Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers
Page 1
The Spiral Slayers
Book One: Encounters
Rusty Williamson
http://www.TheSpiralSlayers.com/
Book Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3Gk4Fto0o
Copyright © 2012
Ronald (Rusty) Williamson
Virtualmedia Studios
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion
of brief quotations in review, without permission
in writing from the author/publisher.
"Williamson’s fascinating tale of benevolent aliens who’ve come to the human race with advanced technology and warnings from outer galaxies.
When inhabitants of the planet Amular witness a mysterious darkening of stars in outer space, Capt. Adamarus Maximus leaves his planet to investigate. But the mission goes awry, and Adamarus is unlikely to survive. Unbeknownst to the captain, aliens, called Loud, bring him aboard their ship—the source of the visual anomaly. The Loud have been observing Amular and its inhabitants for years. The aliens treat Adamarus and return him to Amular; when he recovers, he’s 20 years younger. At the aliens’ request, he re-enters their ship to speak with their ambassador. He finds a massive, unbearably loud, hill-like creature who communicates through translators and wants to share the Loud’s advanced technology. The aliens offer all the gift of youth and eternal life. After everyone undergoes the transformation, the humans’ benefactors develop methods to house and feed a growing, unlimited population and then leave for their home planet some 200 light years away. But after only a few years, the Loud return bearing troubling news: An enemy force wiped out their entire planet and now plans to destroy Amular. The distraught Loud insist that the human race has no chance. But those on Amular put the Loud’s warning to good use and prepare for an epic battle.
Williamson’s novel tackles complex issues surrounding the problems of immortality and perpetual youth, along with facing insurmountable challenges, without stinting on an emotionally compelling, action-packed plot. And the multilayered, eclectic characters each have their own carefully woven emotional patchwork.
The first installment of an intense, philosophical sci-fi series."
--Kirkus Reviews
Dedicated to
My wife Denise, my sister Cathy and my friend Angie who is 'proof' that not all knights in shining armor coming to the rescue are male.
Contributions
I wish to thank my wife Denise and my sister Cathy for comments on grammar and substance; Angie Sampson for the tedious job of proofreading; and too many .com friends to mention for their thoughts, comments and encouragement. I owe a huge debt to a half dozen science forums on the web that kept me from sounding too stupid in certain areas (and if I still sound foolish only I am to blame). And last but not least, to the Writer’s Meet Up group of San Diego for making me redo everything.
Table of Contents
Prologue
PART ONE - FIRST ENCOUNTER
Chapter One – Sightings
Chapter Two - Encounter
Chapter Three - Rescue
Chapter Four – Recovery
Chapter Five – Best Laid Plans
Chapter Six – The First Meeting
Chapter Seven – Subsequent Meetings
Chapter Eight – Immortality
Chapter Nine – The Avatars
PART TWO - SECOND ENCOUNTER
Chapter Ten – Distant Devastation
Chapter Eleven – Event Horizon
Chapter Twelve – Forced Entry
Chapter Thirteen – Alliance
Chapter Fourteen – Hideaway
Chapter Fifteen – Preliminary Actions
Chapter Sixteen – Public Disclosure
Chapter Seventeen – Initiating the War Machine
Chapter Eighteen – Council of War
Chapter Nineteen – Private Disclosure
Chapter Twenty – Secret Disclosure
Chapter Twenty One — Aftermath
About the Author
“Long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”
Star Wars
Prologue
The three alien ships hung in the darkness of deep space looking down on the distant planet. It was just a tiny white crescent at this distance. Most of the time there were only two ships at this location with one stationed closer to the planet, but one had just returned—a shift change.
Arranged in a triangle, the three ships were identical. Seven miles in length, they looked like three umbrellas hanging upside down. What passed for the umbrella’s handle was a half mile in diameter and covered with dark cubes and domes. At the end, the curved umbrella-like awning was four miles in diameter and a quarter mile thick. The inside of its curved surface was a jumbled yet elegant maze of complexity bathed in a soft green glow.
The outside of the awning, which faced the planet, emitted all the radiation it blocked—all the stars, nebulas and distant galaxies that lay behind it. Everything that the ships blocked out from every angle was collected and reproduced. Visually, and in every other way, the ships where invisible should anyone on the planet happen to take a careful look.
They had been in operation for just over three years covertly listening, watching and studying the intelligent species on the planet below, learning their languages, customs, social structures, politics and their dreams and aspirations. Their primary source for this knowledge was the rich profusion of audio and video transmissions. The planet had not been hard to find, for hundreds of light years in any direction it was the noisiest object in the sky.
They had probed the planet from afar and, using smaller crafts with better stealth, they watched the species close up as they worked in space on the thousands of asteroids they had gathered and set in orbit around their planet.
One of the umbrella ships powered up. More lights came on and the green glow intensified. It moved slowly forward until it was well in front of the other two ships. Then, it rippled and vanished. A few minutes later the ship reappeared much closer to the purple planet.
Sixteen smaller ships deployed from the central shaft. They were smaller copies of the large ship. In a cubed formation they headed inward, vanishing from sight as they went.
From the transmissions they monitored they knew that this was a big day for the planet and its inhabitants. They wanted to watch the event and, if possible, do even more.
As the smaller umbrella ships flew above the thousands of asteroids, they detected activity ahead.
The aliens knew that their visibility cloaking was not perfect up close, and in fact, preparing for contact, they had been allowing brief glimpses of their ships for several months now.
Now, close to the planet, they circled inward until they were among the innermost ring of asteroids. They detected radio signals indicating that work was in progress. The formation split apart and started hunting… for what, they could not say, but they’d know it if they saw it.
One of the ships tracked a pair of radio signals to one of the spinning asteroids. This close, the signal was strong.
PART ONE - FIRST ENCOUNTER
"In general, it is peaceful and even pleasant as one calmly steps to the edge of the abyss."
Unknown
Chapter One – Sightings
Planet: Amular (near the edge of the Great Wall[1])
Eleven years earlier…
“Fact,” one finger was thrust into the air and held there. “In less than one hundred years depleting resources and rising costs will strand us on our planet.” A second finger shot up, “Fact, the only way our species can outlast the scores of extinct species that came before us i
s to spread out to the stars.” Both arms flew upward, three fingers each, “Fact, the only way out there is to build this five mile high rail gun. And fact,” both hands came down in fists slamming the podium, “the raw materials we need,” an arm shot up pointing outward at a forty five degree angle, “are at the Astor Trojan points!” Both fists thrust upward, "We must approve Prop 824, The MUEC Asteroid Mining and Collection Proposal!”
Congressman Ronald Raymore
Representative, Southern District
Video Record of the 92nd Amular Congress
Source: The Archive
Present time...
His name was Adamarus Maximus. He was the captain of MUEC Asteroid Mining and Collection Project's flagship, The Bet'ti, and in charge of the ten-year project. At the center seat of the bustling bridge, he thanked the ensign for the cup of coffee and set it in the holder. As he looked upward towards a cluster of status displays, he had absolutely no clue that within the next twenty-four hours, his life and the lives of everyone on his world and throughout the solar system would radically and forever change...no clue that within a day a chain reaction would begin that would alter everything.
Within the next day, Adamarus would die and, as a dead man, he would initiate his planet's first contact with intelligence from another planet. In fact, within the next twenty-four hours, Captain Maximus would be placed on a road that would first make him the most important person in the solar system, and then in the distant future many millions of years from now, the most important person...anywhere.
Currently Adamarus' ship was at yellow alert and the bridge was bathed in flashing red and yellow light. His entire focus was on what would be the conclusion of the massive effort that had collected iron-nickel asteroids from around the solar system and placed them in orbit around Amular. Now the process of extracting the metals and transporting them to the surface would begin so they could be used to construct a giant rail gun to transport payloads into orbit.
The Bet'ti was currently in a geostationary orbit hundreds of miles above the planet. Against the blackness of space her bulky silver and white form was brilliantly lit in shades of orange and yellow from Amular's red dwarf sun. She was, at her core, a seventy year old Carrier-Class ship, an old workhorse whose design had withstood the test of time and utility. Like her seven sisters, the old gal was function before form. Her 841 feet was a maze of storage containers of varying shapes and sizes that were all somehow strung together with scaffolding to form a labyrinth of precise geometric alignment around a mostly hidden core.
On her large bridge, crew members rushed about dealing with assorted tasks while others manning various stations focused on their consoles. However, everyone was intensely aware of what was happening on the main viewer.
The fifty-two year old Captain seemed to be studying one of the display screens that dropped from the ceiling. Actually, he was mulling over the fact that there were twice as many officers on the bridge as there should be but, deciding they wouldn’t get in the way, he just suppressed a smile—they had all worked hard for this moment. The Captain refocused on stirring his coffee as if commanding the huge ship and today’s event was of secondary concern.
Adamarus was a good looking man with blue eyes and chestnut hair parted on the side, just starting to turn gray at the temples. He stood six foot one inches and had kept himself trim and fit. Like the rest of the bridge crew, he was dressed in a crisp khaki uniform with short sleeves and an open neck exposing a white t-shirt. Only the two gold bars on his collar marked him as the ship’s captain.
His reserved nature and the serious set of his features sharply contrasted the slight twinkle of merriment always in his eyes and a dry sense of humor that made light of almost everything. However, still water runs deep and this outside veneer hid the thick scars of a particular event which had cost many lives. The mental wounds had taken two decades to heal and the pain had to be held within due to the top secret nature of the event. But finally, the demons and bad dreams had faded—it was ancient history now.
He leaned forward and looked to his right where his first officer, Commander Radin Talvin, sat. At fifty-one, Radin was a jolly, heavyset man, with a deep suntan and a shiny bald head with a strip of brown hair framing his ears. Utterly dependable on duty, but off...the women, drinking and brawling were almost legendary. They had worked together for over a decade now and knew each other well. No words had to be spoken. Radin just nodded back once then fingered his headset; his deep voice boomed out over the bridge’s intercom,” Attention all personnel: Ten second countdown is eminent." Radin paused a beat then, “And… detonation in… ten, nine, eight…”
Almost filling half the main viewer, an asteroid rotated slowly. Strategically scattered across its surface small flashing lights marked the locations of the Shaped Charge Array Units or SCAUs and indicated that they were armed.
“…seven, six, five...”
Behind the asteroid lay the bluish purple and orange surface of Amular a mere four hundred miles beyond. Amular's red dwarf sun lay behind the ship optimally lighting the scene.
“…four, three, two…”
Everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and looked at the main viewer.
“…one, zero.”
Though they could not see it, on the asteroid, each of the eight SCAUs now extended its twenty-foot pole to its full height. On top of the poles were large saucers—these were the glober charges. From the saucer's underside, four guidance jets fired and the saucer detached and flew straight up.
From the main viewer of the Bet’ti’s bridge, it looked like nothing was happening while the glober charges rose to their precise computer generated positions. Then, the SCAUs’ buried liquidation charges fired and the bridge’s main screen went white. Within the white, for just a second, the red liquefied rock could be seen blasting outward. Then the glober saucer charges fired and expanding balls of white could be made out forcing the liquid rock inward. The white faded and everyone on the bridge held their breaths.
On the main viewer, instead of the asteroid was now a turbulent churning ‘glob’ of glowing red liquid. Everyone was mesmerized by it. It seemed like it would break apart any second but… it held… one second, two… cheering broke out on the bridge.
With a big grin on his face, Adamarus keyed his throat mic, “Now, now…" his voice was filled with amusement, "quiet on the bridge.” The cheering subsided with a few nervous laughs. “Zoom out to fifty and justify left,” Adamarus ordered.
“Zooming out to fifty, left justification,” an officer repeated and the churning red glob shrunk to half its size moving to the left side of the viewer. On the right side, the Smelting Station came into view heading toward the glob.
The Smelting Station was almost as large as the Anderson Shipyards; almost three miles in length. Its scoop measured one point three miles. Behind the scoop was the casting section where the molding and surface preparation took place. This area was marked by the large heat dispensing rings. The final section was the linking distribution area where the tugs picked up the shaped and prepared ore for atmospheric entry. The control center was a large circular structure at the end of a huge crane which was anchored to the linking distribution section. The crane was long enough to suspend the control center in front of the scoop. On the bottom of the linking distribution section was a large circular structure which housed the officers and crew.
The glob started entering the scoop. The biggest danger now was that parts of the molten metal would escape. This could be very hard to recapture before it hit something or worse, made an uncontrolled fall to the planet.
All seemed to go well until suddenly an alarm went off. At the same time, the bridge crew could see that a large piece of molten ore had separated from the main body and was spinning off to one side of the scoop. It was solidifying quickly.
The Smelting Station maintained a fixed home station for dispensing the long sections of prepared ore to the tugs. When it moved forward
to collect the molten glob, it then circled back to its home station while the captured ore was processed. The huge facility was hard to maneuver and veering away from its planned route was not something anyone would want to do.
The plan for this scenario was to have Explorer mining crafts capture lost ore and move them to a safe holding orbit, but this was a lot easier said than done. Lost pieces were almost always spinning making it hard to lock onto, and they could also break apart, multiplying the problem.
This piece was large and spinning around rapidly. As they watched, it elongated until it looked like a misshapen barbell. It was going to be a bitch to capture.
“Scramble four Explorers,” Adamarus ordered.
At that moment the Smelting Station hailed the Bet’ti. It was the station’s captain, Emit Walling, “Captain Maximus, I think we can clean up after ourselves this time.”
Maximus agreed but said he’d have four recovery craft standing by just in case.
The Smelting Station stayed on course until it had taken in the main body of the glob. It only took forty seconds but seemed to take forever. As soon as this was done, the Smelting Station rotated until the funnel faced the now hardened piece, then moved forward and collected it. The misshapen barbell connected with the station’s red hot grid, and after a few seconds, the piece re-melted and entered.
Now came the tricky part, getting back on a course that would bring the station back to its home position. However, as the bridge of the Bet’ti watched, the station made a series of graceful turns and arrived right on schedule back at its home position between the lines of waiting front and rear tugs that stretched into the distance.