Pain. Everywhere pain. I rose to consciousness slowly. Like floating to the surface of a pool. My entire body was sore and ached. I opened my eyes and found myself in a hospital bed. The room was sterile white and hoses ran into my left arm. I looked around the room to find Madison curled up in a chair to my right. She was facing away from me, looking out the window at a twilight sky. “Hey beautiful” I tried to say but it came out as a croke.

She looked over at me and saw my eyes were open. “Jonny!” She rushed over to me and gently laid herself across me. “You fucking asshole.You had me so worried.” She then kissed me hard.

“Sorry.” I managed to get out but even that cracked. “Water?”

She rushed around the bed to a table on my left and poured a small cup of water. Lifting my head gently, she slowly poured the cool liquid into my mouth and I swallowed painfully. After two cups the water seemed to revitalize me and Madison helped me sit up a little. “Where are we?” I asked her.

“We’re on Aegis’ home world. They call it Terra Prime, but I don’t know which star it is. Your idea worked Jonny. While all of you fought the Skree I used my powers to sneak in and co-opted the transmitter, used it to call for help from Aegis. The woman that showed up is named Shahalla. She is one of the leaders of Aegis and apparently it’s a really big deal that she showed up to help like she did.” Madison said

“Yeah, she teleported in. Took out the Overseer with as much care as we would have stepping on an insect.” I said

Madson nodded “Supposedly she is the highest ranking Seraphim in Aegis and one of James Malaki’s wives.”

“One of?”

“Yup, but that is all I got. Not sure who the others are or how many. We almost lost you Jonny. I told you no crazy stuff.”

“I’m sorry.” Images of Yusuf’s death flashed in front of me briefly. “It killed Yusuf. I was helpless, I tried to help him but nothing I had could do any damage to it. My most powerful attacks just annoyed it. How are Richie and Valentina?”

Madison had her head bowed, and her hair hid her eyes “They are both alive. Richie did ok. Just some bruises, but he didn’t fight the big one. Valentina is in a nearby room. She is paralized from the waist down. I don’t know if they have the technology to fix that. On Brigand’s Hold it would have been impossible.”

“On Earth, only someone super wealthy could afford to get the surgery necessary to implant the robotics for it.” I said.

I saw a single tear drop from behind her hair. “Those things were horrible Jonny. In the building, they were eating the bodies of the dead Aegis soldiers. The smell and the sight, it, it.” I pulled her in and held her close to me, gently stroking her hair. “They want to eat the galaxy, literally.” She sobbed. “There was a translation of what they were going to send, it was literally; found food, come eat, holy feeder here.”

After a few minutes of quiet I asked, “How about the Tempest? Did Taimia survive?”

“The ship was badly damaged but there are salvage teams recovering it, I’m pretty sure that Taimia survived. ”She sighed,” Let me go get the nurse.” She left the room and came back a few minutes later. With an older woman dressed in pink robes. The attire struck me as very odd for a nurse.

“My name is Margaret, how are you feeling today Mr. Kaine?” she asked as she approached my bed.

“Sore, everywhere.”

“Any pains that standout?”

“No” I rolled my shoulders and flexed most of my muscles throughout my body. “Just incredibly sore everywhere, Like I was weightlifting yesterday for the first time and overdid it.”

“Good, very good.” The nurse laid a hand on my chest and her hand began to glow pink. Energy flooded my body and the pain began to slowly abate. She was a Seraphim with healing powers. I looked up to her face but her eyes were closed. I closed my eyes and mentally examined what I could about what she was doing to me. I could feel her hand and the energy radiating from it into me. I felt detached, as if I was floating inside myself and I moved to her hand. Reaching out, I touched the connection with my mind, latched on and pulled experimentally. The power exploded into me, rippling throughout my entire body. The nurse gasped and collapsed to her knees.

I rolled off the bed and used my right arm to support her. “I’m sorry.’ I stammered. “Are you ok?” She looked up to me with fear in her eyes.

Madison and I helped her sit on the edge of the bed. “What did you do?” she asked, rocking back and forth slightly.

“I don’t really know. I kinda pulled at your power.” I placed a hand on her shoulder and closed my eyes. I focused hard and tried to recreate what I had felt from her. Then it happened, my hand felt warm and I could feel energy rushing up my arm and into her, after a moment I stopped and opened my eyes.

The two women were staring at me with wide eyes. The nurse stood and said “You really are a blood heir.” She took a step backward, turned and ran from the room. I looked after her then to Madison, unsure of what just happened.

“You just took some of her power and used it on her.” Madison said in astonishment. A moment later there was a knock on the door. “Come in” Madison called

A man walked in, closing the door behind him. He was light skinned with unruly orange hair and wore dark pants and a green turtleneck sweater. He was physically imposing with strong muscles and a lean body. Grabbing a chair by the door he brought it over and sat next to the bed. “Hello Jonathan, Madison; My name is Nick Palitorio.” he said with a Chicago Italian accent. “The nurse just explained what happened and I want to assure you everything is ok. She will be just fine, you just took her by surprise.”

I nodded and he continued. “I’m sure that it took you by surprise as well.” I nodded again. “I can give you the long answer if you’d like, but the skinny of it is that as a Blood Hier, you have all the same abilities that James does. That includes the ability to borrow powers from the Seraphim.” He waited a few moments for that to sink in before he went on. “Madison here has been kind enough to answer a few questions about you for us but we’ve been waiting for you to wake up so we can get more information.”

For the next thirty minutes I described in detail my life and how everything had unfolded. From the Starforce to Brigand’s hold to Mars I told him everything. I also told him about my parents and my sister and her family. Nick was patient and kind. He listened and asked questions trying to understand everything with as much detail as he could. I made it a point to praise Yusuf, Richie and Valentina. I highlighted their heroism and I asked him to reach out to Yusuf’s family and give them my condolences. “He saved my life, and even though I only knew him for a few hours, he taught me much of what it means to be a soldier, and what it means to be Templar.” I said

“I’ll do that. We’ll send a team to extract your sister and her family. It’ll be quite a shock to them I'm sure but they will be far safer with us than on earth. That facility on Deimos worries me, I’ll send someone to investigate that too. So I guess the question now is, what do you two want to do? You are welcome to join Aegis but it is not something we will force you to do.”

I looked over to madison. She slid a hand into mine and gave me a small nod, understanding what I wanted to ask without me needing to ask. I turned back to Nick, “Yes, we’d like to join Aegis.” He beamed a smile. “I do have one question, Is James Malaki really still alive?”

His smile fell and he rolled his head on his shoulders before answering. “In a manner of speaking, yes. Last month he was critically wounded in battle. He is still alive but I am afraid that it will be a very long time before he will be fully recovered from his injury. I’m sure he would have been here to meet you instead of me if he was okay.”

“How is he still alive? It’s been hundreds of years.”

Nick paused and considered his words before he spoke. “It’s the Progenitor Nanites. I won’t get into how they work, but when I designed them I made it so they repair the telomeres on DNA. As a result, around age twenty five to thirty, we stop aging. But that feature only activates under a set of very specific requirements.”

“Wait, you designed the Progenitor Nanites?” I asked, incredulous.

He nodded, “I know you both have tons of questions, they will be answered. But for now, you need to rest. I know that rush is probably starting to wear off.” He was right, I could feel myself becoming more drowsy by the minute. “Madison come with me and we’ll get you set up with some Seraphim Tactical Armor. Sleep Jonathan and gather your strength. Soon you are going to be training with the Templar and it’s pretty tough.”

They stood, Madison gave me a kiss on the cheek and they left the room, turning out the lights as they went. I turned my head and looked out at the night sky, the stars twinkled and I knew one hell of an epic adventure was waiting for me out there.

End of Book 1

Note from the Author:

I want to thank all of you for coming along on this journey with me. This has been a pleasure for me to write. Many of these ideas have been floating around in my head for years. Your contributions and criticisms have kept me motivated and pushing myself to write.

This has been the writing of my first draft of my first complete book ever. I have taken many of your criticisms to heart and will be editing a final draft with a professional, using those concerns about the story and characters to improve the story. If you have any suggestions or additional thoughts or criticisms for the story, please post them below. I will utilize everything for the final edit.

As the title suggests, this is book one. I currently have nine books planned. This book is largely just an introduction to Jon and how he came to join Aegis, as well as an introduction to the setting. The actual main overarching story of the series hasn’t even been introduced yet, though it’s been hinted at. The next book will be where things will become more clear. Future books will also be less like a meandering rollercoaster, as they will be more structured. In my eyes it was important for the story up to this point to feel almost haphazard. But I assure you that will not be the norm for the series. Additionally, this is a harem adventure story. Although I have dropped some teases here and there I was not explicit on any scenes. In future books of the mainline Technomancer series, there will be many explicit encounters between Jon, Madison and other future characters. I don’t want that to come across as a surprise to all of you when that happens.

I am also working on a ‘Technomancer Origins’ Trilogy. I am currently half way done with the 1st book of that series. The trilogy is written in 3rd person and will NOT have any explicit scenes. It details earth in the modern day and the early life of James Malaki. How he developed technology, discovered aliens and forged an alliance to fight the Skree. Then how that alliance failed and his establishment of Aegis. The first book will have no spoilers for the mainline Technomancer story. I have already published a few chapters for the 1st book of that story if you want to check it out. I will be focusing my attention on that story next as I had about half of it done when I started this story and I will be able to publish and wrap it up quicker than just moving on to Technomancer #2. Here is a link to that, https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46583/technomancer-origins-book-1-braving-the-dawn

I am going to leave this story as unfinished for the moment until I have an update on potential sales of the book. Once I publish it for sale I will post a link to it. I also have narrators lined up. Christopher Boucher and Jessica Threet of Actors Everywhere will be doing the narration. So I will do another update when the audio book is ready, then I will flag the book as complete. If you would like to get these updates make sure you follow this as I do not have a timeline for either release at the moment. https://www.facebook.com/groups/actorseverywhere/