NEBULAR Collection 7 - Guardians of the Continuum: Episodes 31 - 34

by Thomas Rabenstein

  Gegan-Tai, thought Vasina tensely, recalling the meaning of the name. Gate to Eternal Torment!

  »Attention everyone,« Hellas announced the re-entry. »The Atlantika is now returning to normal space. I don’t want to see a surprise!«

  The crew on board the Progonaut battleship prepared for all eventualities. The members of the Neo-Sapien team had occupied their landing crafts, and the HOT announced their Hummingbirds ready for action. The medical teams of the four medical stations on board the Atlantika had taken precautionary measures to provide immediate assistance if necessary. The various scientific departments were at a high state of readiness and had been granted priority access to the onboard computer. Battle stations, emergency power plants, engine rooms – men and women were at their stations to guarantee the smooth operation of the ship’s functions. Surrounded by the typical lightning storm of the rapidly evaporating tachyon wind, the Progonaut flagship left the continuum and raced at the same speed through normal space with which it had entered the faster-than-light flight.

  Hardly arrived in normal space, the central display was again supplied with information from the ship’s sensors. A bright and frantically flashing star was visible in the direction of flight.

  »A pulsar with a fast rotation period, one lighthour ahead!« the Progonaut space-scanner officer reported while transferring the data to the main display. »Identification complete. It’s Poro-Tai. This leg of our journey was successfully completed.«

  Vasina felt relieved.

  We’re home again! This space sector belonged to our sphere of influence once.

  »Bow protection shields at max power!« the defense systems kottan reported. He was responsible for the safety of the battleship.

  The Atlantika is a powerful ship, which, a million years later, still hasn’t met a sizable counterpart, Vasina thought proudly. At this distance, the protective shields can withstand the emissions of the pulsar. We are safe!

  »Hellas, I want a complete scan of the entire space sector around Poro-Tai. I want to get an accurate picture before we continue our flight,« Vasina commanded.

  Hellas confirmed and did not have to wait long for a result. The scanner officers had already completed their sector scans. It was their responsibility to always keep an eye on the tactical status. The scanners and ship sensors had detected an incredibly strange, planetary object, which was moving around the pulsar on a wide orbit.

  »We discovered a companion of the pulsar, Egemena!« Hellas announced only seconds later. The planet has a distance of 48 lightminutes to the central star. The orbit of the planet is stable, but very elliptical. This planet is not in our archives.«

  A planet, orbiting a pulsar, thought Vasina chilling. My memory didn’t fail me.

  »The former central star produced a tremendously powerful shock wave during its collapse and expelled its outer shell. The resulting swath of fire would have usually destroyed all the planets of the former system!« Hellas murmured, looking thoughtfully at his info terminal. »The specific density of the planet is enormous. Iron, nickel, and other metals dominate. There’s only a thin rocky layer without high elevations. Therefore, it must be a planet, albeit a very strange and lonely companion.«

  Tranos came to Vasina’s side.

  »You should follow your initial instinct. Perhaps, this object is dangerous. We should ignore the mysterious planet and continue our flight if you allow me to give you my advice.«

  »I know you care for me,« Vasina muttered. »I’m very sure that I’ve been here as a very young girl. My father showed me this planet. Very deep in my subconscious, memories and information are buried, which won’t let me go since we’ve arrived in this space sector. I want to get to the bottom of this.«

  »Just tell me, and I interrupt the preparations for the second leg of our flight. A short jump can bring us within weapon’s range to the planet,« Hellas offered, but Vasina was still hesitating.

  »The GCC has ordered us to Scutum-Crux to investigate the newly emerged star field of the Sacrificial Suns. We can’t remain here for a long time.«

  »Would the absence of an entry in your star catalogs not be reason enough to look at the planet at least?« the Techno-Cleric suggested, who had remained motionless and mute in a corner of the command central, now suddenly, becoming active.

  »Poro-Tai was used as a navigational reference and not as a stopover,« Vasina attempted a weak rebuttal. »Nobody likes to spend more time than necessary near a pulsar.«

  »And, nevertheless, you have chosen the beacon for just like that,« the robot replied kindly but resolutely.

  What is the real reason? I could have picked hundreds of other reference points on the long flight to Scutum-Crux, but I chose Poro-Tai. Was it an emotional impulse? Did I want to be close again to my former empire, my world? Was I weak? Maybe a subliminal hope, that there would be still Progonauts in the Milky Way? I must pull myself together! Even if it doesn’t feel like it, and the events still seem fresh in my mind – about a million years have passed since.

  »Egemena, we’ve discovered countless objects along the Lagrange points of the unknown planet. Dust, meteors, asteroids, and shipwrecks,« the scanner officer reported.

  »The Kottan is right,« Hellas confirmed. »There are extensive debris fields in both libration points. Large segments or still connected ship cells by which we could identify the wrecks, unfortunately no longer exist. But we detected significant quantities of armoran, a critical component of Progonaut ship armor. In this space sector, a tragedy must have taken place a long time ago, which also involved Progonaut ships. Many severely damaged ships are drifting around the pulsar for a long time, constantly exposed to its destructive radiation. Some wrecks were subjected to the pulsar’s gravitational force and fell into the star, others were captured by the libration points of the unknown planet and proverbially crushed by asteroids and other debris. Hardly a piece of ship debris is larger than a few centimeters. A precise determination of the formerly involved ships will no longer be possible after such a long time, not even their approximate number.«

  Vasina straightened up.

  »We’ll stop the flight and take a look at that planet!« she decided.

  All the Progonauts in the command central had determined looks. Vasina’s decision was final.

  Hellas activated the intercom and everyone on board could clearly hear his orders.

  »To all! Combat readiness remains unchanged! Get ready for a short tachyon jump!«

  »Let’s take a closer look at Ammon, the Lonely Companion,« Vasina muttered, and with these words, she had given the unknown planet a name.

  »Ammon,« whispered Hellas while entering the parameters of the newly discovered world and its name into the ship’s database, initiating the short jump in the same second. The FTL maneuver only lasted a mere second. If at all, the crew only noticed the short jump by the brief flickering of the central display, which now showed a new, dark, and menacing celestial body.

  What in the name of the Volcano Gods of Bosbor …? What kind of object is this? thought Vasina, surprised.

  »The diameter of the planet is 11,843 kilometers. The object is almost as large as Earth. It has a leveled surface and is only slightly flattened at the poles. The surface consists mainly of silicon and silicates. This rocky layer is only about two kilometers thick. Our sensors show a large and dominating iron-nickel core, cooled down, though. There’s no atmosphere, only slight traces of hydrogen and rare gasses,« Hellas reported. »The rotation speed is unusually high. Ammon spins around its axis in only four and a half hours.«

  »The surface of this strange planet is littered with already decayed and heavily eroded, shattered ships,« Tranos said in a low voice. »The entire space around the pulsar, but especially this planet, smells of death, millions of dead beings. The surface is burnt and glazed. It seems to me as if Ammon was spat out directly from the mouth of Tremos.«

  »Right from the mouth of Hell,« whispered Nexus Tor. Presumably, the Hy
brid had instinctively found the right terrestrial equivalent to the Progonaut term.

  »Ammon, the Iron Fortress,« Vasina said softly. »I only remember it faintly. When I accompanied my father to this world, I was, at best, three years old. Keep a safe distance, Hellas.«

  »No energy detection, no active weapon systems, no ships in the vicinity, which could be dangerous to us. This planet is as dead as the many wrecks that cover its surface,« Hellas commented cautiously. He didn’t sound, however, very convincing.

  »If my opinion is of any use to you, I would like to share it,« 40028 suddenly announced.

  »Any information is helpful,« Vasina said firmly. »What do you want to tell us?«

  40028 hovered slowly toward the large central display in the center of the command central and stopped before the large holo for a moment as if he wanted to study the planet’s picture. Then he said friendly, »With Ammon, the situation seems different. I consider Ammon a planetary fragment. I saw similar objects on my travels through the galaxy, but not very often.«

  Vasina listened with interest.

  »Tell us about it.«

  »It’s a planetary nucleus,« 40028 declared self-confidently. »Earlier, Ammon was a gas or ice giant, perhaps not unlike Jupiter or Neptune. When Poro-Tai became a Nova shortly before her degeneration to develop into a pulsar, the shock wave must have hit the gas giant very hard. Its elliptical orbit around the pulsar indicates that the shock wave probably had burnt or torn away the entire atmosphere of the former planet. Only the heavily compressed rock and iron core, formed under extreme pressures of the former atmosphere, could defy the unleashed forces by the Nova and was exposed. The high density and rotational speed of the object speaks for itself. The Progonauts of the past have certainly not ignored Ammon. Nevertheless, Ammon was not included in the star maps and catalogs.«

  »It used to be a bulwark, probably a fortress at the boundary of our empire,« Vasina explained insecurely.

  »What else can you tell us about this world, Egemena?« Hellas asked respectfully.

  »Not much,« Vasina regretted. »I don’t even know the real name of the planet, and I only know as much as a three-year-old can remember. However, I remember large fleets and a fortress-like buildup below the surface. My father was here on an inspection flight. I can’t explain why this planet was of such a significance. The planet must have a secret!«

  »There are many indications that the wrecks are the remains of the Progonaut Protection Fleet. In the distant past, an unknown opponent recognized the reason for the secrecy of this planet and apparently raised a large fleet to find out what this secret was all about – probably with success,« Nexus Tor guessed in a muted voice.

  Vasina clenched her teeth tightly. Her lower jawbone crackled and slightly protruded. So far, nobody had articulated the discovery as clear as Nexus Tor.

  The proud Progonaut Fleet defeated and destroyed everywhere in the home systems, even here, in the outer sectors of the former empire. If the total destruction is omnipresent in this remote system, how does it look then in the colonies of the five houses, Vasina wondered.

  »These events occurred a long time ago,« 40028 tried to console Vasina, but the robot wasn’t very successful with it.

  On the contrary, Vasina seemed emotional when she replied, »Progonauts never forget such crimes, no matter whether they happened a hundred thousand or a million years ago!«

  Her voice sounded firm and unyielding, but her thoughts were more modest.

  Nexus Tor is right, of course. The fleet was defeated, and the attackers seized Ammon and took what they were looking for. It’s a waste of time to begin a search on the planet to unravel the events of the past. But maybe, we’ll come back here again.

  »Egemena … Egemena!« the command central crew cheered. The Progonauts wanted Vasina to land on Ammon to clarify the situation.

  Vasina wrestled with a decision. All eyes were upon her.

  They all expect from me to depart from our mission and explore Ammon instead. This desire has also taken hold of me, but it is a mistake to live in the past and to disregard the future. We have a mission, and the Humans rely on us, she thought.

  Vasina felt the eyes of Nexus Tor resting on her. The HOT Commander was also waiting for a decision.

  She turned around with her throne-like seat and looked directly at Hellas.

  »Record all the data on Ammon, enter them into our archives, and then calculate and initiate the next leg. We leave this system and fly, as planned, to Scutum-Crux.«

  Hellas nodded faintly and gave the appropriate commands. The Atlantika was ready after a short time to continue the flight. The disappointment in the faces of the command central crew could not be overlooked.

  Scutum-Crux

  Countless thoughts whirl through my mind, torture me, give me a headache. They all call me Egemena, which means in the Human language as much as ruler or heir. But the question is, exactly, ruler over what? Maybe over this ship and her crew? Brave men and women who still, with their thoughts, live in the past, not having fully realized that our era has long gone. What drives the crew? Our home-worlds are destroyed or cannot be accessed, our former proud fleets were reduced to cosmic dust. Bastions, which once made all the attackers tremble, were crushed, just like Ammon, probably like many others. So, what drives the crew, what drives me? … Oh, re-entry! Vasina was startled for a moment. We have arrived!

  Vasina had returned to the command central after a resting period. After endless thoughts, she had finally found some sleep. Hellas, who had been sitting behind the controls without interruption for more than 24 hours and refused to transfer his command, urgently needed a rest period. Highly focused, he had monitored the drive’s status messages and watched for continuum anomalies which Vasina had mentioned earlier, ready at any time to interrupt the FTL flight in an emergency.

  »If these tachyon valves actually exist, then they were not on our route,« Hellas said, laughing hoarsely. »We were lucky!«

  »You deserve a rest, Commander,« Vasina said firmly, nodding to Hellas.

  »I feel like a Pandesian spring frog, and I’d like to remain on my post,« said Hellas. But Vasina just shook her head, interrupting him.

  »You have already done more than enough for today. I need you to be awake and in full command of your faculties before we enter the critical space sector. We will remain in this sparsely star populated sector of Scutum-Crux for several hours, recuperate and explore this space sector. After that, we’ll fly directly to the target area. What sun is closest to us?«

  Hellas activated his scanner display and pointed to a small orange-red sun, about a lightyear away. »It’s a non-registered solar system in the direction of flight. The cool star has four planets, according to our first remote scans. The innermost planet is like Earth, but much larger. The remaining three celestial bodies are gas giants. Planet two is dangerously close to the terrestrial world. The orbital data of the second planet look very odd, we might be able to check this out during our stay here.«

  Hellas tried to hide his exhaustion, but Vasina watched him carefully. He could barely keep his eyes open.

  »Go to your quarters and sleep for a few hours,« Vasina commanded. »The first navigator will take over the Atlantika in the meantime.«

  Hellas pulled his pilot control glove from his right hand and wiped the numerous sub-holos, suspended around the command seat, to the side with a quick gesture. »Please call as soon as you need me.«

  Vasina smiled and watched Hellas leaving the command central.

  I have never had a better commander, she thought proudly.

  The first navigator rose from his console and took a seat beside Vasina. She looked at the man.

  He’s young, his eyes sparkle. He loves the challenge and is not afraid to fly this huge battleship.

  »Paranas, that’s your name, right?« Vasina asked.

  »At your service, Egemena,« the navigator replied respectfully.

  »Please bring
the Atlantika to the outermost planet of the nearby solar system with a short jump,« she commanded. »I’d like to use the short rest period to look more closely at this particular planetary constellation.«

  »As you wish,« Paranas confirmed, activating the course computer of the battleship. With his fingertips, the young navigator steered a ship that had the size of a small city.

  »Short distance jump calculated and entered,« he proudly announced and added after a short break, »The tachyon shield is now activated.«

  For the first time, he steers the ship on his own and prepares his first tachyon jump, Vasina thought. Although, a simple task, he masters the situation calmly, without excitement. I’m proud of this young navigator.

  The Atlantika transitioned before the night side of a gas giant, which only showed its narrow sickle in the direction of flight.

  A Jupiter-type planet,« space surveillance reported, just before the ship systems automatically sounded an alarm.

  Vasina straightened up.

  »What’s happening? Why the alarm?«

  Paranas winked disbelievingly before reading the sensor data again.

  »We notice a significant deviation and disturbance of the planetary orbit. The rotational axis of the gas giant appears to be unstable. The planet is staggering and runs the risk of leaving its orbit. Our sensors detected four large moons of the planet, which also follow unstable orbital vectors. Two of these moons approach the gas planet and are located near the Roche Border. They are already doomed and will soon be torn apart by the tidal forces. The two other moons show a massive orbital disturbance and have already deviated from the original orbit. They will lose their bonds to their planet.«

  »What could be the reason for it?« Vasina asked.

  Nexus Tor provided a first speculation.

  »From your reports, I have learned of the dimensional overlaps and resulting anomalies that were common in this spiral arm before the Great Tremor. Could such a disturbance have hit this small solar system?«