Godeena by Stjepan Varesevac-Cobets Book Tour and Giveaway :)
Godeena
by
Stjepan Varesevac-Cobets
Genre:
SciFi Adventure
Major
Henry Broncon miraculously survives a battle with Ansker soldiers on
the planet Morad. He is found under a pile of corpses, the only
survivor; his best friend and the whole of his brigade remain in the
field of death. Broncon is fully acquitted, receives a medal for
bravery and is promoted to the rank of Brigadier, but he cannot
forgive himself and he feels responsible for falling into the Ansker
trap.
Shortly
after, the Anskers are beaten and the war ends. The winning
terrestrial colonies receive ownership of a system called Naude,
comprised of various planets including Godeena. On the surface of
Godeena, there is a huge, completely preserved but uninhabited city
that scientists have named the Absolute. Analysis of the city reveals
no signs of life. A team of scientists is sent to investigate what
has happened to the people and animals of Absolute. A few days later
the team is attacked and contact with the scientists is lost. The
General Staff sends two teams of Special Forces to find out what has
happened to the expedition but they also disappear, leaving no
trace.
The
Commander of the General Staff, General Hensell, is personally
involved with the mystery. He requests Brigadier Henry Broncon to
gather a unit, composed of the worst inmates from the inescapable
prison, Hades, to investigate what is happening on Godeena. Henry
accepts this task and collects 17 prisoners, each with unique skills.
Among them is Maria, who possesses enormous psychic powers and has a
wicked second personality called Kir.
The
unusual team of criminals, led by Broncon, travels to Godeena to
discover what terrors await them there.
Only a miracle had saved her and the four members of
the exploring team. They wore the latest, state-of-the-art military
space suits when they entered the tunnels under the town of Absolute.
The suits protected them from all sorts of radiation and
poisonous gasses. Although the suits could withstand
temperatures over 100˚C, they couldn’t stay in such extreme
conditions for more than an hour. The helmets were plated with solar
cells that charged the storage cell pack. The cell packs, in
turn, energized a system capable of purifying and cooling the
air in the suit. With the energy stored in the storage pack, Diana
and her friends could work all day before they were used up. Despite
the innovative system, the cell pack was easy to use and could be
customized for each of its users. With
the other four members of the team, Diana explored underground for
hours. They surveyed only a small part of the complex. When they lost
communication with the camp, they came back to check on
whether all was well. They were shocked to see that the camp was
completely destroyed and all their friends were dead. A
bluish haze appeared to settle over everything, making parts of the
butchered bodies even more grotesque. Diana’s deputy, Aron Coller,
took off his helmet and ran anxiously to his wife’s tent at the
other end of the camp, but he couldn’t find her. Diana and the rest
of the team watched him with pity. He was behaving like a madman,
turning over the dead that lay around the tents. While they watched,
they noticed a boy appear from the haze like an apparition. Aron ran
up to him, knelt, and gently stroked the boy’s head, watching his
large, terrified grey-black eyes. “Where
were you? Did you see what happened?” The
boy remained speechless, shaking his head left to right. Suddenly, he
uttered a word in an icy voice that made them all tremble. “Naughty!” That’s
when they saw behind Aron, a sight that frightened them out of their
wits and froze them on the spot. From the dense indigo haze, monsters
from their worst nightmares materialized. Filled
with horror, they watched the black armored torsos
that spurted forth sharp thorns dripping greenish liquid. The
monsters towered over Aron by more than two feet. Their heads were
long, big-boned, almost-predator like, with huge teeth.
Like wings, they spread their armored, jointed limbs
that ended with long, sharp black edges and on which blazed greenish
slime.
In
what looked like the last moments of his life, Aron felt a
presentiment of danger and hoped someone could help him. The monster
nearest to him swung and with a single stroke cut off his head. Blood
gushed out of his neck like a geyser. The head rolled on the ground
towards Diana and her team. She trembled to see his eyes, which
showed the final moments of writhing pain. The
monsters jumped on the remnants of his body and started to butcher
it. The little boy was completely sprinkled with blood, but he didn’t
move. He was looking at her team fixedly, muttering something they
couldn’t comprehend. Fear had gripped them, and not one
moved despite the horrible sight. The silence that followed
seemed to last for an eternity. Suddenly
the boy waved his hand. The monsters disappeared and he was
again wholly clean. Once more, he looked towards Aron’s
chopped-up body and in his voice, which was more like the
hoarse grating and raging growl of a prehistoric animal, he retorted
angrily, “Very, very naughty,” then disappeared in the haze just
as he had appeared. They
couldn’t surmise up until then that they had been lucky because
they hadn’t taken off their helmets; otherwise, they’d
have experienced a fate like Aron’s. Diana and rest of the team
lingered for some time, afraid to make any sudden moves. After
giving the incident sufficient time, Diana made a sign with her hand
for the others to move. “You saw what happened to Aron. Don’t
take off your helmets, for there’s a good chance the boy can’t
see us while we’re in these space suits. Let me check what’s
left of our transporter ships and see if they’re in good
shape. You’ll wait for me here.” Nobody
contradicted her decision, so Diana set off to the runway, knowing
very well that the team was as shaken as she was. Walking
through the haze, she thought about the boy a couple of times. He was
floating like a ghost above the butchered bodies. All her friends and
colleagues were dead. Nobody had been spared. What horrified her
most was his satisfied smile and his rapture as he bowed
and gently touched some of the butchered bodies with his fingers.
Above all, the craziest thing was that he was singing a bizarre song
the whole time: “You’re very, very, very bad,
Now not worth what you wept,
It’s time to be refunded,
Let life come back to death.
You’re very, very, very bad...”
Stjepan Varesevac-Cobets was born on 12 September 1965 in Split, Croatia. He lives and works in Kastel Sucurac, where he finished his elementary and secondary schooling.
At
a very young age, he started reading and loved it because, through
books, he traveled to places he could never visit in person. As a
child, he loved fairy tales and adventure but later discovered other
genres. When he found a Jules Verne book in the library, he became
fascinated by science fiction. He has been writing poetry for fifteen
years and has started writing science fiction. Lately, he has also
written children's fairy tales and fables.
He
has published, in Croatia, "An Opened Heart" in 2002, "The
Sleepy Way" in 2005, and "Love" in 2006. On Amazon he
has published the poetry collections "The Child of Happiness"
in 2015, science fiction novel "Godeena" in 2015, the
science fiction short story "Butterfly" in 2016, the poetry
collection "When the moon takes over the dream: Love Poetry"
in 2016, and in 2017 the poetry collection "The Flaming Horses:
Collection of poetry". He also translated his new Sci-Fi novel
"The Dream of the Forest".
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!
Comments
Post a Comment