by E J Gilmour
THE OUTER WORLDS
BOOK ONE OF THE EPHERIAN CHRONICLES
E J GILMOUR
The Outer Worlds: Book One of the Epherian Chronicles
E J Gilmour
ISBN: 978-0-9944105-3-5
www.ejgilmour.com
The Outer Worlds: Book One of the Epherian Chronicles by E J Gilmour is subject to copyright. All rights reserved. This publication must not be altered, printed, resold, shared, copied or redistributed without the written permission of the author or Hero Pages Publishing. This publication is a work of fiction. All characters and situations in this novel are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real people or situations is coincidental.
Cover image: © depositphotos.com/molodec
CHAPTER ONE
The sound of an explosion rang out. Michael was thrown against the wall and crashed heavily to the floor. The ship shook violently as he staggered to his feet. The lights were flickering in the corridor. He made his way toward the front of the ship, trying to keep his balance as he progressed.
‘What in the galaxy is going on?’ he asked, entering the control room.
‘There is an automatic plasma cannon,’ shouted Sara.
‘Why didn’t the scanners pick it up?’ he asked.
‘Your scanners are twenty-five years old!’ she growled as the ship lurched to the left to avoid another blast.
Michael stumbled from the sudden adjustment in the artificial gravity. He looked out through the viewing panel. An enormous space station occupied most of the visual field and dwarfed his small cruiser. A heavy-duty plasma cannon had been mounted to the outer hull of the station and was unleashing in their direction. Several more bright flashes sped by.
Sara brought the ship into an evasive maneuver. She focused her full attention on avoiding the incoming attacks. Michael took the co-pilot seat as she angled the ship toward the opposite side of the station and out of range of the plasma cannon.
‘We are clear,’ she said, releasing a sigh.
‘What’s our status? Did we sustain any damage?’ he asked.
She checked the control console and the system indicators. ‘The ship is fine, Captain. The electronic shield absorbed the majority of the blast, but the outer armour may be a little scorched.’
Michael nodded and lifted his eyes. He stared through the viewing panel at the huge space station. The station was abandoned in a distant corner of the Triangulum Galaxy. It was floating in the loneliness of space near a giant star called Elgar Domus. A few solar powered lights on the outer hull were still operational, but scans were showing minimal electrical activity inside.
‘What’s the name of this station?’ asked Michael.
‘The identity signal is dead, but the outer panels are reading: EP712674.’
‘It’s Epherian; just as I suspected.’ His eyes lit up and a smile crossed his face. ‘Check for alien activity.’
Sara’s eyes narrowed. ‘I already checked, Captain. The scans have detected some minor droid activity inside, but no humans, bracers or aliens. They could be service droids, but I think it’s very likely that the previous occupants left some security droids behind. Life support and artificial gravity systems are still operational throughout the space station.’
Sara was a capable pilot. She was physically fit with shoulder length blonde hair and sharp blue eyes. She had once been a fighter pilot in the fleet owned by the House of Gazarian. Gazar Prime, which was Sara’s home world, had been in the direct path of the alien expansion. The Gazarians fought a tough battle, but like many other worlds they had fallen beneath the mammoth power of the alien fleet. Sara had witnessed the destruction of her planet and the end of her ancient civilisation. She had been working on the Out Drifter for nearly eighteen months, and Michael knew he was lucky to have such a talented pilot on his crew.
‘Droids,’ he muttered. He lifted his wrist-com. ‘Ajax, there could be some unfriendly droids waiting for us.’
‘…Yo, Cap, don’t you worry. We won’t let a few robots spoil our day…’ replied Ajax’s deep voice over the wrist-com.
‘Remember what happened to Clive’s team when we came up against those security droids on Marshall 86.’
‘…Yeah, I know; let’s not forget we have the right gear this time…’
‘Make sure you pack the electromagnetic pulse gun. I don’t want to lose anyone on this mission.’ Michael lowered his wrist-com and returned his attention to the space station. ‘This must be one of the last Epherian stations in the Outer Worlds. I wonder why they didn’t tow it back to the Epherian Empire.’
‘Epherians can afford to leave one or two stations behind,’ said Sara.
‘I don’t think so; they wouldn’t abandon a station without a good reason. I know how the Epherians think; when I was young I was a citizen of the Epherian Empire.’ His voice revealed a hint of nostalgia.
‘I heard you were kicked out,’ she said flatly. ‘You’re still dreaming about the Epherian Empire. You know the Epherians don’t let anyone cross their borders. Their frontier sentry cannons fire at every approaching ship. They don’t care about the Outer Worlds, and they certainly don’t care about stopping the aliens. They’re a cruel empire ruled by a ruthless emperor. You should forget about ever wanting to go back.’
Michael cast his eyes downward. ‘I have good memories of living in the Epherian Empire. I can’t say the same for the Outer Worlds.’
‘I don’t want to offend you, Captain, but the Epherians betrayed us.’ Her face hardened. ‘When the alien invasion began they were the first to leave. They left us for dead.’
Many people in the Outer Worlds felt the same way as Sara about the Epherians. The Epherian Empire evacuated their citizens and armed forces directly after the aliens appeared, so he understood why the people of the outer galactic regions felt the way they did. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and gave a wry smile.
The ship made a sharp turn for the space station and descended belly first toward an external security door on the outer hull. Within ten seconds they had landed. She reached out and pulled back a lever on the control console. Several large magnetic clamps secured the ship.
‘Well done, Sara,’ he said as he stood up and entered the corridor that led to the back of his ship.
Captain Michael was a tall and robust man with dark hair, fair skin and deep green eyes. His face was strong with angular features. For most of his adult life he had worked with salvage crews in the Outer Worlds, and he had learned everything he needed to know about salvaging whilst working on a variety of ships. Eventually he had progressed to captain his own ship, which was the end goal of almost every aspiring salvor.
Michael’s ship, the Out Drifter, was a Battle Class Armorstonian Cruiser. It was built in the arrival year 12371, which made it twenty-five years old. The Armorstonians were known for building solid ships, and their cruisers were as rare as they were valuable. The battle class cruisers were originally constructed to contest the first incursion of the aliens into the Outer Worlds. Most of the Armorstonian ships had been destroyed when Armorston Prime fell to the relentless spread of the aliens across the galaxy. Michael had been lucky enough to salvage the Out Drifter as a wreck beyond human colonised space. How the ship found its way out beyond the colonies was anyone’s guess, but he suspected it had been abandoned and left to drift through space until eventually crash-landing on a low gravity desert moon.
The Out Drifter had been in his possession for nearly six years. He had made various alterations for salvaging operations. The ship was 70 metres in length, averaged about 25 metres in width, and shaped lik
e an elongated triangular wedge. It boasted a modest cargo bay with nine deep sleep pods (two were damaged and beyond repair), a cramped engine room at the back, a small living room, an airlock chamber with a space-door, four escape pods and a small armoury.
He had increased the flat line acceleration by forty percent whilst travelling at sub-interstellar speed. Other alterations included: a single 80mm charged particle cannon which was the main armament affixed to the top of the hull, two 35mm heavy pulse laser guns were attached to the underside, a gravitational harpoon, a high quality Epherian electronic shield system, two advanced rocket launchers, an external robotic arm and ten micro-bots which patrolled the outer hull to prevent cloaked robots and other unsavoury parasites latching onto the ship.
Michael entered the cargo bay. He eyed his crew who were waiting beside the exit door. Their names were Ajax, Ethan and Ivan. They were wearing mismatched armour and carrying an assortment of weapons and gear for the salvage mission.
Ajax strained a smile and lifted up the oversized electromagnetic pulse gun. ‘This thing is way too heavy. You know I hate carrying it.’
‘Don’t complain,’ said Michael sharply. ‘You won’t regret it if we come across security droids inside the station.’
Ajax was a huge man with dishevelled black hair, dark eyes and a big moustache that dominated his weathered face. His bare arms were covered in an assortment of tattoos. Ajax liked to think of himself as the muscle of the team. He had been working on the Out Drifter for three years, and Michael knew he was someone who could be relied on in a difficult situation as he had proven his worth many times in the past.
Ethan was standing beside Ajax. He was the resident mechanical engineer and an unassuming man who was slim, rather short, with a completely bald head. He wore intelligent glasses which covered the upper half of his face. The glasses allowed him to see in the dark, and they also had an inbuilt scanner that constantly analysed the visual field for any dangers or mechanical irregularities. Michael couldn’t remember ever seeing Ethan’s eyes in the year he had been working on the Out Drifter. Ethan had joined the crew after working in a junkyard on Timber 5, and he was previously employed as a smuggler. He was always reluctant to talk about his days working in the smuggling industry, and Michael felt there was much in his past he wanted to forget about.
Ivan was a tall and handsome synthetic android. He was a highly advanced machine and had been designed to appear completely human. He had fair skin, blue eyes, short brown hair which never changed in length, and he was exactly six feet in height. He had drifted away from a space station that had been destroyed by the aliens, and quite some time later the Out Drifter’s scanners had located him floating in the depths of space.
Michael didn’t have much time for androids. Robots that appeared human made him feel uneasy at the best of times. To make matters worse Ivan had accidentally been exposed to a radiation field that had scrambled some of his internal programming. He was still functional after the incident, but occasionally he would do something crazy like walk in circles whilst questioning why the world was spinning. Michael knew he would have to take Ivan to a robotics technician for repairs, but parts for high quality androids were expensive, and money was always short on the Out Drifter. Consequently, Ivan’s repairs were low on the priority list.
‘Are we ready for action?’ asked Michael.
‘Ready, Captain,’ replied Ethan as he loaded a fresh magazine into his plasma rifle.
Michael slung his charged particle rifle over his shoulder as Ethan stepped toward the exit door and lifted up a handheld code breaker. The exit door of the Out Drifter slid open which revealed a locked external security door of the space station. The external security door of the Out Drifter had lined up with one of the many external security doors of the gigantic space station. Most external security doors throughout much of the galaxy were able to interlock with each other. This made it easier for people to move between ships and stations without the use of an airlock. Security doors were often protected by quantum encrypted codes, which led to quantum code breakers being an essential tool for a salvage crew.
‘The space station’s security codes are quantum encrypted with a dual layer,’ said Ethan.
‘Hurry up and open the damn thing!’ said Ajax impatiently.
Ethan placed the code breaker to the station’s external door and configured the device. A few moments passed as they watched and waited.
‘Why is it taking so long?’ grumbled Ajax.
Ethan shrugged his shoulders. ‘The code is very complex and has been configured with an observer defence mechanism which is preventing the coded layers of electron waves forming into electron particles. Every time I break the first code there is a second code lying dormant which instantly springs to life, and by the time I break the second code the first has reconfigured.’
Ajax rolled his eyes. ‘We paid a fortune for that device. It’s supposed to break double layered codes!’
‘Not when the codes reconfigure at this speed,’ said Ethan.
‘Why doesn’t anything ever work on this ship!’ yelled Ajax, clenching his fists.
Captain Michael glanced sideways at Ajax and shook his head. ‘Ajax, you still don’t get it,’ he said coolly. ‘The question is: why did the previous occupants use such a complex code? The answer is because there is something worth protecting. Be patient.’
‘I can’t break the code,’ mumbled Ethan. ‘We have to cut our way in.’
Those were the words Michael did not want to hear. Cutting into a space station was a sure way to draw the attention of security droids, and fighting security droids was the last thing he felt like doing; nonetheless, an abandoned space station was a goldmine for a salvage crew, and he knew the potential rewards made it worth the risk.
‘Bring out the cutter,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Keep your weapons ready. There could be a security droid waiting to greet us.’
Ajax walked down the corridor that led to the front of the ship. The armoury, which doubled as a tool room, was situated about half way between the control room at the front and the cargo bay at the back. A few moments later he returned with the laser cutter. He shuffled past Ethan and aligned it with the outer edge of the station’s security door; a moment later a bright red laser beam caused sparks to blast out. Ajax traced the outline of the door within a minute and then drew back the cutter.
The team lifted their weapons in readiness. Ajax looked back over his shoulder and gave a curt nod. He then kicked the door and the entire panel fell away and revealed a dark and empty corridor beyond.
Michael lifted his wrist-com. ‘Sara, we’re going in. This shouldn’t take too long. Keep the ship powered and ready just in case we need to leave in a hurry.’
‘…you got it, Captain…’ replied Sara over the wrist-com.
‘Ethan, light this place up,’ said Michael.
Ethan drew a pistol and shot three small smoke flares into the corridor. The flares released a thin mist with charged luminescent particles which lit up the entire length of the way. The corridor was about fifty metres long with numbered doors along each side. At the far end was a second main door.
‘Let’s go to the storage hold and see what the Epherians left behind,’ said Michael as he stepped forward and advanced along the corridor. The others followed closely. Within a minute they had reached the second door. ‘Ethan, do a scan.’
‘There’s absolutely nothing, Captain.’
Michael hit the green button beside the door and it slowly slid open. They had come to a T intersection. A wide service corridor ran through the centre of the space station. Dim emergency lighting was still operational along the length of the service corridor. Several lights were flickering which gave the station an eerie feeling.
‘This place is bothering me, Captain,’ said Ajax.
‘Why?’
‘There are no signs of a struggle, no radiation leak, and there are no aliens. Why would the population pack up and leave?’
‘It could have been a biological factor,’ suggested Ethan.
‘You mean a plague?’ asked Ajax, frowning at the suggestion.
‘No, it wasn’t a plague,’ said Michael. ‘There are no reported plagues in this sector of space, and the station management would simply remove the infected occupants and send in droids to sterilise everything. I can only see three possibilities: pirates, aliens or mutiny.’
‘This corridor leads to the storage hold,’ said Ethan. They continued down the service corridor. Before long they arrived at a large security door situated at the far side of the service corridor. Ethan was monitoring his handheld scanner which had a small screen that showed the basic floor plan of the space station. The door was locked to protect the contents of the storage hold. Ethan flipped the casing off the control panel beside the door and prepared to decode the lock. The door began opening.
‘That was quick,’ said Michael.
‘I didn’t decode the lock. Its opening by itself,’ said Ethan.
Michael’s eyes narrowed and he lifted his rifle, but a moment later it was apparent that no one was on the other side.
‘The door must be malfunctioning,’ said Ethan. ‘It’s probably set to a repeat time release.’
Directly in front of them was a large and dimly lit storage hold which was at least one hundred metres in length and about the same in height. A huge space door was situated at one side. The space door was big enough to allow a delivery ship to enter the hold. There were dozens of large shipping containers and several small cranes.
‘Yay hey!’ said Ajax.
They entered the hold. Ethan led the way and approached the first shipping container.
‘Spare sleeping pods,’ he said after reading the digital manifest, which was connected to the side of the container.
‘They’re not worth the hassle,’ said Michael.
‘But these are heavy duty self-contained sleeping pods with their own life support systems,’ said Ethan. ‘They are made for long haul space flight and they have independent power supplies. We could replace some of the Out Drifter’s aging pods with these.’
‘We could only fit about four or five into the cargo bay on the Out Drifter, and we don’t have the time to replace the pods. Let’s try the next container.’