Back on Earth the coming of Christ ushered in the fulfillment of prophecies about tribulation, Armageddon, and final judgment and redemption. Jesus had arrived and the Earth was redeemed. As these events took shape, the Lord watched the Sparrow XIV take flight and carry Trance and his family to another world. Unknown to them, they would see the beginning of the redemption of other worlds. One day in the future the events of Trance’s arrival would set in motion the pattern for redemption that would take place. On that day Christ would go there and continue to build his kingdom across the universe. Ultimately every inhabited world would be redeemed.
Chapter 4
Close Call
During the next three days the crews of the global escape ships communicated with each other, trying to figure out what was going on. Some ships reported that they had missing passengers and others wanted information on the nuclear missile launches; who had ordered the missile launches and would they be successful. If they did succeed, when would they have to turn around and return to Earth?
For two more days they received very sketchy information from the control centers on Earth, which were themselves trying to figure out what had happened. On the third day the ships lost all communications with Earth. Assuming that this meant that their home world was lost, the crews of the escape ships continued as planned. They started planning out the next phase in the journey.
The crew of the Sparrow XIV planned out their schedule for the next two weeks. They planned out their meals and how they would enter their own deep sleep chambers. They set up a routine of checking on all of their passengers and making sure their chambers were still operating properly. They did their best to keep healthy and alert and make sure that the ship was in proper working order. They also kept check to make sure they were still on course and in proper formation for their flight through space.
The ship’s computers and monitoring equipment were programmed to keep track of certain stars so that they had a permanent check for their course readings. The ship’s computers also kept track of the nuclear engines and monitored their speed, which was reaching an incredible rate. The designers of the engines could not have imagined how fast they would propel the ships. In mere days the ships were past the Moon, and then Mars flew past.
The crew held its breath as they came up to the asteroid belt, and the ship very carefully navigated through it. The ship continued to accelerate as they zoomed toward Jupiter and its moons. With great awe they saw a storm on Jupiter and a few days later they gasped at the rings of Saturn. The crew onboard the Sparrow XIV patted themselves on the back and felt very lucky to be awake and able to see the glories of the solar system that they had lived in and studied for years. Every sight was fascinating and to see them this close was amazing, yet they knew that they would never see them again. They also knew that they had to go to their chambers soon.
At last they could not put off entering their chambers any longer. They started off the day by having a hearty breakfast and then went and checked all of their passengers to ensure that everything was working. The four-man crew then went through their regular schedule of exercise and saw that they were still in formation and that they were still on course. Then they had a good lunch and very reluctantly went to their own chambers.
The captain of the ship checked the others out and went through the routine with them and checked out their chambers. All of them got into their suits for the deep sleep chambers. One by one they climbed into the chambers with the captain being the last. He had complimented each one of the others in turn and made sure that the lids closed and were secured and sealed. At last he was the last person roaming the ship. He went and made one last check to ensure that everything was as it should be and then went for a last look out at the stars. He said a small prayer for himself and for the ship and its passengers before going to his own chamber.
Slowly he climbed in and made sure the chamber was set to automatically close and start up. He breathed very deeply as he watched the lid close and knew he wouldn’t wake for eons, not until the ship was a month away from the new world. He relaxed, thinking that he would be one of the first to see the new solar system and planets. As he fell asleep he believed that God would watch over them and see them through this trip.
The Sparrow XIV and the other escape ships flew on past the three outer planets of the solar system and away from their home world. On they flew, streaking through the vastness of space and at the same time the Earths nuclear arsenal sped toward the approaching planet. The missiles finally hit the planet and did what they were supposed to do. Thousands of nuclear warheads erupted and completely destroyed the planet. Melthor’s moon ceased to exist.
***
All of Heaven was aware of the silent ships speeding their way across space. They knew that the passengers didn’t know that the route they were flying was roughly the same one that Melthor’s moon had taken. The angels and the sons of God also knew a secret that the humans on the ships did not know. It was a secret that had been hidden from the people of Earth for centuries.
One day the people would find out. A prophet Jamuous gave the prophecies. His cryptic prophecies were written in a long dead language and had never been translated. Yet they were revered for their beauty and what they may foretell. The one tantalizing clue was given by a later prophet, who declared that Jamuous’ prophecies would be revealed shortly before Christ’s appearance to redeem the worlds where this portion of humanity was heading. For now they celebrated Christ’s victory on Earth and watched over the humans that were traversing the stars. Below them the ships, including the Sparrow XIV, flew silently on.
***
Eons passed in peace. Slowly the ships had separated some. They were still in formation but their spacing had been gradually increasing. Countless years passed as the passengers slept. On and on the ships flew till now they were approaching the Andromeda galaxy. The ships entered the galaxy and silently flew on as their computers and sensors scanned the surrounding stars and plotted the course toward the planet. Nobody on the ships knew that the area that they were now entering in the galaxy actually had several solar systems that had planets that could sustain life. The planet the ships were approaching was the nearest, but not by much. Some of the ships had broken formation and headed off toward some of the other worlds, but the Sparrow XIV stayed on course for the planned world.
Four days before the crew of the Sparrow XIV was to begin the wake-up process and to get the ship ready to land on the planet, another ship approached. It was not one of the escape ships. The approaching craft was large and looked very dangerous as several ports opened and were filled by very large crossbows. The powerful wenches at the ends of the bows were ready to spin and pull the cable that would launch the deadly looking bolts that were six feet long with three thin fins and incredibly sharp arrowheads that were designed to puncture a ship’s hull.
“It’s another strange ship sir,” said a knight in dark gray armor on the approaching ship. He looked very determined at his captain waiting at his station with the weapons firing controls in front of him.
“Where is it from?” asked the captain, a rather angry looking man with a scarred face from several battles in service to his king. The ship was a battleship from a planet eight solar systems away, the planet Boulthora.
“I don’t know sir. Like the others we’ve encountered it’s not responding to our hails,” the Boulthorian gunner responded and looked excited at the prospect of target practice.
“They must be friendly to the Althorians. That seems to be where they are headed,” spoke another knight on the bridge of the ship. This knight was the second in command and he looked as mean as the captain. He strode over and looked down at the viewer and sneered at the ship pictured there. “Pathetic. I wonder what kind of ship it is. You’d think they were just waiting out here to die. They don’t even look like they’re armed.”
“Could it be a decoy ship? T
here have been so many of them, and none of them seem to be aware that they are crossing a no-fly area,” said the captain, trying to figure out what the trick was with these strange ships.
“What are we to do?” asked the second in command. “Do we let it pass like the others, or do we put a stop to them?”
The communications officer was listening to an incoming message from their home world. He turned excitedly toward the captain and said, “I’ve got a message from King Axlor. He thinks that these ships must be either decoys or troops from another world coming to help the Althorians. He also thinks that they must be preparing to prevent us from our objective on their world. We have been given permission to attack and destroy the strange ships. If they are decoys then it’ll show that we’ve figured them out, and if they are full of troops friendly to the Althorians, it gets rid of them.”
The captain looked over at his men with an evil grin creasing his scarred face. He turned to the gunner and said savagely, “Fit the destructor arrows on the bows and destroy that ship.”
The gunner turned to his control screen and entered the commands that caused mechanical arms to extend out and remove the armor piercing arrows off the great crossbows, and then they extended out again with very deadly explosive-tipped arrows. The gunner then very carefully targeted the Sparrow XIV. On the captain’s orders he depressed the firing buttons, and the bows launched dozens of arrows at the ship.
***
Alarms went off in the Sparrow XIV as the ship’s computers recognized the threat of the approaching arrows, thinking quite correctly that they were missiles. The ship’s main computers went through the possible solutions to the danger. The one solution that came up was to immediately awaken the crew and get them to fly the ship out of danger; but it would be too late for that. The computers tried to steer the ship away, but the automatic piloting controls were very slow to respond in turning the ship. The ship managed to just dodge the incoming arrows as the computer finally found a solution: Expel the passengers, crew, and animal chambers. In a moment the deep sleep chambers emergency systems prepared to expel them from the ship.
Each chamber was equipped with its own emergency power systems and monitors. All of the chambers were also equipped with a small yet rather powerful and efficient rocket pack that could propel it quite a distance toward a livable planet. Also the chambers with the pets and other animals had a modular design with many of the same species in one unit. These units were equally equipped like the passengers deep sleep chambers. The animal escape pods would be expelled as well. The ship was just at the maximum distance for the chambers’ power systems to function properly and for the rockets to get the passengers inside to the world they were heading toward.
The ship’s computer turned the ship and went through its sequence to expel half of the passengers from the ship. The ceiling and sides of the ship opened an in a great rush the chambers opposite the Sondersons were launched out into space, and moments later their rocket packs fired and sped the chambers toward the planet and safety. Just then one of the explosive arrows hit the Sparrow XIV.
By a miracle, or due to the ship’s excellent design, the ship was only damaged near the tail. Unfortunately the ship now couldn’t move or steer. The ship had managed to turn just before being disabled and was about to expel the remaining passengers and pets toward the planet. There was a great jerk as Trance and his family, along with everyone else on their side of the ship and the animals, were shot out into open space. Moments later the ship expelled the crew in their chambers right before a third volley of arrows hit the ship, completely disabling it. Just as the Sparrow’s passengers and crew were beginning to race toward Althora, the Sparrow XIV was destroyed.
As the ship erupted silently in the vast emptiness of space, the blast wave went and caught up to several chambers from the Sonderson’s side of the ship, which were peppered with shrapnel. But the chambers had been constructed to withstand the blast of a catastrophic event, including the ship exploding. The blast wave expanded long enough to jog several chambers off course before the blast collapsed back on itself.
Two Althorian battleships were speeding into the area to intercept the Boulthorian ship and discover why it had fired upon an unknown and apparently unarmed ship. The Althorian ships were slightly smaller than the Boulthorian battleship, but they were equally armed and fired a volley of arrows at the opposing ship. By grace or divine intervention or even cosmic chance, a straggling escape ship that had lost all of its passengers and crew in the rapture back at Earth was hit and destroyed in the crossfire of the battle.
For ten minutes the great battleships fought, neither one backing away or giving an inch of space. Another Boulthorian ship approached to help its partner, but both of them had to finally retreat when four more Althorian ships raced in and peppered them. The first Boulthorian ship became seriously damaged. The Althorian ships then stood guard over the remaining Earth ships and tried to contact them to find out where they were from and why they were there. While they were unable to contact these strange spacecraft they decided to monitor them and wait. So far they did not appear to be hostile. The captain of the closest Althorian battleship quite correctly assumed that the very small craft now flying were a sort of live pods and were carrying the crew of the ship that had been destroyed.
By some miracle all of the Sparrow XIV’s passengers, animals, and crew survived the attack. Silently the chambers flew propelled by their rocket packs. However, due to the blast wave, they were now flying farther apart from each other. Unknowingly Trance was moving slowly away from the rest of his family. They were all headed for the planet; however, they would land at different locals. After a week the planet started to come into view. If Trance had been awake what a sight would have met his gaze.
Althora seemed to be very similar to Earth. There were three main continents taking up roughly thirty percent of the planet’s surface. The rest of the planet was made up of oceans and seas. The closer the chambers got the more detail could be seen. Soon mountains, rivers, and lakes could be detected. Althora seemed to have a very large Arctic area on the northern continent.
This arctic area then transitioned to wilderness, to mountains and plains, and then to tropical areas near the planet’s equator. The second continent was just as large as the first, but it was more centralized along the equator, with equal landmasses north and south of it. The third continent was more triangular with the wide end of the triangle along the equator. This continent had a vast tropical area that transitioned to plains, mountains, wilderness, and down to a small arctic area. On the planet’s southern pole was a fair-sized frozen island. Trance and his family were swiftly approaching the middle of the first continent.
The mountain ranges on the first continent were rather curious. There were six major mountain ranges that seemed to crisscross the continent with several smaller ranges between. There was one range however that was in the northwestern area of the continent forty miles from the Western Ocean and halfway up the continent. This unique range of mountains was arranged in almost a complete circle, known on Althora as the Crown Mountains. Above Trance in his traveling chamber was a fascinating array of stars and constellations.
Towns and cities could be seen soon and their lights could be seen from space. A random patchwork of farms, forests, small villages, small cities, and great metropolitan areas dotted the landscape. It was an incredible sight. The residents of the planet were quite startled at the approach of the Earth ships. The crews of the ships woke and were at first terrified to find themselves surrounded by very large alien space ships. Quickly communications were established and the crews explained why they were there. The Althorians were friendly and seemed eager to help the Earth ships and gave instructions and guidance to the crews.
Two days before the chambers of the Sparrow XIV would land the first Earth ship landed and caused quite a stir. The crew of Eagle I worked hard to establish peaceful relatio
ns with the Althorians. They received help in awakening the passengers and unloading them, their belongings and samples of Earth’s animals and plants.
The Althorians were amazed and fascinated by the tales of Earth and seemed very eager to assist the Earth people any way they could. Many political leaders were taken to the capital and soon became advisors to the King of the kingdom they had landed in. They helped establish very good relations between the Earth people and the Althorians. They would not be the major leaders as they had been, but they were soon in their area of expertise.
Others gravitated to areas that they had known back on Earth. Farmers went to the agricultural areas, and business people went to find work where they could fit in and soon became entwined with the local businesses as if they had grown up with them. Even the religious leaders found places to worship. Ministers, pastors, and priests found churches where they could continue in their vocation. They met with the planet’s ministers and learned of the religions there. Both sides found that they were very similar. It seemed that there was a place for everyone. Some Earth people even went to the other continents and the kingdoms there and were just as warmly welcomed. As it usually is, some places were friendlier than others. A few Earth people found that they could even travel to a nearby peaceful world in a system not far from Althora. The people from Earth soon learned that there were several worlds with intelligent beings in this area of the Andromeda galaxy.
This area was roughly divided into those worlds friendly with Althora and those like Boulthora that were enemies of Althora. There were of course some worlds that were neutral. There was also one world that nobody ventured to that was quite vast with only a third of its surface covered by water. It had once had a very good ecosystem yet had been utterly devastated by a massive long forgotten war.
Space Knights: The Arrival Page 5