THE VROL TRILOGY

by SK Benton

  Chapter 2 - Max Gunnarsson

  Maximilianus Xavier Gunnarsson (called Max by his family and friends) was born on Azul, a planet that orbits twin stars in the Cetus constellation. His ancestors had emigrated there hundreds of years before as part of a secret project initiated by a corporate consortium, after the discovery of a new metal and the development of advanced propulsion technologies helped to facilitate deep-space travel. Found deep in the Andes Mountains of Peru, Argentina and Chile, and then later in the Swiss Alps, the new metal, quadrinium, enabled the construction of star-faring craft due to its superior strength, heat resistance and ultra-light weight.

  Large emigration ships, called barges, were constructed in a massive, secret underground base in the middle of Australia, and financed by consortium corporations from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Peru, Switzerland and The United States of America. Many felt this to be necessary to ensure the survival of the human race, as Earth was suffering from overpopulation and an almost complete lack of energy resources and food.

  Automated terraforming drones, sent to Azul 20 years ahead of the fleet under the guise of privately-funded deep-space exploration vehicles, were in reality to perform minor geological and atmospheric adjustments, thereby allowing man to survive on-planet without doing significant damage to local flora and fauna. This process finished three years before the arrival of the first barge, which orbited the planet after a long journey of almost 300 years.

  Of course, Max was born centuries later into a thriving and modern society. Possessing a strong physical constitution, standing 180 cm tall and weighing in at about 80 kilograms (5'10" and 175 lbs in Earth measurements), and sporting brown hair and lightly-tanned complexion (his mother being dega), Max's parents were Charles Gunnarsson and Clarisa (née Martinez), both professors at a local university. So, growing up in an academic environment, he had all of the tools he needed to learn and succeed. In fact, he was such a brilliant student that by the time he was 23 years old he had earned a PhD in physics, along with three Master's degrees in differing engineering disciplines (molecular, mechanical and electrical).

  From there he satisfied his federal service requirement by going to work for the Military, which was more of a scientific organization than one geared toward implementing tools of war. As there was no form of conflict on Azul or the three inhabited moons in the system (Luna, Sienna and Vera, of which both Luna and Sienna orbited the planet, with Vera belonging to a nearby gas giant), the Military simply got ahold of the best and brightest minds available and worked toward the common goal of making technological breakthroughs. One of these breakthroughs was the discovery of side space carrier currents, or SSCC, and Max was deeply involved in it, as its discovery was based on the theory he postulated in his doctoral thesis.

  The SSCC project would enable Azul's military to respond in proactive fashion to any external threat. Aside from this, Azul had been receiving radio signals from an approaching, intelligent alien race, the Artusians, for several years and saw no reason to let down their guard. The alien fleet was traveling STL (slower than light), so the military had a few years to ramp up for their arrival. The SSCC project facilitated this, as it dealt with side space - a layer of space next to, or below (or even above) normal space. Scientists didn't know if space was an alternate dimension; just that Einsteinian physics did not apply. They found that there were side space carrier currents - strands of energy moving at extreme velocities, many thousands of times the speed of light as it existed in normal space.

  Max led the engineering group that developed the hook, a device that enabled a ship to reach into side space, and drag itself onto the carrier currents for a ride, which traveled in an infinite number of directions. Each current strand would run on its own side space frequency, so, in theory all one needed to do was to tune the hook (which more resembled a massive electronic spear) to the proper frequency and get dragged into side space, releasing when at or near their destination.

  But for the first time in decades the politicos on Azul came to a stand-off - they could not agree on whether to authorize the hook drive or not. There were those who wanted to use it to reach out to the stars, and then those who wanted to return to Earth (or Old-Earth, as they sometimes called it). No radio signal from Earth had reached Azul in centuries, and it was unknown if the planet even still existed anymore. Space telescopes showed it still there, but a telescope is only as accurate as the light being transmitted to it, and Earth was light years away. As the form of government on Azul was very methodical and logical (and quite slow to make decisions, which was written into their Constitution on purpose), they felt it best to study the hook drive in laboratories, and not in space, while they came to a consensus on its final implementation.

  So, not willing to wait, Max developed his own hook drive in a private warehouse, working evenings and weekends in secret, drinking copious amounts of coffee and listening to ancient symphony music (J.S. Bach was his favorite), while assembling pieces of the device out of junk parts he had smuggled out of the Military Scientific Research Complex. He knew that if he were discovered he would be penalized and possibly jailed, as the military had ownership over the technology, but he forged on, intending on returning to Earth as a test. He surmised that if he could go to Earth and return, then the government would have no choice but to allow military ships to be retrofitted with the technology, enabling mankind to go out and meet the approaching alien fleet - just to make sure they were not hostile, and if they were, to vaporize them where they floated in space.

  His calculations set the estimated arrival at Earth in less than eight standard days -14,000 times faster than it had taken the original Exodus to achieve orbit around Azul. When he was almost finished with his homemade hook drive, he sought to buy a small transport craft capable of rugged space travel, so he found an old cargo ship that was used to carry everything from cattle to shipping containers between Azul and the local moons. He purchased it after he was approached by a less than reputable vendor named Ali on Sienna's Verdal continent, and named it the Machu Picchu, after the historical Inca ruins on Earth's South American continent. He then flew it back home and filled it with cargo - camping gear, a water purification system, weapons and an all-terrain vehicle for exploring on land, before initiating the process to install the hook machinery.

  If Max had a bad habit, it was that he was a bit chatty - and trusting. He liked to share information with people, to give them hope, to raise their spirits up, and also let them know that he was smart. Very, very smart. This was his downfall, as his ego drove him to give a bit too much information to Ali, from whom he purchased his new ship.

  He didn't mention anything about a slip drive, but said he was working on something that would change mankind for the better and it had to do with returning to Earth. Ali, being a shifty and greedy merchant with a rich criminal history and multiple stints in local jails, thought he could earn a reward from the military by selling out Gunnarsson, as it was obvious to Ali that illegal activities were going to take place.

  So Ali contacted the local military annex and started to blab to an unshaven, low-level officer who looked like he had slept in his crumpled uniform for at least a week, inventing half of the story as he went along, making wild embellishments that no one would have believed. In truth, nothing would have happened, and at best Ali would have been thrown out on his ear but for one small fact - the scientist had told Ali his real name, so when Ali said he had sold the spacecraft to a certain Max Gunnarsson it set off alarms within Azul Military Intelligence, even though it took a few days for that information to filter up to the proper ranks. By this time Max was finished retrofitting the hook drive onto the Machu Picchu and was ready to help usher in a new era for mankind. Even despite Max's issues with the authorities, things were never as good in Earth's past as they were on Azul. And he had left it all, gambling that there was even still a planet orbiting Sol.

  ###

  At 45 years of age, Rear Admiral Luigi Bagatelle wa
s the youngest person ever to have attained that rank in the history of Azul's military. He dedicated himself for years to get where he was - standing on the bridge of his massive Juggernaut-class ship, the Revolution, the newest in the fleet. Without prior indication or warning, his command was assigned the responsibility of going where no Azul-born human had gone before - back to Earth.

  Knowing full well that the hook had yet to be tested on such a large ship, he could have been bringing hundreds of men and women to their doom, but it was his job to make sure that this technology did not fall into the hands of anyone - alien or human. He wondered what would happen if Gunnarsson reached Earth and there was still a society there. He imagined them capturing SSCC technology and invading Azul, which caused him to shudder at the thought. Bagatelle had a 100% commitment to the safeguarding of Azul and the three moons. The federal government had given special and immediate permission for the military to outfit the Revolution with SSCC technology, but it was hastily assembled. Gunnarsson was their lead engineer and was not there to oversee implementation, and he already had a four-day lead on them. Fortunately, the Revolution was built to facilitate the installation of SSCC technology in space dock. Otherwise they could have had a down time of at least a standard month.

  Bagatelle turned to his second in command, Lt. Commander Alicia Vasquez, and over the comm gave the order, "All hands on deck, prepare for side space entry."

  The lt. commander nodded and slowly pulled back a large lever on her control panel. The top of the massive warship's midsection opened as huge, protective panels slid back, allowing hook drive machinery to assume its place at the top of the ship. Masses of tubing and pipes pushed up out the top of Revolution's hull and lit up with a brilliant glow while the core energized.

  As the glowing increased on the top of the ship, a rift in side space tore open approximately 10 meters above the machinery. Millions of individual, colorful energy strands wildly weaved around and through each other, glimmering and racing, making the rift look like a supernatural gash in the sky. Then, what appeared to be a massive, backwards-facing spear littered with electronics moved up and into the energy field. This was the hook dragging into the side space field, eventually making a connection with the proper current frequency. Within seconds the Revolution disappeared from sight and screen. It was on its way to Earth.

  Chapter 3 - Welcome to Earth

  Max calmed his nerves, set all flight controls to automatic and was resting in his sleeping quarters. The good thing about side space was that, as far as anyone knew, there were no dangerous objects floating around, so he could relax and enjoy the ride, the navigation being automated with the hook drive and on-board computer systems. Once certain coordinates were reached, the drive would disengage and the ship would drop to normal space, decelerating to the velocity the craft was at when it had initially entered into the rift.

  After getting up and going to the small galley, he pushed a button on the food dispenser, causing a warm cup of coffee to appear in the receiver tray. Max grabbed the coffee and took a long sip, feeling the warm liquid course down into his empty stomach, half settling it and half upsetting it with the coffee's acidic constitution.

  He sat back on a crash couch, designed for poor to tragic landings, but also used as a comfortable place to relax, he looked over his nav charts he had printed out and brought along on the journey. They were the last known land and water configurations from Earth and had layouts of the entire planet.

  Not knowing where to go, he chose to land near the Urubamba River, in Peru, right at the base of Machu Picchu, the namesake of his ship. He would then scan the area for signs of human life, and if none existed then that would be his base of operations. The first thing he would need to do was to find a safe place to camouflage the Machu Picchu as it was more than a certainty that Federation forces were pursuing him. He had billions of possible landing sites in the South American continent alone, but the high jungle, where the Urubamba flowed, would provide excellent cover with its many valleys and ravines.

  Sol System, 2819

  After six standard days in transit, the Machu Picchu dropped out of side space, halfway between the orbits of Earth and Mars, the third and fourth planets in Sol system. Max engaged the ship's fusion-ion drive for some serious velocity, and started chugging toward the planet of his ancestors. His ship had been going a paltry forward velocity of Mach 7 when it entered into of side space, and he needed to arrive within hours, not months. With the fusion-ion drive at full he would arrive at Earth in one standard day - much faster than it took Earth's first and only explorers to Mars, who spent three months on a cramped vessel, only to tragically never make the return trip home due to an unexplained accident that resulted in a total loss of life.

  As the hours passed he occasionally went to the galley. He got snacks and was diligent about hydrating, not knowing what the water situation would be like on Earth. For all he knew, the planet would be a dustbowl or an apocalyptic death ball. When the Machu Picchu reached Earth's Moon he jumped into the pilot's chair and started preparing for atmospheric entry, analyzing his readouts on weather patterns and other assorted critical data. All reports came back positive - it appeared that Earth had a stable weather system, and it was winter in the southern hemisphere where he was targeted to touch down, so pollen levels would be low.

  Half-way between the Moon and Earth he programmed his re-entry angle vector and paid careful attention to his early warning systems for any sort of defensive satellites and ground-based systems, detecting none. In fact, there were no radio signals at all - just static on all frequencies. That told him one of two things - either that humanity was extinct, or that they had completely lost all technological capabilities. He took no chances and prepared for both scenarios. Another oddity he noticed was that there were incredible amounts of space junk that formed a sparse, inconsistent ring around the plant. Feeling he had little time to analyze these foreign objects, he blasted through them as he made his way towards the planet below.

  The Machu Picchu screamed into Earth's atmosphere at a faster rate than any previously-known vessel ever had before, simply due to the fact that technology had advanced so much throughout the centuries. He made an effort to slow down as much as possible, remembering that there were untold numbers of flying species on Earth, and he had no desire to massacre scores of innocent, airborne animals on re-entry.

  He slowed the Machu Picchu down to a respectable Mach 1.5 over what his nav charts called the Pacific Ocean, cruising at about 9,000 meters above sea level. As he was coming in high, he turned on his ground cams and recorded while he approached the Peruvian coast, specifically over what was the capital city, Lima. Curious, he slowed his ship down, as the computers had not detected any form of areal defense, and lowered to only 75 meters above sea level on the coast.

  As he approached the foggy shoreline, he saw the ruins of what appeared to have been a large commercial center, built on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Magnifying in, he saw there was still lettering on buildings, although quite faded. The largest lettering said Larco Mar, and showed well only because it was constructed out of what appeared to be concrete or stone, but some of the smaller buildings had signage, like HaRo k C fé, with some letters missing.

  Lidar (laser radar) systems detected no large fauna in the area, so he dropped his landing gear and set down on a street outside of the commercial area. The atmospheric drive's concussion waves buffeted the street and blew out chunks of pavement as the ship touched down, the landing pads sinking a few centimeters into the pavement.

  Max was amazed that the street had even held together on landing, as it was most probably not designed to withstand so many metric tons of weight in such a small area. Shutting down engines, but leaving primers on in case of an urgent departure, he unstrapped from his chair and did a final readout of air conditions outside. He was surprised that they were fine, with just a touch more pollen in the air than he would have expected given it was winter, but then again,
what was to expect? He was from Azul, not Earth.

  He then pressed a button on the control panel in front of his seat and five small drones shot out of an access tube on the starboard side of the ship and split off at high speed in different directions. These were to scan the area and send findings back to the Machu Picchu's computer systems, warning him of any organic, technological or biological dangers that existed.

  The rear cargo doors opened and the loading ramp slowly lowered to the ground, holding firm onto the street as it made contact with a loud thud. Max took a supplemental oxygen supply, water and some nourishment snacks, as well as a charged side arm with him in a back pack, then slid down the stairs from the cockpit to the cargo bay and jumped into the quad runner, putting on his helmet and hitting the energy switch.

  He blew out of the back of the Machu Picchu, the landing ramp and cargo doors closing once he had left the ship as he headed down into what appeared to have been a parking structure for land vehicles. He could tell, even though he was from another planet, that humans still built things the same way. Rooms were constructed with four or more walls, doors were 2.1 meters high and people still sat down to relieve themselves in lavatory facilities. Much had changed over time, but much had remained the same.