Obsidian Ressurection

by T J Bryan

"Affirm. Hatch 2B open in 30, purging now," replied Lennie. Abel watched as Lennie confidently manipulated the worn switches and mechanical levers of the old ship in a flurry of experience and skill. After all Abel realized that Lennie and his sister Silvi had spent most of their lives living and working on Quark.

  Abel heard Maint-Stat begin the countdown and in moments he saw the great hatch cover of bay 2B slowly crawl open to reveal the darkness of the void. Abel only ventured out into the void a few times a year, usually to support the EmVac crews on some complicated emergency fix to the station, but also on the occasional crime involving the void. However it never ceased to draw breath from Abel as he entered the void with its' baleful actinic glare of the black hole Obsidian, the dull glow of their class 'M' dying star, and the pinpoint shine of long distant star systems. Lennie pulsed the manoeuvring thrusters with a gentle push and the ship broke free of the berthing dock and departed from the station. There were no rear facing windows or vid screens facing the Habitat so only the forward void was visible to Abel and those on the bridge. Abel felt rather than saw the ship wheel over in a new direction. The star field moved and within a few moments Abel felt the acceleration as the main engines began their work. Lennie was working the pilots station with intensity and Abel noticed Lennie's focus on the nav-system. While the hop to Dees Rock would take over an hour, the many obstacles on the way, required careful navigation in a ship the size of the sweeper.

  After a few moments the tension on the bridge eased as Lennie leaned back in the pilot's seat and simply watched the instruments. A gentle hum and vibration settled over the quiet ship as the main jector engines pulsed at a low setting capable of powering them toward Dees Rock.

  Abel turned to Helen. "Helen, you know we all studied the Great War in grade school. What with Unity and the Greaysons fighting to a bitter end and the descent of The Dark upon the galactic arm. But I never understood the Sentinels and those ships. Never made of lot of sense to me."

  Helen looked at Emmitt and then at Abel before glancing about the bridge. "You want the short version or the long one?" she asked.

  "Well, given that were going to be here for a while how about the complete version," replied Abel.

  Helen drew her breath, thought a moment to organize her thoughts about a complex and perplexing subject and began.

  After almost an hour Abel had begun to understand. For reasons no one really understood Unity and Greaysons had in 2885 begun the Great War. The war had cost billions of lives and untold resources in what was for almost 160 years a complete draw. However Unity eventually prevailed in an attack on the three home systems of Greayson and Greayson was forced to surrender. Then genocide descended on Greayson as Unity out of malice or fear destroyed everything in the three Greayson systems.

  Helen had explained that an understanding of the social, economic, technological, and political systems of the two warring states was important in understanding the descent of The Dark. A bit of what she said Abel knew from school, but the details had alluded him as mythic and boring history.

  Unity, Helen explained was a vast coalition of over 60 unified star systems all bound by the same agricultural economic system based on slavery, slave minders and the Nobs. Any one of Unity's star systems might well contain tens of billions of inhabitants classified as slaves and tied to large landed estates. A more proper description Helen explained might be the word 'peasants' but the distinction was lost on Abel. For any given landed estate that might include a billion peasants there were the ruling Nobs. To enforce the Nobs rule a class of slaves called the Minders were allowed privileges and better living conditions than the peasants. The Minders were well fed, literate, and lived reasonable lives only as long as they maintained a brutal hold upon the peasants in the name of Nob rule. Perhaps five percent of the peasants were Minders, but far fewer of the population were Nobs. The Minders were never really enough to completely control the slaves so they relied upon terror to ensure peace. On any given individual star system of perhaps ten billion souls only as many as 5,000 Nobs ruled. The Nobs in the early history of Unity, as reflected in the Encyclopaedia Gallectica and in the research of the Collegium, were brutal and merciless but intelligent rulers. But as the Unity aged Nobs interbred and refused to adopt any changes to their social systems. The Nobs valued their heritage and gene pool greater than that which was needed to survive the ancient Darwins' laws. Most thought themselves as divine Gods. After almost 400 years the Nobs had fallen into idiocy, drug addiction, illiteracy and genetic catastrophe. The Minders however continued their rule over the peasants and tolerated the growing Nob failures. One of the great questions in the history of Unity is why the Minders never were able to cast off the slave mentality. At some point in the history of Unity the Minders must have realized that the system was doomed, yet they never questioned the authority or divine right of the Nobs to rule over all. And then came the Great War.

  Greayson on the other had was a tiny confederation reliant on a high degree of technological innovation and highly sophisticated automation. Perhaps no more than a billion Greayson's occupied the three star systems that made up their confederation. However they had one really great advantage over Unity. Unity was agriculturally based and Greayson was a technological power house. For example Greayson warships were highly automated, technically advanced, and built to a high uniform standard. A Greayson dreadnaught might require a crew of less than 200 and pack almost unimaginable fire power. Unity ships of the dreadnaught classes, were reliant upon slave crews and minders as petty officers. Unity crews measured in the thousands for a single ship. Their fire power was feeble and even slight damage doomed their ships to the vacuum of the void. On top of that the Unity ships were built to no standard and every one of the 60 star systems within Unity built warships to whatever whim the local Nobs had at that moment within the war.

  Another advantage of Greayson ships was uniformity and interchangability of components. For example anti-matter torpedoes were built to one standard and could be fitted to any of the Greayson ship designs. If a fusion engine failed, it was easily replaced given Greaysons had adopted a single design. Dreadnaughts hosted perhaps 250 fusion engines while a frigate had four. But the engines were interchangeable as were almost every system on their ships. Unity had no standards and a damaged ship could not be repaired unless it made it home to its' home system for repair, and few damaged ship ever made it home. The Unity components were almost all one off, sometimes innovative, but often whimsical and woefully inadequate.

  Although outnumbered a hundred to one Greayson fought Unity to a near standstill for over 150 years. The cost to both systems in lives and treasure were enormous. A war of that length ceases to be brutal after a hundred years and the war descends into genocide as hatred and fear become unreasoned and uncontrollable.

  Helen cited one famous epic battle whose description can be found in the Poems of Sonolono the Blind who describe the conquest of Binford's Star in 2933. Binford was a major junction of the Elliot Portal system and critical to both Unity and Greayson. Both system's supply lines ran through the portals at Binford and a strike against one or the other's commerce could be devastating. Greayson maintained a small fleet of two dreadnoughts, a half dozen cruisers and a handful of frigates and support ships at Binford Station. Unity struck the station with a massive assault. No one is sure how many Unity ships were involved but Sonolono claims over a thousand ships from Unity most of which were dreadnaughts. Some of the historians at the Collegium have questioned this number but the EG or Encyclopaedia Gallactia is quite explicit. Unity had an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

  Sonolono's poem describes the chaos and incapacity of Unity ships even before the engagement. Food was poor on Unity and sanitary conditions among the slave crews almost nonexistent. The design of the ships was poor enough, but the crews were a diseased and unmotivated mess. This did not keep the Nobs from decorating their ships with golden finials, gem encrusted rail guns, and gold plating across the enti
re ship. If Sonolono is to believed the Nobs lived in private quarters and in a luxury unimaginable even on their own estates.

  The battle did not last long. Greayson destroyed Unity's Fleet within a few hours but the cost was great. Every Greayson ship but one frigate was lost, but the entire Unity fleet was reduced to spent plasma gasses and junk. Unity lost perhaps a million souls in the brief fight. Greayson less than a thousand.

  However as the war entered its' 150th year both systems were exhausted and Unity formed a desperate plan and sued for peace with Greayson. Greayson fell for it. That is they believed Unity's call for peace talks while Unity massed what was every available ship. While peace talks began Unity launched a sneak attack on the Greayson's shipyards at Wawalla. The battle was nearly fought to a draw, but the draw saw the total destruction of the shipyards and the kinetic bombardment of Greayson's capital system. Although Unit had only a handful of ships remaining after the battle Greayson's had nothing in system and was forced to sue for peace. They surrendered unconditionally. They had no choice.

  Someone, probably within Unity's Minder leadership, although it's not entirely clear, realized that even a total unconditional surrender of Greayson might not end the war as Greayson had hundreds of in service warships stationed across the war zone. In order to ensure victory Unity demanded that the entire war fleet be decommissioned, disabled, inventoried, and placed at a suitable location for examination before destruction. Unity chose what became our system because of the proximity of our Obsidian Black Hole. Every war ship Greaysons had was counted, inventoried, inspected, vac-ed, and brought here prior to its' destruction. The inventory and transportation took well over two years before Unity's Navy began to push the largest and deadliest ships into Obsidian for consignment to eternity or whatever happens when something descends into that black hole.

  The Sentinel system was built to contain the Greayson Fleet until the inventory could be completed. Unity was taking no chances that a resurrection of Greayson might come back to haunt them. Once the fleet was assembled, captured, and disabled within the Sentinel walls, Unity staged its' last assault. It kinetically bombarded all three Greayson systems and wiped out the entire population. Genocide. Horrific but in the long run totally final. Greayson died. It never came back.

  But that was only the beginning of the end, and the entry to The Dark, Helen had explained. Unity, during the 160 years of war, had become politically and economically desperate to continue the war effort. As things went from bad to worse, and then to desperate, the few Nobs capable of reason began to promise the Minders a better life if they only continued their support of the war. Few Nobs died in the war but the Minders and more importantly the slaves suffered horrible losses. Expectations among the Minders for a better life was raised and eventually became out of control as the Minders began to promise the slaves a better life in support of the war effort.

  With the war won the Nobs reasserted control and began a senseless purge of Minder leadership. Within days civil war broke out as the Minders broke into factions in support of Nobs or against them. The war waged on for only a short time and the Minders eventually took revenge on the Nobs most of whom died a rather unpleasant death. Then the Minders unable or unwilling to grant the slaves a new life, found that the peasants rose up and destroyed the Minders whose numbers were never enough to control so large a population. The result was catastrophic for Unity. All knowledge, even literacy was lost, as Unity descended into The Dark where they can be found today. The universe, without Greayson or Unity, simply could not support a knowledge base sufficient to support what we know as civilization or for that matter interstellar travel and commerce. Even those few systems that had remained neutral like our friends at Girots could not sustain interstellar commerce and knowledge for long. The Dark had become complete.

  As for the Sentinels and the remainder of the Greayson fleet Helen had explained that the Unity Navy upon completion of the inventory had begun the destruction of the Greayson fleet beginning with the largest and most dangerous Greayson ships called Dreadnaughts. However within months word of the Unity civil war and peasant revolts reached the impound station at Obsidian. The Unity Navy asked for instructions from its' many home worlds, but the chaos of the home worlds prevented any response. The Unity Navy did not receive replenishment or any word from its' Minder Command structure and soon ships deserted and returned to their home worlds leaving only the Border Guard ships to maintain control of the Greayson fleet. But after several month of no word even the Border Guard left. Helen assumed that the Border guard thought the Sentinels sufficient to protect the fleet before they were able to return with the Navy and complete their work. But they never came back.

  "And the ship Lennie recognized on your tablet? What was that?" asked Abel.

  "Ah, well that was a SAR frigate. The EG tells us it was perhaps the most powerful ship in the entire Greayson fleet, more effective in interstellar war than even the Dreadnaughts. Small, fast and deadly the EG says they were."

  Abel thought a moment. "And what did SAR stand for? What did it mean to the Greaysons?"

  "Well, As best I can tell SAR stood for Strategic Area Reconnaissance, but footnotes in the EG say it really stood for 'Search, Attack, Run.' If Greayson had only built more of these small killers the outcome of the Great War might well have been different. But 'C'est la guerre' as they say." Helen took a deep breath in contemplation. Abel thought a moment wondering what 'C'est la guerre' meant but decided to ask later.

  "That's about it," said Helen looking at the clock on the bridgehead wall. Almost an hour had passed and they were approaching Dees Rock and what Abel knew would be some tight manoeuvres.

  Chapter Four

  Jamon System - Dees Rock - Year 3245. May 14 ET: Time 13:12

  "Dees Rock in 10," whispered Lennie as if saying their destination louder might cause the rock to shatter. Abel could not see Dees Rock at this distance through the bridge view ports, but he knew that the two kilometre oddly shaped rock was unusual within the Jamon system. Most of the asteroid field waltzed around the gas giant Chatoyant at a leisurely pace with perhaps only a slight spin if any. Dees Rock however, while maintaining its' position within the elliptic spun at an insane speed. Many wondered, not only why the spin was so intense, but also why the 'U' shaped rock simply did not disintegrate from centrifugal force. No one had an answer and no one within the Collegium was interested enough to seek an answer.

  Abel turned to Helen and asked, "Why do you think the Sentinels went down? Or at least the two Lennie has told us about."

  Helen thought a moment before replying. "Well, I guess the Sentinels were never built to last 200 years. Unity probably thought they needed them only for a few years and Unity never really had the skill to build something that lasted this long. If I were to guess I'd say the Sentinels were Greayson manufactured and surrendered as part of giving up the fleet. Even then, two hundred years is a long time to sustain those Sentinels' power packs. Add to that generations of Commonwealth teens throwing rocks at them and the enormous power needed to fire the plasma guns in pulverizing the rocks or intruders and you get eventual power system failures."

  Abel thought for a moment before replying. "I guess that means we will see others failing within a short time?"

  "Possibly," responded Helen. And then, "Probably."

  "Dees Rock is coming up," said Lennie and he made adjustments at the pilots station. "Decelerating now, reversing attitude."

  Abel felt his stomach churn as the ship rapidly turned 180 degrees away from Dees Rock to initiate a deceleration that would lower their speed and bring them within manoeuvring room of the off elliptic approach to the Sentinels barrier. The previously silent bridge was now full of the loud roar and intense vibration of eight jector engines returned to life and decelerating the ship. Abel watched the attitude instruments approach a 180 degree turn but noticed Ingvar suddenly tense up as Lonnie threw his hands on the flight controls. Something was wrong. The ship began to
spin and spin uncontrollably. Abel's stomach first felt the sickening tug, and then his brain, as the disorientation of a violent spinning motion overwhelmed his senses. The ship was not only spinning but its' jector engines, or at least one of them, was at an uncontrolled full throttle sending the ship into an violent tumble.

  A plastic bag, the remnants of a late lunch, stuck Abel hard in the face. The tumble was complex and the force on the uncontrolled ship violent. Abel fought to gain some muscle control and tried to look at Lennie and Ingvar, but the force of the spin slammed his head against the restraints of the seat, and he hit hard against the bulkhead. On the verge of passing out Abel managed to lift his head against the spin forces to see Ingvar struggling to rise from his seat. Ingvar was fighting against the spin forces and was struggling to stand and move toward the rear of the ship. Abel could see Ingvar reaching for the white painted pipe that crossed the ceiling of the bridge in attempt to gain a footing against the forces of the spin.

  "Jector seven is jammed!" Lennie yelled above the din. "Cutting the feed line now."

  The ships spin continued and seemed to Abel to accelerate.

  Lennie worked the controls as the spin forces fought against his every motion. "Feed line jammed, but I can't kill the pump." Lennie shouted.

  Abel, now found his head pinned against the spinning bulkhead and his field of vision limited not only by the pinned placement of his head, but by the strain on his optic nerve and his now increasingly blood diminished brain. 'Tunnel vision' they called it and Abel knew that within moments the force of the spin would eliminate his consciousness and that of everyone aboard. At this speed and direction they were sure to hit either Dees Rock's tumbling outcrop or pass further into the area still defended by the functioning Sentinels.

  Just as Abel lost consciousness he heard Lennie yell "The pump won't go down, Dad you're gonna have to kill the feed line."