Farnham's Legend: The beginning of the X-Universe saga (X Games Book 1)

by Helge T. Kautz

  And this solar system was known on Earth by the name Alpha Centauri, a name redolent with history. To the Teladi, however, it was simply Company Pride.

  Elena leaned back and studied the projection for a while. At the edge of her vision she noticed the computer begging for attention at the arrival of an electronic message, but she could not yet bring herself to read it.

  "It must be a mistake," she said, more to herself than to Marc. For the most incredible fact was not that none of the star routes matched. No, even more incredible was the fact that seven hundred years ago in the system Alpha Centauri/Company Pride, there had been two more jump-gates in addition to the one from Earth. According to the map they still existed, but they didn't lead to the same destinations as they did back in Capt. Farnham's time!

  Alpha Centauri had been the interstellar linchpin of those days. All ships coming from Earth had to go there first, before they continued with their journey through one of the two other gates. At that time, there had been no connection to any of the star systems that were populated by alien species at the present time. Today, on the other hand, there were no connections to the systems that had been colonised by humanity back then.

  From historical texts, in particular from the logbook of the Winterblossom, Elena knew that Farnham himself had already assumed that the jump-gates were not randomly spread across the galaxy, but formed in carefully planned routes. He had concluded that there were separate networks connecting uninhabited worlds and inhabited ones.

  Elena now held the proof that Farnham was right. The jump-gates were not distributed randomly indeed, there were actually different routes – however, his assumptions had not gone quite far enough. The jump-gates were very old, that was quite obvious. But someone seemed to be manipulating them right up until the present day, to create or interrupt connections in accordance with some unknown alien master plan.

  Perhaps, Elena considered, humanity had developed the jump-gate technology much faster than anticipated and foiled the plans of the Ancients, as the unknown designers were known as in these part of the universe. And they had felt forced to make changes.

  "Like rats in a maze," she murmured. The Ancients let humanity and other species run in a predefined labyrinth of jump-gates, but for what reason?

  Her pondering was interrupted by the computer insistently drawing her attention to the waiting message with a strobing flash of the signal light. "Alright, alright already, show me!"

  The display screen flashed up an automated notification from the Trading Station, advising Elena her permit to stay expired in one Quazura, after which an excess penalty would be charged. Almost exactly one hour then, she quickly translated.

  In the meantime she had found out just how the time system of the Commonwealth worked: A Sezura corresponded to about 1.7 seconds, ninety-six of these units were a Mizura, ninety-six Mizuras were a Stazura, seven Stazuras made a Tazura. Although this somewhat confusing time scheme had been originally introduced into the Commonwealth by the Teladi, the saurians had chosen to make themselves an exception to this rule: for an inexplicable reason they divided the Stazura asymmetrically into four Quazuras of twenty-two Mizuras each and one Inzura, which was eight Mizuras. But the most interesting thing about the time scheme was the syllable "Zura" in the names of the time units. This syllable was part of the name of a Teladi planet, whose location was lost in time to the reptiles. With the aid of the merged charts however, she had calculated its likely position with lightning-speed.

  Quite a number of Mizuras had elapsed since the message came in so she needed to leave the station immediately. But the question was, to where? The information Ferd had gleaned on sightings of unknown spacecraft had been sparse. The only recent piece of data spoke of an "important anomaly of three-dimensionality," apparently meaning a quantum singularity. Exciting for physicists, quite unspectacular otherwise. But, she reasoned, if Brennan were somewhere here in the sectors of the Commonwealth, he would find the sector Alpha Centauri/Company Pride sooner or later too. The X was not equipped with the detailed star maps of the Getsu Fune but given the system's historical significance, he'd know it when he saw it and he'd probably try and locate the old Earth jump-gate. It was pretty thin speculation, she knew, but it was all she had to go on.

  "Off to Alpha Centauri, Marc," she ordered. Surprisingly, the computer recognized the command, acknowledged, and began processing departure procedures. Elena carefully stowed the old guitar, which had once belonged to Franc de Vries, in a compartment, fastened the pilot seat-belt and watched as Marc elegantly piloted the Getsu Fune out of the station.

  As before she was surprised at the heavy local traffic and several times she had to fight the urge to grab the controls. Marc skilfully evaded all approaching craft and soon they were several thousand kilometres from the station, where traffic was light and the chance of a collision negligible.

  "Initiating jump sequence," Marc informed her dryly. Elena was scared half to death when she heard the rumbling throb of the force fields the singularity machine generated from deep in the body of her ship.

  "Abort jump sequence!" she shouted out loud, albeit trying to speak slowly and distinctly so as not to give the computer any room for misunderstanding. She thought it lucky her unorthodox arrival had not attracted undue attention and she was anxious to keep it that way. Marc confirmed understanding and the rumbling tide of noise from the cargo bay ebbed away. It took her only a few minutes to program Marc with the "official" course through the well-known jump-gates. She had to cross three Teladi sectors – and she would dock with each primary Trade station as she came across them.

  Elena grinned. Selling the coordinates of the planet Ianamus Zura to a Teladi had been like offering genuine bananas to a primate, who had only been able to dream about them its whole life. The saurian's snout went pale and it stared at her open-mouthed, before its jaw snapped shut. After much stuttered and fizzling to itself, it offered her five credits! Elena let her expression speak for itself. Without any haggling whatsoever the saurian had offered the highly amazed Elena 5000c, which she transferred immediately to her brand-new credit card. She would have loved to know what significance this planet had for the hard-bargaining Saurian, but the Teladi did not want to answer even her most insistent questions.

  Elena had slowly begun to get acquainted with the alien species of the Commonwealth in general, especially with the Teladi, and with the rules of conduct that governed them. She had begun to ask cautious questions regarding the X-Shuttle. Nobody knew anything about it; the subject, which absorbed everyone's attention, were the new border disputes with a species called the "Xenon". Elena inferred from the news, the race was a species of self-replicating machines. It was no great surprise to her, because the Xenon could be nothing other than the Terraformers. The thought cramped her guts in a cold, anxious fist of primal fear. The Terraformers - who knows what might happen if these border disputes escalated to an all-out war? The thought alone made her shudder.

  She took a seat in the cafeteria with a solitary Teladi trader, purchasing a set of Nividium scrapers in order to pump him for information about conflicts with the machine race. "The first and only Nividium scrapers in the universe," the saurian stated confidently. Elena had no idea what the Teladi did with such equipment, or whether it was important which material it was made of. On the next station, however, they attracted a lot of interest and she sold the resplendent silver combs for a pleasing profit despite it being a waste of her time, considering her real mission.

  With the Space Equipment Dock Eggland dwindling to a glittering star point, Elena took back the controls from Marc. Traffic in this system was thin, the Gravidar showing just a couple of dozen craft, all bent on their own business. Just one contact, at the extreme edge of scanner range, seemed to show signs of strange behaviour.

  "Marc, can you give me a visual of object 7674-3?"

  "Affirmative", the computer answered and locked on with an external camera, but at that distance the target re
mained a ghostly smear of light, without definition, even at maximum magnification. And 'ghost' seemed the right term to Elena. The way it stayed on the edge of Gravidar range for a long time already, disappearing and reappearing sporadically as it matched her course and speed changes, gave her a haunted feeling. She had noticed the "shadow" as she named the blip already before her last jump. At that time she had hoped that it was only a spacecraft heading in the same direction a she was, matching her acceleration only by chance. But now she was quite certain this couldn't be a coincidence anymore. Too often the shadow had followed her every manoeuvre. Possibly whoever was onboard that shadowy ship thought they were out of the range of her gravidar.

  "As if," Elena murmured. She was happy to have any technological edge, but not so happy with her limited options. Continue on her way, keeping an eye on the thing; should she evade or confront? Given the ancient engines of the Getsu Fune she dismissed the second option as purely hypothetical and she wasn't ready yet to jeopardise her mission by risking a combat situation developing.

  She hated the idea of tolerating the observer breathing down her neck, but given the circumstances she didn’t have much of a choice. A quick course change and a burst of speed might enable her to get a silhouette that would at least tell her what species, maybe even what ship class the Shadow was. But how should she do it? Elena grimaced in frustration, there was a plan there, deep within the far reaches of her mind, but she couldn't quite coax it into the open.

  The electronic vision enhancers at least were completely useless on a distance of nearly 450 million kilometres – and that was the shadow's distance from her! Reducing relative speed in empty space would look suspicious, apart from that, the shadow matched her every movement anyway! If she docked it would just park itself on the edge of sensor range.

  But how had her shadow picked on her anyway? Everyone took her for a Goner or Argon and her ship did not seem to attract any undue attention. Had she been too pushy, or had it been a mistake to tie her ship into the message drone guidance systems after all?

  "Hmmm… guidance systems, message drones…" She frowned. That instinctively felt to be an avenue worth exploring. "If I only... Marc, we took photographs of all ships inside and around the stations. Please give me an overview of the different types."

  Marc opened a large display screen over the main console and showed approximately three-dozen vehicles. Elena had certainly seen more than just these ships in the last few days, but most vehicles followed the aesthetic peculiarities of their designers and did not differ markedly from each other. There were even a few battered old freighters, at first glance almost identical to her ship. Despite their diverse designs, the ships of different species shared many characteristics, suggesting an extensive technology exchange between them, at least in the non-military sphere. Only the wildly extravagant Boron designs exhibited any real individuality.

  There were a few custom designs though, one in particular, a thin silver yacht with a streamlined finish, rated at least one "Wow" when she first saw it. Another looked like a large, green-silver egg with too powerful engines and a transparent cockpit canopy. Did she attract the attention of the commander of one of these ships, whilst moored at a trading station or equipment dock? - So much so that they were bent on finding out more about her?

  Elena looked at the smorgasbord of space ships and ground her teeth for a short moment. Damn! Failings in others she could tolerate - however her own shortcomings annoyed her immensely!

  Perhaps she should send Ferd a message drone, tell him her whole story and get his help? But as much as she liked him she could not ignore the possibility that her "shadow" was the friendly information broker. Of everyone she had met so far, Ferd had the most reason to suspect she held profitable secrets. Even were he not her "shadow" the possibility still existed that someone would intercept her message drone.

  "Marc, can message drones be intercepted?"

  "Affirmative, however only within the first seven seconds after launch or with a complex special device. Military message drones cannot be intercepted at all."

  There she had it! What would happen if she equipped one of the mini spaceships she'd purchased with a camera and let it orbit the Shadow a few times and then return?

  "Marc, is there a camera onboard, which is not mission critical and can be installed in a message drone?"

  "Affirmative. Camera i-7.2 is non-mission critical. Judging from its dimensions, it is possible to install this camera into a message drone."

  "What functionality does it have?"

  "Redundant visual singularity drive observation."

  Indeed, removing that instrument would not affect the mission in any shape or form!

  Within the hour Elena had removed the monitoring camera. Installing it was another matter because although the mini spaceship bore a close resemblance to terrestrial technology, it was subtly different in several ways. It took seven hours of hard concentration and only Marc's announcement that they were about to make the transition to Company Pride/Alpha Centauri drew her attention away long enough to notice the flickering blue of the jump through a view-port.

  Forty minutes after the space jump she was ready. There was no time for a detailed function test; her "shadow" would soon come through the jump-gate and she needed to get the timing precisely right. If she did, the drone should be able to come at the target from behind the gate at a speed so high that it should preclude detection. Only the short phase in which the small missile would turn around to return to the Getsu Fune might bear the risk of detection. But Elena planned on having the course change take place only far behind the shadow, which would minimise the risk of detection to nearly nil.

  The drone was surprisingly easy to program, it might have been a simple spaceship but its navigational abilities were exceptional. It was amazing that the designers of the device hadn't fitted it with a camera in the first place – it would have spared her a great deal of work.

  On her instruction, Marc slid the message drone onto the improvised launcher and deployed it. Its small but powerful M/AM engines ignited, propelling the tiny projectile to a speed beyond the ability of her Gravidar to detect its mass. It simply disappeared from the display and now she could only hope that it would make a safe return. That would take quite some time – namely about two hours. Elena intended to re-capture the small missile shortly after she contacted the station's traffic control – that is, if her plan worked. This promised to get exciting…

  CHAPTER 29

  "[...] and during the 17th of December night-watch at 23:16, we observed a colossal unknown alien space craft which did not belong to the Terraformer Fleet, materialise from empty space a long distance from the jump-gate and move away at relativistic speeds. It crossed the ecliptic plane of the sun Alpha Centauri through the orbit of its second planet, Taurus, and disappeared after thirty six minutes from our sector screens. Since then the remaining two jump-gates of the sector, aC1 and aC2, lost their connection with Beta Lyrae bL1 and Epsilon Eridani eE3. Instead, they lead now into completely unknown sectors of the Galaxy. From now on we are on our own, only us and the amok machines.

  God help us all.

  Lt. Cmdr. Poul Vantera,

  Logbook of the USCSS Dragonfyre

  In a bygone era, a mighty and undefeated warrior of the Family Nihal by the name of Ghus t'Gllt had a vision that would change Split society for all eternity. The discovery of space travel still lay far ahead. Beings on other planets, should they exist, were conceived as monsters, swift and terrible to be sure, but certainly fated to fall. Of that the Patriarchs were certain. But that glorious moment lay far in the future. On the Split home world of Hodie, the rival family clans fought for resources as if they were as scarce as they were abundant, with only the briefest periods of peace. It was a time of blood and chaos; one step forward, one step back.

  It was then Ghus t'Gllt battled himself into a position of power so absolute as to be beyond challenge. He was the mightiest of Split – and
the strangest. Invincible, quiet and with a spirit unconsumed by the hatred that raged in the breasts of his contemporaries. If he killed, it was from ambition, not the blind, blood lust that burned in the heart of other warriors deemed great, for Ghus t'Gllt had made an extraordinary discovery: The Split were hot headed and quick to anger, always fighting. They were cruel, they were callous and they were contemptuous of death and life in equal measure. But they were by no means stupid. With anger unprovoked and in check, a Split was capable of greatness. Philosophy, science, art – there was no realm in which they could not excel. The very notion outraged his peers for whom such activities were the province of the lower orders. And even those with such gifts were quick to meet any slight, any perceived dishonour with the mailed fist and the bloody sword.

  Ghus t'Gllt understood this but he also recognised that the female of the species were more temperate, particularly when pregnant and could even let the most blatant challenges pass unanswered. Yet the males treated the mothers of their children with honour, at least until the family had a surfeit of sons. Ghus t'Gllt, this mightiest of warriors amongst the Split had in his life as many as twenty-seven wives, according to legend, and not one did he execute. Instead, on the basis of his insights he inspired his females to tread the path of science. His success was astounding and divided the Split clans into two camps. One for those who grasped the epoch-shaking significance of this innovation, who could see the advantage it bestowed not just on the family, not even on the clan, but for the whole species. On the other side of course, were those who thought Ghus t'Gllt a traitor and heretic. But Ghus was both a powerful and a cunning warrior and these blessings were multiplied by his unique disposition. It made him the most potent of Split as the following tale lays bare. At the triumphant end of one of the many campaigns against his rivals, the head of the Nihal family stood before him, beaten but unbowed and vowing a vengeance that would bind the generations. It was the Split way. It was also the Split way to lop off his head and gird the family, arm the clan for the ceaseless vendetta to follow. But Ghus was wiser than that. With a single, awesome stroke of his sword he sliced away the legs of his foe, below the knee, leaving him a living cripple. It was a terrible dishonour, a loss of face too awful for the name-giver of his family to bear and long did he plead for a swift and honourable end. Ghus implacably refused all his begging, all his entreaties until finally he consented to permit the Family Nihal to join his own and expunge the dishonour. Now the name Nihal is just a footnote in history.