by S. H. Jucha
Q-GATES
A Silver Ships Novel
S. H. JUCHA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by S. H. Jucha
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by Hannon Books, Inc.
www.scottjucha.com
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-4-1 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-5-8 (softcover)
First Edition: January 2021
Cover Design: Damon Za
Acknowledgments
Q-Gates is the twenty-third novel in the interwoven series of The Silver Ships and Pyreans, which tell the stories of Earth colonists and the spread of humankind throughout a galaxy filled with alien races.
I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, David Melvin, Ron Critchfield, Pat Bailey, Tiffany Crutchfield, and Gerry Hartman, I offer my sincere thanks for their support.
Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.
Glossary
A glossary is located at the end of the book.
Contents
1: Hidden Access
2: Sixty Degrees
3: Below Deck
4: Darter
5: Tailors
6: Torque
7: Lost in Transit
8: Stranded
9: Fire the Engines
10: New Gate
11: Evacuate
12: Shift the Strategy
13: Temptation
14: Fystal’s Client
15: Safe Transit
16: Mistrallian
17: Gates to Where?
18: Returnees
19: Let’s Try Again
20: Commander’s Quandary
21: Tech Dilemma
22: Unknown Sender
23: Tsargit’s Choice
24: Usaanan Charge
25: Assembly Trial
26: Bedlam
27: Attack Commander
28: Judgments
29: Holo-Training
30: Delegation
31: New Beginning
32: Survival Test
33: Serpent Veterans
34: New Carriers
35: Commander’s Lot
36: Move the Outpost?
37: Need the Fleet
38: Tsargit Uproar
39: Alex’s Request
Glossary
My Books
The Author
1: Hidden Access
Mickey Brandon was tempted to swear, but as the premier Omnian engineer, he was more patient than most. Discoveries were often a matter of persistence.
The laughter of Jess, Lydia, and Kasie echoed around the central hub.
Mickey shuddered. He’d tried dining on the dome’s offerings of multiple pastes for two Pyrean cycles. Afterward, he left the on-site investigation of the Q-gates to the SADEs. Then he’d returned to the outpost and relished the recipes served by Méridien food dispensers.
Kasie stared at her twin in confusion. she objected. She kept her sendings brief, having adopted her implant recently.
SADEs had solved the issues of empaths receiving the tiny comm device. They coated the device to prevent interference from an empath’s sending, and they shifted the comm frequencies so as not to interfere with an empath’s power.
and transmit emotions to sentient beings.
The SADEs communed. Logic had failed to find the all-important access to the dome’s inner workings. Human interpretations of the nature of an ancient and long-gone species, who built the gates, had been ignored. An error in judgment had been made.
Mickey kept a hand over his mouth, while he eyed the audience in the central hub. He’d heard Kasie’s protestations when the SADEs had made a cursory investigation of the upper deck before they made their way below. However, he’d tasked Luther with commanding the dome’s search. In that regard, he had to let the SADE lead.
That Luther had come up empty-handed and was willing to consider an entirely different approach, a human’s intuition of all things, bode well for his development.
While Kasie had been speaking, Luther had led the SADEs from the lowest level. They trekked up the ramp, down the first level corridor, up the next ramp, and onto the deck.
Tacnock, a Jatouche, had remained quiet during the conversation, except for an occasional slurp on his Pyrean fruit juice. When a noisy suck on the straw heralded the drink’s bottom, he joined the discussion.
Tacnock sent.
Kasie laid a hand on Tacnock’s furry shoulder and shared her appreciation with him.
Tacnock closed his eyes and relished the pleasant feeling that swept through his mind. It was in sharp contrast to the anxiety that had ruled his emotions during the latest assignment.
A close friend of Jess and Kasie, Tacnock commanded one of the outpost’s carrier attack teams. The carriers were tasked with freeing planets and domes from the Colony, the race of ravenous sentient insectoids that had inundated alliance space via the domes.
The alliance races had contributed funds, materials, and specialists to construct Outpost One, and Alex Racine had used Omnia Ships reserves of licensing fees with Sol to purchase four armed transport carriers designed by the SADEs.
After months in the field, a carrier rotated back to the outpost for relief, and Tacnock, who led two hundred of the cat-like Sylian troops against insectoid-held domes and planets, was enjoying downtime.
The other three attack commanders were Queen Homsaff, a Dischnya; Major Aputi Tulafono, a Pyrean; and Commander Sastisona, a Sylian.
Each commander’s tasks grew ever riskier. The Colony was quick to learn the outpost troops’ techniques and devise tactics to defeat them.
Jess, Lucia, and Kasie had concluded that the Colony had found a way to message through the consoles and warn every other dome held by the insectoids of the rebellion’s newest offensive techniques.
In the dome being investigated, the SADEs briefly communed, and Luther presented their opinion.
Kasie’s power slipped free, and the central hub’s humans were inundated by fierce jubilation.
Before Jess could remind his sister, the audience heard Kasie mutter, “Oops.”
The SADEs recorded the energy release from Kasie’s mind. The unusual capability of the empaths’ biological minds fascinated them.
“Yum, paste,” Mickey muttered to no one.
No! Lucia thought vehemently. She held herself still. Jess and she had risked their lives innumerable times combating the insectoids’ deadly reds and grays. They’d led their troops from the front and had managed to survive despite the odds and the losses.
Having resisted the advances of other men for decades, Lucia Bellardo had fallen in love with the only man who’d found a way to her heart — Jess Cinders.
Mickey sent.
Kasie sent, having been reminded of the dangers of meddling in the creations of the Messinants.
Belatedly, Mickey remembered his place within the outpost’s hierarchy.
Jess turned to Kasie, but she’d already left the hub. His implant located her heading for her cabin to pack.
Sam’s going to be unhappy, Jess thought.
Sam Fleetfoot, an Omnian security lieutenant of New Terra origin, had been hired and promoted to major by Jess to head outpost security. Kasie and he had often enjoyed their downtime together on Pyre.
Originally, the nearby planet was home to a fierce race who had gone to war with the Jatouche via Pyre’s single dome connection.
The Jatouche had retaliated and their weapons had ignited the planet’s surface, resulting in an atmosphere occluded by dangerous quantities of ash and noxious gases. Feeling guilty about the planet’s catastrophic state, the Jatouche had worked with Pyreans, the new colonists from Earth, to restore the planet.
It was nearly a century before the planet was habitable. Then, during the next two centuries, the surface had gained its present green state.
Lucia also took note of Kasie’s quick exit. She tasked a traveler to transport Kasie to Triton, the third moon outward from Pyre, where the system’s dome was located. Then she sent a link to Kasie.
Kasie intended to use the dome network to reach the site of the SADE investigation. Her pilot launche
d from the outpost, made the short trip to Triton, and landed within a surface bay that Mickey’s teams had built.
Traveling through a tunnel, descending via a lift, and traversing more tunnels, Kasie passed through the dome’s entry point, crossed the lower level corridor, ascended a ramp, and arrived on the gate’s deck.
There was no need for Kasie to communicate her destination. Triton’s dome had a single platform, which connected Pyre and Na-Tikkook, the Jatouche home world.
Kasie stepped onto the platform and nodded at the console operator.
A tap on a console panel sent blue light emanating from the platform to merge with the dome’s hemispheric projection, and Kasie disappeared.
Arriving within the Jatouche dome, which was located on Rissness, Kasie threaded slowly through the Jatouche, who were anxious to pay their respects. Not only was she recognized as a premier interpreter of bizarre console mysteries, but she was a descendant of the venerated explorers, Envoy Harbour and Advisor Cinders.
Selecting the next platform, the dome administrator halted journeyers to allow Kasie to ascend next. Then the console operator sent her on her way.
Kasie’s trip through the domes to reach the investigation site shouldn’t have been that far, as the distance between systems went. Jess and Mickey had chosen a system nearby to Pyre’s star, Crimsa. It was unoccupied by a sentient race, including the Colony.
However, Kasie’s route was roundabout. Messinants didn’t build the gates to connect between the nearest systems. The domes appeared to have been constructed around the interests of the Messinants to see how their genetically tinkered races integrated after achieving spaceflight.
The route could have been shorter using the quickest gate links, except for one issue. There were some dome locations that had to be avoided. The insectoids held those.
Some domes were unoccupied. When Kasie arrived in these locations, she hurried to the console, set a panel for remote firing, climbed onto the next platform, and journeyed to the next destination.