by Andrew Beery
"The current system scheduled for eradication has been destroyed by a nova event initiated by a defending species. Weapon Platform 6 was rendered inoperative as a result. No protocol exists for this contingency. Requesting instructions."
***
"Orbital insertion confirmed, Commodore." Lt. Carstairs said from the helm.
Cat looked out the forward view screen. She could not remember a more beautiful sight. The Hupenstanii's solar system was host to sixteen planets. Planet four was massive, five times the gravity of earth, but solidly in the Goldilocks zone. It was a blue orb with hazy clouds of water vapor. Two new moons orbited this world, each roughly seven tenths the size of earth. Their orbits were precisely tuned to remain tidally locked with the planet. Each of the moons was also a water world with significant land masses. The D'lralu population enjoyed relative safety for the first time in generations.
A third moon which was slightly larger also orbited the giant water world. This world was rockier, but still had a surface that was fifty five percent water. It was on this moon that the Hupenstanii made their home.
"Open a channel using the new LRH transmitter Ziggy. Let's make sure everyone is OK after their ride." The LRH was an acronym for the Limited Range Hyper-field technology the Hoppers had shared with other members of the GCP. It was instantaneous like entangled quantum communications, but it did not need paired receivers to operate, and was ideal in the current environment because it's signals could not travel beyond a very specific range... Thus limiting the potential for publicizing the presence of a sentient species.
"Channel open, Ma'am. I have a Third of the Seventh named Commander Mirdan on line."
"This is Catherine Kimbridge from the Yorktown. What's the status of your people, Commander Mirdan?"
"Welcome to New Haven, Commodore! The transition was a bit traumatic but we survived." he admitted. "There was some minor damage as water lines readjusted... Nothing we didn't expect. We are a little warmer in this orbit but we are erecting a solar umbrella that will provide power and about a three percent reduction in ground level radiation. We can adjust our terraforming to compensate for the rest. All in all I'd say we came through pretty good."
"That's great news, Commander. We have twenty engineering teams on the way from Earth to help with the recovery effort. Have you gotten the new nanite fabricators online?"
Mirdan crossed his upper arms in a very human posture. "To be honest, no. Our engineers are having a hard time adapting the technology."
"I can loan you my Chief Engineer. She is an expert with these technologies. I'd also recommend bringing a Heshe AI into the effort. We need to get those systems up or Earth is on its own."
Mirdan leaned closer to the video pickup and uncrossed his arms. "We'll take all the help we can get. Our scientists are not used to using AIs. Ours have never been sentient. I understand humanity had sentient AIs even before you had access to the Heshe."
"True," Cat confirmed. "But the Heshe systems are far superior. I would characterize them as a true lifeform in and of themselves."
"Well I will, as you humans say, light a fire under our engineers to make better use of them. Don't worry, Commodore. We will get those factories up and producing ships to protect Earth just as soon as possible."
***
Yakin and Yurka watched the colors fade on their friend and leader Yarin. The Heshe communicate via chromatophores in their skin, which rapidly change colors in order to relay information. This visual system of communication was orders of magnitudes faster than verbal communication but was limited to line of sight. The Heshe's biology compensated by evolving a large number of eyestalks which provided a true 360 degree field of vision.
For a Heshe to drain of color was the human equivalent of falling mute in response to utter shock. They both quickly flashed a question.
"By the Creator, what is wrong?"
Yarin flashed a solid red which was the foulest of Heshe curses. "I fear our ancestors are the source of unimaginable death and destruction."
Yurka responded with a soothing flood of lavenders. In her female mode she was always the most calming of the three.
"We knew this to be so. When our people decided to walk the Way and embraced the Spirit and the Word of the Creator rather than the destruction of the Father's children, we left behind the sins of our past. This is why we now call ourselves the 'Heshe'... Those that love the Creator, his children and his service."
"You don't understand" Yarin flashed in the deepest blues and grays. "The machines of our ancestors are even today destroying worlds. We must make this right... even if it takes us a thousand generations."
***
"Captain! Admiral Faragon! Sirs... You need to see this." Lt. Jim Cortez was the somewhat excitable communications officer on the completely rebuilt and enhanced battleship the GCP Avenger. In this particular case the excitement was warranted.
Two massive alien craft appeared in near Earth orbit despite the human's hyperfield inhibitor array. They were bristling with weapons, and their energy signatures were off the charts. Each vessel appeared to be a large square platform a kilometer thick and perhaps four to five kilometers wide
"Battle stations!" Captain Jason Ruck yelled to his bridge crew.
"Lieutenant... Give me fleet wide... NOW!" The Admiral screamed over the alert klaxons.
"Channel open, Sir."
"Attention fleet. This is Admiral Faragon. Two weapons platforms have materialized in Earth orbit. Do not fire on these platforms. Our defenses are out of place, and we are heavily out gunned. Our best road forward for the moment is dialog. Until further notice, Exodus 14 is in effect. Gather whatever population your ships can accommodate and ferry to the promised land. Admiral Faragon out."
"Sirs," Lt. Cortez interjected. "I'm receiving a transmission on a Heshe channel from one of the alien platforms. They are asking to speak with Lieutenant Commander Catherine Kimbridge!"
"Why am I not surprised." Admiral Faragon said with a grin.
***
Cat stood on the bridge of the Yorktown still in orbit around New Haven. A real time holographic display of the bridge of the Avenger floated in front of her. Her commanding officer, Admiral Faragon and her close friend Jason Ruck, seemingly stood a few feet from her via the magic of holo projection. The situation had been explained and a relay channel to the orbiting platforms was opened.
Immediately a familiar form appeared. Eight ridged legs supported a bulbous head replete with eight matching eyestalks.
"Greetings, beloved of the creator."
"Yarin?"
"Indeed."
"I don't understand. How are you... Why are you here?"
"Regrettably, I am here to address the sins of my people's past. Humanity need no longer fear aggression from the Uruk. We have killed them."
Cat stood in stunned silence. The Heshe could not kill. It was why they choose to leave this region of space rather than fight with the D'lralu. That they could kill the Uruk was incomprehensible.
Yarin saw the puzzlement in Cat's face. Of all humans, this one he knew the best, having spent years studying her in the most intricate detail, in an effort to repair her damaged organic shell.
"Your Bible contains a passage in the Book of Romans. 'Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God...' So it is with us. Before life evolved on your world, we were an old people. We were the Uruk. We lived our passions. We killed because we could and because it gave us a sense of security. In time we realized that life had a special value and that the taking of it was wrong... We became the Heshe. This was many millennia ago. We had thought our old self was dead..."
Cat interrupted, "If you ceased killing other races..." Yarin briefly flashed a bright yellow that Cat had learned meant shame. "I'm sorry... I know it was not you. But if your people learned to revere life, how is it so many have continued to die. Are there others of your race that still believe as the Uruk?"
"Yes and no. Our sun evolved as suns d
o and became a red giant. We fled our home world and headed out into the stars. Several hibernated systems survived the transition of our sun to its red giant phase and reactivated. They resumed their original programming.
We recently rediscovered our home world. Shortly thereafter we intercepted a message requesting permission to destroy the Earth system. The weapons platforms currently in orbit around Earth were to be the instruments of that destruction. When we discovered what happened, we reprogrammed the AIs on those platforms to act only as defensive platforms. They are specifically prohibited from engaging in offensive operations. In addition, their systems and AI have been repaired and upgraded. They are our gift to your Galactic Coalition of Planets."
Admiral Faragon spoke up from the bridge of the Avenger. "While we appreciate the gift I'm sure you can understand why a simple 'whoops' hardly addresses what has happened... Not just to humanity but to countless worlds for countless years."
"Admiral, the Heshe owe a life debt to all the races our creations destroyed. We will pay that debt even if it takes us a millennium."
Moments later the Heshe disappeared and humanity was one again at peace.
Epilogue – A Road to Redemption…
Cat woke from a light sleep. Her body probably didn't need sleep, but she enjoyed dreaming. She looked at her computer console. She had no idea why she had suddenly awakened.
"Greetings, beloved of the creator." The voice appeared to float within the room and Cat assumed it was being fed directly to her encounter unit.
"Greetings, fellow beloved of the creator... To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"The Heshe have a plan to pay our life debt. It will take longer than the recorded history of your world. We will share with you what we seek to do but please understand, you of all your race will live to see it to fruition."
"I don't understand?"
"Space and time are linked. Hyper-field technology can be used to fold both. We cannot fix the past but we can bring those we have hurt into the future. You will find new races appearing soon. They will be troubled and in need of friends. You can be their friend... And in doing so you will be closer to the creator. Fair well, beloved of the creator. We will not meet again for many years."
- End of Book One -
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you for reading this novel. Please be aware, one hundred percent of the royalties from the first book in each series I write goes directly to feeding impoverished families and providing for their basic needs.
If you enjoyed this book click on the links below and consider another title in this series or one of my other series.
Positive reviews on Amazon are VERY important. Reviews drive sales. Please consider clicking HEREto leave a favorable review. Finally, if you find a typo; the wrong word used; or an awkward sentence that negatively impacts the story telling... I want to know about it–so I can correct it for the next reader... Post additional comments or correction suggestions to my Facebook Author's page
Blessings beloved of the Creator…Andrew Beery
Other Books
by Andrew Beery
(Click on titles to jump to order page)
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles
Inception, #1 - July 2012
Redemption, #2 - January 2013
*Exploration, #3 - 2013 Summer
*Deception, #4 - 2014
The Ways of Mages (with Catherine Beery)
The Ways of Mages, #1 -Revised July 2012
The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds, #2 - Aug 2012
The Ways of Mages: Starfire, #3 January 2013
*The Ways of Mages: Three Swords, #4 - 2013
* Coming Soon
The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles, #2 -
Redemption - Sample
Rastii was a green eyed Ashkelon. The world was a crazy place. In another few years when his eyes turned blue he would join his father in the space corps. The space corps was where the excitement was at. The Ashkelon had recently broken the light speed barrier by folding space like a wall worm inching along a lava leaf... At least that is how his flock mate Sassi explained it. His eyes were almost solid blue and he was really smart.
Mother had left him early this morning. She had flown out of the family's nest with little more than a peck on his beak. The ships had left the spaceport... All of them. The skies had glowed with an unusual electrical display... Like the bad season for flying. But there was no rain and the sound of thunder's clap never came to his nest. For some reason the sun's red glow seemed brighter than he had ever remember it... And it was getting brighter still. He wished his nest mates would come home. It was all very confusing.
***
The GCP Yorktown was parked in orbit around a planet called Gliese 581g. Gliese 581 was an M-class star that was roughly a third the mass of Earths sun. It was, what the astronomers called, a red dwarf with spectral type M3V, located 20.3 light-years away from Earth.
The planet designated "g" was nicknamed "Goldi" because it was the first earth-like planet in the so-called "Goldilocks Zone" discovered by humanity in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Because Gliese 581 had a much lower mass than Earth's Sun, the core region of the star fused hydrogen at a much lower rate... The result was both a much lower level of spectral emissions and a significant shift in frequency.
Commodore Catherine "Cat" Kimbridge swiveled her black faux leather command chair to face her science officer's station. Cat was a deceptively petite woman with long bright red hair, perpetually tied in a tail with a simple black band. To look at her, one would imagine she barely massed 110 pounds and was little over her mid-thirties. In point of fact, because of enhancements made by an alien race known as the Heshe, her body was teaming with advanced nanites that increased her mass to almost 200 pounds. Rather than being in her thirties, Cat was approaching her eightieth birthday. She held multiple advanced degrees in the sciences, and at one point had been Earths foremost authority on Hyperfield Dynamics, which was the science that allowed ships to exceed the limits imposed by the light speed barrier.
"Commander Trifa, what are the sensors telling us?"
Commander Trifa was the Yorktown's science officer. She looked for all the world like a five foot iridescent green feathered kangaroo with three fingered hands and a nub tail. She was from a race known officially as the Hupenstanii but whom everyone, including the Hupenstanii, called the "Hoppers."
"The surface temperature of the star is approaching 3200 kelvins with a visual luminosity of 0.23% of that Sol. The star's primary emissions are shifted deep into the infrared with peak emission at a wavelength of roughly 830 nanometres. Total bolometric luminosity is closer to 1.3% Earth normal. If we choose to visit the planet be forewarned this star is a strong x-ray emitter.
The planet itself is roughly 1.7 times Earths mass, however, the relative density is only sixty percent that of Earth, so the surface gravity is only fractionally more than Earth normal. As you can see from the forward view screen, it is most certainly a water world with sixty nine percent of the surface taken up by a single large ocean.
The planet is orbiting much closer to its sun and so the tidal impact of the primary is more acutely felt than on Earth. The atmosphere is primarily nitrogen and neon gasses with a seventeen percent oxygen content. The X-rays from the sun have created a fairly substantial protective ozone layer.
The light is wrong for most of our species but other than that is is a very habitable world."
"Any signs of intelligent life?" Cat asked.
Trifa adjusted a setting on her console before answering. "It's difficult to tell ma'am. There seems to be an abundance of plant life but because of the relatively low level of energy being emitted by the primary and the resulting shift in frequencies, the rate of evolution seems to be much slower on Goldi than on any of our worlds. The apparent biodiversity on the more easily scanned land masses seems to be considerably lower than even present day Earth given the mass extinctions on yo
ur world."
"Ziggy, are you picking up anything on comms?"
"Negative, Ma'am. Just a lot of popping from the X-rays interacting with the ionosphere... Hold it... Hold it..."
Leaning forward Cat said softly, "What is it, Lieutenant?"
"Commodore... I'm getting something really strange on the hyperfield detectors... I've never seen a signal like this."
Turning in her chair to look at her First Officer... "Ken, take a look and give me..."
Before she could finish her request she was interrupted by the blaring of the ships battle klaxon and a sudden shift of the bridge's lighting to a deep red.
"Silence that alarm, Cal what the hell is going on?"
The ship's Heshe sentient AI responded instantly.
"A temporal hyperfold in space-time has occurred and a new planet has temporally jumped into position zero point six AU from our current position. There appear to be 490 ships surrounding the planet with their weapons systems fully charged."