Groombridge Log E-Book

Tommi Salminen

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Ur-Quan Masters
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 563

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

In 2155, 20 years after a lost war, humanity is imprisoned on Earth under an impenetrable slave shield. The only humans outside are a group of nearly 2000 men and women, assigned to serve their masters on a starbase in Earth's orbit. The starbase was supposed to be resupplied every five years, but already eight have passed without a word. Energy cores are exhausted and life support is failing. But then, just when all hope seems lost, they get visitors who might have the power to change everything. This book is the first part of the novelization of Star Control 2, a computer game released in 1992, which many still consider one of the best games of all time.

Leseprobe

CHAPTERS

Prologue

The First Contact

Lunar Expedition

The New Alliance of Free Stars

One with the Short Ta Puun Stick

The Way Home

Peaceful Encounter

Intermission

Message from Beyond

The Evil Ones

Fair Trade Aliens

Three-way Interactions

The Third Mission

Dimensional Fatigue

Fish Folk

Eden

Worse than Zebranky

Into Darkness

Just Checking

Cosmic Depression

Lucky Streak

Making Money

The Escape

Reunion

The map on the previous pages details the spatial relationship between the stars in our known region of the galaxy, as well as the spheres of influence for each alien race as of AD 2133. The positions are based on hyperspace coordinates, which may be unsettling to some students of true space astronomy. Defined long ago by Chenjesu stargazers, the constellations are now accepted by all Alliance races as the standard.

Due to the great difficulty in pronouncing the Chenjesu language, each race has translated the names into their own tongue. When it came time for Earth to adopt this system, the United Nations decided to use traditional astrological designations, assigned at random. This has caused some confusion, but it is considered preferable to the suggested alternative: using the names of past politicians.

PROLOGUE

Neutron chain reaction, the basic principle of atomic bombs, was discovered in the 1930s. In 1939, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada started the Manhattan Project with the sole purpose of creating the first nuclear weapon. It was dropped onto the city of Hiroshima in Japan on August 6th 1945. Three days later a second bomb was used against Nagasaki. Over a hundred thousand were killed.

In the following decades humanity was on the edge of destroying itself in an all-out nuclear war. Lack of mutual trust prevented the United States and the Soviet Union from coming to an agreement on limiting nuclear weapons. The whole world was waiting for either side to make the first strike, but in the end, neither of them did. Eventually the cold war ended and the immediate threat for planet-wide destruction started to fade away, but the vast number of nuclear weapons remained.

In 2015 nuclear combat broke out between several Middle Eastern countries. Fortunately, only a dozen warheads were launched and global disaster was narrowly avoided. Still, almost a million died.

The incident forced governments around the world to sober up. The United Nations General Assembly decided unanimously to strengthen the authority of the U.N. immediately. Within six months, the U.N. had assumed control over all weapons of mass destruction. They were dismantled and their components stored in huge subterranean bunkers, later known as “Peace Vaults”, where they remained for a hundred years.

The era of large-scale wars had come to an end and humanity continued to make breakthroughs in science. In 2019 a Swiss scientist, Hsien Ho, perfected the artificial parthenogenesis – cloning – of humans. Although the clones were, to all external appearances, human, Hsien Ho modified their genes so that they were incapable of producing offspring.

The clones faced a tough world. Major religions were against cloning and fought to have the clones declared subhuman, in which they eventually succeeded. The clones, now called the Androsynth, were stripped of their human rights. As the years passed, they became little better than well-treated slaves.

By the middle of the 21st century, colonization of the solar system had begun. First there were orbital factories and lunar bases, then a colony on Mars and, not long after, outposts in the asteroid belt. But still, because of the great distances and relatively slow speed at which spacecraft could travel, humanity was imprisoned in its own solar system. A great effort was made on technology for warping to distant stars faster than the speed of light.

Because the Androsynth were stronger, smarter and more adaptable than normal humans, many of them were doing sophisticated research, but with little autonomy. The inevitable happened in the spring of 2085. The tens of thousands of Androsynth across the planet staged a worldwide rebellion with help from a sympathetic human underground.

The uprising had been carefully planned. Within 24 hours the clones had seized control of nearly every space-flight facility on the planet. The Androsynth working at the facilities had secretly prepared over a thousand spacecraft and only two days after the rebellion had begun, the clones had taken over almost all of the orbital and lunar bases. Soon there wasn’t a single Androsynth left on the face of the Earth.

Star Control, the recently established wing of the United Nations’ military forces, tried to suppress the revolt. But every time their ships approached, the Androsynth burned them to ashes with colossal maser-weapons which they had fashioned out of formerly harmless energy broadcast units.

After two months the U.N. decided to open the Peace Vaults. But before the weapons of mass destruction were reassembled, Star Control patrol ships reported an amazing sight: Eight of the largest space stations were accelerating out of Earth’s orbit. The Androsynth had somehow managed to modify the stations1 for flight.

Star Control chase ships couldn’t keep up with the space stations, but an ore freighter on its way home from the titanium mines on the asteroid belt was able to catch a glimpse of the escaping fleet during an important moment. According to the pilot’s testimony, a “great red hole” appeared in front of the space stations. They flew into it one by one and vanished. Only seconds after the last one had entered, the hole disappeared. It took over 30 years for humans to meet the Androsynth again.

In 2112 the most distant human space installation was built on the dwarf planet Ceres. Three years later the base received unexpected publicity when it became the setting for humanity’s first contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence: An alien ship had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, positioned itself three kilometers above the base and begun broadcasting the following message:

People from Earth: We are the Chenjesu. We mean you no harm. We come in peace with an urgent message. Heed these words: There is a horde of conquering warriors advancing toward your solar system from deep space. They are called the Ur-Quan. They know you are here. They will make slaves of you as they have made slaves of a thousand races across the galaxy. They will enslave both our species, Chenjesu and Human, unless we stop them now. We are not alone in our struggle. There are others who will fight with us against the Ur-Quan. Together – in an alliance with the remaining free stars – we may yet turn back the enemy, defeating the Ur-Quan and its Hierarchy of battle thralls. We beseech you to join us, for we desperately need your help. But we do not have much time. What is your answer?

For over a week the only answer from Earth was stunned silence, but the Chenjesu representatives were patient. They understood the great psychological shock their sudden appearance had on the humans – a race that amazingly had never been in contact with another intelligent species.

The crystalline silicon-based Chenjesu soon became familiar to all humans. For several months they conferred with political, military and scientific leaders of Earth. Meanwhile, the Chenjesu starship transported U.N. observers to visit several worlds that had been attacked by the Ur-Quan.

One of the most amazing things about the Chenjesu’s unprecedented biology was their natural means of communication. Their bodies were able to send extremely powerful hyper-wave signals that could reach across solar systems. As a gesture of good will, and to ease inter-species communication, they gave humans technological means to artificially produce hyper-wave signals, although no artificial transmitter could match the Chenjesu’s natural abilities.

Amidst all the confusion, life continued on Earth. The Ice Cream King, Britain’s largest ice cream manufacturer, was about to introduce a new product. It was “The Chenjesu Icicle”, which resembled their ice-like form and had their semi-transparent, reflective texture. The authorities were horrified, fearing that the Chenjesu would feel offended, and banned the product before it reached the stores. The news of the censorship soon traveled to far ends of the world and it launched a heated debate. Some said that the icicle was a symbol of racism and would lead to hatred against humanity’s new friends. Others argued that the anti-racism campaigning had gone too far and that the icicle symbolized our friendship with the Chenjesu.

The Chenjesu themselves heard about the debate and had a hard time understanding the importance humans sought in such trivial matters. Even though the Chenjesu insisted that they didn’t have a problem with it, the ban remained.

On August 1st 2116, Earth officially joined the Chenjesu and their other allies – the Mmrnmhrm, the Yehat and the Shofixti – to form the Alliance of Free Stars. The Chenjesu were the leaders of the Alliance, although they refused to formally accept the title.

The Mmrnmhrm were purely mechanical beings that had a close relationship with the Chenjesu. All that humans knew of their history was that they were a product of a distant unknown culture, which sent a giant factory-ark into our region of space many centuries ago. The ark, which the media called Mother-Ark, churned out millions of robots before it finally broke down. If the Mmrnmhrm had a specific purpose, they never told anyone what it was.

There was a lot of discussion2 on whether the Mmrnmhrm should even be called a race. It was pretty much undeniable that the robots were sentient, but many argued that they were just well-designed tools and not living beings.

The Yehat were an avian race of ancient warrior clans that had been traveling the stars for many centuries. The clans were highly competitive and sometimes waged war on each other, but they were all loyal to the Queen, who managed to unite the clans against common enemies.

The Shofixti were a race of intelligent marsupials that had been “civilized” for only a few decades. They were discovered by the Yehat, who adopted and “uplifted” them, giving them advanced technology and cultural definition.

Star Control was placed under direct authority of the Alliance Command Council. The Chenjesu expected humans to play a major role in the Alliance both as combatants and suppliers of war material. Although human technology was primitive, Earth had thousands of modern factories and millions of skilled workers able to manufacture both munitions and spacecraft. The tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapons stashed away in the Peace Vaults were an additional bonus which surprised even the Chenjesu.

On the day following Earth’s induction into the Alliance an unknown alien ship landed on the Moon. The ship transmitted a request to meet with Alliance representatives and soon afterwards a delegation of human and Chenjesu diplomats went to the lunar surface. The newcomers, who disturbingly were little green men in flying saucers, introduced themselves as the Ariloulaleelay. They explained that they too were threatened by the Ur-Quan and that they had come to join the Alliance of Free Stars. The Arilou, as the media called them for simplicity, were extremely secretive and unwilling to discuss even the location of their home world. But they provided additional strength to the Alliance and everyone welcomed them with open arms.

The Ur-Quan resembled larvae, like green caterpillars found on Earth, except that they were several meters long and carnivorous. They had arrived in this region of space from the direction of the galactic spin over ten years before humans joined the Alliance. Upon arriving here they had first enslaved the Umgah, a solitary blobbish species in the Orionis constellation. Shortly afterwards they conquered the Ilwrath, a race of overly religious and hostile spider creatures in the Tauri constellation. The Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm were next, but together they were able to fend off the invading armada. The Ur-Quan fleet then changed direction and subjugated the Spathi instead, a race of cowardly but highly mobile clam-like creatures, facing little resistance. Earth joined the Alliance shortly after this.

In 2119 humanity’s first new-age battleships, the Earthling Cruisers, were ready. They were on their way to support the Yehat and the Shofixti when the fleet encountered a battle group of Vux, a species of green one-eyed semi-humanoids only the Yehat had known to exist. It was then that the biggest mistake of the war was made. The details are unclear, but it is said that Captain Jeffry L. Rand somehow inadvertently insulted the Vux in a way that made all Vux deeply despise humans. The Vux soon joined the Ur-Quan Hierarchy as battle thralls and became a feared enemy for the Alliance.

With their new Vux allies, the Ur-Quan immediately tried to break through Alliance defenses, but were stopped by the combined might of the Yehat and the Shofixti, supported by the first wave of Cruisers. The Ur-Quan fleet didn’t waste any time and instead turned away to attack a new race, the Mycon.

Not much was known about the Mycon back then. They were more like fungi than animals and they thrived in temperatures close to the melting point of lead. In any case, they voluntarily became fighting slaves and soon the Ur-Quan fleet returned, accompanied by hundreds of devastating Mycon Podships. The Alliance was only barely able to hold the line.

When several Earthling Cruisers were patrolling the coreward front near the Vulpeculae star cluster, the Alliance received more bad news. With a blaze of red light, unknown alien ships appeared in front of the fleet. Not giving their opponents time to do anything, they ruthlessly chopped down every Cruiser into tiny bits. It took a while for the Alliance to figure out that the attackers had been the Androsynth.

Later on the Alliance learned that shortly after the Ur-Quan had subjugated the Spathi, they moved to Eta Vulpeculae where the Androsynth had set up a colony after fleeing from Earth. After a short but intense battle the Androsynth had surrendered and become Hierarchy battle thralls.

Ever since the first encounter with the Androsynth humans were a lot more afraid during missions on the coreward front. There was nothing more dreaded than an Androsynth hit-and-run squadron. And to make it worse, everyone knew very well that the Androsynth had a good reason for despising humans.

In 2120 one more race joined the conflict. The Syreen had lost their home world in a mysterious and horrible cataclysm in 2035 and had been wandering the stars ever since. When their slow-moving habitats were attacked by the Ur-Quan, they escaped into human space and became unofficial members of the Alliance.

The media was all over the Syreen as they resembled humans in almost every way. The only external difference was that their skin had a blue tone. In addition, all Syreen starship officers were female, which made the media even more enthusiastic. It was soon revealed that humans and Syreen could even have children across species.

The opposing sides in the war were as follows: In the Alliance were the Earthlings, the Chenjesu, the Yehat, the Mmrnmhrm, the Ariloulaleelay, the Syreen and the Shofixti. Fighting alongside the Ur-Quan were the Mycon, the Spathi, the Androsynth, the Vux, the Ilwrath and the Umgah.

In 2124 the Ur-Quan concentrated their forces, trying to break through the Indi and Mira star systems. The Alliance ferociously stood their ground and managed to hold the line, but the Ur-Quan didn’t give up. Over the following ten years there were many great battles between The Alliance of Free Stars and The Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Then, in 2134, the course of the war suddenly changed dramatically.

The fleets of the Alliance were pushed back to beyond the Raynet star system and the Chenjesu forces were suffering great losses while holding the strategically important Rigel star system. Recognizing this, the Ur-Quan focused their forces on Procyon, the Chenjesu’s home star. After that, the Chenjesu and the Mmrnmhrm were never heard from again.

A few weeks later Sol was attacked from all directions. When the Ceres base fell, humans knew that they had been defeated, but they kept on fighting anyway. Three days later the Ur-Quan destroyed the last laser-forts on the Moon and then there was nothing left to fight back with.

Ur-Quan Dreadnoughts took positions above Rome, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, London, Buenos Aires and Washington. Humans had lost the war and they knew it, but the Ur-Quan decided to make the fact really clear. That’s why Buenos Aires can’t be found on any of the post-war maps.

After the U.N. had submitted their formal surrender, Earth had one week to decide the nature of the servitude. The Ur-Quan demanded that the decision would be made through a popular vote. Either humans would join the Hierarchy as battle thralls and preserve some autonomy, such as traveling through space, or be forever imprisoned on Earth under an impenetrable slave shield.

Humans chose not to fight for the Ur-Quan. One month was given to withdraw all people and equipment to Earth. Anyone or anything left outside would be destroyed when the shield went up. Then the Ur-Quan sent an odd message: All human constructions older than 500 years were to be abandoned.

The meaning became evident when the Ur-Quan Dreadnoughts opened fire on Earth’s surface with their fusion weapons. The flaming rain lasted for 40 hellish hours and afterwards it took days to realize that most of the history of mankind had been lost.

Large sections of European cities were incinerated. The Ur-Quan had also erased the Parthenon, Stonehenge, the Giza Pyramids and similar targets. Curiously, the United States was almost untouched. The Ur-Quan also destroyed some places that weren’t thought to be significant. From their positions in orbit the Dreadnoughts blew away a kilometer of land in central Iraq, vaporized several targets in the Amazon rain forest, punched a big hole through the Antarctic icecap to destroy something deep under the surface and melted a broad swath of ocean floor in the South-Eastern Atlantic.

Just a couple of days later the slave shield went up, cutting all communications with the outside universe and giving the sky a red glow. What happened to the other alliance races – the Syreen, the Arilou, the Shofixti and the Yehat – remained unknown.

The Ur-Quan set up a starbase in Earth’s orbit to service Hierarchy ships. Nearly 2000 humans, all skilled professionals, were selected to work there. The starbase was to be resupplied every five years by the Ur-Quan. During the resupply, the personnel would also be substituted with new members from Earth. A group of Ilwrath and Spathi ships were stationed on the Moon to keep an eye on the starbase.

The first two resupplies went as scheduled, but the third one never came. It has now been eight years and the starbase is running dangerously low on supplies. The starbase hasn’t been able to make contact with the base on the Moon either. Without replacement radioactive elements for the starbase’s power cores, the station will run out of heat and air in a matter of weeks…

1 including the recently finished Starlight Hilton

2 Only on Earth. Other races in the Alliance didn’t see any point to the topic, least of all the Mmrnmhrm.

CHAPTER 1

THE FIRST CONTACT

February 18th 2155, Earth’s orbit

Two men were sitting at the starbase’s cafeteria. The older of the two squeezed his hand tightly around his mug, which contained a small amount of brown liquid. It wasn’t coffee, though, since coffee beans hadn’t existed in decades. Instead it was the crown jewel of humanity’s scientific prowess. Some guy from the Scandinavian Union got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for it in the late 21st century. The drink had the same refreshing effect as coffee and it even tasted just as bad, but it wasn’t unhealthy.

The older man raised the mug with the intention of drinking from it. He stopped in the middle of the process, holding the mug half way between the table and his mouth, and then put it back on the table, not letting go of it. The younger man didn’t pay any attention to his company. His eyes were focused on the table to the spot where the mug was, was not, and was again. His mind was obviously somewhere else.

The cafeteria was quiet. The two men were the only people there. The only sound was the silent hum from the air vents.

“Two weeks” the younger man suddenly said. “In two weeks we have to decide which goes first – heat or air. Then we have our comfortable last few hours either choking or freezing to death. Do you think we should have a poll?”

The older man didn’t say anything. He knew the question was rhetorical.

There wasn’t actually that much of an age difference between the two. The older one merely looked old. He had grey hair and a beard and moustache that circled around his mouth and then went up to his hair line in front of his ears. His forehead was wrinkled and he always looked serious.

The younger one had neatly cut brown hair and no facial hair. The sum of their ages was an even 100. The younger one was the station’s commander, Andrew Hayes. The older one was second in command, Adam Gruber.

“I can imagine the looks on the Ur-Quans’ faces,” Hayes said, “when they finally come here and find 1900 frozen corpses. They will probably say ‘oops’, get the reactors running again and order a replacement crew to come play a second round in this fun little game of death.”

Gruber switched his position and leaned forward a bit. He held his head down, looking at the table. He opened his mouth, but took a few seconds before he started talking.

“I don’t think that the Ur-Quan would willingly neglect us like this,” he said after careful consideration. “They went through a lot of trouble setting this place up. It would have been a lot easier to just kill us all.”

They both fell silent for a moment again. Then Gruber raised his head and looked at Hayes.

“I’m more concerned about the base on the Moon,” Gruber pointed out. “The Ilwrath don’t necessarily care, but the Spathi must realize how foolish it would be of them to let us die here. The Ur-Quan would most likely punish them severely.”

He waited a few seconds and then continued: “When did we last check the surface for activity?”

“A few months ago that I’m aware of,” Hayes replied. “I told Leonov not to waste any power on the telescope. After all we’re still picking up the same old transmissions.”

Ever since they started working on the station eight years ago, they’ve been receiving a constant encrypted signal from the Moon base.

Gruber looked at the ceiling. He was thinking about recent disturbances where some of the starbase crewmen had been at each other’s throats. First five years at the starbase had gone practically without incidents. Then, as the resupply vessel’s scheduled arrival date passed and no information was given, things had slowly started to escalate.

“Morale is getting low,” Gruber said. “We might kill each other before the power runs out completely.”

Hayes lowered his eyes and said nothing. Gruber looked around for a while and then raised his mug to his lips. With one sip the mug was empty, but he didn’t place it on the table. He just silently looked at it.

The silence was broken by distant rapid footsteps that were getting louder. Someone was running their way. Soon the cafeteria door opened and a short, oriental man stormed in.

“Commander!” he yelled, looking anxious, still running towards the two men. “We’ve detected a ship! I think it’s the resupply vessel!”

Hayes and Gruber both immediately stood up.

“Gruber, come with me to the control room,” Hayes said with a decisive and commanding voice.

“Aye,” Gruber replied and they both made their way towards the door.

“Walk with us and fill me in,” Hayes said to the messenger.

“Yes sir,” he replied.

The three of them were walking in the corridor towards the main elevator. Lights were dimmer than usual because power was being saved for life-support. All men had the same kind of uniforms – light grey shirts and darker grey pants with even darker grey knee pads and belts. The man who had just brought the news was Lei Wu, a structural engineer. He was shorter and skinnier than the two and he had short black hair. He started explaining the situation.

“Since our deep radar is offline we couldn’t see it until we detected its gravity waves – which are exceptionally strong.”

“We didn’t try to contact the ship,” Wu continued. “I came to get you right away. I’m not even sure if we still have enough power for the hyper-wave broadcast.”

“If it comes to that,” Gruber said, “we can always squeeze some extra juice by shutting down non-vital sectors.”

Gruber had thought of it before. Shutting down non-vital sectors while transmitting wouldn’t be a problem. They had already considered doing this to get a few extra days of heat and air.

“Have you told anyone else?” Hayes asked Wu.

“Leonov detected the ship so he knows, but that’s all,” Wu explained. “He should be in the control room right now.”

“Good,” Hayes replied, “I want to make sure it really is the resupply vessel before the whole station is informed.”

They reached the central elevator. They were on level five and the control room was on level 16, to which Wu set the dial.

The elevator moved swiftly and silently. Nobody said anything while they were inside. Soon the doors opened and they entered the control room. It was a spacious room with lots of computer consoles on the left and a big window to the right. Above the consoles in the middle was a big screen, which was currently displaying nothing.

In contrast to the greyness inside, the view from the window was spectacular. Almost half of the view was occupied by Earth, which glowed red because of the slave shield. Slowly the planet slid out of sight as the station rotated, bringing the Moon into view.

“Leonov, tell me what you know,” Hayes said as they stepped out of the elevator.

Leonov was sitting in front of a computer console below the big screen. He was a middle-aged Russian man with dark grey hair tied with a blue bandana. He hadn’t shaved his beard in a while and he had dark circles below his eyes. He was looking at a monitor which showed the gravity waves of an unidentified object.

“Ah, Commander,” Leonov said. “I’ve been analyzing the gravity waves and I’m pretty sure this ship type is not in our data banks. Whatever it is, it’s bigger than an Ur-Quan Dreadnought.”

“I’ll try to contact it,” Hayes immediately decided. “Put them on the main screen.”

Leonov tried to set the system to transmit mode on a common open hyper-wave frequency, but it didn’t work.

“Looks like we don’t have enough power for a normal broadcast,” he said. “I can decrease the bandwidth to a level where we can send and receive text only. That might still work.”

“Alright,” Hayes said and took a sturdy position looking at the blank screen. Leonov signaled him that he could start talking at any time. The computer would convert his speech into a text message.

“Attention unidentified space vessel!” he said in an official tone. “I am starbase Commander Hayes of the slave planet Earth. Our hyper-wave broadcast is extremely weak. Our situation is critical. Energy cores are exhausted. Scanners and deep radar are non-functional. We cannot identify your vessel. Are you the Hierarchy resupply ship?”

They waited for a response. After about a minute, a message was displayed on the screen:

“Slave planet! Hierarchy resupply vessel! What is going on here?”

“So they’re not the resupply vessel,” Gruber immediately concluded in an ‘I knew it’ kind of voice.

Hayes was already composing the next message:

“I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but right now you are our only hope in saving the lives of the 1900 men and women aboard this starbase. I can’t keep the transmitter on too much longer since we need the power for heat and air. If you don’t have any radioactives on board your vessel, please get some and bring them back here before it’s too late.”

“If they don’t know what is going on here,” Gruber reasoned, ”they obviously aren’t with the Hierarchy.”

Leonov was looking at a monitor which showed the constant encrypted signal from the Moon.

“In that case,” he said, “the Ilwrath and Spathi squadrons – or at least the Ilwrath – would surely have intercepted them. But I’m not picking up anything out of the ordinary.”

Hayes looked at the signal, leaning over Leonov’s shoulder. He nodded and straightened himself up.

“We can leave speculations for later,” he said. “Let’s just wait for their response and hope they have at least some radioactive elements with them.”

As soon as Hayes was done talking, a new message was displayed on the screen:

“We have something you can use. We will start transferring them to you right away.”

“Splendid,” Hayes stated while making a positive gesture with his fist.

Gruber wasn’t as happy. He felt like an unknown ship suddenly appearing with radioactive elements to spare was too convenient. It would be foolish not to be prepared for a trap or a trick of some kind. But then again, what difference would it make?

Hayes took a personal communicator device from his pocket and touched the screen several times. After a few seconds he turned to Gruber and Wu:

“Dave’s communicator seems to be offline, so you two go to the hangar and explain the situation to the loaders. I’ll make an announcement and keep you informed.”

“Understood,” Gruber and Wu said at the same time.

As the two were going back to the elevator, Gruber thought that the most rational thing for them would be to trust the sudden arrivals completely. But he could not shake one disturbing thought from his mind. Wu interrupted his thought process as he set the dial to level 10.

“Who do you think they are?” Wu asked.

“I’d put my money on the Umgah,” Gruber replied. “This could be one of their pranks again.”

“Would they really go this far?” Wu asked in a slightly skeptical tone.

“You’ve never engaged them so you wouldn’t know,” Gruber said. “We know more about the Umgah than most races, because they had a tendency to converse with us – before, after and during battle. To them it was all just a big joke.”

The elevator soon reached the destination. A big yellow number 10 was painted on the hangar door, which soon opened to both sides, sliding silently inside the wall. The hangar was a huge hall with an opening to the vacuum outside. The only thing between the warm inside and the cold, dark outside was an invisible force field.

As Gruber and Wu walked through the hangar they passed several crates that were lying in the middle with no apparent purpose. Some of the crates were stacked in what one could call an artistic formation. Behind this piece of modern art was a man in a pneumatic loader suit. He looked provokingly pleased with himself as he saw Gruber.

“Hey, chief! Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked Gruber, clearly knowing that he should be doing something else at the moment.

The man was Jonathan O’Donnell, a common joker and trouble-maker. Gruber had always considered him a sub-par worker and an arrogant asshole they were stuck with. If he could have been sent back to Earth, they would’ve done it a thousand times already. Every time something went wrong, O’Donnell had something to do with it. Someone found in the women’s locker room? It’s O’Donnell. Green water in the shower? It’s O’Donnell. An illicit still found in the air ducts? O’Donnell again.

“Get out of that suit,” Gruber coldly ordered. He was used to giving such commands to him and he hadn’t shown any emotion towards O’Donnell in years.

“I suppose you’ve already fixed the door on docking bay three?” Gruber asked, although he knew that O’Donnell probably had neither seen the door nor the order. He probably hadn’t looked at his job list in weeks.

“No problem, chief,” he replied, sounding sincere. “I got Johnson working on it. We had a bet which I, obviously, won.”

He showed no intention of stepping out of the suit. Gruber didn’t have time to get on O’Donnell’s case so he continued walking.

“I heard his family was in Buenos Aires,” Wu said to Gruber, keeping his voice down.

“Everyone lost something in the war,” Gruber replied, implying that O’Donnell deserved no sympathy. They didn’t talk after that.

Soon they reached the hangar control center. It was a small booth with big windows and a good view of the hangar. Gruber opened the door. He saw David O’Hara, the man in charge, sitting in his chair, his legs up on the computer consoles. Dave was a chubby Irish guy with a touch of orange in his otherwise brown hair. There was a half-eaten snack-bar on the table. Questionable pornographic content was playing on one of the screens.

“Dave,” Gruber said with the intention of getting his attention.

Dave said nothing and didn’t move. Instead he soon let out a very loud snore. He had his headphones on and seemed to be sleeping quite comfortably. Gruber took quick steps to reach Dave’s side.

“Wake up! We have a situation here!” he yelled.

Dave screamed in terror and nearly fell from his chair. His feet hit the floor hard. He grasped his chest and gave Gruber a look which is usually only given to Death or the tax collector.

“Holy crap, man,” he said as he was gasping for air. “Are you trying to kill me?”

The pornography was still playing. Realizing this, Dave quickly took off his headphones and turned off the screen. He took a deep breath and leaned backwards.

“So what’s this ‘situation’ you mentioned?” he asked.

“An unidentified vessel is sending us something for our power cores,” Wu explained.

“We don’t know who they are and they don’t seem to know anything about us,” Gruber continued. “In any case, they said they would help, so get the loaders ready immediately.”

Dave took a few seconds to process the information.

“Right…” he finally said. “Right…” he said again, turning to face the computer panel. “I’m on it.”

When Dave was doing his thing with the controls, Gruber’s communicator beeped to notify him of an incoming call. Gruber took his communicator from his pocket and answered the call. Hayes’ face appeared on the communicator’s screen and his voice came out of the speakers as clear as if he was standing there:

“They said they would send one unit of astatine. Are you at the hangar control already?”

“Yes, we just arrived here,” Gruber answered. “Loaders have been informed and Dave will have his communicator turned on from now on.” He looked rather angrily at Dave while saying the last part.

Dave showed a sign of remorse and turned on his communicator.

“So one unit of astatine it is,” he said. “That should keep us going for a few more months.”

“I’ll make the announcement to the base now. Out,” Hayes said and didn’t wait for a response before closing the link.

Gruber tucked the communicator back into his pocket. Soon a cheerful ding-dong sound effect played from the station wide speaker system indicating an upcoming announcement:

“Your attention please, this announcement concerns everyone. This is Commander Hayes. We have been approached by an unidentified ship. It is not the resupply vessel, but they will give us radioactive elements for our power cores. We will now initiate the transfer. Stick to your routines.”

“What else do we know?” Dave asked Wu.

“Since there’s no power for the deep-radar,” Wu replied, “we’ve only been able to determine that the ship is bigger than a Dreadnought, based on its gravity waves.”

“Can’t we look out the window and see for ourselves?” Dave asked innocently.

Gruber thought about it for a second and then felt stupid for not seeing such an obvious solution himself.

“I’m pretty sure it’s too far for the naked eye to see,” Gruber said. “But if we know its position, we can use the telescope on the observation deck.”

All three of them kept nodding their heads for a while.

“I’ll go there and ask Leonov to determine its position,” Gruber decided.

He called Leonov as he left the room and soon Leonov’s face appeared on the communicator’s screen.

“Can you figure out exactly where the ship is?” Gruber asked. “I’ll go to the observation deck and take a look at it with the telescope.”

“There’s no power in the telescope so it’s no use,” Leonov said. “I did already calculate the position, though. It is 10 -50 200.”

“I should have known… Out,” Gruber said feeling stupid again and closed the link.

He had only walked about 10 meters from the hangar control door so he turned around and went back. Wu and Dave were staring at the pornographic material from a while ago on one of the big screens. Dave quickly turned the screen off as Gruber entered. Gruber didn’t bother to say anything about it.

“Of course there’s no power in the telescope,” Gruber stated in a disappointed voice.

Dave spun around in his chair to face Gruber.

“Do we have an old fashioned mechanical telescope lying around somewhere?” Dave asked.

After a few seconds of silence, Wu opened his mouth:

“I have one,” he said plainly.

Dave and Gruber both looked at Wu, waiting for him to understand the situation. It took him a while.

“Oh...” Wu finally mumbled, indicating that he realized that he had to go get the telescope and try to locate the ship with it.

“I have it in my quarters,” he said as he left the room.

Dave took a sandwich from one of the drawers and stuffed half of it in his mouth. He had obviously put a lot of effort into making it from the ingredients available at the starbase. Dave and Gruber were both looking at the screens showing the progress of the loaders. An unmanned transport vehicle was approaching the station from the direction of the ship. It was so close that they could see it from the cameras mounted on the loaders. It was clearly not of human design. The form was very smooth and round. It looked like an advanced piece of equipment.

“Do you know that design?” Dave asked.

“No,” Gruber replied with a puzzled look on his face. “I can say for sure that its origins aren’t in the old alliance.”

Gruber sat down.

“Suddenly my old fears are returning,” he said.

Dave looked at him with a big question mark almost visible over his head.

“Ever since the war was lost,” Gruber continued, “I have been waiting for the Androsynth to return and have their revenge on us, ignoring the Ur-Quan’s commands. Actually, that was what I feared the most during the war. Unlike the Ur-Quan, they had a reason to get rid of humanity for good. I was even slightly relieved when the slave shield went up. Now the Androsynth could only kill us aboard this starbase.”

“Would their grudge really be that deep?” Dave asked rather skeptically as he took another bite from his sandwich. He continued talking with his mouth full: “I believe they have a lot of their own problems so they wouldn’t waste their resources on revenge.” He swallowed and pointed the sandwich at Gruber. “– at least not any more. Hell, the youngest ones should be around 70 by now.”

“I’m not counting on them not reproducing,” Gruber said. “I’d be surprised if they haven’t overcome that by now.”

Dave raised his eyebrows.

“So are you saying that this supposed astatine delivery is actually some Trojan scheme to blow up this starbase?” he inquired.

“It’s a possibility,” Gruber stated.

The elements arrived at the loading area and Dave sent a message to Hayes about it. The transport vehicle left as soon as it was empty. Just then, Wu entered the room holding an old telescope.

“Good,” Gruber said. “We might locate the ship more easily if we follow the transport vehicle. Let’s go to the Edge quickly so we don’t lose it.”

The part where the hangar ended and space began was called the Edge. From there one could look into the black infinity, standing one meter away from the end of the platform. The force field was like an invisible solid wall so it was impossible to fall off.

Gruber and Wu hastily walked across the hangar. Gruber told Wu about the transport vehicle and Wu adjusted the telescope on the move. They soon reached the Edge and tried to locate the vehicle. It had been so close just moments ago, but it could already be so far that it would be indistinguishable from all the stars. The station slowly rotated and the sector where the vehicle went was about to slide out of view.

“There!” Gruber nearly shouted as he pointed at a little dot moving away from them.

Wu rushed next to Gruber, aiming the telescope by Gruber’s arm which was still pointed at the vehicle.

“I see the transport vehicle,” he said, “but I don’t see the mother ship yet. It has to be… over… there… CRAP!” The hangar wall blocked the view. Now they would have to wait almost 20 minutes for the station to rotate another round if they were to see the ship from the hangar.

“Let’s go to the observation deck,” Gruber said quickly.

They jogged across the hangar towards the same elevator that had brought them there. Along the way they passed O’Donnell who was still in the loader suit.

“Hey chief!” he shouted at Gruber. “What’s going on here?”

Gruber ignored him. There was no time for chit-chat. O’Donnell tried to catch their pace, but he couldn’t move fast in the suit so he was soon left behind.

“Chief! Come on, man!” O’Donnell shouted at their backs.

They reached the elevator. It had gone to another floor and they had to wait for it. Gruber thought that he had never had to wait for the elevator so long.

After an eternity of 15 seconds they managed to enter the elevator and set the dial to level 30 where the observation deck was. The elevator once again moved swiftly as it always did.

“How are we going to find the ship?” Wu asked. “The transport vehicle has to be too far to notice by now.”

“Right, I forgot to tell you…” Gruber responded. “Leonov calculated the ship’s approximate position so we can narrow down the search enough.”

The door to the observation deck opened. It was a big round hall with a massive telescope in the middle. The roof was shaped as a dome and it was completely transparent, like it was made of a single piece of glass. There was a small platform which could be freely moved anywhere inside the room. Gruber knew without looking that the station was aligned in a way which made it impossible for them to see the ship from the floor. They climbed on the platform and Gruber started to maneuver it with a small joystick.

“Leonov said that the ship is at 10 -50 200.” Gruber explained as he steered the platform into a proper location.

Wu had never used the platform controls and he looked quite surprised that Gruber operated them with such confidence. Wu set the lenses of his telescope to match the distance. Gruber pointed at a direction which was about directly opposite of Earth.

“It should be over there.” he said.

Wu looked through the telescope and started scanning the direction Gruber was pointing. Suddenly Gruber’s communicator beeped.

“It’s Hayes.” Gruber said and opened the link.

“We’ll have power in a matter of minutes.” Hayes said. “Get over here, you might be needed.”

“On my way,” Gruber responded, “out.”

“It’s all up to you now.” Gruber said to Wu as he steered the platform down as quickly as possible.

“I don’t know how to operate this.” Wu said in a complaining tone, pointing his hand at the control panel.

They reached the floor.

“I’ll set this to move automatically to the last position” Gruber grumbled. He pushed a button and jumped off the platform. The platform quickly accelerated to the opposite direction which nearly made Wu fall down. He barely managed to grasp the railing and pulled himself up.

“How do I get down from here?” Wu shouted at Gruber who was already running towards the elevator.

“Call me when you find the ship!” Gruber shouted, not looking back.

Soon Gruber reached the control room. Leonov and Hayes were both exactly where they had been when Gruber left the room. There was a message on the big screen:

“We will wait for your signal.”

Hayes was looking at a display which showed the energy output of the reactor and the distribution of power to different parts of the station.

“Ah,” he said in a very relieved tone, “power readings are climbing and life-support is coming back into the green.”

Then he turned to look at Gruber with a smile on his face.

“We should have a visual link in a few seconds.” he said.

“Deep radar is online.” Leonov said. “I’ll get a view of their ship in no time.”

Just then Gruber’s communicator started beeping again. He took it out of his pocket and looked at the screen which showed Wu’s image. He answered the call.

“I found it, but I have a hard time believing it,” he said, sounding as if he’d seen a ghost. “I’ve never seen anything like it. One thing I can say for sure though… It really is huge.”

“The scan is complete.” Leonov reported.

He looked at the silhouette of the ship from a small monitor in front of him. It took him a while to get any words out of his mouth.

“What the hell kind of a ship is that?” he finally said in disbelief.

“What do you mean?” Hayes asked.

“See for yourselves.” he continued and put the image on a secondary screen next to the big screen.

“It looks like a skeleton…” Wu simultaneously managed to describe it. “A skeleton of a starship much more advanced than we’ve ever seen!”

Wu’s description was not far off from what Gruber thought.

The ship seemed to consist of three long, thin beams. Two of them were symmetrically arranged under the third one at an angle of roughly 45 degrees. The two were connected to the third one from both ends and several Earthling Cruisers would easily fit between them. In front of the middle beam was what looked like an enormous cockpit. The middle beam had about a dozen large holes, as if the ship was missing some vital parts.

“We have a visual link!” Leonov announced.

A picture appeared on the big screen and they saw who they had been dealing with. Gruber didn’t know which was more unbelievable: The ship they had just seen or the fact that they were now conversing with a young human male in a Star Control officer’s uniform.

CHAPTER 2

LUNAR EXPEDITION

February 18th 2155, Earth’s orbit

”Uh… hello.” the man on the screen said.

Hayes’ eyes were wide open. He looked at the screen as if all rationality had just vanished from the universe.

“Who are you?” he asked after a few seconds.

“I am Robert,” the man said, “Captain Robert Zelnick of the starship Vindicator.”

“The starship what?” Hayes asked, but shrugged the question off immediately. “Never mind… Where did you come from?”

Captain Zelnick took a more formal position standing straight, holding his hands behind his back.

“We are survivors from a Star Control science mission to Vela.”

Gruber found that hard to believe and assumed that so did Hayes. But then again, everything about the current situation was rather uncommon.

“A Star Control science mission, eh?” Hayes said with disbelief in his voice. “Captain, I served as a Star Control officer during the war aboard several cruisers in the coreward front. If there had been any ‘scientific mission’ to Vela, I would have heard about it.”

Zelnick seemed offended.

“The mission was highly secret,” he explained. “About 20 years ago we were sent to the second planet of Vela to investigate an ancient Precursor installation. While we were there, the Ur-Quan broke through the Indi-Mira line and our ship returned home to assist in defending Sol. Some stayed behind to continue the research, but our ship never came back.”

The story sounded believable in Gruber’s opinion, but it still didn’t explain that huge starship they were flying.

“So how do you explain that huge starship you’re flying?” Hayes hive-mindedly asked.

Zelnick looked irritated.

“It turned out to be a spaceship factory we were investigating,” Zelnick replied. “We were eventually able to get it up and running, but the raw materials ran out before this ship was finished. However it was already capable of flight, so… But now you tell me – What did you mean by Earth being a slave planet?”

Hayes didn’t answer immediately and instead sought advice from Gruber who was just outside the view of the communication link. He wondered how much Captain Zelnick and his crew actually knew.

“So we can assume that they know the history to the point when the line fell in 2134,” Gruber said. He could speak freely since the communications program filtered out external noise. “But they don’t know that the war was lost only a few weeks later.”

Hayes waited for Gruber to finish and then answered Zelnick’s question:

“The Alliance lost the war right after the line fell,” he explained. “An impenetrable slave shield was cast upon Earth. This starbase is the only thing humanity has outside the shield – with the exception of you apparently.”

“Commander!” Leonov suddenly cried out. “There’s an Earthling Cruiser behind the ship!”

Hayes looked at one of the secondary screens which showed a detailed picture of an Earthling Cruiser. He raised his eyebrows higher than Gruber thought possible.

“Now that’s something I haven’t seen in a long time,” he said.

“I couldn’t see it from the gravity waves earlier,” Leonov explained, “because the other ship is so much more massive.”

Hayes’ eyebrows returned to their normal level. He turned to face the screen again.

“So what is this starbase?” Zelnick asked. His irritation had changed to curiosity.

“Ur-Quan slave law requires that we maintain an orbital space platform to assist Hierarchy vessels which are in need of repairs or fuel,” Hayes briefly replied. “But now you explain how you can have a Cruiser with you. Didn’t you just mention that you were stranded on Vela?”

“That’s a very long story,” Zelnick said, suddenly looking sad. “For now let’s just say that we found the Cruiser on our way here.”

Hayes’ face was more worried now.

“Before the slave shield went up,” he explained, “the Ur-Quan said that everything man-made outside the shield would be destroyed. I have a hard time believing that an intact Cruiser would be just ‘lying’ around somewhere. Anyway, if the Ur-Quan find out that we have a functional Cruiser here, they will kill us all.”

“So let’s not let them find out,” Zelnick suggested.

“There’s a big problem right there,” Hayes said, pointing at the Moon which had slid into view in the big window behind him. “There’s a hierarchy base on the Moon. I don’t know why they haven’t come after you yet, but I suppose there are at least a dozen Ilwrath Avengers and Spathi Eluders down there.”

“Should we destroy the base?” Zelnick asked in an innocent voice.

Hayes took a while to analyze Zelnick’s face to see if he was serious.

“Captain… What do you want from us?” he asked.

“We came here to give you the technological secrets of the Precursors,” Zelnick proclaimed, “and to help fight the Hierarchy. Although now it seems that we are too late.”

“That you are,” Hayes stated. “We can’t oppose the Hierarchy now, no matter how much we want to. We have no ships, no weapons and no allies.”

“We have two ships now,” Zelnick said either proudly or as a joke. “Although the Cruiser doesn’t have a captain so we can’t use it in combat.”

“That is not the problem,” Hayes commented. “We have plenty of qualified captains here.”

Hayes turned to Gruber.

“Bring Trent here,” he requested.

Gruber nodded and took out his communicator.

Matthew Trent was commonly regarded as a tactical genius. He was the captain of one of the first Cruisers alongside Captain Rand during the first encounter with the Vux. Later in the war Trent became famous for coming out on top even in the most desperate situations. The Indi-Mira line probably would have fallen years earlier without him coming up with new brilliant tactics again and again for countless battles. When the line finally did fall, Trent was on Earth recovering from a wound he had received in the great battle of Zeta Illuminati, where only a handful of Earthling Cruisers and Chenjesu Broodhomes repelled a nearly endless fleet of Spathi Eluders and Umgah Drones.

Gruber called Trent on his communicator. Soon his face appeared on the screen.

“Yes?” Trent answered in a polite, yet efficient manner.

Trent was only a bit older than Gruber, but he looked like an elderly man. He was mostly bald, his face was wrinkled and there was a scar on his forehead. It wasn’t a battle-scar though. He got it on the starbase when he fell down some stairs – or that’s what he says. His story doesn’t check out, but nobody seems to know the truth.

“Come to the control room immediately,” Gruber ordered.

“Roger that - out,” Trent responded. He never asked any unnecessary questions.

“If we could supply the factory on Vela with sufficient materials,” Zelnick speculated, “we could probably upgrade this ship to its full potential, which is still mostly unknown to us. We might even be able to build a whole fleet of these. Are you saying that we wouldn’t have a use for that fleet anymore?”

Hayes sighed.

“The problem is,” he explained, “that it would have to be kept a secret from the Ur-Quan until we were ready. We simply can’t do anything in secret with the Hierarchy outpost watching over us. But regarding your ship – I’m sure that our facilities here could be adapted to work on it as well if we had the plans.”

“We have all the plans,” Zelnick replied. “How about we destroy the base on the Moon and then you take us more seriously? After that we’ll get the factory on Vela running again, build a strong fleet and liberate Earth.”

Hayes seemed amused.

“Ahh... fight the Ur-Quan!” he gloriously declared. “Win back our freedom!”

Then he continued more seriously.

“I remember having such thoughts myself...once, a long time ago. But that was in the first years after the defeat, when it was still terrifying to look up and see the bloody glow of the pulsating slave shield overhead. Through day and night we gazed up at the impenetrable wall as though the sheer power of our hatred would pull it down. But over the years I spent so much of my time struggling down on the surface under the shield and then later up here trying to keep this station alive that I'd forgotten what it means to be free... to hate our Ur-Quan Masters! And now, here you are, in an alien ship of unknown power, offering me your assistance to fight against the Hierarchy again, after all these years.”

Hayes stopped talking even though he seemed like there was more to come. Zelnick waited for Hayes to continue, but just then Trent entered the room. He looked at Zelnick’s face on the screen. Then he looked at the ship screens showing the Vindicator and the Cruiser. Finally he looked at Hayes who looked back at him.

Hayes returned his focus on Zelnick.

“Captain, your offer is intriguing,” he continued. “It's tempting to think that with your advanced Precursor technology we can somehow crack Earth's slave shield and reassemble the Alliance to attack the Hierarchy. And this time, win the damn war! But consider the consequences if we should fail… The Ur-Quan won't just punish us here on this station. They will exact a gruesome retribution on the surface below as well.”

“Won’t they do that anyway unless we smash both of these ships into some remote asteroid?” Zelnick pointed out.

“You’re right,” Hayes had to agree. “We are almost forced to take our chances here. So here’s what we’ll do…”

Hayes looked at Gruber. His eyes weren’t asking for approval. Rather, they seemed to tell him that it was about time they did something. Then he continued:

“If you can eliminate the base on the Moon and get rid of that threat at least… Then I will commit this station to help you with this rebellion you are about to start.”

Trent was listening closely.

“Are we attacking the moonbase?” he silently asked Gruber.

Gruber made a very small gesture with his hand. It clearly indicated that all Trent’s questions would be answered shortly.

“You mentioned that you have capable Cruiser captains,” Zelnick remembered. “Could you send one over?”

“Yes,” Hayes responded. “You will get Matthew Trent.”

Trent’s face showed a slight surprise, but not for long. Zelnick also seemed surprised. He clearly knew Trent’s name.

“Alright,” he said, obviously pleased, “shall we send a shuttle to pick him up?”

“That would be best,” Hayes replied. “Trent, come over here and say hi,” he then suggested.

Trent walked next to Hayes and took a formal standing position. He was probably three times older than Zelnick.

“Matthew Trent,” he introduced himself.

“Robert Zelnick,” the young captain said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You will command the Cruiser Tobermoon.”

“Tobermoon, you say?” Trent replied, looking surprised. “I remember Tobermoon from the time when Isadora Burton was its captain. I knew her father rather well back on Earth. I suppose Burton is not with you?”

Zelnick’s good mood seemed to vanish instantly.

“No,” he said plainly. “She’s dead.”

Suddenly Zelnick looked devastated, like he was about to burst in tears.

“We’ll send the shuttle,” he barely managed to mumble and then terminated the communication link.

“Looks like there’s some kind of a story there,” Gruber commented on the sudden stop in negotiations.

“Let’s not dwell on that,” Hayes decided and turned around.

“Go to the hangar and wait for the shuttle,” he said to Trent. “Gruber can tell you everything while you wait.”

Then Hayes addressed both of them: “You should also tell Dave to expect the shuttle. I’ll try to get the connection back.”

“This is a tough game we’re about to start playing,” Gruber pointed out. He then turned to Trent. “If you are destroyed, the Spathi will probably notify the Ur-Quan immediately. Then we will have to hope that the Ur-Quan get here fast enough, before the Ilwrath sacrifice us all to Dogar and Kazon3.”

“That would be unpleasant,” Leonov said, joining in on the conversation. “There is absolutely no chance of the moonbase failing to notice two ships approaching this station. We must consider the possibility of a trap.”