Empyrean Rises

by Spencer Pierson

  He grimaced, licking his teeth in distaste as he considered the investment in time his plan would require. On average, the four systems he wanted to mine were sixty to eighty light years away from the system he was in, and it would take his ships eight to ten years to get there.

  It wasn’t the most impossible of distances, and Galon knew that if the Union ever wanted to expand, the systems he was targeting would be directly in their way. However, the Union hadn’t been interested in expanding in over a millennium. After they encountered the Mordren Hierarchy and fought them to a stand-still on the far side of the Union, it had made them skittish toward exploring, at best.

  It had also made the union become stagnant, developing only what was within their borders with no allowed movement outside of it. The politicians of the Union just didn’t want to take the chance of encountering another race out there that was equally, or more, dangerous. They reasoned there were more than enough systems within Union space to exploit for several more millennium so had established a vast swath of stars outside of the border that was a no-go area of about two-hundred light-years wide.

  A no-go area that Galon was going to breach gleefully. Truth to tell, he didn’t think too hard about the Mordren Hierarchy or the possibility of running into a significant threat. His world was just not big enough to tackle such weighty subjects, being far more preoccupied with increasing the success and influence of his family in his small corner of the Union.

  As such, he rubbed his furred hands together, clicking his short claws together a few times before calling up the huge swath of messages that were waiting for him. Most of them he ignored, letting his computers and staff work through them and deal with the mundane items. However, he quickly identified the message from his agent, opening it up and reading through it with intensity.

  “Ha!” he said into his empty office, happy to see that his agent had received his response and acted upon it with alacrity. As a result, she had managed to negotiate an even more favorable settlement with the Vimorians, buying off the idiot officials gambling debt. It would mean more resources available for his grand scheme, and he made a note to send her a bonus.

  He was pleased to see that the permits and paperwork were done, pending his own signature which he completed right then, sending it back to the secure servers that the regional government maintained.

  He sighed, looking out at the planet once again, even as his mining ship settled into an orbit around the habitat where their primary business offices were. He knew his time here would be short, probably long enough to get a good plate of Oglan rip-steak and time with his mother. Then he’d be back out here organizing his ships, supplies, and sending out movement orders to the other mining ships scattered through the region. They would all be in stasis for a long time, but in more or less a decade, their family would be on their way to riches and wealth.

  Chapter 5

  Time: June 27, 2030

  Location: High Energy Laboratory, three hundred and fifty miles south of Atlantis on the ocean floor

  Colleen hummed softly, happy that they were finally ready to begin the experiment she had been working on for several years. Almost the entire time since she’d developed the anti-gravity field, she’d been frustrated she couldn’t add gravity, only take it away. It had undoubtedly been an achievement that revolutionized so many things, most especially in getting to space, but that was only half of the problem.

  If they couldn’t provide gravity using the gravity field, they’d be stuck with either engineering artificial gravity using some sort of centrifugal force, or purposefully limit anyone’s time in space.

  They already had plans for the former, with large, contained multi-cylinder habitats that would help combat the difficulty on the human body. Also, their ability to reach orbit so easily with shuttles would make leaving and returning to earth far more accessible than ever previously imagined, but if she could somehow find the secret to augmenting the technology they already had, it would make things far easier.

  The difficulty had always lain in how gravity actually worked. It was only a little over twelve years ago that gravity waves had even been detected, and by all rights, the understanding of it should still be in its infancy. Her advanced understanding of it she put wholly into the hands of the strange effects of whatever was still keeping her alive. Gravity was a multi-dimensional phenomenon, augmenting the excruciatingly weak force and its effects on our world through the presence of thousands of reflections of our own universe that existed in the great continuum. Lessening the effect of gravity only required a specialized field that disrupted the strange connection to those other worlds.

  Now, however, she and her team were ready to begin working on the second half of that conundrum. A few months ago, she had finally had a breakthrough regarding the field, requiring a significant boost in power and causing atomic vibration within specific molecules to not only cycle at a higher frequency but in different shapes of orbit. The results had been startling, revealing exotic cousins of familiar elements that would trigger the necessary effect. The cost and delicacy of creating the elements had been immense, while also revealing an entirely new section of the periodic table, but now they were finally ready to test their first attempt.

  “Turn on the field, Malik,” Colleen said, watching several floating readouts with keen interest. She imagined the hum of the machinery as it spun up, pumping the necessary energies required for the test into the massive engines that were located in subterranean chambers. They were literally miles away underneath the sea floor. For a brief moment, she considered laughing maniacally like Doctor Frankenstein but stopped herself. Some of the staff in the control room with her might get the reference, but not all of them, so she resigned herself with a small smile.

  She watched the live feed in the room containing the testing machinery. A small, cubical device that held a number of sensors, the most simple of which was a weight between two wires that would register an increase in gravity. The countdown to the first test slowly reached zero, and a moment later there was a bright flash before the monitors and feeds hooked up to the room all went offline.

  “What happened?” Colleen asked, her eyes scanning her own readouts.

  “Everything went offline. Nothing is responding,” one of the tech’s said, quickly moving through the various readouts they had hooked up to the test site. A moment later, they felt a faint tremble which made all of them look up and around in shock.

  “Oh dear, what was that?” Colleen said, half to herself as she accessed some other sensors that had been placed away from the test site, both within the bedrock and free floating in the ocean. The ones set within the ground only registered a shockwave, but the ones in the water recorded the shockwave and an increase in temperature that spiked the closer to the test site they were. They moved quickly to five-hundred degrees before the sensors closer to the site failed to respond.

  “We need to send in a drone submarine to see what happened,” Colleen said with a frown, looking over the rim of her glasses as she worked. “There doesn’t appear to be any odd radiation, but I suspect we just destroyed our test site.”

  “Should I prep site B?” Malik asked in his thick Slavic accented English.

  “Yes,” Colleen answered, “Though obviously, we’ll need to figure out what happened, first. Something unexpected that is certain, but at least we received some readings from the unit itself.” She paused, then pulled up a variety of graphs and data sets on the main hologram table, ushering everyone into the center. The numbers should have been a surprise to her, but her eyes immediately went to the temperature gauge.

  “There’s a small increase in gravity, scaling up from the initiation of the test for one point two seconds,” Malik said, highlighting the necessary graph. “So, whatever happened, we successfully increased the gravity.”

  Colleen nodded, “Yes, but it caused an exponential increase in heat energy. See here, where the graph is increasing,” she said, pointing it out for
the team. “It’s timed exactly with the amount of gravity increase. I’d bet a three dollar jug of pickles that is what happened to our test site. No radiation, so I’m betting it was all just pure heat. We experienced some of the same behavior with the inertia dampening field, but that was more like a one to one ratio, this is not.”

  “I see, yes,” Malik said, letting out a sigh. “I’ll get the sample for the next tier two element ready.”

  Colleen shook her head. “Skip two places. Go to the fourth in the series. I have a feeling that we’ll just run into the same results if we go with anything less.”

  Malik grunted, shaking his head but he didn’t say anything as he keyed in the production order. It went against everything he had ever learned with scientific testing to skip a step, but he had worked with Colleen long enough to trust her instincts. Just the fact that they were testing tier two particles would have been unimaginable before he started working with Empyrean. Now, he was looking at being able to study tier two isotopes and potential tiers beyond that. What those could be, he couldn’t imagine, but he suspected Colleen could and for that reason, he would work with her for as long as he was able.

  Colleen smiled as she leaned back, watching her team get to work on the long hours to digest the numbers from the test. Some of them were the best and brightest minds from around the planet, at least those that Empyrean had been able to attract out from various countries or competing businesses. It had gotten easier as Empyrean had emerged onto the world stage, jumping significantly as their space launch business had, literally, taken off.

  Alex had been right. Of all the things they could have done, sending rockets into space had attracted people’s attention in the best way, tapping into mankind’s imagination. It didn’t hurt that Empyrean had what appeared to be an almost unlimited research budget, saving the various scientists and technical experts from having to growl and snap for every dime of grant money. Having their own places apart from any particular countries rules and regulations had its benefits, but that made her mind turn toward what her grandson was going to be wrestling with in the near future.

  Because of the attack on the Brokkr launch, and to a lesser extent the bombing in Copenhagen, the UN had asked Alex to appear before them to discuss those recent developments. Unstated, but clear to everyone, was that they also wanted to know what Empyrean had planned for what they had launched and why. The press release after the launch had clearly not headed off the concern with the powers-that-be that they hoped it would.

  Despite the unlooked-for support from Russia, and the continued effort from General Solmon in America, Alex had expected the launch to stir the hornets’ nest, and he said he was ready. Colleen trusted her grandson, but she couldn’t help but worry as she turned back to her experiments. The best thing she could do was continue her work, making sure they could not only have a solid foot in space but as soon as possible on the Moon and beyond.

  Chapter 6

  Time: August 2, 2030

  Location: Millennium Hilton across from United Nations Building, NYC

  “Thanks for coming, general,” Alex said, inviting the older man into the multi-room suite at the top of the hotel. John Malcom stood from his chair, moving to give his old friend a hearty handshake. At the table just inside the door sat Leann and a distinguished gentleman with several paper files sitting in front of him. Floating to the left of the head of the table was Alex’s DPA, Aristotle.

  “My pleasure, Doctor Drake,” General Solmon said, turning to Alex and shaking his hand in turn. “I’m glad you let me come to this little pow-wow. Things are moving fast, and this inquiry with the UN could either go well or very badly. You’ve made a lot of people very nervous with your little stunt, and whoever tried to shoot your giant ship down didn’t help anything.”

  “I know,” Alex said, gesturing toward the table. “You know Agent Bates, I’m sure, and this is my top legal expert, Richard Williams.”

  The crusty general grunted, giving both of them a once over before shaking their hands. “Leann, I’ve read your file but not had the pleasure, but from everything I hear you’re keeping Digger on his toes. Good.” He turned to Richard, looking up a bit at the taller man as they shook, exchanging pleasantries. The general didn’t usually like lawyers, but his first impression of Richard was good. A man that looked confident, but wasn’t afraid to listen, either. It was something he counted in the good column, and he hoped his first impression stuck.

  Moving toward one of the open chairs at the table, the general took a seat, along with Alex and John. He couldn’t help but give Aristotle a momentary glare, watching the contraption hover quietly next to Alex. He’d read about them, but this was the first time he’d seen one of the fancy drones that Empyrean employed within their buildings.

  Despite his glare, he also kind of wanted one.

  “Shall I start recording, sir?” Aristotle said in his smooth, English accent.

  “Yes, please begin recording,” Alex said and waited for a red, blinking light to start flashing. He then turned back to the table. “Thanks for coming. As I’m sure you all know, I’ve been invited to have a discussion in front of a UN panel regarding our recent launch, and our intentions for our place in orbit. Though I’ve made things fairly clear in several press releases, apparently there has been an abundance of skeptics in several countries that want a more thorough exploration of the issue.”

  General Solmon kept silent, content to listen. He knew he had to be careful here since some of those that were calling for a more in-depth review were several powerful entities in the US. Despite his personal feelings, he was still obligated to protect the interests of the United States. Unfortunately, these special interests were putting a lot of pressure on the FAA to shut down any further launches by Empyrean. It was a course of action that the general knew was the wrong one. If these people got their way, he was deathly afraid that Empyrean would just ignore them which would cause him a massive headache. Most probably because he didn’t think the rest of the world would win and it would also create a lot of distrust and potential reprisals that would just cloud the issue for everyone.

  “The biggest issue is the FAA is claiming that our license to launch did not include correct information, being far larger than what they had approved.”

  “Which is incorrect,” Richard said, tapping on a copy of their approved application. “I suspect someone didn’t believe the numbers, and simply assumed it was a typo. Unfortunately, they didn’t choose to clarify before issuing our permit. That’s on them, in this case, no matter what they wish it to be.”

  Alex nodded, leaning forward as he listened to the older man. “Still, they will want to know what we’re going to do up there. I suspect they’ll request plans and try to exercise some sort of approval of anything we wish to build. I’m willing to be transparent with our construction plans, but what I’m worried about is being delayed ad nauseam.” He sighed, giving the general and agents an uncomfortable look. “Much as with what is happening with a number of our innovations being approved for use in the U.S.”

  The general pursed his lips, thinking through his response for a few moments. It was always better to consider what you were going to say than feel the need to fill the air with blathering. “I can’t deny that. It’s a good thing I understand your tactic, which is to let the American public do your job for you. Eventually, people will clamor for your nifty little toys, and we’ll have no choice but to approve their use. However, I suspect this isn’t the way you want to be steered when it comes to space.”

  Alex nodded, grinning at the general. He knew that the man was careful, but not duplicitous. He’d liked the frank, straight-to-the-point discussions they had whenever they spoke. “Correct. We’re out there to build some serious infrastructure so we can get to the real business.”

  General Solmon raised an eyebrow. “What’s more serious than building all sorts of doohickey’s in orbit?”

  “Getting to the moon, and then from there, to
the asteroid belt,” Alex answered. This was the first he’d mentioned to anyone outside of a select group in Empyrean, but he wanted to give the general and the agents a small reward for meeting with him.

  “Not Mars? That’s where some companies are hell-bent on going,” the general said.

  “And we’ll be there to help them,” Alex responded. “In fact, we’ve been in talks on partnering with SpaceX to extend our infrastructure in support of their initial colonization effort. They’ve been wonderful to work with, and we hope to continue that into the future. Our biggest intent is to provide a highway out there, and beyond, rather than stopping at the red planet. Or, at least initially. I’m fairly certain we’ll eventually have a presence on Mars, but that’s not our immediate goal.”

  “This is so far above my pay grade,” John said, shaking his head. “But that’s part of the problem. It will be beyond a lot of people’s understanding, and when people don’t understand, they start getting crazy.”

  “I know, and I suspect that’s exactly the tools that whoever is trying to hurt us will use or is already using, to push people toward a drastic response rather than let them digest real information. I’ve seen the memes and half-truths already being spread,” Alex said. “We’ve started countermeasures, but I’d like to hear if you folks have any other ideas.”

  “Don’t go into hiding,” Leann offered. “As much as it’s going to drive your security people crazy, you can’t disappear. You have to keep being visible, and working with people. Keep helping people, too. Those education initiatives you’ve been backing in several states are doing wonders. Also, all the work in various countries with building up their infrastructure is fantastic. They can’t take that away from you.”