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

by Thomas Rabenstein

  »Use the active scan, or send a coded radio message,« Hunmoos suggested.

  Polamos refused and said, instead, »We’re now at Battle Stations, and I’m taking over command. No action is started which could attract the attention of the carrier. If it finds us, then we doomed. We have even less chances than the destroyed Redmane Fleet!«

  »What choice do we have? The landing ship doesn’t have an FTL drive. If the Atlantika had been surprised and destroyed by the enemy, that would mean our end,« Zedos commented with rising nervousness.

  »We Neo-Sapiens don’t just give up,« Polamus replied emphatically. »This is a big solar system! We’ll look for a planet or a moon on which we can hide and wait until the GCC, the Goovans or Krolakans start a new expedition to this solar system.«

  »That may take years,« Scott said. It could be seen that the thought alone caused discomfort for him. »We still don’t know what happened. Perhaps, the Atlantika has withdrawn into the shadow of a moon for protection.«

  »What about the plasma traces?« Hunmoos wanted to know, shaking his head. »There was a battle, so much is certain, but who was victorious?«

  »There’s a bigger ship on approach, using stealth technology, it’s rising above the ice giant’s horizon,« Polamus announced in a muted voice.

  »Is it the Atlantika?« Zedos asked, his voice uncertain.

  »We’re being scanned, but I can’t say with certainty if it is the Progonaut battleship. Passive scans don’t provide much data,« Polamus replied tensely.

  »We should fly into a shadow of the moon,« Zedos said, but Scott just shook his head.

  »It’s too late for that.«

  The four men on board the landing ship held their breath and watched as the object on the scanner approached quickly.

  »Our scan shows that the plasma weapons are active and charged!« Polamus warned while Atilla Scott closed his eyes.

  Then suddenly it crackled loudly in the radio receiver.

  »Battleship Atlantika to Neo-Sapiens! Get ready for pickup!«

  Hunmoos and Polamus replied with a jubilant battle cry, and Attila Scott drew a sigh of relief. Zedos smiled and whispered, »The Kargash is over.«

  Summary

  Silently, Vasina and Hellas studied the data of the exploration team while Scott, Hunmoos, and Zedos, learned of the battle against the enemy carrier, which had also suffered heavy losses on the sides of the Progonauts and Neo-Sapiens. Hunmoos and Polamus let out a short cry of pain for the fallen fighters.

  »We’ve lost a lot of friends, including my shield bearer, Tranos. Nexus Tor is in a coma. We owe the mission commander the expulsion of the infected Kokradian and the subsequent destruction of the carrier.«

  »Our ship suffered heavy battle damages. We need to repair several hull fractures, damages to the armor and the deck sections. It is impossible to continue our flight, not to mention a tachyon jump,« Hellas said in a deep voice. The previous battle had left its marks on the commander’s face.

  »What happened to Nexus Tor?« Atilla Scott asked the Progonaut respectfully, but concerned.

  »He used his mental gift to directly attack the core of infection inside the Kokradian’s body. We could see how the techno-implants glowed, melted, and burned the body. The Kokradian still tried to escape by teleportation, but we believe it was already too late for him.«

  »The findings on the water moon are also disturbing, and we must ask ourselves where these mollusks came from, and in what context these creatures stood with the Parasite Galaxy. Life-forms that need living conditions, as we found them on the water moon, usually develop on terrestrial worlds close to a sun,« Atilla Scott concluded.

  Vasina mostly agreed with the Hybrid.

  »This solar system obviously has many secrets. The rulers of the Parasitic Galaxy considered it important enough to deploy a guard ship here.«

  Vasina closed her eyes briefly, pondering. Then she said with a firm voice, »While the Atlantika remains in an orbit around the ice giant, we’ll send another team to the inner planets of this system. The expedition is to shed light on the origin of the mollusks and look for further traces of the unknown rulers.«

  »What if we encounter an enemy ship? A carrier would be much superior to our lander and blow us out of the universe,« Hunmoos warned.

  »If there were another carrier in this system, then it would have engaged in the battle immediately, and appeared here,« said Hellas. »Nevertheless, the reconnaissance units must be careful. The tactical situation can change quickly. We are in enemy territory.«

  Zorgoss-VIII

  The approach on Zorgoss-VIII, a huge, Mars-size and steppe-like world, proved to be difficult. Two Neo-Sapien landers and a Hummingbird Hawk of the HOT attempted the landing through the eye of a hurricane, which was covering almost a quarter of the planet’s surface.

  The small space ships were vigorously shaken and quickly descended into the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere of the small world. Several exploratory drones had issued warnings to alert the teams that they had detected something out of the ordinary. Atilla Scott, who commanded the Hummingbird Hawk, wanted to investigate the planet.

  As the Hummingbird advanced deeper into atmosphere layers and captured the first surface images, the scanner officer looked up and called Atilla Scott. The HOT specialist turned pale and looked anxiously at 40028, who had joined the expedition and was hovering silently in a corner of the Hummingbird’s small command central.

  »Don’t tell him anything, yet,« Scott hissed at the scanner specialist, and with a thumb down, signaled the pilot to quickly land in the marked area.

  When the Hawk landed relatively hard on the planet, after another five minutes and the ship’s airlock opened, armed guards jumped outside and secured the landing place. Less than a hundred meters away, two units of the Neo-Sapiens landed, creating a lot of red dust, preventing a clear view for a while until the dust had settled again.

  Atilla Scott looked briefly at the burning sun before he gazed across the vast plain. Scott’s face twitched briefly, and he looked back to the Hawk several times. Then 40028 appeared in the airlock and hovered slowly toward him.

  »I would have liked to spare you this sight, but you absolutely wanted to participate in this expedition,« said Scott. »Vasina was perfectly right with her assumption. This system plays a vital role, and we, more or less, stumbled right into this situation.«

  »This must be a delusion, a deliberately staged maneuver, to confuse us,« replied 40028 in a wavering voice.

  »I can’t believe that the rulers of the Parasitic Galaxies would have wasted their energy to stage such a scene. That requires a lot of effort. Besides, they could not know that we were visiting this world. I’m sorry, but what we see here is real,« Scott replied sympathetically.

  »This does not correspond to the Cosmic Moral, it also escapes my logic. I can’t process what I’ve seen. I can’t explain or accept this. I must be malfunctioning,« 40028 doubted, pulsing violently before shrinking to the size of a baseball.

  »This discovery is not only disturbing to you. It raises many questions. I can understand if you’re depressed by this sight and that you want to go back into the ship,« Scott offered. He observed the barren landscape with his binocular-like optical scanner, then shook his head slightly. »There’s no doubt, and we haven’t made an error in our assessment. But why here?«

  »Why do I have to endure this?« 40028 suddenly whined with a wavering voice. »My programming can’t deal with such a cybernetic shock.«

  »If it’s of some comfort, I’m deeply confused and shocked,« replied Scott sympathetically. »There must be millions. They cover the surface of the entire continent, stacked, layers upon layers.«

  »I can’t accept it because it’s impossible,« 40028 whispered. His voice suddenly sounded as if the robot had forgotten to activate the emotion modulation of his voice. He fell, bounced on the rocky ground, and rolled away for a couple of meters. Only then, the metallic sphere became la
rger in size again, and 40028 rose slowly upward.

  »I cannot and shall not share this knowledge with the Collective. Techno-Center would plunge into chaos. This conflict would break my brothers,« 40028 murmured with a whimpering voice.

  »Turn away from this sight and wait for us in the ship. We need to document this find and study the planet further before we can start again,« Atilla Scott suggested.

  »What are you going to write in your report?« asked 40028. The usually mirror-like shell of the technically far advanced robot had become dull. Atilla Scott felt as if the Techno-Cleric wanted to prevent images of these surrounding from being reflected on his body.

  »I will write that after the dead mollusks on the water moon of the 25th planet, we’ve discovered another large cemetery. I wish I could spare us this sight.«

  Atilla Scott’s face was petrified as he glanced over the land. Before him, all over the landscape, in valleys and on the entire plain, stretching all the way to the horizon, lay, tarnished, burned out, and shattered Techno-Cleric sphere shells and fragments.

  »They have all exposed themselves,« whimpered 40028. »What is worse and more shocking is that these torsos should not even exist.«

  »Unfortunately, they are real and lie around everywhere. We don’t even need to go far to pick up one of these broken shells to examine it.«

  40028 pulsed violently and lost almost half its original diameter. The cleric could no longer stand the burden and sight. With a loud bang, the Techno-Cleric shot up from the stand at an incredible speed and disappeared between the clouds of the seventh planet.

  »Where’s he going?« one of the Neo-Sapiens wanted to know.

  »I think, he has only one thing on his mind … away from here!« Scott replied, whispering softly to himself as he glanced over the plain, »There must be millions of them!«

  End

  The journey to Scutum-Crux seemed to be under an evil omen, and the discovery of the large solar system around the blue giant star Gulax Zorgoss had already cost painful losses among the Atlantika's crew.

  The blue giant star system seems to play a pivotal role whose secrets need to be explored. The adventures of the Atlantika and her crew continues with Nebular Collection Book 8, titled ... Abyss of Time.

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  About the author

  Thomas Rabenstein, born on 15.03.1963 in Hof on the banks of the Saale, was excited by Science Fiction from his early years on.

  Active in the Fantastic-Fandom, he’s inspired by classic movies, TV-series and novels. In the 80s, using the new medium known as the Internet, he published his first short stories.

  Highly interested in Astronomy and Space Technology, he integrates this knowledge into his novels.

  Since 2011 Thomas works as a self-employed author and self publisher. With the Science-Fiction series Nebular he enriches the genre, while also working on several other projects like the 2030 series or the vampire saga TOHIL. Apart from writing books, the author creates 3D illustrations and animations, loves music and cutting-edge technology.