by J. N. Chaney
Copyrighted Material
Farthest Shore Copyright © 2021 by Variant Publications
Book design and layout copyright © 2021 by JN Chaney
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing.
1st Edition
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Book Description
Victory begins with an idea, and that idea forms in the place between galaxies.
Drifting in the intergalactic deep, Dash begins the final push towards peace. From the depths of Realm lore, the Kingsport takes shape, one component at a time.
But the war is not over, and the Deepers aren’t done.
The space beyond our galaxy is far from empty, and the Arkubators, Deeper worlds, and other secrets begin to reveal themselves as the Realm forces fight their way, gate to gate, into areas never seen by humans.
Dash will journey farther than any other human has ever gone—or so he thinks.
What awaits him is a secret that will change everything humans know about their origins.
Only two questions will remain: Can humanity win?
And at what cost?
Contents
The Messenger Universe Key Terms
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
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About the Authors
The Messenger Universe Key Terms
The Messenger: The chosen pilot of the Archetype.
Archetype: A massive weapon system designed for both space battle, close combat, and planetary defense. Humanoid in shape, the Archetype is controlled by a pilot and the Sentinel, an artificial intelligence designed to work with an organic humanoid nervous systems. The Archetype is equipped with offensive weaponry beyond anything known to current galactic standards, and has the ability to self-repair, travel in unSpace, and link with other weapons systems to fight in a combined arms operation.
Blobs: Amorphous alien race, famed for being traders. They manufacture nothing and are known as difficult employers.
Clan Shirna: A vicious, hierarchical tribe of reptilian beings whose territory is in and around the Globe of Suns and the Pasture. Clan Shirna is wired at the genetic level to defend and protect their territory. Originally under the control of Nathis, they are space-based, with a powerful navy and the collective will to fight to the last soldier if necessary.
Couriers: Independent starship pilots who deliver goods—legal, illegal, and everything in between—to customers. They find their jobs on a centralized posting system (See: Needs Slate) that is galaxy-wide, ranked by danger and pay, and constantly changing. Couriers supply their own craft, unless they’re part of a Shipping Conglom. Couriers are often ex-military or a product of hard worlds.
Fade: A modification to the engine. It is a cutting edge shielding device that rotates through millions of subspace frequencies per second, rendering most scans ineffective. If the Fade is set to insertion, then the ship will translate into unSpace, where it can go faster than light. The Fade is rare, borderline illegal, and highly expensive. It works best on smaller masses, so Courier ships are optimal for installation of the Fade. One drawback is the echo left behind in regular space, an issue that other cloaking systems do not have. By using echoes as pathway markers, it is possible to track and destroy ships using the Fade.
Golden: A transhumanist race of beings who are attempting to scour the galaxy of intelligent life. The Golden were once engaged in warfare with the Unseen. They are said to return every 200,000 years to enact a cycle of galactic genocide, wiping out all technologically advanced civilizations before disappearing back from which they came. They destroyed their creators at some unknown point in the distant past and are remaking themselves with each revolution of their eternal, cyclical war.
Globe of Suns: A star cluster located in the far arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. It is an astronomical outlier. Dense with stars, it’s a hotbed of Unseen tech, warfare, and Clan Shirna activity. Highly dangerous, both as an obstacle and combat area.
Kingsport: Located in the Dark Between, these are planetoid sized bases made of material that is resistant to detection, light-absorbing, and heavily armored. Oval in shape, the Kingsport is naval base and medical facility in one, intended as a deep space sleep/recovery facility for more than a thousand Unseen. The Kingsports maintain complete silence and do not communicate with other facilities, regardless of how dire the current military situation.
Lens: Unseen tech; a weapon capable of sending stars into premature collapse at considerable distance. The Lens is not unique—the Unseen left many of them behind in the Pasture, indicating that they were willing to destroy stars in their fight with the Golden.
Ribbon: Unseen tech that imparts a visual history of their engineering, left behind as a kind of beacon for spacefaring races.
Sentinel: A machine intelligence designed by the Unseen, the Sentinel is a specific intellect within the Archetype. It meshes with the human nervous system, indicating some anticipation of spaceborne humans on the part of the Unseen. Sentinel is both combat system and advisor, and it has the ability to impart historical data when necessary to the fight at hand.
Shadow Nebula: A massive nebula possibly resulting from simultaneous star explosions. The Shadow Nebula may be a lingering effect from the use of a Lens, but it is unknown at this time.
Unseen: An extinct and ancient race who were among the progenitors of all advanced technology in the Milky Way, and possibly beyond. In appearance, they were slender, canine, and bipedal, with the forward-facing eyes of a predator. Their history is long and murky, but their engineering skills are nothing short of godlike. They commanded gravity, materials, space, and the ability to use all of these sciences in tandem to hold the Golden at bay during the last gr
eat war. The Unseen knew about humans, although their plans for humanity have since been lost to time.
unSpace: Neither space nor an alternate reality, this is the mathematically generated location used to span massive distances between points in the galaxy. There are several ways to penetrate unSpace, but only two are known to humans.
Pasture: Unseen tech in the form of an artificial Oort Cloud; a comet field of enormous size and complexity. Held in place by Unseen engineering, the Pasture is a repository for hidden items left by the Unseen. The Pasture remains stable despite having thousands of objects, a feat which is a demonstration of Unseen technical skills. The Lens and Archetype are just two of the items left behind for the next chapter in galactic warfare.
Prelate: In Clan Shirna, the Prelate is both military commander and morale officer, imbued with religious authority over all events concerning defense of their holy territory.
1
Wei-Ping leaned forward in her new command seat, rested her elbows on the arms, and planted her chin on her interlaced fingers.
“You’ve got that suspicious for no reason look,” Sukovic said. He stood at her side, arms crossed.
She turned from the tactical display and looked at him, one of the few original members of the Gentle Friends still alive. She’d been through hell, blood, and more than a little inebriation with the man. So if anyone knew what she was thinking, it would be him. Or Benzel, of course. But especially Sukovic.
She scowled. “Putting aside the fact that we’re literally thousands of light-years from anything, no, I don’t. We’ve got that bastard out there dead in our sights, outgunned as shit, and with nowhere to run. Every Deeper we’ve run into so far has turned that kind of situation into a last hurrah, suiciding or at least scuttling their ship. These assholes, though—” She waved a hand at the display. “They just keep throwing missiles and torps at us, then running.”
She narrowed her eyes. “It’s like they think they’re going somewhere. But there’s nothing out here. Closest star system is almost twenty-three hundred light-years behind us. So just what the hell are they up to?”
They’d encountered the lone Deeper cruiser as it plied along on some mission of its own, a fantastically unlucky meeting for the aliens. Wei-Ping had brought the Stalwart, the newest ship to come rolling out of the Forge’s fabricators, out in the big black of intergalactic space on an operational trial. Part battlecruiser, part carrier, she was the first truly original design the Realm had developed. Until now, every new ship they’d deployed had either been obtained from one of the Silent Fleets secretly mothballed away by the Unseen in remote, lonely star systems, or based on an existing template stashed in the Forge’s archives. The Stalwart was a new class, based on lessons learned during the wars against the Golden and the Deepers. Although smaller than supercarriers like the Victory, she was still a massive ship, as well-protected and heavily armed as a battleship, yet faster than a heavy cruiser. She also carried two wings of fighters, one of Denkillers, and one of new, upgraded Super Makos. A slew of other design innovations combined to make her the single deadliest ship in the fleet, not counting the mechs.
She’d already seen numerous flight trials inside the galactic margin and had been declared operational just two weeks ago. This was her first foray into the Big Black, the Great Empty, the gaping void of intergalactic space, though. Dash was beginning to think that a lot of the war against the Deepers would be fought out here, and Wei-Ping agreed. And that was the main reason Custodian and the other AIs, along with Dash’s Inner Circle and the shipbuilding wizards of the Local Group, had collaborated on the Stalwart. They needed a powerful ship with the flexibility and endurance to operate a long way from any support. And there wasn’t much longer away than this, twenty-three hundred light years from what they’d defined as the very edge of the Milky Way galaxy.
She grimaced as the Deeper ship coughed out another cluster of torps. Avoiding or destroying the powerful anti-matter weapons required them to maneuver. This, in turn, prevented them from capitalizing on their speed advantage and finally getting their foe within range of the Stalwart’s formidable main batteries.
“How many of those damned torps have they got, anyway?” Sukovic snapped.
“As far as we know, they can make them right on the spot, bud and grow them out of the substance of their own ship,” Wei-Ping replied. “That’s the theory, anyway.”
“So eventually they’ll have no ship left.”
“You wanna wait that long?”
Sukovic grimaced. “Hell, no. Do it quick, right?”
Wei-Ping laughed. Whatever you do, do it quick, was the unofficial motto of the Gentle Friends. Most often, it got shortened to Do it quick. It was a good credo for pirates—or privateers, as Benzel insisted they be called. Attack fast, win fast, grab the spoils fast, and get the hell out even faster. It was how pirates survived to enjoy the fruits of their admittedly shady labors. But it was just a damned good principle for war-fighting, too.
“Do it quick,” Wei-Ping agreed, sitting up. “FIGHTCON, status on our fighter wings?”
“Ready to launch. Still. Some of the pilots are complaining they’re going to have to dismount and go for a pee soon.”
“Let’s put ’em out of their misery. Launch both wings. I want them to range ahead of us, clear any more torps or missiles, and let us finally get into freakin’ range.”
FIGHTCON, the fighter wing controller, nodded enthusiastically. “Roger that, ma’am!”
Wei-Ping turned her attention to the other asset she had available, a flight of six of the small, nimble scout mechs known as Perseids. They flew in company with the Stalwart to give their pilots experience flying in the Big Black. Wei-Ping could attest to the fact that it was a very different experience from flying inside what was accepted as the galaxy, both practically and psychologically. Practically, it was much harder to navigate when your nearest reference points were hundreds, or even thousands of light-years away. Psychologically, it was even more problematic. Humans simply hadn’t evolved to be so far away from—well, anything. From everything. Some developed an acute sense of vertigo, the yawning emptiness surrounding them pulling at their senses until they toppled into disoriented panic, a state the pilots called Lonesome Fever. Fighter and mech pilots, given the solitary nature of their duties, were particularly susceptible.
The Perseids flight commander was no newb, though. Lori Gallant was a veteran of many battles, both inside and outside the galaxy—a rising star who’d certainly caught the attention of Dash and everyone else in his Inner Circle. There were even hints she might be asked to join it, adding her keen tactical and operational insight to the collaborative planning Dash tended to favor.
“Lori, Wei-Ping. We’re going to launch our fighters, get them to clean out the way ahead so we can come to grips with these bastards. I’d like your flight to back them up.”
“Roger that. I’ll liaise directly with the wing commanders,” Lori replied, and that was it. She knew what to do and would do it. It let Wei-Ping concentrate on running and fighting the Stalwart.
She watched as the Denkillers and Super Makos were flung into space by the electromagnetic catapults, where they quickly and smartly formed up into squadrons and flights, then raced off ahead of the Stalwart. They immediately began to engage torps and missiles, blasting them apart in spectacular shots that momentarily stepped down the brightness on the tactical display. The Perseids closed behind them, adding the weight of their pulse-cannons and nova-guns to the effort. Within minutes, the way ahead was clear enough that Wei-Ping decided to finally increase the Stalwart’s velocity enough to start gaining on the Deeper ship. She snapped out an order to the Helm and felt the barely perceptible thrum of the ship’s powerful Blur drives spool up.
“Looks like those Super Makos are working out okay,” Sukovic noted.
Wei-Ping grunted agreement. The Makos had been the backbone of their fighter fleet since the beginning. Armed with a potent blast-cannon, th
ey punched well above their weight. But the blast-cannon’s destructive power was a trade-off for increased mass and power consumption, which had meant the Makos always strained at the edge of their capabilities. More than a few had been lost not to enemy action, but to systems failures and component breakdowns. The Super Makos were intended to address that, by replacing the original blast-cannon with a newer, smaller, and less powerful version. They made up for it with a pair of light rail guns, more hardpoints for missiles, other ordnance, and mission-specific loadouts like electronic warfare pods. They’d only seen a few skirmish-type actions so far but had acquitted themselves well.
“Looks like that’s it,” Wei-Ping said, nodding at the display. “No more torps or missiles.”
“Okay, maybe this is the part where that bastard goes gloryhound on us,” Sukovic replied.