No news just story! Happy Christmas to everyone and best wishes!
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Chapter 11
Why are we running in the space race?
Why are we acting like we own the place?
Just want to feel the starlight on my face,
reach out my hand and touch beyond...
Bruce Dickinson,
"Space Race"
In the mind of the common man, solar systems were immense, inconceivably vast oases in the nothingness, in which the average density of material was billions of times greater than that of interstellar space. However, these islands of stone and gas, bound to their orbits by the relentless pull of gravity towards gigantic atomic fireballs, were still virtually empty from a human point of view. Sure, there was a planet here, a comet there, and a gas-giant a bit further out - but even light itself would take minutes to reach the innermost planets and several hours to cross the paths of the outermost ones.
Way out, the light of a sun was cold and powerless. Just one star in many - the brightest certainly, but already so tiny that one would have to search the sky for it if you didn't already know its position.
The X shot along at a good tenth of the speed of light; unimaginably fast but still far too slow to traverse a star system really swiftly. Luckily, the mysterious builders of the jump gates had taken care of that, bringing their technical marvels into matching orbits and leaving them there, so that gates connecting adjacent stars were mostly only a few light-seconds - or light-minutes at the most - from one another. Most star systems had more than one jump gate; two to four were not unusual, but five or only a single one were rarely seen.
The jump through the gate was unspectacular; just a modest soundless firework display. The ride itself was smooth, almost vibration free. Brennan was amazed and impressed; he had hardly expected the ancients' extraterrestrial technology to work so cleanly and without problems.
So what now? The picture from the rear-facing camera showed the jump gate disappearing slowly into the star-studded background. There was nothing to be seen of the stalking Xenon. Brennan didn't know whether the attackers would follow him any further, but saw no reason why they wouldn't. But he knew he had the legs on them and could escape any time - the lead he had attained before the jump spoke for itself. Brennan ordered Valerie to switch off the engines - every minute of fuel that he saved was valuable.
"Valerie, what can you tell me about this star system?"
"The galactic position is, as before, unknown to me. I can see two planets, and it is quite likely there are more beyond my visual range. There are three jump gates to unknown destinations, the nearest only a few astronomical units away. With my limited sensors I can see seventy-four installations, some stationary with respect to the solar orbit, some mobile, a few at close range. There is active radio traffic on all known frequency bands; however, they are using a language which is unknown to me."
"No Teladi anywhere?"
"No Captain. No Teladi. And no Argon either."
"Hm." It could be that this was the home star system of his pursuers, or on the other hand it could be the territory of some other species; Brennan was so bereft of data concerning this part of the universe that he had no choice but to surrender to chance. He needed help; dashing from star gate to star gate, using up fuel and nutri-bars was no solution to his problem. On the other hand, those Xenon could materialise out of the last jump gate at any time and this was the most likely scenario of all. If he went to the creatures that were evidently resident here for help, he might bring their space stations or, even worse, their planets to the attention of his pursuers and he couldn't risk that. This left only one option open - he had to put real distance between himself and the enemy ships before he could call on the Teladi, Argon or any other of the "locals".
"Valerie, set a course for the nearest star gate - seventy-five percent throttle."
The computer obeyed, the small spacecraft gradually coming around on attitude jets, until its snub-nose pointed towards the star gate. The instruments indicated it would be a four-hour trip and Brennan intended to make good use of the time. He ordered Valerie to look for known star patterns, although he did not have high hopes that anything would come of it. Her memory only contained standard modern star maps and not the centuries-old ones from the days of the terrestrial star fleet. Depending on his position in the galaxy, however, there was always a chance of identifying patterns consisting of stars that were far enough away from both the Earth and his present location.
While Valerie worked, Brennan opened the floor panel in the cockpit under which he had plugged the leak almost three days previously. He was curious; had the Teladi engineers made changes here? He found no trace of the emergency repairs he'd performed himself. The cockpit's pressure seal had been neatly beaten out, and the fracture so tightly sealed, that Brennan could hardly make out the place where it had been. The cables running under the floor plate were neat and tidy again and not mangled together as they had been by the accident. Brennan would have liked to see the repairs to the underneath of the outer skin of the shuttle, but he had had no chance of leaving the ship. The Teladi had not equipped him with a new space suit; maybe they didn't even have one that would fit him.
He reaffixed the floor plate, stood up and put his right hand into the leg-pocket of his overalls. His fingers touched something ball-shaped, cold-warm. It was Gisbert's Morphing Toy, which Elena had given him on the launch day, back at the Lake Eyre Research Centre.
"Earth," he said and, whilst it was still in its wait-state, let go of the ball. It expanded quickly and hovered at eye level, an arm's length away. White bands of cloud formed, encircling the blue planet; spiral weather fronts swirled in the atmosphere and Brennan felt his throat tighten. "Wait-state", he requested and caught the ball, which quickly shrank back to the size of a marble. Brennan stuffed it back into his leg-pocket and shook his head.
He had spent months on missions, ridden out weeks of loneliness in empty space, got through mindless routine on the furthest outposts of the Sol system, and never, not once, had he been gripped by homesickness. Now, he had hardly been gone for more than half a week and he yearned for home. Perhaps it was the nasty premonition that he would never be able to get back - he didn't know.
Brennan shook his head again and made his way into the cargo hold to check over the instruments and systems there.
He looked around and stopped short. Something was missing...
"Damned lizards!" Brennan shouted. The instrument rack that had transmitted the singularity drive's measurement data to mission control, and after the accident had unsuccessfully searched for its transceiver, was missing. Sure, he wouldn't need it. Nonetheless the dismantling and analysis of the scientific instruments might tell the Teladi more about the terrestrial technology and the jump drive than Brennan would have liked. No wonder the lizards had been so generous. He shrugged, it was too late now and in all probability he'd never encounter the Phoenix again.
Brennan returned to the cockpit. Not a moment too soon.
"I am registering activity at the jump gate," Valerie reported as Brennan lay back in the pilot's seat. "On screen."
The X had already left the gate far behind, but Valerie enlarged the picture so much with the high-resolution camera that the extraterrestrial jump gate appeared close enough to touch. In the middle of the gate Brennan could make out a blue glow spiralling around a white core. After only a few seconds the light display stopped and the gate shrank back into the starry half-light.
There was nothing to be seen; no spacecraft had left the gate.
"Valerie, did anything come through?"
"The instruments didn't register anything Captain. As you know, however, my sensors are severely limited. Unfortunately."
Brennan nodded. Strange. Could star gates open on their own, without being activated by a spacecraft? He had never heard of it happening but the technology, and knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of star gates, lay way back in the history of space travel. Nowadays, not much of it was remembered.
"Keep me posted."
Valerie acknowledged dutifully. Not that she would have withheld anything from him without this order. However, she wisely decided not point this out to Brennan, given the circumstances.
Another three hours and twenty-eight minutes later, the jump gate opened once again and this time something came through, the now familiar Xenon squadron.
To Brennan's satisfaction the enemy ships had still not managed to bite into his lead. In fact, despite the X accelerating at only a fuel-saving 75% thrust, the gap had widened. The destination jump gate had, in the meantime, grown to a considerable size and only a few minutes later he executed the jump into the next star system that was as clean and perfect as the first time.
Brennan re-orientated himself quickly and left Valerie to set a course to the next gate at full throttle. Since his pursuers would probably not reach this star system before he had left it, they would not see which gate he took. With a bit of luck he could finally shake off the enemy squadron here. Of course, the three Xenon could split up their formation and go separately through the three star gates of this system. They probably would - but one or two more jumps and he would certainly escape.
The next star system was conspicuously different from the previous two. For one thing, it had only two jump gates and not three or four, and for another it appeared to be virtually uninhabited. In the far distance only two stations were exchanging information. Valerie suspected that it was just the automatic exchange of trading data between a space station and an unmanned spacecraft, but Brennan didn't take the time to investigate closer.
This time, the second jump gate was situated almost on the opposite side of the star system, and the X took almost a day to cross this expanse and Brennan suspected this meant that the two connected star systems were also a very long way from one another, possibly several dozen light-years. He had some memory of such a correlation having been mentioned during his study of the history of space travel.
During the first hour of the long flight through the empty star system Brennan watched the jump gate behind him, spellbound. He was tense but not nervous. He could get away from the Xenon any time - as long as he had enough fuel - but his aim was to shake them off, not to run away all the time.
With no sign of activity at the shrinking jump gate after eight hours, Brennan ordered Valerie to switch off the cockpit's interior lighting, reclined the pilot's seat stretched out, wishing for a pillow and blanket!
"Watch the gate and wake me as soon as anything changes."
Brennan closed his eyes. He had spent two days on board the Teladi ship and during this time had the opportunity to rest a little in the cabin they allocated him but he had been much too restless to sleep on the hard benches that Teladi used. On the soft and comfortable pilot's seat it was only a few minutes before Brennan sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.
"...in four minutes, fifty-five seconds", stated Valerie matter-of-factly.
Ahead, the star gate was still small, but growing quickly.
Brennan muttered a little, propped himself up on his right elbow and rubbed his eyes.
"Status, summary", he requested. Despite being half asleep, the years of ingrained routine asserted themselves. The back of the pilot's seat moved into a sitting position and Brennan allowed its movement to push him upright.
"No change in the last fourteen hours. Gate entry in four minutes and forty-eight seconds", said Valerie.
"Fourteen...?" asked Brennan incredulously. "Do I still have time to hit the head beforehand?"
"I would think so, yes, Captain", replied Valerie unruffled. "But I would recommend leaving cleaning your teeth and combing your hair until some point after we go through the gate."
"Thanks very much for the tip," growled Brennan and got up to make his way to the tiny water closet. He had neither toothbrush nor comb, and Valerie knew that perfectly well. A shower would have been nice, and a change of clothes too. But as things stood, he would have to put up with his own stink for a little while longer. Well - he could live with it, and perhaps it would help send the enemy aliens packing!
When he went back smiling into the cockpit, the jump gate had already activated and the familiar azure emissions circled the ship.
Seconds later the stars reappeared and the gate deactivated.
Bright light streamed through the cockpit window and for a brief moment glared from the indicators and screens before Valerie darkened the metal-glass panes slightly. A gigantic planet with a rings like Saturn back home, hung in the sky. Until now, the jump gates had been a relatively long way from the centre of their star systems; but this one was obviously situated in orbit around the blue-green gas-giant rather than the central sun.
Even with the naked eye, Brennan could make out that the star system that this jump had taken him to was, in contrast to the previous one, heavily populated. There were space stations in the immediate vicinity and small flying points of light with bright engine trails that implied a busy coming and going of ships of various types and sizes, and according to Valerie, countless senders were transmitting data to one another in a veritable Babel of tongues.
Brennan was fascinated. The civilisation that had established itself along the routes formed by the jump gates was apparently more extensive than anything that mankind had managed, even at their best. He would have to try everything to get back to Earth to report about this.
"Valerie, have we definitely shaken off the Xenon?"
"Without knowing something about the technical capabilities the Xenon have at their disposal, it is probable that they have lost us and the likelihood that they will not be able to find us again in the foreseeable future is approximately fifty-four percent. Should they know what course we have taken, however, their arrival can be expected in thirty-two hours at the earliest."
Thirty-two hours - that would be enough time to cross this, and several more, star systems, and to put a few more gates between himself and his pursuers to shake them off. That said, those thirty-two hours would pretty much completely use up the fuel for the M/AM-Drive.
Brennan shrugged his shoulders. His next move was obvious. Since there were plenty of stations and ships in this system it should be possible to make contact with the locals, almost in real-time. If that went well he would let Valerie dock the shuttle at a station, otherwise he would fly at full speed to the next gate.
The gravidar showed several dozen large objects in a volume that was hardy larger than the Moon's orbit around the Earth. Brennan assumed that all these stations and ships had spotted him and possibly identified him as an intruder although it was rather surprising that no one seemed particularly bothered.
The traffic around the large gas planet flew on undisturbed, however, a few of the ships changed their course to avoid the X, and thereby proving they had spotted the spacecraft from Earth. They executed the changes to their courses with leisurely composure, suggesting that they perceived no threat from the X-Shuttle.
The volume of traffic in this space sector was astonishing, and the multitude of different types of spacecraft, phenomenal. Brennan took the time to organise the ships and stations that he could observe directly according to their external characteristics, and came to the conclusion that the ships, despite a number of similarities, must have been manufactured by no fewer than six different species, if not more. The stations, though, were all from the same mould and quite obviously belonged to a single race. A quick comparison with the Xenon ships, whose appearance Valerie had stored in her memory banks, indicated that none of the objects in this sector showed any similarity.
"Captain, I am receiving a signal directed at us," Valerie interrupted Brennan's investigations.
He looked up and automatically ran his right hand through his dark hair. "About time too. Go on then."
The view screen lit up with a humanoid face whose jaundiced, weather-beaten skin and wild, rampant facial hair gave the being a look like that of a very sick human. Nevertheless, this creature was more familiar than the Teladi. The stranger paused for a moment, as though he was surprised at the sight of Brennan.
"Argon is welcome....", he said in an accent-free ancient Japanese. His voice was rattling and forced, but his pronunciation was many times clearer than that of the Teladi. Presumably his speech organs were closer to human ones.
"In the name of the Patriarch of Chin, the gracious leader of the Split race, friend of the Argon, Goner, Teladi, Paranid and Boron, I warmly welcome you to the star system of Family Chin and offer you respectful greetings. My name is Kha t'Lllt."
With these words, the extraterrestrial lifted his right hand and made a sign, which Brennan could have taken to be obscene, had he not known better. After all, this was no Homo sapiens and the friendly tone of his speech, which had undoubtedly been rehearsed, unlike the first surprised shout, did not imply anything hostile.
Brennan made a hint of a bow. "Thank you very much, my friend. My name is Brennan. Please forgive my intrusion into this star system - I had no other choice, however, as I was being pursued by enemy ships."
"That is known to us," replied Kha t'Lllt. "The Xenon will not venture to force their way into this sector - you are safe with the Split, venerable t'Brennan."
How the hell did the inhabitants of this star system - the Split - know that he was being pursued? Had the local races solved the problem of faster than light radio communications? Brennan had his doubts. Well, he should be cautious, and had no choice but to entrust himself to the Patriarch of Chin. Then the answer to his question would also become clear.
"The Patriarch of Chin would be pleased to be able to receive you as his guest on his modest country seat on the planet Nif-Nakh. Would you like to order your computer to accept the coordinates?"
Order my computer? "Valerie?"
"One moment, Captain, I am currently receiving a compressed transmission on a secondary channel. It seems to be important. Would you like to see it?"
"Yes, but please first accept the coordinates."
Valerie acknowledged tersely. Near the video image showing the yellow-skinned Split, who - it suddenly crossed Brennan's mind - looked slightly choleric, another image lit up. It showed a scene so surreal that Brennan involuntarily blinked and then opened his eyes wide. In front of a background that was difficult to make out, but whose bright, contrasting variety of colours was nausea-inducing, swam a pale blue creature in a liquid that clearly filled the entire picture. The creature had several thin feelers or antennae, which floated around it like human hair on a deep-sea dive. In addition it had at least two further, sturdier extremities (or maybe there were four or six), which lead to several plump, jointless fingers. The most remarkable things about the creature, however, were its long, snout-like protuberance and its large, bright eyes, which had neither eyelids, nor lashes, or even pupils.
"Oh great, jolly, hairy stranger, who is so similar to the Argon!" the creature said, without noticeably moving its snout. Its voice was thin, almost squeaky and had a bubbling undertone, interrupted occasionally by clicking sounds.
"Hila Mo of the freighter Boron Rapture here. It is really extraordinarily important for you that you prick up your large, jolly, hairy ears well and listen to us, and that your clever, friendly, metallic friend Valerie conscientiously records all data that we convey."
"Valerie, is that a direct connection?"
"No, a relayed message which I have already received in its entirety. The Boron Rapture is too far away for a direct connection."
"Good. Wind back ten seconds and stop," said Brennan. "And reconnect the Split."
Kha t'Lllt's lips moved silently. The Split did not look very happy, as though his mood had flipped 180° in the last few seconds.
"Yes captain," Valerie acknowledged.
The picture of the under-water creature, which could have come out of a vivid feverish dream, froze.
"...and destroy him!" the voice of the Split stormed loudly through the cockpit, as Valerie brought the voice channel back online.
"Sorry, I didn't quite catch the last..."
"That we tolerate the repulsive Boron on our sovereign territory does not, by any means, mean that we allow them to interfere in our concerns!" cried the Split, a vein pulsating violently on his brow.
"Absolutely not," affirmed Brennan, who detested fanatics and realised he was looking at one right now.
"He must reduce speed and wait for arrest!" the enraged Split barked at Brennan.
"Who, he? Me?"
In answer to Brennan's confused question, the video image went blank.
For a couple of seconds Brennan stared with open mouth astonishment at the instrument panel, before Valerie's voice interrupted his muddled thoughts.
"Captain, the Boron Rapture has just come under fire from two Split fighters. She is trying to escape."
Valerie projected the events onto the view screen. Because of the great distance, the unequal battle, which appeared to be just beginning, had in fact already taken place a few seconds ago, but the light was only now reaching the position of the X.
The clash lasted only a few moments.
Brennan watched as the large heavy freighter took desperate evasive action, but it could not escape the fire of the more manoeuvrable fighters' guns. At first it seemed as though the protective screens were easily withstanding the firestorm. But then the shields flared up, caved in like a soap bubble, and the energy beams beat, with devastating effect, onto the outer skin of the Boron Rapture. The fighters circled the freighter like horseflies around an ageing nag, and after the third or fourth attack the Boron freighter died in a giant dazzling ball of fire which left behind not a single visible remnant or fragment.
The fighters turned onto a direct course towards the X.
While the disastrous events ran their course, Brennan had taken control of the X. There was no helping the Boron, they were already lost and against the deadly fighters, the fragile terrestrial shuttle stood no chance, not even with the shields and lasers that the Teladi had repaired.
There was only one option.
Brennan pushed the power up to a hundred percent - though this time slowly enough for the inertial dampers to fully absorb the acceleration - and headed towards the only jump gate that he could reach without flying straight into the arms of the fighters swarming towards him.
"Entering system Thuruk's Beard," announced Valerie, two and a half hours later.
FARNHAMS LEGEND: Chapter 11 - Merry Christmas!!
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now then what came next??