The Biomass Revolution (The Tisaian Chronicles)

THE BIOMASS REVOLUTION

BOOK ONE OF THE TISAIAN CHRONICLES

By
Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Nicholassansb
ury.com

Edited by Michelle Brown

Artwork by Phoebe Smithers

ISBN 13: 978-0-9892447-0-1

Copyright © 2013 Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Great Wave Ink Publishing

All right
s
reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

To my parents who have always believed in me, supported me and loved me unconditionally
.

I love you both
more than you know.

“War does not determine who is right—only who is left.”
~
Bertrand Russell

Table of Content
s

Prologue      

Chapter 1: The Past Unveiled
     

Chapter 2: Scorpions
       

Chapter 3: An Old Knight

Chapter 4: Guerilla Warfare     

Chapter 5: Spartans
    

Chapter 6: The Tunnels

Chapter 7: A Note from the Past     

Chapter 8: A Daring Escape

Chapter 9: The Disappearance

Chapter 10: The Silo
   

Chapter 11: Modern Gladiators
    

Chapter 12: Betrayed 
    

Chapter 13: The
Biomass Revolution      

Epilogue
    

About the Author
   

PROLOGUE:

Time
: 7:14 a.m. January 10, 2071

Location
: The Dead Forest. Tisaia

Darkness always made Evandish uneasy. Even after spending most of his adult life scouting the tunnels for the resistance, he never became accustomed to it. He heard some of the younger scouts refer to the tunnels as their homes, but for him they were a place to hide, a place to survive.

Decades had passed since the nuclear fires rained down on the cities in the old world.
The fires had consumed everything in their path; it was only by chance he’d survived, seeking refuge with his family in a subway station. The heat, darkness and fear of those first few days would never leave him, seared in his memory like a brand on his skin. There were other memories too, some so vivid they would still slip effortlessly into his mind at arbitrary times.

H
e recalled the first several months after the bombs dropped. Combing the catacombs of tunnels, looking for shelter and food with his family and the other survivors. Waiting for help his parents said would inevitably come.

The military will
mobilize
, they said. The Red Cross too, maybe even other countries would send help. As the months slowly passed, the survivors perished one by one. Help never came. Their food supplies dwindled. The remaining survivors became desperate, their last strands of dignity gone.

No child should remember their parents
’ last moments the way he was forced to. His mother’s eyes, wild with fear, peeking out from behind his father’s back. His father waving a burning torch as three men, covered in dirt, ash and blood, devoid of their humanity approached them. Words were needless to reveal their intentions; the desperation in their eyes gave it away. They wanted what little food his family had left. The can of peaches, a liter of water and a half jar of peanut butter. It was all his parents’ lives ended up being worth. In the end, a single meal became worth a life.

A tear streaked down his face as he tried to shake the memories, the sharp cold of morning finally wiping them out of his fatigued mind.  His eyes instantly searched for the garish fire that
had kept him warm through the night. The warmth was gone; the light which had cast a vivid glow over his camp had disappeared. His eyes came to rest on the vanishing coals.

He shivered as an indiscriminate
blast of frozen wind whipped against his face. The soldier threw his coat around his shoulders and hovered over the dying embers—blowing on them to revive them. He had been in the dead forest for over three days now, scouting out the trolley tracks. His mission was to sabotage the resupply line of the Biomass trolleys traveling to refuel the great city of Lunia. 

The
ash gray tint of the dead forest had already taken its toll on him. Being a scout he grew to know loneliness; to accept it, embrace it. And normally he would jump at the chance to spend time above ground, out of the darkness of the tunnels. But the forest reminded him of what the world had once been. Unlike many of the younger soldiers born after the bombs dropped, Evandish could remember life before the war, before the destruction. He could recall the bright green leaves sprouting off the limbs of trees reaching towards the vibrant crystal blue skies. He could remember the changing seasons and the rainbow of colors in the fall, when the green leaves would turn to red before the first snow fell.

Another flare of wind grazed his bare skin
, bringing him back to the harsh reality of his world. He peered up at the never ending hazy sky, rays of sunlight desperately trying to peek through the thick poisoned clouds. He turned to see the skeletons of trees, long absent of the leaves now turned to ash on the ground below.

The snort of his horse finally distracted him.
Evandish turned to make sure Ralli was okay, satisfied to see she was nibbling on some oats he had thrown down for her in the snow.

“How are you doing
, girl?” he asked, patting her mane as she ate. They had been together for a year now, scouting the tracks on missions above ground. She was one of the last of her kind, captured by the resistance at the beginning of the war. The world was not a place for beasts anymore. She was a reminder of the innocence lost in decades of war and blood.

H
e turned his attention back to the fire, blowing slowly into the red ashes. Within minutes the coals glowed orange and he rushed to his knapsack for some kindling.

Ralli watched him
kneel and scatter the small twigs onto the flames, before losing interest and turning back to her oats. In the distance, Evandish could hear a faint sound emerging over the intermittent wind. Ralli heard it too, her ears perking up as she sensed danger.

The wind picked up again, draining out the faint sound. He shrugged and diverted his attention back to the flames, his mind preoccupied with the warmth o
f the fire on his bare hands. Less than an hour of exposure was all it took to get frost bite, something he had no way of treating once it set in.

For a second the wind lapsed again and the mechanical groan of a train emerged in the distance.
His head instantly shot up, forgetting the warmth of the flames on his hands. 

“Oh no,” he
said, quickly stomping on the fire.

He stiffened as the
treacherous scream of a Biomass train broke through the howling wind.

“There isn’t supposed to be a t
rain for another day,” he said, his voice raised but calm. He didn’t want to alert Ralli anymore than she already was.

He turned, watching as she paced back and forth nervously, pulling at the rope tied to the
dead bark of an old oak tree. She could sense the danger.

Evandish
searched desperately for an escape route, jumping from the tracks a few yards away to the trail leading from their camp into the forest.

Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run
.

The soldier
hopped to his feet, ignoring the smoke rising from the ashes. If there were Knights on the train, their infrared equipment had already picked up his location.

Quickly
, he scrambled to gather his belongings, tucking them into a small pack on Ralli’s back. For a moment he caught her gaze, recognizing the undeniable fear in her dark brown eyes.

The sound of the train cut through the
thick wind as he rushed to untie her from the tree. Within seconds they were racing through the frozen branches of the forest, tearing through snow covered bushes and over fallen logs. The lifeless branches snapped under the weight of her hooves as they continued through the graveyard of dead trees.

A cloud of breath
exploded from her open mouth as she lumbered on through the forest, her hooves following a path not used for decades. Evandish kicked her convincingly in the ribs to keep her going. The train, which Evandish could now see out of the corner of his eye, was racing towards him, quickly gaining in speed.

The path lay on the edge of the
dead forest, following the tracks for another quarter mile before diverting into a valley. They had no choice but to follow it as the forest was too dense to navigate. Their only chance of escape was to make it to the valley, away from the reaches of the Knights’ machine guns.  

The horn of the train
rang out again, causing Ralli to snort another cloud of breath into the air. His heartbeat, elevated, pounded on his ribcage as if it were trying to escape its white jail cell. It knew what his brain was trying to deny—within moments, the train would be on top of them.

“Almost there! Come on girl
!” he yelled, kicking her in the ribs again. “A few more seconds and we’re there!”

He turned quickly to see the sleek metal train, the flaming torch symbol of Tisaia inscribed in vibrant red on the side. As he suspected, on the top of the engine
rested a crow’s nest manned by two Knights. He watched the cool blue glow from their night vision goggles staring down on him.

The imag
e sent a shiver down his back and he turned back to the path, kicking Ralli again. “Come on!” he yelled, fear growing in his deep voice.

He tried desperately to hold onto her reins, his fr
ozen hands shaking violently, Ralli galloping faster beneath him.

“Crack! Crack! Crack!”

The
gunfire tore through the silence of the dead forest, ringing in Evandishs’ ears. Ralli panted on, undeterred, the muscles in her old legs holding strong.

“Faster Ralli
!” Evandish shouted over the barrage of machine gun fire. He watched the bullets tear by them, peppering the frozen ground and sending chunks of snow and earth raining down.

Ralli raced in and out of the spray
and for a split second, everything slowed down. A bullet whizzed past Evandish’s ear. He yanked on her reins, his eyes fixated on the path, hope slowly building inside him. They were almost to the safety of the valley. But Ralli’s legs were old and strained. She was not as fast as she had once been and was no match for the speed of the train.

Evandish was foolish to have hope, learning over the years
that there was no room for it in Tisaia. He cowered in fear, gripping the reigns tightly as the train bellowed down on top of them at the last minute. And before Evandish knew it he was in the air, fumbling for the reigns, Ralli tumbling beneath him. He watched helplessly as the bullets tore into her beautiful dark skin, her eyes wild with fear. They hit the ground simultaneously, arms and legs flailing powerlessly about.

The two companions came to a stop at the crossroads of the trails, their bodies broken and silent. The train hammered on, its horn blaring through
the cold wind. Evandish caught one last glimpse of the Knights who turned their focus back on the tracks, ignoring him like nothing had happened, the cold blue glow from their goggles fading in the distance. His gaze fell upon Ralli, who was lying lifelessly to his side, before he too closed his eyes for the last time—a look of horror frozen on his face.