The Foundry | Part One | Chapter One
the first chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part One | Thrice Bled Heart
Chapter One
Echo Béleaph’s presence found residence within those abundant waves of energy pouring off her long-lost home of the heart. She was back at The Foundry. Magnetic stripping in her boots activated, ensuring she’d not float off into the free space surrounding its outer deckwork. One clomping step at a time, she’d made her way through the space-side entry-portal.
She was flowing along with a mass of citizen-spectators, alumnus, instructors, The Foundry’s administrative leadership, and those she soon hoped to call her peers once again. Echo hadn’t recognized anyone yet, nor known herself to have been seen in return, but her eyes couldn’t help but dart through the crowd in search of someone who might bear patterns of recognition within their face.
There would be many surprised to see her back, and a part of her wondered who’d even recognize the woman she’d become; her truest form now boldly shown.
Echo flunked out her first time around. She’d been but a child, nearly killed in a firestorm of her own making. There wasn’t one part of her who’d been truly ready to face this challenge.
The people of of Atreya were showing out. Their moon’s bluest gleaming reflection of Mother Sun glinting off its near-endless ocean. Citizenry here lived primarily in orbit, but all shared right to time spent on its precious surface area; three perfect islands.
Chiron loomed — the enormity shown by the gas giant’s raging whirls of storms was a sight to see of psychological significance. Humans who’d grown up here found themselves most different by the sight of this giant so present in their core-memories. They’d seem quite off to travelers from about; ponderous, stoic, without the ego borne into mankind apart from such constant witnessing of the universe’s grandeur.
Echo tried not to look too often, its permanent looming presence in her peripheral was plenty. Having come from a far off world, its sight, ‘tripped her out.’
Palpable excitement was buzzing through this crowd, and its ever-shifting glaciers of humanity. Once past the gateway energy barriers and into the entry-plaza, there was relief felt in all. Helmets came off, personal protective shielding was disabled, and people would choose to show out in more style than space-walking their way inside had allowed.
Removing her own shield pack, worn as such a weight upon her back, Echo made way along with the spectators into the arena itself. The causeway was wideset and packed to the brim with humanity in its many forms. Variations of skin and hair, the orientation of ones standard features, rich intricacies which would be studied by many a geneticist in this civilization burgeoning into its destined place amongst the stars.
Sight of The Great Generator ahead bore a tactile wave of awe which Echo felt coursing through the crowd. In herself, she’d felt dread, remembrance, and her heart ached in her chest at the memories borne to mind’s vision.
Coming to pierce the splitting streams of crowd, each taking aim towards their booths throughout the opposing lengths of this colosseum, she’d stepped forward to a lonely spot before a parapet overlooking a drop to the area’s floor. Before her spun those three mighty rings, ever-rotating around the glowing blue sun of source, creating an armillary sphere of epic proportion.
The energy needed to power this entire civilization’s doings about the galaxy was created, dispersed from, and protected here; The Great Generator.
From beneath this clearest dome of engineering prowess were sights one wouldn’t witness anywhere else in the universe. Chiron’s weighted tower of onyx and amber owning such space, Mother Sun’s planetary illumination highlighting its epic horizon-line, and Atreya — the life giver — reflecting it all in its storms and seas. Along with that most vivid roiling sapphire sphere at the center of this arena which surged with sparks of whitest light, and its trio of furious twirling metallic rings.
Just then, two combat mechs in warship-form tore a streak of flame up the Atreya side of the dome. Graduates, no doubt, soon headed out to the frontlines of expansion after one final show.
Echo felt truly home at last.
Sighting these two in immaculate form, unable to recognize the mechs at this distance, holographic displays began projecting into the broad space beneath the dome. Close up imagery of their flight — such plethora’s of spectacle they were. Layered imagery both borne to air and upon the surface of the dome itself would gift access to the eyes of the cockpits, the geometry of their flight as seen from sensor drone’s deployed about The Foundry’s time-space, along with echoing depictions of furious sound which would not be true to the quiet of space.
It was Silence and Epoch. Those two had always been incredible.
That was where Echo’s heart knew she was meant to be. Flight had always felt a part of her soul. The ways in which it was told these warriors found oneness with the consciousness of their mechs had always made her belly tingle in a strange way.
It was her destiny, the one she’d known her whole life; to be a pilot.
Need something to balance out vibes from that horror nightmare. So, figured I’d start my Fourth Wing-killer.