The Initiative: Book One of the Jannah Cycle Read online

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  The Initiative

  The Jannah Cycle, Book One

  By D. Brumbley

  Also by D. Brumbley

  The Ironborn Cycle

  The Ironborn Claim

  The Heartborn Mate

  The Lightborn Queen

  The Jannah Cycle

  The Initiative

  The Rebels *

  * forthcoming in March 2020

  Dedicated to

  All of you

  who love someone

  who doesn't know it.

  Yet.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978-1-7055636-4-9

  The Initiative. Copyright 2019 by D. Brumbley.

  Published by Two in One Publishing.

  Cover art by Brumbley Graphics.

  All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Kindle Direct Publishing.

  1

  A day on a farm never started at sunrise, so the gradual brightening of the predawn sky through the small attic window in her room was what Anna saw first when she opened her eyes. The house below was quiet, and Anna enjoyed that quiet with a sense of relief as she rubbed at her eyes and forced herself awake. Soon the house would be busy with all of her siblings going about their chores, and she wanted to cherish the silence as long as she had it. The temporary silence and solitude allowed her the chance to think.

  She scooted to the end of her bed and leaned toward the window so she could push the curtains aside and see more of the sky. Her room was the highest and smallest room in the house, just a tiny space that had been made into a room on the east end of the attic. Small as it was, it was enough for her, and it gave her the privacy she wanted. Being the oldest of seven children, privacy was a difficult thing to come by. The grey sky and the unaccustomed silence were eerie reminders that the usual lack of privacy inherent in a big family might be something she would miss someday. Maybe even one day soon.

  The window at the end of her bed was small, but when she pushed it open she was greeted with a sweet, fresh prairie breeze. She smiled as she ran her hand through her brown hair and looked up into the last remnants of the night. Above her through the diminishing darkness floated not just the familiar morning constellations, but also one of the many giant space stations that had been a permanent feature of the sky since long before she was born. The station in the dawn sky looked like half a dozen stars had clustered together to have a party, but a hundred childhood nights spent with a clear sky and a telescope had taught her better. One look at the space station brought the previous night to her mind, and she turned slightly to glance at her desk where her laptop was open, staring back at her.

  Anna Prince,

  We are pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted…

  Accepted.

  She couldn’t even think about the rest of the brief message she’d been sent, since that single word kept swirling around in her mind. What would her family say? What would her father say? What would they do?

  Anna looked out her window again, chewing on her bottom lip as she thought about the day she had gone to answer the call in the first place. The Jannah Initiative was looking for very specific types of people. She knew they wanted a variety of skill sets, different personalities, and that no one from Earth older than twenty-five would be accepted. She also knew that not many had actually applied from her hometown, but that they were wanted. Farmers. Problem-solvers. Mechanics. People who could live life without complex computers or technology if necessary; build what they needed. She still hadn’t expected that they would accept her.

  Did she really want to go? Would she? It would mean leaving everything behind, everything and everyone she knew. Possibly forever. She usually tried to avoid anything with a duration of ‘possibly forever’.

  It was for the greater good of humanity. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what they told her? That was what she wanted to believe. She was eighteen, and not once married. Eighteen, and still living at her father’s house, with no prospects. If a continuance of the human race by reproduction was not to be her purpose, then maybe, just maybe, this could be her purpose? It turned out to be too much to think about before the sun was up.

  Anna jumped out of her bed and rushed from her room down two flights of stairs. The bathroom with the big shower was hers today, and she would not have to wait or fight anyone for it. She had a long day ahead. Harvest season waited for no one. Not even a confused farmgirl wishing desperately for time to think about the rest of her life. Thinking would wait. The crops would not.

  She rushed through her shower and dressed quickly, piling her wet hair into a bun on the top of her head so that it would be out of the way. Anna didn’t waste time with makeup or primping, which her father told her was part of her problem, but she knew she didn’t need it. She knew she was pretty, but she also knew she was bullheaded and sharp-tongued. That was her real problem, not the lack of makeup on her face.

  When she got to the kitchen she wasn’t surprised to see her father already at the table drinking coffee. He had most likely spent most of the night up coughing, not sleeping. His illness was getting worse, but ever the farmer, he was still up long before the sun.

  He looked up at her over the rim of his coffee cup as she went to get a cup for herself, adjusting his glasses once before looking back at the tablet in his hand to read the news. “I figured you’d be later getting up, late as you were up last night. Light under your door was on past midnight.” Joseph Prince’s voice had been put through a meat grinder in recent years by his constant and continual cough. He hardly even sounded like the father who had raised her anymore. The stress lines on his face changed him more and more with every passing year, though they didn’t stop him from keeping himself clean-shaven every morning of his life.

  “And suffer Ben’s wrath if I slept in? No thank you.” She laughed as she finished pouring her coffee, then went to sit by her father, savoring both the coffee and company before she had to get out and get to work. She grabbed a muffin from the middle of the table where Ben’s wife had left them out the night before, and before she took a bite, she leaned in and gave her father a kiss on the cheek. “I might’ve been born the oldest, but somehow he always acts the part. And sometimes he can be scary.”

  “Only sometimes?” He asked with the smallest hint of a grin before he had to turn away and cough, burying his face in his arm to keep from waking the younger members of the household. “I think,” he continued as if he hadn’t had to stop, his voice sounding temporarily even more broken than it had been before, “he’s scary a hell of a lot more than sometimes. You’re just braver than the rest of us.”

  “I think the word you’re looking for is scrappy. That’s what people call stupid, small, people who pick fights, right?” Sh
e joked, but there was definite concern in her eyes as her father coughed. It sounded worse than usual, but she hated to think about it. Let alone talk about it. Her father was dying. They all knew it. He knew it. Talking about it wouldn’t change it. Death came. Death took people every day. It was a beast no one on Earth could tame.

  Her father looked like an old man worn by years, but he was only a few months shy of forty. He had been worn down by the illness that would take them all in the end. There was no cure, and life on Earth was short because of it.

  Anna tried not to think about it much, even though her mother was already gone. She put her hand on her father’s arm but used her other hand to bring the coffee to her lips for a sip. “Were they still fighting when you went to sleep?” Ben and his wife were having a difficult time of it recently, but Anna was hoping that they would work it out. They were perfect for each other…most of the time.

  All he could do was roll his eyes and return to his own coffee as if the taste would push the memory farther away. “They stopped yelling when Ginny went to sleep, but yeah, they were still fighting last I heard. Going in the same circles about all the same things…” He sighed, which triggered a small racking cough, then he looked back at her. “Just remember when you get married, it’s not worth it. If you’re going to fight about something, tell them what you think, listen close to what they think, then work it out. Don’t waste the time you have spinning in the same place over and over again.”

  “You sound so certain I’m gonna get married.” Anna picked at the muffin she grabbed but she couldn’t convince herself to take a bite when her mind was elsewhere. Her mind wasn’t on marriage, it was on the acceptance letter haunting her from the night before. Her thoughts made her stomach twist into knots, but she kept quiet about it. “I don’t see anyone lining up for the opportunity.”

  “Well, a line would mean you’d have to break some hearts. You’re much better at breaking other things. Like their arms or legs. Or collarbones, you’ve done an impressive number of collarbones.” He grinned at her again and drained what was left of his coffee cup, sighing in satisfaction at the end of it.

  Anna’s lips quirked up into a small smile at the sight of her father’s grin. Despite the fact that he was dying, he still smiled more than she thought any dying person ought to. It made her love and respect him even more. She knew he was determined to enjoy life with his children as long as he had the chance. “Exactly the reason why it might be wise for you to give up on the idea that you’re gonna get rid of me that way. And as for the arguing in circles thing, that’s just because Ben is a stubborn asshole who…” She stopped mid-sentence when her brother came into the kitchen, but she couldn’t help but giggle anyway. Anna didn’t want to start a fight with her brother so early in the day, but that didn’t change the fact that he was, in fact, a stubborn asshole who didn’t listen to his wife nearly as often as he should.

  Ben glared at her as she cut off, but then just nodded at her as he went to get his own coffee and start a second pot. “Well, go on, I’m a stubborn asshole who what? You’re the second person to call me an asshole today, and I’ve only been awake five minutes. I might as well get some constructive criticism to go with it.”

  “Second? Wow, you really did make her angry. The Susan I know doesn’t often use words like that.” Anna just shook her head. Her brother’s wife was usually a very soft-spoken and tender woman, but recently there had been a truckload of tension between them. Susan wanted Ben to take a second wife because she was having trouble conceiving another child. They had one healthy little boy, but time was never in anyone’s favor, and Susan didn’t want to be the woman that gave her family only one child. Susan and Ben were in love, though. Anna could understand why Ben fought Susan on the idea, but it was clear that Susan wasn’t going to give up on it. “You’re a stubborn asshole who should just listen to his wife and make her happy if you can. If this is something that she wants, and clearly she hasn’t changed her mind about it, then you should talk to Logan.”

  “Only thing I’m gonna talk to Logan about is borrowing some of his miracle farm equipment for harvesting next week, if he can spare it.” He glared even after he had taken the first sip of his coffee, since he clearly didn’t need the caffeine jolt to be awake enough to get angry. “It’s barely been a year since Matt was born, and you’re all talking like the damn sky is falling.”

  Anna sighed and continued drinking her own coffee in silence for a moment before she decided to say more. “It’s hard, having expectations and feeling disappointment and guilt over and over again. She feels like she’s failing, and sometimes that can drive someone to want things they wouldn’t normally want. She’s only suggesting it because she loves you. It’s not like she’d think about you with another woman by choice.”

  Ben drank his own coffee in silence for a while before he shook his head. It wasn’t an idea he could bring himself to stomach, even if he knew Susan’s motivations were only from a good place. “I’ve said I won’t, and I won’t. If my mind changes in the future, then that’ll be the future. But right now, it’s not going to happen. That’s the end of that.”

  Joseph sighed, but nodded slightly, with a warning glance over at Anna. “It’s your family, son. You’ve got to do what you think is right by them, whatever that is.” He got up to get himself another cup of coffee, leaving his tablet on the table with the headlines still marching across it in their slow procession.

  The North American Territories Commemorate 250th Anniversary of the NATA. World Census Office of the Orbital Consortium reports growing population in the American territories, North and South, and in African states, but declines elsewhere. Estimates expect total North American census counts to surpass thirty million by year’s end for the first time in four decades.

  “You gonna help me with the livestock before we get going on the rest of the day?” Ben said without entirely looking at Anna, clearly done with the preceding conversation.

  Anna was so caught up in reading the headlines and letting them spin her thoughts that she barely registered her brother’s voice, but when he repeated himself, she snapped her head up to look at him. “Help…oh, yeah, of course. Long day ahead, right?” Anna knew she sounded distant and distracted, since she was, but she couldn’t help it. The message that she received the night before was definitely beginning to take over her mind.

  “They’re all long days.” Ben’s look turned from a glare to mild concern, and his eyes scanned the headlines before looking back at her. There wasn’t much by way of actual news there, to his mind, but if Anna was concerned by it, that was her business. “You feeling alright?”

  Anna just nodded at first but then looked up at her brother with a weak smile. He was bigger than her by a long shot and in every way he looked the part of the older sibling, which always amused her. He was always looking out for her, even though Anna definitely knew how to take care of herself. “I, um, I heard people started getting acceptance and denial letters yesterday for the Jannah Initiative. I was just curious if there was anything newsworthy about it.”

  That seemed to confuse Ben even more and he let out a sudden laugh that sounded more like a cough or a bark than actual amusement. “Yeah, sure, they’re gonna advertise that on the front page. Anybody walks into that suicide mission, government’s gonna keep that to some kind of Top Secret, need-to-know bullshit. We’ll only hear about it after they launch and plow into an asteroid or something equally stupid.”

  Anna winced, though admittedly, she wasn’t entirely convinced that it wasn’t a suicide mission. She wanted to believe that it was something good, something that would help humankind, but she didn’t live in a world where that kind of hope and idealism thrived. Earth was harsh, and hope had an even shorter life expectancy than people. It was a miracle if anyone made it past forty, and to keep humankind alive on Earth, it meant kids as young as thirteen and fourteen were getting married and having babies. Anna was definitely behind on that. Ben was sixteen an
d already had one kid, showing her up as usual. An eighteen year old woman, single and childless, was decidedly in the minority. “It might not be a suicide mission. I mean, it could be a good thing, being the first people to go to Jannah.”

  “First person to do anything in this world, or any other world, for that matter, always gets a bad day for their trouble. Can you imagine trying to be the first person to break a horse? First person to try all this grass and get poisoned for your trouble before somebody finally figured out that wheat and oats might actually be edible?” Ben took a muffin, but clearly intended to stay on the move as he shook his head. “I’ll take second place in line any day. First mouse can have the cheese and the ass-kicking that comes with it.”

  “I would hope the Consortium would take better care of its people than sending them off into some kind of trap.” Joseph said with a skeptical look up at Ben. “They’ve certainly been working on this Initiative long enough. If they say they’re nearly ready to go, I can’t think of any reason they’d lie about it.”

  Anna nodded while he spoke. “It would give someone purpose, anyway. If they felt they didn’t have any.” She was afraid to say too much else in case they guessed her thoughts before she was ready to talk. Anna glanced over at her brother for a moment, gauging the impact of her words, but the moment was broken when she heard footsteps barreling down the stairs toward them. The rest of her siblings were on their way.

  Cory, her fourteen year old brother, came rushing in first, followed quickly by Danny, who was only a year younger. “Grab something quick, boys.” Ben was already prompting as they ran. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

  As soon as the rest of the family got moving in the morning, the kitchen became a swirling mass of people trying to eat and getting yelled at in turn to go get showered and ready for the day. Emily, at ten years old, was sent off first so that she could take care of Ginny whenever she woke up. Their six-year-old sister was the youngest of them all, but easily the most energetic. Only Cory really gave her a run for her money.