by PN Burrows
Evolving on a planet void of oxygen, they had never seen H20 fall from the skies. Their physiology didn’t suffer just from aquagenic urticaria, it was, to them, what sulphuric acid is to humans. The crack of thunder followed by a deluge from the sky initiated the death knell for millions of Preialeiac on Prontalarl IV. Those that cowered beneath shelter became easy prey for the opposing force; no quarter was given. The Preialeiac retreated to recently conquered worlds and were then pushed further back as civilisations retaliated with their new found weapon. With their ground troops decimated and their armadas stretched thin across several solar systems, it left their home world open to a devious attack. Hundreds of thousands of ice meteors where hurled across space with calculated trajectories aimed at the home world. Water was introduced to Preialei, billions of the Preialeiac became ill or died, the toxin polluting their argon oceans, streams and eventually seeping into the food chain. The fleets returned to form a barricade and for another millennia or so no one saw the Preialeiac again. Many had hoped that they had died out. To this day, few of them travel amongst the other races, fewer still mingle like the doctor.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
With Sam dressed in the BEE suit, he and Reb made their way out of the infirmary together.
‘If we get time later I’ll show you around the station.’
‘So exactly where are we?’
‘You have no name for this region of space as it is hidden by, er…’ putting his finger in his ear, Sam noticed him clasping the back of it with his thumb, ‘Bob, what’s that galaxy called? Ah, memorable. It’s far behind a galaxy you have called EGS-zs8-1.’ Guiding Sam down a long windowless corridor, ‘turn left here.’
Sam turned into an exterior corridor. It had a row of large oblong windows; Sam ran his hand over the nearest round corner. He silently assumed the laws of physics that affected Earth’s aviation industry also applied to space design, that angled corners equated to weakness and stress points.
No light shone into the corridor, in fact, the opposite was true. It was so black outside that it seemed to suck the light out of the corridor. He’d seen footage from the ISS space station and would have expected a multitude of glistening stars, not this oppressive void.
Seeing Sam’s disappointment Reb continued, ‘Look to the left.’
‘Holy shit!’ he exclaimed involuntarily, taking a step backwards. ‘Are we safe?’
‘Safe is a relative word, Sam. If you mean are we in any danger from the black hole, no,’ smiling that the view had caused the desired effect. ‘We are in a compressed space zone similar to Minera. The station is built around the only Dia Kuklos we know of that can be redirected to other Dia Kuklos, I mentioned it the other day. The entrance opens up towards the black hole, that’s why you can’t see any stars. We are in a depression in space and we can’t see over the rim’
Sam nodded, studying intently the magnificent and spectacular brutal sight before him, not realising that people had literally gone mad by staring into the maelstrom, the feeling of hopelessness and insignificance overwhelming them.
‘The Dia Kuklos, whilst being far smaller and visually unimpressive, has produced a far more profound effect on the fabric of space than the black hole. We are safe here in our own distorted bubble.’
Sam looked along the outside of the station, he could see no defined edges, the surface just tapered away.
‘It’s a globe, Sam, well, think of it as an onion as that is how it was built, in layers. Each layer became the outside shell upon completion. Safety first in space, the mantra is keep it simple, keep it safe. If we have a hull breach we can safely fall back to the next layer until it can be repaired. There are around 3000 personnel here today. It can be self-sustainable for up to 30,000, it can house 250,000 and 300 are always at the ready to deploy at any point in time. We can get them through a Dia Kuklos and to any destination within the Universe within twenty-four hours. The expanding outer edge is problematic as we have not discovered any new Dia Kuklos for a long time.’
The ever so slowly expanding influence of the ISPAW increased like the expanding surface of an inflating balloon, causing the frontier to increase in size exponentially. Council rules mandated that no expansion past a system was possible until that system was either fully integrated into the ISPAW or quarantined. Systems with non-spacefaring and technologically immature inhabitants were cordoned off with a series of semi-manned war satellites. This was to prevent any outside influences as much as to prevent the inhabitants getting out as they developed. They could not be allowed to wander about the relatively peaceful interior of council space. Not all races were benevolent and welcomed contact and the chance to become an equal member state. Those too had to be enclosed, entrapped within their own system.
Systems on the periphery had to be protected from external sources, frequently wars broke out with hitherto unknown species. If diplomatic resources failed to find an answer to the conflict the ISPAW would bring the full force of its might to bear. Crushing the military and governing bodies of invading systems and surrounding the planets with satellites, which would scour them with prohibitive technology and send forth a hail of hellfire down upon the planet and into the planet, whenever it found it. Those inhabitants were free to live a non-spacefaring, non-warmongering life for evermore, only they were planet bound. The satellites and restrictions would only be removed if the ISPAW had expanded past that particular system, they wished to join the ISPAW and at least ten generations had lived and ruled the planet peacefully.
Ground troops would only ever be used on ISPAW member planets to bolster the native ranks and defend the inhabitants. The Shock Troops were always the first to arrive into the hot zones, those being the hardened criminals that had chosen not to go into solitary confinement on the terraforming planets or had taken a quicker death sentence. These less than honourable men found honour and bonds of trust amongst their comrades. They were honed to become even more hardened killers. Those were the disposable troops, the meat for the grinder, cannon fodder. Life expectancy was low even with all the armour they wore. Few made it to the thirteenth year, none made it intact, cyborg and robotics parts were a common sight. Many thought it a blessing to receive faster legs, stronger arms or even sharper eyes after an injury. None voiced the thoughts of going AWOL, there were no physical guards watching over the Shock Troops as none were needed. If any strayed from the battle zone or if the implanted cameras took footage of treasonous acts, or even became damaged in the fight, the soldier would simple cease to be. Built in safeguards would trigger. The first being a simple but small explosion in the cranium with the result that the pressure of liquefied brain matter would push the eyes out of their sockets. Two redundancy measures would also trigger, the first one being that a toxin would be released into the blood stream and the second would be the reinforcing spinal implant that made the trooper stronger would sever key vertebrae. Surprisingly many of the troopers found religion the GCR being the most popular. It didn’t matter which god or deity you believed in as long as you truly believed and were willing to sacrifice yourself for the good of others. The ISPAW religion would embrace you and give you support. As every planet and culture had its own religion, the GCR stated that they are all more or less correct but they were all multiple facets of a greater divine truth that we were not privy to. It also reminded the races that each religion is also man’s (or species’) interpretation of events and man is fallible, even making gods in our own image, studies had shown that ancient and modern text deviated dramatically. This acceptance and active encouragement to study all doctrines had helped to create the biggest religious body across the universe.
After the Shock Troops entered the fray, the normal troopers would arrive to sanitise the now softened area. If more help was required after using the heavy hammer of the Shock Troops, the scalpel like tactics of the Universal Military Police are called in. Police in name but they were highly skilled military pe
rsonnel, sectioned off into specialised surgical strike teams. They were efficient, quick, quiet and very deadly. The few who were like Reb acted in smaller cohesive teams were the modern day ninja assassins, going where none would think to go.
Looking out of the window Sam performed a small, almost embarrassed jump from the tips of his toes. ‘You have artificial gravity?’ It was half question and half statement, Sam was berating himself for not picking up on it earlier, but then so much had happened in such a short time frame. The doctor had mentioned something about gravity outside of the medical room and he even had endured what the doctor had called gravity training. He’d thought the suit was restricting his movement, not that they were altering gravity – until now he hadn’t even realised he was in space on a real space station.
‘I am sure Doc must have mentioned it.’ Reb took a disc out of his pocket. It was similar if not the same as the one he had used on the tavern table. The Minerans had long ago mastered non-metallic electronics, so as to allow their technology to pass through the Dia Kuklos. Tossing it up in the air in front of Sam he proclaimed, ‘We can micro manage gravity in any of our structures or vehicles.’ The small silver disk floated in front of Sam. Sam nudged it with his finger and it floated freely away.
‘You can do this?’
‘No,’ this was said with a smile, ‘I have worked with Bob for so long that I no longer need to request his input, he knows what I am doing and we act in unison. He simply contacted engineering to perform this display for you.’ He placed his hand a few inches below the disc and it fell into his palm. ‘Without this micromanagement you would never have been able to throw Timon into the cell. He would simply have been too heavy to move, with his natural weight and the fact that whenever we go indoors we are always subject to Minera’s normal gravity to prevent muscle loss and osteopenia.’
‘How? This would be the holy grail for our space flights.’
‘You’re decades away from it, Sam, but it’s so simple your scientists will wonder why they didn’t stumble upon it earlier. Every piece of rock floating through space has a gravitation force. The strength of this force depends on its mass. How hard can it be to emulate that?’
Allowing Sam several minutes to take in the view, Reb finally prompted him to move along. ‘Come on Sam, we need to make a move. The captain is eager to move.’
The meeting was being held in a clone of the room in Minera. He was surprised at the amount of wood in the office; the parts of the station he had seen were utilitarian. The doctor’s infirmary was filled with storage cupboards and apparently lots of charts and readouts. The corridors, whilst larger, could have been off any military ship he had been on. Sterile-looking steel walls and bulkheads, the sturdy bulkhead doors didn’t have the usual metal wheel to lock it in place as they, like the doctor’s door, slid silently into the walls. There was carpet, a thick natural fibre-looking brown carpet. That was as far as Sam’s knowledge went as he had never had to buy a carpet.
‘Take a seat people,’ the captain bellowed as he entered behind Sam carrying an armful of files and folders, ‘we have a lot to discuss and before we leave I want a plan of action.’
Seating himself next to Lieutenant Kallistrate, he was positioned at the far side of the table from Sam. Remarkable really, he thought to himself, to have been dragged out of your comfort zone, your ignorant little bubble of existence, to have been manipulated, shot, rebuilt, introduced to the doctor and yet still maintain some decorum. He’s either intelligent, calm and analytical to have taken it in, as Reb suggested or he was an imbecile coasting in uncertainty. We’ll test his mettle before the week’s out.
‘I have taken the liberty of printing out the major details as Sam’s here,’ indicating with the corner of a file, ‘and can’t see the full spectrum of our displays.’ He slid a file across the table to those seated. ‘We are still waiting for the doctor, but we can proceed. Nik, what do you have and take it from the beginning’.
Nik slid a sheet of paper to each participant in turn. ‘I’ll deal with the events at the house first. We all know the perpetrator. We have little to add and I have summarised the details on the sheet. He was and still is Urser Moorc who is still alive and well in prison. The authorities have agreed to keep him under surveillance, begrudgingly as we have not explained why. The temporal degradation indicates he came through the Dia Kuklos,’ holding up his hand to stifle the questions that started to pour in from all but Sam, ‘please let me finish, more disturbing is that he was teleported to the house through the Dia Kuklos.’
‘Impossible! This is ridiculous!’ expelled a uniformed man that Sam did not recognise.
Sam leaned over to Reb, ‘Teleporters don’t exist, then?’
‘On the contrary, they’re pretty fundamental to our manufacturing industry for moving goods around internally. No sane person has used a teleporter to move a living being for, er, I can’t think of a point in history that we did. Every planet, ship and building has a basic interference generator to prevent unauthorised teleportation. When the technology was initially created a few millennia ago, crime became rife. As you can imagine, fly bys, teleport fly offs, and no one knows where the object or person went. They’re so easy to block that they soon became obsolete except for in controlled areas.’
Nik and the man whom must be a fellow scientist were still arguing. ‘Enough!’ bellowed Captain Sophus. ‘Ed, we invited you here out of courtesy. If you’d have released more information as we requested, this might be over by now.’
‘You know I don’t have the authority to release those files, Hus. I gave you what I could. It’ll take weeks for the upper echelons to even read your request, let alone agreeing to release it. We both know that your system would have blocked any incoming transport,’ he spat.
‘What I am trying to say, if you don’t mind me continuing, is that we do not know when or where this transportation came from or the technology used. I have scoured the system logs and we had some very strange energy readings at that point in time. We can block it now, but I’m not sure what or how it was done.’ He looked at Ed, who lowered his head and shuffled the papers about before him. He poured himself a glass of water from the jug in the middle of the table.
‘We have identified the wavelength of the incoming Dia Kuklos. We are now blocking that permanently across the network. We don’t know where it is but they won’t be able to connect with us again. ‘
Sam looked at the paper that Nik had passed across, the graphs and energy readings being indecipherable gibberish to him.
‘The weapon used to shoot Sam and the communications device fitted on top were made in Minera.’ He paused for the impact of this statement to take hold. ‘Analysis shows that it has the energy signature of one of our manufacturing units, it must have been left in the building sometime prior to Reb arriving. Whoever the traitor is, and I don’t use that word lightly, traitor it must be, whoever they are, they have covered their tracks professionally, it might take months to piece it all together. Oh the weapon’s comms unit bounced off a human satellite, so the trail is cold but not dead. We are looking for the incoming signal via the Solar System Cordon Arrays, to see if we can triangulate.’ Looking at Sam, ‘Did anyone mention the satellite system surrounding your solar system?’
Sam nodded. ‘The doctor mentioned it briefly.’
‘The second incursion was just as elaborately planned on the inside, only let down by the poor choice of personnel. The doctor will report any new findings on those. The weapons where a mixture of planet-side readily available eastern European assault rifles. I doubt we will learn much from their trail, but I have people working on it. The weapons were obviously not bought for that specific job as the…’ looking at the captain, ‘Have we designated them a name yet?’ Upon seeing Captain Sophus shake his head slowly he continued. ‘For the ameliorated soldiers as they had to quickly adapt them for the sheer size of their hands. They used the
secondary entrance, which has now been permanently sealed, I might add. I’ll explain a little for Sam’s benefit, the compressed special areas tend to create mountainous regions on the outside, it’s thought to be an effect of the initial explosion, the epicentre always has a mountain too. There is a small hole at the top of ours, erm, think of it as teardrop shaped area, most of it is inaccessible due to the mountains. We have two passes in Minera. One at the village, as you know, and one near some remote trails. We disguise the entrance to prevent accidental observation and make it difficult to approach. Sadly this didn’t deter you and you set off a multitude of alarms. If you find the entrance, there are several physical barriers in place to detain you until you can be safely dealt with.’ He nodded at Sam to see if this was clearing a few things for him, Sam gave a gentle nod back.
‘Someone not only disabled the interior and exterior security and monitoring systems but they disabled the barriers and incapacitated the troops there. This was ingenious, the food and water system was laced with microscopic capsules containing a strong sedative. To ensure the incapacitation of every troop at the same time, these capsules could not be digested but could be absorbed into the bloodstream. They only broke down upon a certain sonic frequency played over the comms. It was outside of our hearing range, so troops could have heard it. We only know this as Akakios was called away prior to the attack and the capsules were still in his body.’
The meeting continued on for several hours going over the finer details and a large list of suspected personnel was created. It was a duplicate of the duty roster for Minera. Sandwiches and refreshments were brought in and finally the doctor was called to report on his findings.