WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds) Read Online Free PDF

once-fertile worlds were now uninhabitable wastelands because of the use of world-destroying weapons.
    Under the plaque was written, “Totus est pro optimus.” Ash snorted. Latin. No one spoke it, but for some reason it was traditional for space vessels to carry their motto in the ancient tongue. He stared at the foreign words and his Icom implant obliged him by translating,
“All is for the best
.” Ash frowned. That was a strange battle cry for a fighting ship. Perhaps her engineers, realizing they were building the last Delian warship, gave her that reassuring yet fatalistic name and motto. Still, it probably
was
for the best.
    Without warning, an unseen force struck him, punching the air from his lungs like a fist to the chest. Ash gasped, his vision darkened — and he heard a scream.
    No, that wasn’t right. He didn’t
hear
a scream.
    He
felt
it
.
    A small part of his consciousness puzzled over this for an instant. The screaming stopped. The immediate empty silence seemed even more frightening.
No!
Nauseating, choking fire exploded in his lungs.
    Ash’s
mind shrieked in blind panic,
Air! Give me air! I can’t breathe!
    Gasping, Ash fell to the floor. His head swam, his ears rang and he knew that he had been screaming. He knew without seeing her that his mother had been screaming, too.
    His chest burned, but more devastating was the thick, black desolation of despair. It slammed into him hard, an emotional avalanche that buried him alive.
    It was agony —
agony.
    It went on forever.
    Then, mercifully, the blackness of unconsciousness overtook him.
 
    A soft white noise whirred, the sound of an engine engaged in significant work, the rhythmic hum of hydrogen propulsion. The resonance was so all-pervading that it was almost impossible to identify without intently listening. Aboard a spaceship, it was a familiar hum one would not normally perceive unless the sound stopped. On
Assurance
the sound did not stop.
    The Delian warship, virtually self-reliant, moved through space guided by Icom. It discerned and measured temperatures, as well as a variety of waves: electromagnetic, sound, and gravitational. Hyper-aware of its own systems, spectral analysis of the surrounding space, as well as the physical parameters of the organic life forms on board, the vessel had all-encompassing physical perceptions, yet it could not measure emotion.
    The two life forms on board
did
feel emotion. When the people of Delian had been gassed, those on board
Assurance
felt their death on a psychic level. Ash and his mother experienced nausea and a choking inability to breathe as well as terror, grief, and death’s despair. Thankfully, the crushing desolation had pulled them into unconsciousness, where they, like
Assurance
, felt nothing at all, at least not until they woke …
    A familiar sensation pulled Ash out of the darkness
    His wolfhound, Tynan, put a large paw on Ash’s chest and licked his face, with one long, rough, doggy kiss.
Such a terrible feeling of loss.
Ash woke up on the floor of the lower deck with tears in his eyes. He knew Tynan had not been there, but it felt as though the ghostly presence of his friend had come to say goodbye. What was going on? He put his hand on his chest where he could still feel the familiar coarse padding and long nails of Tynan’s paw.
    An alarm was shrilling continuously. Sitting up, Ash was promptly and repeatedly sick. Despite being a veteran of chronic illness, he could never remember feeling so unwell. Uncharacteristically, Ash wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his sweater. Such vulgar behavior didn’t matter. Something terrible had occurred, and, child that he was, Ash’s first thought was that he wanted his mother.
    “Mother?” Ash called. Too unsteady to stand, he crawled off to search. He found her in navigation. Sartha’s trim figure lay on the grooved flooring, eyes closed, skin clammy and white. Her shoulder length, golden blonde hair fanned around her face; she was dressed in