Azhuras Mantle.

Prologue

Transit Gates

Epilogue

This is the origin story of Admiral Vandar, Van to his friends. A kiwi born lad, whilst trying to support a young family, disappears with 3 of his friends in the Blue mountains of New South Wales, under very mysterious circumstances.

When Van regains consciousness in a cell, with his friends and a stranger, he watches in growing concern as his friends are dragged out of the cell, one by one by a mechanical robot, that just brushes them aside like they were nothing when they try to fight it. Once strapped to a worktable, he watches in horror as his best mates are slaughtered like cattle, by small humanoid creatures, he has never seen before. Now he waits in terror as the mechanical demon comes for him next.

Evidence of once great civilizations is on every continent on Earth, Azhura’s Mantle is based in a world where Earth is but one of many colonies, lost thousands of years ago in a great war. Aechons, or humans, are still the dominant species in the galaxy, currently reduced to a rupturing alliance that is being invaded by a race called the Mejidi, of which little is known. Many of the leaders of this alliance are just as petty, greedy and violent as their cousins on Earth, and it appears humans are not originally from this galaxy either. Our hero arrives at a very dark time for the alliance, billions have been lost to the Mejidi and now they threaten Earth as well.

Azhura’s Mantle is primarily the story of Van, stuck in an alien artifact that will one day kill him, and his first journey from one side of galaxy to the other, defeating the greatest threat the Earth and alliance had ever known.

Being an avid consumer of science fiction and fantasy, media and prose, as well as a lifelong student of mythology, history and war. I have attempted creating a rich and diverse galaxy, re-imagining twelve ancient cultures and associated religions, then imagining what it would look like, if the only survivors of the interstellar wars, were the ancestors of the American Indians, the Koreans and the Celts.