails if they existed at all. He was puzzled by the constant discrepancies. He also worried about the absence of signs of civilization. He had heard no mechanical noises or aircraft and had seen no contrails. By his estimation he was still only a few miles from Colorado Springs so should have seen something.

John continued riding westward, seeing nothing except wilderness and a few animals, animals who did not seem nearly as scared of a human as they should be. After two days he began to worry. He had seen no houses, no fences, no roads, no indication of civilization at all. Late mid morning on the third day John crested a rise and looked over a large high plains meadow. There was a stream running through the valley below him and out into the plains. Just where the valley opened out into the plains there were what appeared to be dwellings. There was some smoke rising from several locations within what appeared to be tipi like tents and, perhaps, some small huts. John rode toward the camp or village wondering if it could possibly be what it looked like; an Indian village. He wasn’t aware there were any Indians in this area. There was no reservation nearby that he was aware of.

When John got closer to the village he began to see destruction. Most of the dwellings were damaged. Some of the tendrils of smoke were from smoldering dwellings. Then he saw bodies laying about. Finally, as he rode into the village itself he noticed three or four people running away into the woods on the opposite side.

John stopped in the center of the village and dismounted. Blue and Shadow were running around smelling everything. Occasionally Blue would mark a spot. Shadow entered the tipi in the best repair and gave a quick bark then began whining. John quickly entered behind her and found three people on what appeared to be poorly tanned skins. They were all injured in some manner. There were two young children and one woman of indeterminate age. The woman was unconscious. Both children watched him, fear evident on their faces as he inspected each of them.

John gently rubbed Shadow as he spoke, “Well, what have you found here girl? I wonder what happened here anyway. All of the injuries I’ve seen seem to be made by clubs or spears of some kind. This is just too strange. I haven’t seen any modern cookware, tools or weapons either. Do you suppose this was some kind of cult or commune? And who would do something like this to all these people?

“Well, never mind. Let’s see what we can do to help these three. After that we’ll check to see if any of the others are still alive and need help. Then maybe we can find some of those I thought I saw run off when we arrived.”

John quickly and expertly examined the injuries. He grimaced at the poor care of the wounds and cleaned them as well as he could. He got and used his medical kit to render aid to the three. After that, he gave each of the three in the tipi some water then wandered through the camp. He found one more person, a young man, who was not dead. He was in terrible shape. He had a deep stab wound in his side and a large lump on his head. John carried him to the tipi and placed him with the other injured then treated him.