EAK Diary -- November 24, 2015
On this day in my original life I was put to death for crimes against the state. As a result of my actions in this life that state does not exist. And as a result of my actions the path of life for everyone has changed.
Has it changed for the better?
For those myself and who value life the answer is yes. For those who value power the answer is a very clear no. Although there are still mass graves from coast to coast the contents of those graves have changed. Those who were the destroyers of life in this world are now dead or have been driven away.
Do I regret my actions in this life?
I do regret my failures but otherwise no. I did the best I could with the information I had.
So what of the future?
I don’t know. I’ll just do the best that I can.
Showing posts with label Science Fiction Novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science Fiction Novel. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Monday, September 07, 2015
Another Unused Portion
I was attempting to rewrite (steal) the Watershed scene from The Tactics Of Mistake by Gordon R. Dickson but I wasn't happy with it:
For Colonel Thomas Kearney the operation had gone off without flaw and with no casualties for his men. The objective of this operation was a small mining town on one the minor outer colony worlds.
Vance was a barely habitable and tidally locked moon of a Jovian class gas giant that in turn orbited a red dwarf star. The initial settlement had served as a way station for the exploration and colonization of better worlds further out from Earth. But a more detailed survey of the world had found recoverable minerals in the platinum group and a rare earth element used in the manufacture of hyperdrives.
The world was named for Sir John Vance, an Australian astronaut employed by the Martian Relocation Project. Although the MRP had set up their own outpost on this world they also opened it to settlement dissident groups from Earth. What made the operation possible was the fact that not all of the settlements had joined the newly independent central government. But for Colonel Kearney this action was also a step forward in the recovery from two disasters. The minor and most recent was the defeat of the unit that left him with a bit less than three hundred effective soldiers out of was once a first class mercenary regiment. The more distant and most devastating to him was the loss of the home world and his family to what was in practical effect a band of invading savages.
The first part of operation was a night march through the forest bordering Federal Republic of Vance and the dissident colony of Vermillion. The march to the objective was illuminated by the reflected light of the gas giant planet that was permanently fixed on the southern horizon. The objective of the operation was the town of Runoff and the mining sites surrounding it. Which was a cluster of homes, small businesses, and offices. Very few of the people were awake at the time and once the mercenaries were in position their unit simply walked in and seized the town.
With the streets, the government buildings. and the local militia armory of the town secured Kearney ordered the transmission to the client of the code for the successful mission. But as Kearney waited for arrival of the sponsors there was unfinished business to be dealt with.
Kearney sat at the official desk as the Mayor of Runoff was dragged in. The Mayor was barefoot, unshaven, and hastily dressed. He looked around the room and shook his head before speaking to his captor.
“So you think you’re special?”
“We’re professional soldiers.”
“You’re only criminals.” The Mayor replied. “Did you kill anyone yet?”
“No.” Kearney replied.
There was no resistance from the police or any of the civilians that were awake.
So much for the sea of armed civilians. Kearney thought.
The Mayor looked directly at Kearney and spoke.
“Then if you leave right now and cross the border back into Vermillion you and your unit may yet get away.”
Kearney mentally dismissed the statement and placed a document on the desk before the Mayor.
“Sign it.” Said Kearney.
The Mayor briefly scanned it and then replied.
“No.” Said the Mayor. “You are nothing, you have no authority and thus no power over any of us.”
Kearney stared at the Mayor for a moment.
How can he say that? He thought.
“I can have you shot.” Kearney replied.
The Mayor looked Kearney straight in the eyes and then calmly replied.
“In that case you will actually become something, but it would only be a diseased animal that should be put down quickly and with mercy.”
Kearney could not believe what he had just heard.
Is he insane?
The Mayor spoke again.
“Now you should lay down your arms, go home, grow up, and get a life.”
For Kearney and his men this wasn’t possible--there was no place they could call a home. With
the refusal to sign the surrender document Kearney sent the Mayor downstairs to the town jail with the police officers that were on duty and other elected officials.
The local sun was beginning to rise as the gee-vee arrived with two well dressed civilians. The first man represented the sponsor of the operation, the Superior Mining Company, and the other was an official of the official central government. Superior Mining originated on the Iron Range of Minnesota in the late 19th Century and the firm had barely survived into the Interstellar Era. But under new management the firm would expand again by exploiting the resources found on the colony worlds and shipping them to Earth. Or it did until the extinction event that killed most of the population and the advanced civilization of Earth.
For Colonel Thomas Kearney the operation had gone off without flaw and with no casualties for his men. The objective of this operation was a small mining town on one the minor outer colony worlds.
Vance was a barely habitable and tidally locked moon of a Jovian class gas giant that in turn orbited a red dwarf star. The initial settlement had served as a way station for the exploration and colonization of better worlds further out from Earth. But a more detailed survey of the world had found recoverable minerals in the platinum group and a rare earth element used in the manufacture of hyperdrives.
The world was named for Sir John Vance, an Australian astronaut employed by the Martian Relocation Project. Although the MRP had set up their own outpost on this world they also opened it to settlement dissident groups from Earth. What made the operation possible was the fact that not all of the settlements had joined the newly independent central government. But for Colonel Kearney this action was also a step forward in the recovery from two disasters. The minor and most recent was the defeat of the unit that left him with a bit less than three hundred effective soldiers out of was once a first class mercenary regiment. The more distant and most devastating to him was the loss of the home world and his family to what was in practical effect a band of invading savages.
The first part of operation was a night march through the forest bordering Federal Republic of Vance and the dissident colony of Vermillion. The march to the objective was illuminated by the reflected light of the gas giant planet that was permanently fixed on the southern horizon. The objective of the operation was the town of Runoff and the mining sites surrounding it. Which was a cluster of homes, small businesses, and offices. Very few of the people were awake at the time and once the mercenaries were in position their unit simply walked in and seized the town.
With the streets, the government buildings. and the local militia armory of the town secured Kearney ordered the transmission to the client of the code for the successful mission. But as Kearney waited for arrival of the sponsors there was unfinished business to be dealt with.
Kearney sat at the official desk as the Mayor of Runoff was dragged in. The Mayor was barefoot, unshaven, and hastily dressed. He looked around the room and shook his head before speaking to his captor.
“So you think you’re special?”
“We’re professional soldiers.”
“You’re only criminals.” The Mayor replied. “Did you kill anyone yet?”
“No.” Kearney replied.
There was no resistance from the police or any of the civilians that were awake.
So much for the sea of armed civilians. Kearney thought.
The Mayor looked directly at Kearney and spoke.
“Then if you leave right now and cross the border back into Vermillion you and your unit may yet get away.”
Kearney mentally dismissed the statement and placed a document on the desk before the Mayor.
“Sign it.” Said Kearney.
The Mayor briefly scanned it and then replied.
“No.” Said the Mayor. “You are nothing, you have no authority and thus no power over any of us.”
Kearney stared at the Mayor for a moment.
How can he say that? He thought.
“I can have you shot.” Kearney replied.
The Mayor looked Kearney straight in the eyes and then calmly replied.
“In that case you will actually become something, but it would only be a diseased animal that should be put down quickly and with mercy.”
Kearney could not believe what he had just heard.
Is he insane?
The Mayor spoke again.
“Now you should lay down your arms, go home, grow up, and get a life.”
For Kearney and his men this wasn’t possible--there was no place they could call a home. With
the refusal to sign the surrender document Kearney sent the Mayor downstairs to the town jail with the police officers that were on duty and other elected officials.
The local sun was beginning to rise as the gee-vee arrived with two well dressed civilians. The first man represented the sponsor of the operation, the Superior Mining Company, and the other was an official of the official central government. Superior Mining originated on the Iron Range of Minnesota in the late 19th Century and the firm had barely survived into the Interstellar Era. But under new management the firm would expand again by exploiting the resources found on the colony worlds and shipping them to Earth. Or it did until the extinction event that killed most of the population and the advanced civilization of Earth.
Saturday, August 01, 2015
A Decision
I've decided to follow the example set by Ayn Rand and place the novel I'm writing in a slightly different universe.
One difference is obvious.
On this evening it was beginning to snow.
In most respects it was just another Monday for Evelyn Alexander Keller. After a day of classes at the Minneapolis Technical Institute he had just finished another two hours shift at the Fanny Farmer candy shop on the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Second Avenue in Downtown Minneapolis. The part time job was the source of income that paid for the tuition and covered the financial burden of his hobbies.
And on the day before his twentieth birthday he decided to treat himself a bit early. TSR had just released the Deities and Demigods book for Advanced Dungeons And Dragons. Although his primary interest was in science fiction and the Traveller role playing game he was willing to play D&D on occasion. And of course he kept himself up to date on the rule books.
His immediate destination was The Little Tin Soldier Shop. This was a small store just off the southwest corner of Lake Street and Bryant Avenue in South Minneapolis. The owner was a veteran of the Korean War and in the retail area up front he sold war games and miniature combatants to adults and role playing games to naive young fellows like myself. In the back of the store was the gaming area with several folding tables where war games were played during business hours and on some nights after closing time. Except on Thursday nights when the floor was open for gamers to try to sink each others carefully painted miniature warships with imaginary cannon fire.
When he arrived there was one copy remaining on display of the book. As he picked it up someone spoke. It was a teenage boy and by the accent and attire he had to be a rich kid from the Kenwood section of Minneapolis.
“I want it.” He said.
Keller turned to the boy and replied.
“Kid, you should ask Don if he has any more copies in stock, or when the next shipment from TSR is due.”
The kid responded.
“Don?”
Keller replied.
“Don Valentine, that’s the gentleman behind the counter, and if it looks like he’s been through Hell it’s because he has.”
The kid looked at Don and then spoke to Keller again.
“My uncle’s the Vice President.”
Keller was not impressed, there were a number of things he could have said about outgoing Vice President Walter March, but he decided to be polite.
“Kid, one thing that you have to learn is that Reality is Real and that in reality you’re not entitled to a damned thing. Your relatives and the social and economic status they have means absolutely nothing in the real universe.”
He then had a thought--and then a second thought--it may be a bit early to introduce the lad to Metaphysical Realism.
Keller spoke to him a last time.
“Kid, just to the the south of Lake and Hennepin is a store called Orr Books. Take the money you were going to use for Deities and Demigods and ask the clerk for a copy of A Collection Of Essays by George Orwell. And when you get home go straight to the essay titled Politics And the English Language, it’s a real eye opener.”
And it’s a real mind opener, too. He thought.
With the conversation over he paid for the purchase, skipped the planned visit to a nearby record store and went directly home. Upon arrival he went straight to his room and turned on the radio. KQRS, the local album rock station was now reporting that John Lennon had just been shot to death in New York.
Shit. Keller thought.
One difference is obvious.
On this evening it was beginning to snow.
In most respects it was just another Monday for Evelyn Alexander Keller. After a day of classes at the Minneapolis Technical Institute he had just finished another two hours shift at the Fanny Farmer candy shop on the northwest corner of Fourth Street and Second Avenue in Downtown Minneapolis. The part time job was the source of income that paid for the tuition and covered the financial burden of his hobbies.
And on the day before his twentieth birthday he decided to treat himself a bit early. TSR had just released the Deities and Demigods book for Advanced Dungeons And Dragons. Although his primary interest was in science fiction and the Traveller role playing game he was willing to play D&D on occasion. And of course he kept himself up to date on the rule books.
His immediate destination was The Little Tin Soldier Shop. This was a small store just off the southwest corner of Lake Street and Bryant Avenue in South Minneapolis. The owner was a veteran of the Korean War and in the retail area up front he sold war games and miniature combatants to adults and role playing games to naive young fellows like myself. In the back of the store was the gaming area with several folding tables where war games were played during business hours and on some nights after closing time. Except on Thursday nights when the floor was open for gamers to try to sink each others carefully painted miniature warships with imaginary cannon fire.
When he arrived there was one copy remaining on display of the book. As he picked it up someone spoke. It was a teenage boy and by the accent and attire he had to be a rich kid from the Kenwood section of Minneapolis.
“I want it.” He said.
Keller turned to the boy and replied.
“Kid, you should ask Don if he has any more copies in stock, or when the next shipment from TSR is due.”
The kid responded.
“Don?”
Keller replied.
“Don Valentine, that’s the gentleman behind the counter, and if it looks like he’s been through Hell it’s because he has.”
The kid looked at Don and then spoke to Keller again.
“My uncle’s the Vice President.”
Keller was not impressed, there were a number of things he could have said about outgoing Vice President Walter March, but he decided to be polite.
“Kid, one thing that you have to learn is that Reality is Real and that in reality you’re not entitled to a damned thing. Your relatives and the social and economic status they have means absolutely nothing in the real universe.”
He then had a thought--and then a second thought--it may be a bit early to introduce the lad to Metaphysical Realism.
Keller spoke to him a last time.
“Kid, just to the the south of Lake and Hennepin is a store called Orr Books. Take the money you were going to use for Deities and Demigods and ask the clerk for a copy of A Collection Of Essays by George Orwell. And when you get home go straight to the essay titled Politics And the English Language, it’s a real eye opener.”
And it’s a real mind opener, too. He thought.
With the conversation over he paid for the purchase, skipped the planned visit to a nearby record store and went directly home. Upon arrival he went straight to his room and turned on the radio. KQRS, the local album rock station was now reporting that John Lennon had just been shot to death in New York.
Shit. Keller thought.
Sunday, June 28, 2015
A Scene from The Novel
Carl Grant had arrived on Freya and checked into a hotel in one of the suburbs of Landfall.. But he had to wait a full local day for the scheduled meeting with the defense secretary as all local government offices were closed on what would have been a normal business day.
Why was this?
Grant left the hotel early for the meeting and hailed one of the taxicabs waiting at the cab stand. It was a Ford Galaxy sedan that had seen service as a police car and was now painted in the company colors of red and white. The driver appeared to be entering middle age with glasses, a mustache, and a fringe of blond hair. And he wore his old style M1911A1 in a shoulder holster.
The driver asked a question.
“Where to, sir?”
“The Planetary Government Center in Landfall.”
“There are multiple buildings on the site,” said the driver, “so what department are you visiting?”
Grant answered.
“The Department of Planetary Security.”
“Okay.”
The driver switched on the meter and electric motors hummed as the cab pulled away from the hotel. But something about the way the driver responded to him seemed a bit odd to Grant. It was as if he were speaking with a long term veteran soldier.
“Is there a problem?” He asked the driver.
“No sir, it’s just that the Founders wanted to call it the War Department, but the groundhogs
wouldn’t allow it.”
Grant responded.
“The Federation authorities?”
“Yes.” The driver replied.
And then the driver asked his own question.
“Are you a writer, sir?”
“Yes.” He replied. “Of military theory for the most part, of works such as On War by Clausewitz.”
The driver’s response was a surprise to him.
“Vom Kriege by General Karl Maria von Clausewitz.” He said. “I tried several times to read the complete Standard English edition and the damned thing always put me to sleep.”
“Well military theory is not for everyone.” Grant curtly replied.
The driver quickly and clearly responded.
“The thing is that Clausewitz began to write at a time when Kant was barely cold in the ground and Hegel had just started his emissions. At that time the intellectual culture in Germany was already in deep trouble with clarity and brevity already going out of style.
Grant had not expected a lecture on intellectual history from a common working man.
But he responded.
“I wrote a book on military doctrine titled Future Forces: Organization and Doctrine.”
“I’ve read it.” Said the driver.
“So how do you feel about it?”
“I think Colonel Simmons wrote a fairly good review of it. He clearly understood how the citizens out here on the colony worlds would respond to an invasion by your Future Force but didn’t explain the why...”
Grant sneered.
“Simmons...that moron...”
The driver solidly interrupted the sneer
“I served with him when he was a battalion commander in Afghanistan--and we don’t give out Sky Blue Berets as supermarket promotional items--even to West Point graduates.”
“So you were in the Quarantine Force and then retired out here?”
“No.” The driver replied. “I enlisted here and served on Earth.”
“Why?”
The driver smiled before answering.
“Because that’s where the enemy combatants are.”
Grant thought for a moment and then spoke again.
"Do you feel that the Quarantine Force are all true warriors?”
“Hell no!’ The driver suddenly snapped back. “The goal of every warrior is to impose his will upon his victims. And our mission in the Quarantine Force is to hunt down and kill warriors.”
Present tense. Grant thought. He spoke with hostility in the present tense.
Grant was now concerned for his own safety.
Is there a round in the chamber of his gun?
The cab then entered the main drive of the Planetary Government Center and stopped at the DPS Building. Grant paid the fare in cash and without a gratuity.
Why was this?
Grant left the hotel early for the meeting and hailed one of the taxicabs waiting at the cab stand. It was a Ford Galaxy sedan that had seen service as a police car and was now painted in the company colors of red and white. The driver appeared to be entering middle age with glasses, a mustache, and a fringe of blond hair. And he wore his old style M1911A1 in a shoulder holster.
The driver asked a question.
“Where to, sir?”
“The Planetary Government Center in Landfall.”
“There are multiple buildings on the site,” said the driver, “so what department are you visiting?”
Grant answered.
“The Department of Planetary Security.”
“Okay.”
The driver switched on the meter and electric motors hummed as the cab pulled away from the hotel. But something about the way the driver responded to him seemed a bit odd to Grant. It was as if he were speaking with a long term veteran soldier.
“Is there a problem?” He asked the driver.
“No sir, it’s just that the Founders wanted to call it the War Department, but the groundhogs
wouldn’t allow it.”
Grant responded.
“The Federation authorities?”
“Yes.” The driver replied.
And then the driver asked his own question.
“Are you a writer, sir?”
“Yes.” He replied. “Of military theory for the most part, of works such as On War by Clausewitz.”
The driver’s response was a surprise to him.
“Vom Kriege by General Karl Maria von Clausewitz.” He said. “I tried several times to read the complete Standard English edition and the damned thing always put me to sleep.”
“Well military theory is not for everyone.” Grant curtly replied.
The driver quickly and clearly responded.
“The thing is that Clausewitz began to write at a time when Kant was barely cold in the ground and Hegel had just started his emissions. At that time the intellectual culture in Germany was already in deep trouble with clarity and brevity already going out of style.
Grant had not expected a lecture on intellectual history from a common working man.
But he responded.
“I wrote a book on military doctrine titled Future Forces: Organization and Doctrine.”
“I’ve read it.” Said the driver.
“So how do you feel about it?”
“I think Colonel Simmons wrote a fairly good review of it. He clearly understood how the citizens out here on the colony worlds would respond to an invasion by your Future Force but didn’t explain the why...”
Grant sneered.
“Simmons...that moron...”
The driver solidly interrupted the sneer
“I served with him when he was a battalion commander in Afghanistan--and we don’t give out Sky Blue Berets as supermarket promotional items--even to West Point graduates.”
“So you were in the Quarantine Force and then retired out here?”
“No.” The driver replied. “I enlisted here and served on Earth.”
“Why?”
The driver smiled before answering.
“Because that’s where the enemy combatants are.”
Grant thought for a moment and then spoke again.
"Do you feel that the Quarantine Force are all true warriors?”
“Hell no!’ The driver suddenly snapped back. “The goal of every warrior is to impose his will upon his victims. And our mission in the Quarantine Force is to hunt down and kill warriors.”
Present tense. Grant thought. He spoke with hostility in the present tense.
Grant was now concerned for his own safety.
Is there a round in the chamber of his gun?
The cab then entered the main drive of the Planetary Government Center and stopped at the DPS Building. Grant paid the fare in cash and without a gratuity.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Another Thought
I could describe House Harkonnen (from Dune) as subhuman garbage fit only for extermination but that would be an insult to subhuman garbage for only for extermination.
Wednesday, July 09, 2014
A Work In Progress
This is from a novel I'm working on:
So why are we here? Why did we escape the Solar System and settle on the planets of Alpha Centauri?
The fact is that we live in a dynamic universe. A universe whose internal material components are subject to change by entirely natural means. Life, including human life, is the result of a series of an entirely natural processes. The process of life is also a localized acceleration of the process of entropy, the conversion of matter to energy. Simply by living each of us is accelerating the ultimate decline of the known universe. Oh, please don’t tell the environmentalists.
For simple forms of life survival is simply an accident of nature. For Humanity survival is the result of the function of the active mind. And we will think and do what is necessary to live what is properly a human life.
Believe it or not there were people back on Earth who objected to our escape from extinction and actively worked to prevent it.
I am not kidding.
Some of those people believed that our lives were the result of the will of a being commonly known as God. And that the event that would ultimately destroy all life on Earth was also the will of God. They believed that the extinction event was brought about because of our collective sins. The primary sin being the constant refusal to obey the commands of God as transmitted through his self appointed spokesmen. The vilest of our sins being the persistent habit of actually thinking on the basis of the actual facts of reality. The believers in the God Premise deemed us guilty of these crimes and wanted us to sit down without resistance and die for our sins.
Absolutely not, we decided.
The idea that God could eliminate Mankind at a thought and did not require an actually natural event to kill off our species simply did not enter their minds.
This assumes of course that those who believe in the concept of God had actually functioning minds.
There were also those who believed in the concept of material equality. That everyone had to be materially equal regardless of the actual amount of productive thought and labor. They believed it was unfair for us who could build starships to escape the Solar System. We who could should not do so because it was unfair to those who could not. That the truly fair course of action was to do nothing and for all of us to die together.
This view, which was purely emotional, was also clearly wrong.
And finally there were the self-appointed elites. They believed that only they had the best of the collective interests of Mankind in mind. And that only the best and the brightest members of the Human collective, as defined by themselves, should be allowed to escape extinction by the means available.
That the elites have always lived off the thought and labor of those they deemed inferior and invariably made decisions for their own benefit was never, ever, mentioned by them or their willing servants.
The fact was that we would not sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of what was in fact a mob of lazy and mindless losers.
The fundamental moral value is life. But human life is not simply physical existence. The human mode of life also requires an active mental existence. In order to live as human beings we must see things as they are and act as we conceive as necessary.
Live with it.
So what actually happened? How did we come here?
Our father’s last big project when he was alive was the Niven Deep Space Observatory. It had been placed in an orbit that took it well outside the plane of the ecliptic in the Solar System. For those readers unfamiliar with orbital dynamics it means that the orbit of the NDSO was at an angle above that of the planet and other bodies of the Solar System. The primary mission of the NDSO was to detect and observe neutron stars.
So what’s a neutron star?
A neutron star is simply the dead body of a star at the last stage of decay.
Some stars are so massive that at death they collapse into a black hole, never to be seen again. But some stars lack the mass to fully disappear and they collapse into a white dwarf. A remnant made purely of neutrons giving off the residual energy of it’s collapse. But eventually even an ancient white dwarf will fade out.
A neutron star still has gravitational attraction and still pulls in matter from the space that surrounds it, gas, dust and the occasional large body as an asteroid. When this stray matter impacts on the neutron star it’s converted to neutrons and emits energy across the electromagnetic spectrum in the process. It was the emission of this energy--the screaming matter--that the NDSO detects and tracks.
The Astronomy Department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California was the prime contractor on the NDSO. Our family firm having built the NDSO now had the contract to maintain and upgrade it. I made a rare visit to Earth to speak with the program director, Dr. Robert Peterson, about the next series of upgrades.
At his office we shook hands and I began the conversation.
“So Bob, what did you want to discuss?”
“Well there’s an very odd series of readings we got on one of our objects.”
“And you want to eliminate the possibility of a fault with the platform before you publish a paper on it?”
“Yes.” He said.
“So what is it?”
“One of our objects, designated Niven Sixty Nine, is very close to the Solar System.”
“How close?”
“Well within a light year.”
A light year was the distance that a photon, the theoretical particle of light, would travel in the time of a year. It’s a distance of just under ten trillion kilometers. In interstellar astronomy that distance was very close.
“Possibly?” I said.
“We haven’t done a full parallax reading on it but the screaming matter signature is also the strongest that we’ve seen with any object.”
Parallax is a method of determining the distance of an object. From opposite positions in the solar orbit of observer the object is located against the stellar background. With the known distance of the two observation points serving as the base of a triangle the distance of the other two sides of the triangle is worked out as simple geometric math.
At least it’s simple to astronomers and engineers like me.
I then had a question.
“So what is its lateral movement?”
“There isn’t any.” He replied.
I was stunned, I’m sure of it, it took time before I could reply.
“Bob,” I said, “is the screaming matter signature getting stronger over time?”
The screaming matter signature is the energy given off by the dust and gas normally found in interstellar space as it is gravitationally sucked into the neutron star.
“Yes, it appears to be.”
The conclusion was obvious.
I sat in stunned silence.
Bob spoke again.
“We don’t know if it will hit anything yet.”
“It doesn’t have to.” I said. “We both know that an object with the mass of a star will radically alter the orbit of every body as it passes through the Solar System--including the Earth. It may even cause some bodies to be ejected from the system altogether.”
Then I had another thought.
“Have you spoken about this to anyone outside the project?”
“No.”
I thought for another moment.
“Bob, my next stop is the JPL next door.”
“What about?”
“To report on the Daedalus.”
“How is Daedalus?”
Daedalus was the unmanned interstellar probe our firm had just completed for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The original version was proposed by the British Interstellar Society back in the late Twentieth Century. We had followed the original BIS concept of a two stage system in the design and construction of the probe.
“Apart from uploading the latest version of the operations software and fueling the ship we are ready to launch. I think you should have a word with them, the committee still wants to send her to Sirius.”
Bob nodded.
“Yes, I’ll come over there with you.” He replied.
My next meeting was scheduled with the Daedalus Committee. In the lobby of the JPL we walked by the display of Mariner II, the first successful American interplanetary probe. It had been recovered and brought back to Earth. When we arrived at the conference room they hadn’t sat down yet. Bob and I made straight for the chairman of the committee, Dr. Douglas Siekmann.
“Doug,” I said, “I believe you know Doctor Peterson?”
“Yes.” He replied and they both shook hands. “So what brings you over here?”
“We think you should change the destination of the Daedalus.”
“Not likely.” Siekmann replied. “But I think we can find time for you to speak on it.”
I spoke.
“Doug, we’re serious, dead serious.”
I’m certain that he saw that we were serious.
“Okay then.” He replied.
At this point we sat down and went through the normals rituals of a board meeting. Then it was my turn to speak.
“First, Im here to report that apart from fueling the ship and updating the software package we are ready to launch. Second, I want to request that we change the target system to Alpha Centauri with the goal of finding a habitable planet.
A board member spoke in reply.
“Why,” he said, “the only point to finding a Goldilocks world is to colonize it. And who’s going to fund a colonization mission?”
I replied.
“Everyone on Earth.”
At this point every board member was speechless, and then Doug spoke up.
“Why?”
“I brought along Doctor Peterson of the NDSO to explain.”
Bob stood up and spoke.
“Basically we found a neutron star that is within a light-year of us and appears to heading straight into the Solar System.”
A woman wearing glasses who was about my age spoke up.
“Will it hit anything?”
“It doesn’t have to.” Bob replied. “The gravitational effects alone will disrupt the orbits of everything in the system, including the Earth.”
Another board member spoke.
“And the change in Earth’s orbit will radically effect the environment?”
“Yes.” I said. “And as a result it may possibly render the Earth completely uninhabitable.”
After a about a minute of silence Doug spoke.
“Bob, we have sensor platforms across the system, we will have to verify your data and we will also help you to nail down the trajectory.”
“Not a problem.” Bob replied. “No problem at all.”
Doug then spoke to the committee.
“I move that upon confirmation of the neutron star being on a collision course with the Solar System that we make the necessary alterations to the Daedalus for the planet finder mission to Alpha Centauri. Does anyone second the motion?”
The young woman who first spoke up did so.
“All in favor?” Said Doug.
Every member of the committee raised their hands.
“It appears to be unanimous.”
The young woman raised her hand and spoke.
“Mister Boatman, what will you do next?”
“After launching the Daedalus?”
“Yes.”
“Start work on designing the colony transport.”
“What will it be like?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“Apart from using the pulse-fusion system from the Daedalus I have no idea. I wouldn’t even try to do a back of the envelope calculation on it at this point.”
“Um, yes.” She replied.
And then after the meeting was formally closed I walked up and spoke to her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall being properly introduced.”
She nodded and replied.
“Susan,” she said, “Doctor Susan Barrow.”
“Doctor Barrow, I’m glad to have that issue resolved.”
So why are we here? Why did we escape the Solar System and settle on the planets of Alpha Centauri?
The fact is that we live in a dynamic universe. A universe whose internal material components are subject to change by entirely natural means. Life, including human life, is the result of a series of an entirely natural processes. The process of life is also a localized acceleration of the process of entropy, the conversion of matter to energy. Simply by living each of us is accelerating the ultimate decline of the known universe. Oh, please don’t tell the environmentalists.
For simple forms of life survival is simply an accident of nature. For Humanity survival is the result of the function of the active mind. And we will think and do what is necessary to live what is properly a human life.
Believe it or not there were people back on Earth who objected to our escape from extinction and actively worked to prevent it.
I am not kidding.
Some of those people believed that our lives were the result of the will of a being commonly known as God. And that the event that would ultimately destroy all life on Earth was also the will of God. They believed that the extinction event was brought about because of our collective sins. The primary sin being the constant refusal to obey the commands of God as transmitted through his self appointed spokesmen. The vilest of our sins being the persistent habit of actually thinking on the basis of the actual facts of reality. The believers in the God Premise deemed us guilty of these crimes and wanted us to sit down without resistance and die for our sins.
Absolutely not, we decided.
The idea that God could eliminate Mankind at a thought and did not require an actually natural event to kill off our species simply did not enter their minds.
This assumes of course that those who believe in the concept of God had actually functioning minds.
There were also those who believed in the concept of material equality. That everyone had to be materially equal regardless of the actual amount of productive thought and labor. They believed it was unfair for us who could build starships to escape the Solar System. We who could should not do so because it was unfair to those who could not. That the truly fair course of action was to do nothing and for all of us to die together.
This view, which was purely emotional, was also clearly wrong.
And finally there were the self-appointed elites. They believed that only they had the best of the collective interests of Mankind in mind. And that only the best and the brightest members of the Human collective, as defined by themselves, should be allowed to escape extinction by the means available.
That the elites have always lived off the thought and labor of those they deemed inferior and invariably made decisions for their own benefit was never, ever, mentioned by them or their willing servants.
The fact was that we would not sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of what was in fact a mob of lazy and mindless losers.
The fundamental moral value is life. But human life is not simply physical existence. The human mode of life also requires an active mental existence. In order to live as human beings we must see things as they are and act as we conceive as necessary.
Live with it.
So what actually happened? How did we come here?
Our father’s last big project when he was alive was the Niven Deep Space Observatory. It had been placed in an orbit that took it well outside the plane of the ecliptic in the Solar System. For those readers unfamiliar with orbital dynamics it means that the orbit of the NDSO was at an angle above that of the planet and other bodies of the Solar System. The primary mission of the NDSO was to detect and observe neutron stars.
So what’s a neutron star?
A neutron star is simply the dead body of a star at the last stage of decay.
Some stars are so massive that at death they collapse into a black hole, never to be seen again. But some stars lack the mass to fully disappear and they collapse into a white dwarf. A remnant made purely of neutrons giving off the residual energy of it’s collapse. But eventually even an ancient white dwarf will fade out.
A neutron star still has gravitational attraction and still pulls in matter from the space that surrounds it, gas, dust and the occasional large body as an asteroid. When this stray matter impacts on the neutron star it’s converted to neutrons and emits energy across the electromagnetic spectrum in the process. It was the emission of this energy--the screaming matter--that the NDSO detects and tracks.
The Astronomy Department at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California was the prime contractor on the NDSO. Our family firm having built the NDSO now had the contract to maintain and upgrade it. I made a rare visit to Earth to speak with the program director, Dr. Robert Peterson, about the next series of upgrades.
At his office we shook hands and I began the conversation.
“So Bob, what did you want to discuss?”
“Well there’s an very odd series of readings we got on one of our objects.”
“And you want to eliminate the possibility of a fault with the platform before you publish a paper on it?”
“Yes.” He said.
“So what is it?”
“One of our objects, designated Niven Sixty Nine, is very close to the Solar System.”
“How close?”
“Well within a light year.”
A light year was the distance that a photon, the theoretical particle of light, would travel in the time of a year. It’s a distance of just under ten trillion kilometers. In interstellar astronomy that distance was very close.
“Possibly?” I said.
“We haven’t done a full parallax reading on it but the screaming matter signature is also the strongest that we’ve seen with any object.”
Parallax is a method of determining the distance of an object. From opposite positions in the solar orbit of observer the object is located against the stellar background. With the known distance of the two observation points serving as the base of a triangle the distance of the other two sides of the triangle is worked out as simple geometric math.
At least it’s simple to astronomers and engineers like me.
I then had a question.
“So what is its lateral movement?”
“There isn’t any.” He replied.
I was stunned, I’m sure of it, it took time before I could reply.
“Bob,” I said, “is the screaming matter signature getting stronger over time?”
The screaming matter signature is the energy given off by the dust and gas normally found in interstellar space as it is gravitationally sucked into the neutron star.
“Yes, it appears to be.”
The conclusion was obvious.
I sat in stunned silence.
Bob spoke again.
“We don’t know if it will hit anything yet.”
“It doesn’t have to.” I said. “We both know that an object with the mass of a star will radically alter the orbit of every body as it passes through the Solar System--including the Earth. It may even cause some bodies to be ejected from the system altogether.”
Then I had another thought.
“Have you spoken about this to anyone outside the project?”
“No.”
I thought for another moment.
“Bob, my next stop is the JPL next door.”
“What about?”
“To report on the Daedalus.”
“How is Daedalus?”
Daedalus was the unmanned interstellar probe our firm had just completed for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The original version was proposed by the British Interstellar Society back in the late Twentieth Century. We had followed the original BIS concept of a two stage system in the design and construction of the probe.
“Apart from uploading the latest version of the operations software and fueling the ship we are ready to launch. I think you should have a word with them, the committee still wants to send her to Sirius.”
Bob nodded.
“Yes, I’ll come over there with you.” He replied.
My next meeting was scheduled with the Daedalus Committee. In the lobby of the JPL we walked by the display of Mariner II, the first successful American interplanetary probe. It had been recovered and brought back to Earth. When we arrived at the conference room they hadn’t sat down yet. Bob and I made straight for the chairman of the committee, Dr. Douglas Siekmann.
“Doug,” I said, “I believe you know Doctor Peterson?”
“Yes.” He replied and they both shook hands. “So what brings you over here?”
“We think you should change the destination of the Daedalus.”
“Not likely.” Siekmann replied. “But I think we can find time for you to speak on it.”
I spoke.
“Doug, we’re serious, dead serious.”
I’m certain that he saw that we were serious.
“Okay then.” He replied.
At this point we sat down and went through the normals rituals of a board meeting. Then it was my turn to speak.
“First, Im here to report that apart from fueling the ship and updating the software package we are ready to launch. Second, I want to request that we change the target system to Alpha Centauri with the goal of finding a habitable planet.
A board member spoke in reply.
“Why,” he said, “the only point to finding a Goldilocks world is to colonize it. And who’s going to fund a colonization mission?”
I replied.
“Everyone on Earth.”
At this point every board member was speechless, and then Doug spoke up.
“Why?”
“I brought along Doctor Peterson of the NDSO to explain.”
Bob stood up and spoke.
“Basically we found a neutron star that is within a light-year of us and appears to heading straight into the Solar System.”
A woman wearing glasses who was about my age spoke up.
“Will it hit anything?”
“It doesn’t have to.” Bob replied. “The gravitational effects alone will disrupt the orbits of everything in the system, including the Earth.”
Another board member spoke.
“And the change in Earth’s orbit will radically effect the environment?”
“Yes.” I said. “And as a result it may possibly render the Earth completely uninhabitable.”
After a about a minute of silence Doug spoke.
“Bob, we have sensor platforms across the system, we will have to verify your data and we will also help you to nail down the trajectory.”
“Not a problem.” Bob replied. “No problem at all.”
Doug then spoke to the committee.
“I move that upon confirmation of the neutron star being on a collision course with the Solar System that we make the necessary alterations to the Daedalus for the planet finder mission to Alpha Centauri. Does anyone second the motion?”
The young woman who first spoke up did so.
“All in favor?” Said Doug.
Every member of the committee raised their hands.
“It appears to be unanimous.”
The young woman raised her hand and spoke.
“Mister Boatman, what will you do next?”
“After launching the Daedalus?”
“Yes.”
“Start work on designing the colony transport.”
“What will it be like?”
I thought for a moment before answering.
“Apart from using the pulse-fusion system from the Daedalus I have no idea. I wouldn’t even try to do a back of the envelope calculation on it at this point.”
“Um, yes.” She replied.
And then after the meeting was formally closed I walked up and spoke to her.
“I’m sorry, I don’t recall being properly introduced.”
She nodded and replied.
“Susan,” she said, “Doctor Susan Barrow.”
“Doctor Barrow, I’m glad to have that issue resolved.”
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Jerusalem
The following is part of an incomplete manuscript for a novel in progress:
The jolt of the landing gear woke me up.
I was the sole civilian aboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport with a load of Marine reservists and several pallets of ground crew gear for a Marine Corps Harrier-II squadron.
And if the jolt of landing at Gibraltar had not awakened me, the half-company strength chorus of “HOORAH” would have.
Regular or Reservist, a Marine is a Marine.
The Air Force pilot, of course, had to make her customary announcement on the aircraft’s speaker system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and will be disembarking as soon as possible. And thank you for flying Air Globemaster.”
Male or Female, an Air Force pilot has the ego and sense of humor of an Air Force pilot.
I thanked the pilot and the flight crew for their utterly boring display of professional competence. Believe me, in old school aerodynamic aviation back on Earth in those days, a boring flight was a really, really, really good flight. And they got the joke.
After stroking the egos of the Air Force folks I met the head of British Forces for Gibraltar at the forward door of the aircraft.
Yes, was a civilian, but I did return the salute, it would have been rude for me not to, I thought at the time.
Okay, I admit it, it was an old reflex.
I will leave the argument over whether or not an executive order from President March constituted a proper commission to run a military operation to the professional historians.
So how did the British get involved in the rescue expedition?
It’s a long story.
Apparently during her weekly chat with the Prime Minister, a fellow from the Labour Party at the time, Her Majesty the Queen very clearly expressed her distress about the French attack on the State of Israel. She couldn’t directly issue a command to the current PM, but she did ask him if something could be done about it.
The sitting PM said that he would look into it.
Unfortunately, the line taken by Labour Party at the time was that former President Null’s refusal to relinquish the office was legitimate due the claim of having a majority of the votes cast in the election.
In order for the Labour Party to do so they had to ignore the fact that many of those votes, in places like Chicago and other strongholds of the other party, were attributed to persons who were already dead or did not otherwise exist.
And of course they had to completely ignore the actual rules laid out in our actual Constitution and the actual outcome of the actual vote of the actually existing Electoral College.
And on top of this the now former President Null, now known as the Big Zero, had openly stated his support for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Again, I will leave the question of whether the Zero’s position on this was due to his well documented tendency towards moral nihilism -- or his other well documented tendency towards politically felliating his Muslim supporters -- to the professional historians.
In the meantime the sitting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom definitely had a problem.
And because I was in the process of organizing the evacuation of Israel I caught the phone call.
“Tom,” I said to the PM, “the first thing you need to do is to withdraw your government’s recognition of the Zero and his crew.”
“That will be difficult.” The PM replied.
“But not impossible.” I said.
I thought for a moment.
Then I resumed the conversation.
“What I would suggest is that you read to everyone in the House the section of our Constitution that governs the rules for our presidential elections, and particular you’ll need to explain how the Electoral College works and why it was adopted. That should get everyone but the hardcore Marxists to go along with the change in policy.”
“But,” replied the PM, “there will be those who will claim that your Electoral College is undemocratic.”
Never mind all of the dead and otherwise nonexistent voters in Chicago and the other urban cesspits ruled by the other party.
“Tom, let me ask this question.” I said. “Does Her Majesty’s Government want to deal with an American federal government that is subject to a written supreme law? Or do you want to deal with an unrestrained mob state which was empowered by false votes and subject only to the will of the leader?”
There was silence on the phone line.
I broke the silence.
“The last time you had to deal with that was called World War Two.” I said. “And I can’t imagine that Her Majesty, or any other remaining veteran of that conflict, would want to see that happen again. Especially with nukes.”
“No.” Said the PM. “Of course not.”
And with that I was going to let the PM deal with his own internal political issues.
I moved on to the next subject.
“The other problem is the question what you’re going to send on this mission.” I said. “If I recall correctly, you’re down to one escort carrier in commission, and you don’t even have a proper air group for it.”
Of the three Invincible class carriers built for the Royal Navy only the Illustrious was still in commission. The Ark Royal was in storage awaiting disposal, and the lead ship of the class had already been stripped of useful parts and sold for scrap.
On top of this all of the Harrier jets built for their Navy and Air Force had been retired and placed in storage due to cuts in the British defense budget.
To an outside observer like myself it would appear that the worst enemy of the British Armed Forces was the British politician.
I spoke again.
“Quite frankly, sir, I wouldn’t send the Illustrious out without at least a squadron of Harriers from our Marine Corps.”
“We would appreciate that, sir.” Said the Prime Minister.
That caught me by surprise.
“Just a second, sir.” I responded. “I need to make a note.”
On a notepad I wrote a reminder to myself to talk about this to the Marine Corps liaison officer in our temporary headquarters in Omaha.
[Days later on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN75)]
A master chief led me out across the flight deck to the Seahawk helicopter. The Navy has strict rules that even very important people like myself have to follow. And I had absolutely no desire to be decapitated by a main rotor or generally shredded by a tail rotor.
Once I was aboard and my headset was plugged into the intercom, the Seahawk lifted off from the deck of the Truman and flew east towards the remains of the State of Israel.
As soon as I thought it was safe I spoke to the pilot over the intercom.
“ Lieutenant?” I practically shouted over the noise of the main rotor. “ How far east can we go?”
“ Did you want to see Jerusalem, sir?” He replied.
“ Yes!” I shouted.
“ Me too!” He shouted back.
The Seahawk flew over the beachhead set up by the Marines as one of the evacuation points for the survivors. The pilot chose to fly low as he approached the hills to avoid hostile MANPAD missile fire from the damned Arabs.
And then we saw it.
In the final hours of the Six-Day War in 1967 the Chief Rabbi of the IDF desperately searched for some engineers and some explosives. He wanted to remove the abomination, the Al Aqsa mosque, that the Arabs had built on the Temple Mount.
Forty five years and a few months later, his wish was granted.
The abomination was gone. The Temple Mount was for all practical purposes cleared of all but the smallest pieces of stone.
Of the city of Jerusalem all that remained was ashes and rubble. There were no living things, plant or animal, to be seen.
“ I think we've seen enough, Lieutenant.” I shouted.
“ Aye, aye, sir!” He replied.
He turned the Seahawk back toward the beachhead.
The jolt of the landing gear woke me up.
I was the sole civilian aboard an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III transport with a load of Marine reservists and several pallets of ground crew gear for a Marine Corps Harrier-II squadron.
And if the jolt of landing at Gibraltar had not awakened me, the half-company strength chorus of “HOORAH” would have.
Regular or Reservist, a Marine is a Marine.
The Air Force pilot, of course, had to make her customary announcement on the aircraft’s speaker system.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the British overseas territory of Gibraltar and will be disembarking as soon as possible. And thank you for flying Air Globemaster.”
Male or Female, an Air Force pilot has the ego and sense of humor of an Air Force pilot.
I thanked the pilot and the flight crew for their utterly boring display of professional competence. Believe me, in old school aerodynamic aviation back on Earth in those days, a boring flight was a really, really, really good flight. And they got the joke.
After stroking the egos of the Air Force folks I met the head of British Forces for Gibraltar at the forward door of the aircraft.
Yes, was a civilian, but I did return the salute, it would have been rude for me not to, I thought at the time.
Okay, I admit it, it was an old reflex.
I will leave the argument over whether or not an executive order from President March constituted a proper commission to run a military operation to the professional historians.
So how did the British get involved in the rescue expedition?
It’s a long story.
Apparently during her weekly chat with the Prime Minister, a fellow from the Labour Party at the time, Her Majesty the Queen very clearly expressed her distress about the French attack on the State of Israel. She couldn’t directly issue a command to the current PM, but she did ask him if something could be done about it.
The sitting PM said that he would look into it.
Unfortunately, the line taken by Labour Party at the time was that former President Null’s refusal to relinquish the office was legitimate due the claim of having a majority of the votes cast in the election.
In order for the Labour Party to do so they had to ignore the fact that many of those votes, in places like Chicago and other strongholds of the other party, were attributed to persons who were already dead or did not otherwise exist.
And of course they had to completely ignore the actual rules laid out in our actual Constitution and the actual outcome of the actual vote of the actually existing Electoral College.
And on top of this the now former President Null, now known as the Big Zero, had openly stated his support for the destruction of the State of Israel.
Again, I will leave the question of whether the Zero’s position on this was due to his well documented tendency towards moral nihilism -- or his other well documented tendency towards politically felliating his Muslim supporters -- to the professional historians.
In the meantime the sitting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom definitely had a problem.
And because I was in the process of organizing the evacuation of Israel I caught the phone call.
“Tom,” I said to the PM, “the first thing you need to do is to withdraw your government’s recognition of the Zero and his crew.”
“That will be difficult.” The PM replied.
“But not impossible.” I said.
I thought for a moment.
Then I resumed the conversation.
“What I would suggest is that you read to everyone in the House the section of our Constitution that governs the rules for our presidential elections, and particular you’ll need to explain how the Electoral College works and why it was adopted. That should get everyone but the hardcore Marxists to go along with the change in policy.”
“But,” replied the PM, “there will be those who will claim that your Electoral College is undemocratic.”
Never mind all of the dead and otherwise nonexistent voters in Chicago and the other urban cesspits ruled by the other party.
“Tom, let me ask this question.” I said. “Does Her Majesty’s Government want to deal with an American federal government that is subject to a written supreme law? Or do you want to deal with an unrestrained mob state which was empowered by false votes and subject only to the will of the leader?”
There was silence on the phone line.
I broke the silence.
“The last time you had to deal with that was called World War Two.” I said. “And I can’t imagine that Her Majesty, or any other remaining veteran of that conflict, would want to see that happen again. Especially with nukes.”
“No.” Said the PM. “Of course not.”
And with that I was going to let the PM deal with his own internal political issues.
I moved on to the next subject.
“The other problem is the question what you’re going to send on this mission.” I said. “If I recall correctly, you’re down to one escort carrier in commission, and you don’t even have a proper air group for it.”
Of the three Invincible class carriers built for the Royal Navy only the Illustrious was still in commission. The Ark Royal was in storage awaiting disposal, and the lead ship of the class had already been stripped of useful parts and sold for scrap.
On top of this all of the Harrier jets built for their Navy and Air Force had been retired and placed in storage due to cuts in the British defense budget.
To an outside observer like myself it would appear that the worst enemy of the British Armed Forces was the British politician.
I spoke again.
“Quite frankly, sir, I wouldn’t send the Illustrious out without at least a squadron of Harriers from our Marine Corps.”
“We would appreciate that, sir.” Said the Prime Minister.
That caught me by surprise.
“Just a second, sir.” I responded. “I need to make a note.”
On a notepad I wrote a reminder to myself to talk about this to the Marine Corps liaison officer in our temporary headquarters in Omaha.
[Days later on the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN75)]
A master chief led me out across the flight deck to the Seahawk helicopter. The Navy has strict rules that even very important people like myself have to follow. And I had absolutely no desire to be decapitated by a main rotor or generally shredded by a tail rotor.
Once I was aboard and my headset was plugged into the intercom, the Seahawk lifted off from the deck of the Truman and flew east towards the remains of the State of Israel.
As soon as I thought it was safe I spoke to the pilot over the intercom.
“ Lieutenant?” I practically shouted over the noise of the main rotor. “ How far east can we go?”
“ Did you want to see Jerusalem, sir?” He replied.
“ Yes!” I shouted.
“ Me too!” He shouted back.
The Seahawk flew over the beachhead set up by the Marines as one of the evacuation points for the survivors. The pilot chose to fly low as he approached the hills to avoid hostile MANPAD missile fire from the damned Arabs.
And then we saw it.
In the final hours of the Six-Day War in 1967 the Chief Rabbi of the IDF desperately searched for some engineers and some explosives. He wanted to remove the abomination, the Al Aqsa mosque, that the Arabs had built on the Temple Mount.
Forty five years and a few months later, his wish was granted.
The abomination was gone. The Temple Mount was for all practical purposes cleared of all but the smallest pieces of stone.
Of the city of Jerusalem all that remained was ashes and rubble. There were no living things, plant or animal, to be seen.
“ I think we've seen enough, Lieutenant.” I shouted.
“ Aye, aye, sir!” He replied.
He turned the Seahawk back toward the beachhead.
Monday, June 02, 2014
Awaken -- First Chapter
This is the first chapter of a novel that I'm working on. The working title of the novel is Awaken:
RANDSDAY 2241
Negation, she thought.
A decision can be easy or it could be difficult.
The thunderstorm that crashed upon the capital city was a thing of beauty. The flash of lightning illuminated the streets and the buildings beyond the window with an electric blue glow. With the light reflected from her face back upon the inside surface she could see the winkles beneath her eyes and the streaks of gray in her dark hair.
She gave thought to the window before her.
It was both invisible and itself a thing of beauty. It separated and protected her from the outside environment and allowed her to see it in all its glory. She could watch the passage of the storm from the safety of her office because of the applied thought of a man.
Those who destroyed the works of men could not conceive of a pane of glass. Nor could they be taught how to make one and integrate it into a structure. The thoughts of rational men were nothing to them. And the works of men that resulted from the trains of rational thought were seen only as abominations that were to be smashed into dust.
They did not see the truth and they did not want to see the truth.
Reality is real.
Her parents had taught her this before she learned to read.
Understand this and you can understand everything.
But there were those alive who did not want to know. They actively sought ignorance, and they sought only to negate knowledge and the products of applied knowledge.
And now another of those men had stepped onto her world with the intent of negation, of murdering the people and smashing their works to nothing. There was nothing that he would be gained from such acts. It would be the sacrifice of actual things to nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Under the existing laws of her nation the subject of her present thought could simply be arrested and processed. With his death being the ultimate result.
But that would not solve the larger problem. The subject of the investigation was employed by a group of men back on Earth. The employers will simply hire another man to attack the worlds under her care. And the next time she may not be able to stop them.
The woman had witnessed too much of the horror of negation over the course of her life. She had seen her parents taken from her simply because they were the only sane people on an insane world. See had seen her husband murdered simply because he was her husband.
Would it ever end? How does one deal with such people?
The phone on her desk rang. She turned and quickly lifted the receiver to speak.
“Yes?”
A man’s voice at the far end replied.
“We’re ready to proceed, ma’am.”
“Do so.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A trade off then. Let the immediate subject live and use him to discover his employers.
And then eliminate them.
Across the city the subject of the conversation in question was sleeping naked in a hotel bed. But not for long. This would be a hostile encounter. He had not expected the police on any world, whom he normally thought of as no better than clowns, to break into his hotel room in full tactical mode. They should not have known of his origin or mission.
The arrest had been absolutely hostile. At no point was he allowed to speak, nor was he spoken to. He was gagged immediately by the black suited police strike team. He was not given any cover for the weather. He was dragged through the cold winter rain to the police assault team transport vehicle in the condition he normally slept in. On this night in the city of Landfall on the planet Freya he was completely naked.
Upon arrival at their headquarters he was deposited in a holding cell.
Except for the light panels, the steel door, and buttons that controlled the sink and toilet, all the features of the entire holding cell were made of concrete.
This was not a standard jail cell for a common criminal. The cops here on Freya had taken his presence on their planet seriously.
Very seriously.
Why? He thought.
He was certain he would soon know why.
The door of the holding cell opened outwards. A long stun stick was immediately thrust into the cell and upon his chest.
He was shocked into a state of complete inaction.
As he lay stunned on the floor the black suited cops entered the cell in mass. They cuffed him behind the back and inserted a rod between his arms and his back. The cops then lifted him by the rod and dragged him down a bleak and completely undecorated bureaucratic corridor. The cops who carried him were escorted by four more officers paired fore and aft.
Not one of them said a word to him.
He was dragged down the corridor and around a corner to the right. At the end of the second corridor he was carried into an interrogation room. There was a stainless steel table and two chairs. He was secured to one of the chairs by the ankles and wrists.
It was five minutes by his estimate before the door to the room opened again.
A woman stepped into the room and sat down at the table opposite of him.
The subject of the arrest took the time to visually examine the woman. She appeared to be a bit over fifty standard years of age with light stands of gray hair appearing in the neatly cut body of short black hair. The woman also had blue eyes. She was dressed as a civilian with a white office blouse and blue slacks. The woman wore a photo identification badge and carried an immaculate military service grade semiautomatic pistol in the custom black leather holster under her left shoulder.
I’m supposed to be frightened by this old broad? He thought. That was foolish of her, very foolish.
The man then took a close look at the I.D. badge. It was issued by the Central Security Agency of the Ursa Major Confederation. Below the photograph on the badge was the logo of the agency. This was in the form of a flag with a white “X” over a black field. He did not know that the symbol was technically called the Cross of Saint Andrew. He saw it as being identical to cross on the battle flag of the Confederate States of America. He saw it as their admission of being evil.
The name on her photo badge was Judith Stern and showed her rank as Director of the agency.
NO! He thought.
No! No! No! No!
The woman sitting opposite of him at the table was the true daughter of darkness. She was the absolute incarnation of evil herself.
Judith Stern was personally responsible for the murder of millions of people on his home world. No one, not a priest, nor a child, was exempt from her absolute depravity.
And he has not in the custody of any police agency. The Freyan CSA was every mercenary soldier’s worst nightmare. No mercenary soldier operating separately from an organized unit was safe from death by their Pest Control teams. And ultimately backing the CSA field teams were the planetary landing forces of the Ursa Major Confederation Army and Marine Corps.
Worlds in close proximity to Freya were effectively off limits to mercenary operations. And in the custody of the Freyan CSA he was already dead.
She looked up at him and spoke. Her voice was of solid authority, it was firm and without apparent emotion.
“Welcome to The Aquarium.”
She then asked him a question.
“Who are you?”
He did not answer.
There was a slight twitch on her right eyebrow.
She calmly repeated the question.
“Who are you?”
There was no point in screaming. He tried to reply clearly in a level voice.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Without a word she looked down and opened the folder on the table before her.
Printed documents? He thought. How primitive of them.
She removed a set of reading glasses from a pocket of her blouse and used them to read from the printed file.
“Your name is Michael Gratton. You were born in the City of New Boston on the planet Kennedy in the Alpha Centauri B system. You are the second son of the late Prime Minister Thomas Gratton. After the rescue and reprisal mission to that world your mother brought you as an infant to her family home in the city of Boston in the State of Massachusetts on Earth. You attended the Boston Latin School and the Federation Military Academy at West Point. As a junior officer you were wounded in action in a minor dust-up against a band of feral Muslims and subsequently received a knee joint replacement. You spent the remainder of your time in the army in staff positions and as an instructor at the academy. You were medically retired from the Federation Army with the rank of Major and emigrated to Xenophon in the Epsilon Indi system. You are now a minor stockholder in, and company grade officer of the Military Assistance Corporation based on Xenophon.”
Gratton stared at Director Stern silently. She had used the Freyan term for their crimes against his home world and the crimes they committed against his people. One of the many people of that world murdered by the Freyans was his own father.
Gratton continued to stare at her until he was able to speak without apparent emotion.
“You are wrong!” He replied. “My name is John Fletcher and I am a civilian.”
The planetary clown farce on Freya should not discovered this information on him along with the fact that he was traveling on a false set of identity documents. With the CSA he was clearly in the hands of a very competent intelligence agency of an absolutely evil nation.
Michael Gratton clearly saw that he was now in deep trouble.
Judith Stern stared straight at him without a visible flinch.
“Major Gratton, or whatever your current rank in the MAC-X Corporation is, you are traveling on a false set of documents, which is a felony. And you are also a known mercenary, which in the Ursa Major Confederation is a capital offense.”
Gratton looked up at her and replied calmly.
“My name is John Fletcher and I am a witness for our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Judith Stern did not budge or blink.
“No Major Gratton. You are a veteran officer of the Federation Army, which is a yellow flag for this agency. You are traveling on false identity documents, which is a red flag. And you are a member of a commercial organization whose sole purpose is to violate the rights of individuals and of sovereign nations, which is absolutely the black flag for us. Please explain to us why we should not air out your head?”
Gratton blinked.
He raised his voice to reply.
“There is nothing you can threaten me with!”
Stern responded in a calm voice.
“Of course not, there never is.”
What The Fuck did that mean?
Stern saw that Gratton was mystified. It was at this time she made her statement.
“Major Gratton, you and your backers seek to negate us -- to remove us from existence. We need to discover who your backers are and kill them. In order to do this we are sending you back to Earth. You will be kept under surveillance and through this we will find the people who trying to destroy us and we will kill all of them.”
Gratton now stared at her. He then closed his eyes and shook his head.
So far I had not broken from my cover story, I can still use it. He thought. It will work.
“My name is John Fletcher.” He cried out. “I am a witness for Our Lord Jesus Christ on this Godless world. Your people have turned from Our Lord at your eternal peril. Don’t you understand that?”
Judith Stern stared straight through him as if she were a shipboard laser burning through a starship hull. She then replied to him.
“Major Gratton, Reality is Real.”
With that final reply she closed the folder on the table and stood up. She spoke up to the staff members listening remotely.
“I’m finished.”
An officer opened the door for her from outside. As she departed more officers suddenly entered the interrogation room and hit him with the stun staff again. With full effect to full unconsciousness.
When Michael Gratton awoke he was back on Earth. The first thing he would hear was the voice of a different woman back on the planet Earth.
So what are your questions?
RANDSDAY 2241
Negation, she thought.
A decision can be easy or it could be difficult.
The thunderstorm that crashed upon the capital city was a thing of beauty. The flash of lightning illuminated the streets and the buildings beyond the window with an electric blue glow. With the light reflected from her face back upon the inside surface she could see the winkles beneath her eyes and the streaks of gray in her dark hair.
She gave thought to the window before her.
It was both invisible and itself a thing of beauty. It separated and protected her from the outside environment and allowed her to see it in all its glory. She could watch the passage of the storm from the safety of her office because of the applied thought of a man.
Those who destroyed the works of men could not conceive of a pane of glass. Nor could they be taught how to make one and integrate it into a structure. The thoughts of rational men were nothing to them. And the works of men that resulted from the trains of rational thought were seen only as abominations that were to be smashed into dust.
They did not see the truth and they did not want to see the truth.
Reality is real.
Her parents had taught her this before she learned to read.
Understand this and you can understand everything.
But there were those alive who did not want to know. They actively sought ignorance, and they sought only to negate knowledge and the products of applied knowledge.
And now another of those men had stepped onto her world with the intent of negation, of murdering the people and smashing their works to nothing. There was nothing that he would be gained from such acts. It would be the sacrifice of actual things to nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Under the existing laws of her nation the subject of her present thought could simply be arrested and processed. With his death being the ultimate result.
But that would not solve the larger problem. The subject of the investigation was employed by a group of men back on Earth. The employers will simply hire another man to attack the worlds under her care. And the next time she may not be able to stop them.
The woman had witnessed too much of the horror of negation over the course of her life. She had seen her parents taken from her simply because they were the only sane people on an insane world. See had seen her husband murdered simply because he was her husband.
Would it ever end? How does one deal with such people?
The phone on her desk rang. She turned and quickly lifted the receiver to speak.
“Yes?”
A man’s voice at the far end replied.
“We’re ready to proceed, ma’am.”
“Do so.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A trade off then. Let the immediate subject live and use him to discover his employers.
And then eliminate them.
Across the city the subject of the conversation in question was sleeping naked in a hotel bed. But not for long. This would be a hostile encounter. He had not expected the police on any world, whom he normally thought of as no better than clowns, to break into his hotel room in full tactical mode. They should not have known of his origin or mission.
The arrest had been absolutely hostile. At no point was he allowed to speak, nor was he spoken to. He was gagged immediately by the black suited police strike team. He was not given any cover for the weather. He was dragged through the cold winter rain to the police assault team transport vehicle in the condition he normally slept in. On this night in the city of Landfall on the planet Freya he was completely naked.
Upon arrival at their headquarters he was deposited in a holding cell.
Except for the light panels, the steel door, and buttons that controlled the sink and toilet, all the features of the entire holding cell were made of concrete.
This was not a standard jail cell for a common criminal. The cops here on Freya had taken his presence on their planet seriously.
Very seriously.
Why? He thought.
He was certain he would soon know why.
The door of the holding cell opened outwards. A long stun stick was immediately thrust into the cell and upon his chest.
He was shocked into a state of complete inaction.
As he lay stunned on the floor the black suited cops entered the cell in mass. They cuffed him behind the back and inserted a rod between his arms and his back. The cops then lifted him by the rod and dragged him down a bleak and completely undecorated bureaucratic corridor. The cops who carried him were escorted by four more officers paired fore and aft.
Not one of them said a word to him.
He was dragged down the corridor and around a corner to the right. At the end of the second corridor he was carried into an interrogation room. There was a stainless steel table and two chairs. He was secured to one of the chairs by the ankles and wrists.
It was five minutes by his estimate before the door to the room opened again.
A woman stepped into the room and sat down at the table opposite of him.
The subject of the arrest took the time to visually examine the woman. She appeared to be a bit over fifty standard years of age with light stands of gray hair appearing in the neatly cut body of short black hair. The woman also had blue eyes. She was dressed as a civilian with a white office blouse and blue slacks. The woman wore a photo identification badge and carried an immaculate military service grade semiautomatic pistol in the custom black leather holster under her left shoulder.
I’m supposed to be frightened by this old broad? He thought. That was foolish of her, very foolish.
The man then took a close look at the I.D. badge. It was issued by the Central Security Agency of the Ursa Major Confederation. Below the photograph on the badge was the logo of the agency. This was in the form of a flag with a white “X” over a black field. He did not know that the symbol was technically called the Cross of Saint Andrew. He saw it as being identical to cross on the battle flag of the Confederate States of America. He saw it as their admission of being evil.
The name on her photo badge was Judith Stern and showed her rank as Director of the agency.
NO! He thought.
No! No! No! No!
The woman sitting opposite of him at the table was the true daughter of darkness. She was the absolute incarnation of evil herself.
Judith Stern was personally responsible for the murder of millions of people on his home world. No one, not a priest, nor a child, was exempt from her absolute depravity.
And he has not in the custody of any police agency. The Freyan CSA was every mercenary soldier’s worst nightmare. No mercenary soldier operating separately from an organized unit was safe from death by their Pest Control teams. And ultimately backing the CSA field teams were the planetary landing forces of the Ursa Major Confederation Army and Marine Corps.
Worlds in close proximity to Freya were effectively off limits to mercenary operations. And in the custody of the Freyan CSA he was already dead.
She looked up at him and spoke. Her voice was of solid authority, it was firm and without apparent emotion.
“Welcome to The Aquarium.”
She then asked him a question.
“Who are you?”
He did not answer.
There was a slight twitch on her right eyebrow.
She calmly repeated the question.
“Who are you?”
There was no point in screaming. He tried to reply clearly in a level voice.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Without a word she looked down and opened the folder on the table before her.
Printed documents? He thought. How primitive of them.
She removed a set of reading glasses from a pocket of her blouse and used them to read from the printed file.
“Your name is Michael Gratton. You were born in the City of New Boston on the planet Kennedy in the Alpha Centauri B system. You are the second son of the late Prime Minister Thomas Gratton. After the rescue and reprisal mission to that world your mother brought you as an infant to her family home in the city of Boston in the State of Massachusetts on Earth. You attended the Boston Latin School and the Federation Military Academy at West Point. As a junior officer you were wounded in action in a minor dust-up against a band of feral Muslims and subsequently received a knee joint replacement. You spent the remainder of your time in the army in staff positions and as an instructor at the academy. You were medically retired from the Federation Army with the rank of Major and emigrated to Xenophon in the Epsilon Indi system. You are now a minor stockholder in, and company grade officer of the Military Assistance Corporation based on Xenophon.”
Gratton stared at Director Stern silently. She had used the Freyan term for their crimes against his home world and the crimes they committed against his people. One of the many people of that world murdered by the Freyans was his own father.
Gratton continued to stare at her until he was able to speak without apparent emotion.
“You are wrong!” He replied. “My name is John Fletcher and I am a civilian.”
The planetary clown farce on Freya should not discovered this information on him along with the fact that he was traveling on a false set of identity documents. With the CSA he was clearly in the hands of a very competent intelligence agency of an absolutely evil nation.
Michael Gratton clearly saw that he was now in deep trouble.
Judith Stern stared straight at him without a visible flinch.
“Major Gratton, or whatever your current rank in the MAC-X Corporation is, you are traveling on a false set of documents, which is a felony. And you are also a known mercenary, which in the Ursa Major Confederation is a capital offense.”
Gratton looked up at her and replied calmly.
“My name is John Fletcher and I am a witness for our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Judith Stern did not budge or blink.
“No Major Gratton. You are a veteran officer of the Federation Army, which is a yellow flag for this agency. You are traveling on false identity documents, which is a red flag. And you are a member of a commercial organization whose sole purpose is to violate the rights of individuals and of sovereign nations, which is absolutely the black flag for us. Please explain to us why we should not air out your head?”
Gratton blinked.
He raised his voice to reply.
“There is nothing you can threaten me with!”
Stern responded in a calm voice.
“Of course not, there never is.”
What The Fuck did that mean?
Stern saw that Gratton was mystified. It was at this time she made her statement.
“Major Gratton, you and your backers seek to negate us -- to remove us from existence. We need to discover who your backers are and kill them. In order to do this we are sending you back to Earth. You will be kept under surveillance and through this we will find the people who trying to destroy us and we will kill all of them.”
Gratton now stared at her. He then closed his eyes and shook his head.
So far I had not broken from my cover story, I can still use it. He thought. It will work.
“My name is John Fletcher.” He cried out. “I am a witness for Our Lord Jesus Christ on this Godless world. Your people have turned from Our Lord at your eternal peril. Don’t you understand that?”
Judith Stern stared straight through him as if she were a shipboard laser burning through a starship hull. She then replied to him.
“Major Gratton, Reality is Real.”
With that final reply she closed the folder on the table and stood up. She spoke up to the staff members listening remotely.
“I’m finished.”
An officer opened the door for her from outside. As she departed more officers suddenly entered the interrogation room and hit him with the stun staff again. With full effect to full unconsciousness.
When Michael Gratton awoke he was back on Earth. The first thing he would hear was the voice of a different woman back on the planet Earth.
So what are your questions?
Monday, March 31, 2014
Space battle 1 (updated)
He (the Commandant of the space patrol) briefly dropped the handset of the telephone away from his face and looked at it.
Was the P.M. out of his bloody mind?
He returned the handset to the proper position and spoke again.
“Sir, we are unable to fire a warning shot in space.”
“Why not?” The P.M. replied.
Wow, he thought, the elected moron actually asked a valid question.
“Sir, laser beams are not visible in the vacuum of space.”
“What? How can that be? It’s done all the time in the movies?”
The Commandant mentally reminded himself that he was speaking to an elected official. Someone who was ignorant of anything outside of the realm of politics, such as the actual facts of nature.
“This is not the cinema, sir. And in any case the Concord is already off the planet. As such it is now subject to the laws and regulations of the Freyan Republic. We have no valid grounds to board her at this time.”
The Prime Minister responded with anger.
“Do you want your immortal soul to go to Hell? There is a child aboard that ship who is in the hands of unfit parents and who will never know the light of our lord Jesus Christ!”
The Commandant knew that to answer truthfully would result in his being fired by the P.M., but he had to do it.
“Prime Minister, the Concord is an Alissa Two class light merchant built and operated by the Freyaspace Corporation. This vessel is built with two mounts for class two beam lasers rated at five hundred megawatts each. Under Freyan law that vessel is authorized to be armed for self defense. As she is carrying an executive of the corporation and his family I would fully expect her to be so. And the attempt to seize a child passenger from her parents in open space is by interstellar law is clearly an act of piracy. As Commandant of the Space Patrol I must follow only the laws of nations and of nature. And you sir, can tell the Archbishop to go fuck himself.”
With that the Commandant hung up the phone.
He began the process of clearing his desk. The personal items he wanted to keep were neatly stacked in a bag on the desk. Everything else went straight into the trash can.
Within ten minutes there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.” He shouted.
The door opened. The familiar figure of the Executive Officer of the Space Patrol entered the room.
The Commandant spoke.
“Michael, I assume you have news for me?”
“Sir,” he said, “you have been relieved of command. I’ve been promoted and appointed to take your place.”
“So you finally made the rank of commander.”
“I’ve been promoted to the rank of captain, sir.”
The man who was now the former Commandant shook his head.
“Well, isn’t that nice?” He said. “You’ll have a nice title for the letters you’ll have to write.”
“Letters, sir?”
The former Commandant almost cracked a smile as he replied.
“The letters that you’ll have to write to parents and wives of the men you are sending up to their deaths. The Freyaspace Concord is an armed merchantman, and she out guns the entire space patrol. But it not my problem now.”
With that he picked up the bag with his personal belongings and departed from his former office.
Above planet the Freyaspace Concord continued to accelerate at the standard rate of ten meters per second/per second. In normal commercial operations to each the safe distance for the jump to hyperspace a ship would accelerate for the first half of the trip through normal space and them brake for the second half. It would to stand still with respect to the planet. For a world of the size and mass of Kennedy the standard trip would take five hours. To escape from the idiots on Kennedy Captain Kovac decided to simply accelerate all the way on the leg out and to perform the deceleration phase after the jump through hyperspace. In this special case the outbound leg would take three and a half hours.
They were a half hour into the outbound leg when they were interrupted.
The guard channel on the radio lit up.
“Freyaspace Concord, this is space guard cutter James Joyce. You will cease acceleration and prepare to be boarded.
Moron, thought Captain Kovac, they actually found an idiot who would take the mission.
Too bad.
Kovac read the sensors from the pilot’s station. He then rolled the ship so that both of the laser mounts would have a clear shot at the space guard cutter.
He then spoke on the intercom.
“Fire control stations, report when you are locked on the target.”
“Starboard mount, clear and locked.”
“Port side mount, clear and locked.”
The pilot of the space guard cutter repeated his call.
“Freyaspace Concord, cease acceleration or you will be fired upon.”
As he learned in basic ethics class while attending primary school the issuance of a threat was itself an act of coercion. And that once the line had been morally crossed that one must respond with open force.
Captain Kovac gave the order.
“Fire.”
In the vacuum of space the laser beams were invisible. Only upon striking the target did they become brightly visible and have an decisive effect. Both beams burned through into the cockpit of the cutter. The flight crew was both incinerated and exposed to vacuum at the same time. With the control system dead the life support system of the small craft also died. The boarding party riding aft of the cockpit would expire before the pilots of another space guard craft would dare to leave the planet.
Upon reaching the safe zone Captain Kovac made the jump to Earth.
There was one other casualty from this incident. Captain Michael Herman, the commandant of the Kennedy Space Guard, committed suicide by a gunshot to the head. He was denied a Christian burial by the Catholic Church.
Was the P.M. out of his bloody mind?
He returned the handset to the proper position and spoke again.
“Sir, we are unable to fire a warning shot in space.”
“Why not?” The P.M. replied.
Wow, he thought, the elected moron actually asked a valid question.
“Sir, laser beams are not visible in the vacuum of space.”
“What? How can that be? It’s done all the time in the movies?”
The Commandant mentally reminded himself that he was speaking to an elected official. Someone who was ignorant of anything outside of the realm of politics, such as the actual facts of nature.
“This is not the cinema, sir. And in any case the Concord is already off the planet. As such it is now subject to the laws and regulations of the Freyan Republic. We have no valid grounds to board her at this time.”
The Prime Minister responded with anger.
“Do you want your immortal soul to go to Hell? There is a child aboard that ship who is in the hands of unfit parents and who will never know the light of our lord Jesus Christ!”
The Commandant knew that to answer truthfully would result in his being fired by the P.M., but he had to do it.
“Prime Minister, the Concord is an Alissa Two class light merchant built and operated by the Freyaspace Corporation. This vessel is built with two mounts for class two beam lasers rated at five hundred megawatts each. Under Freyan law that vessel is authorized to be armed for self defense. As she is carrying an executive of the corporation and his family I would fully expect her to be so. And the attempt to seize a child passenger from her parents in open space is by interstellar law is clearly an act of piracy. As Commandant of the Space Patrol I must follow only the laws of nations and of nature. And you sir, can tell the Archbishop to go fuck himself.”
With that the Commandant hung up the phone.
He began the process of clearing his desk. The personal items he wanted to keep were neatly stacked in a bag on the desk. Everything else went straight into the trash can.
Within ten minutes there was a knock on the door.
“Come in.” He shouted.
The door opened. The familiar figure of the Executive Officer of the Space Patrol entered the room.
The Commandant spoke.
“Michael, I assume you have news for me?”
“Sir,” he said, “you have been relieved of command. I’ve been promoted and appointed to take your place.”
“So you finally made the rank of commander.”
“I’ve been promoted to the rank of captain, sir.”
The man who was now the former Commandant shook his head.
“Well, isn’t that nice?” He said. “You’ll have a nice title for the letters you’ll have to write.”
“Letters, sir?”
The former Commandant almost cracked a smile as he replied.
“The letters that you’ll have to write to parents and wives of the men you are sending up to their deaths. The Freyaspace Concord is an armed merchantman, and she out guns the entire space patrol. But it not my problem now.”
With that he picked up the bag with his personal belongings and departed from his former office.
Above planet the Freyaspace Concord continued to accelerate at the standard rate of ten meters per second/per second. In normal commercial operations to each the safe distance for the jump to hyperspace a ship would accelerate for the first half of the trip through normal space and them brake for the second half. It would to stand still with respect to the planet. For a world of the size and mass of Kennedy the standard trip would take five hours. To escape from the idiots on Kennedy Captain Kovac decided to simply accelerate all the way on the leg out and to perform the deceleration phase after the jump through hyperspace. In this special case the outbound leg would take three and a half hours.
They were a half hour into the outbound leg when they were interrupted.
The guard channel on the radio lit up.
“Freyaspace Concord, this is space guard cutter James Joyce. You will cease acceleration and prepare to be boarded.
Moron, thought Captain Kovac, they actually found an idiot who would take the mission.
Too bad.
Kovac read the sensors from the pilot’s station. He then rolled the ship so that both of the laser mounts would have a clear shot at the space guard cutter.
He then spoke on the intercom.
“Fire control stations, report when you are locked on the target.”
“Starboard mount, clear and locked.”
“Port side mount, clear and locked.”
The pilot of the space guard cutter repeated his call.
“Freyaspace Concord, cease acceleration or you will be fired upon.”
As he learned in basic ethics class while attending primary school the issuance of a threat was itself an act of coercion. And that once the line had been morally crossed that one must respond with open force.
Captain Kovac gave the order.
“Fire.”
In the vacuum of space the laser beams were invisible. Only upon striking the target did they become brightly visible and have an decisive effect. Both beams burned through into the cockpit of the cutter. The flight crew was both incinerated and exposed to vacuum at the same time. With the control system dead the life support system of the small craft also died. The boarding party riding aft of the cockpit would expire before the pilots of another space guard craft would dare to leave the planet.
Upon reaching the safe zone Captain Kovac made the jump to Earth.
There was one other casualty from this incident. Captain Michael Herman, the commandant of the Kennedy Space Guard, committed suicide by a gunshot to the head. He was denied a Christian burial by the Catholic Church.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Space Battle 1
This is a scene I just wrote for the novel project. I haven't inserted it into a chapter yet.
He (the Commandant of the space patrol) briefly dropped the handset of the telephone away from his face and looked at it.
Was the P.M. out of his bloody mind?
He returned the handset to the proper position and spoke again.
“Sir, we are unable to fire a warning shot in space.”
“Why not?” The P.M. replied.
Wow, he thought, the elected moron actually asked a valid question.
“Sir, laser beams are not visible in the vacuum of space.”
“What? How can that be? It’s done all the time in the movies?”
The Commandant mentally reminded himself that he was speaking to an elected official. Someone who was ignorant of anything outside of the realm of politics, such as the actual facts of nature.
“This is not the cinema, sir. And in any case the Concord is already off the planet. As such it is now subject to the laws and regulations of the Freyan Republic. We have no valid grounds to board her at this time.”
The Prime Minister responded with anger.
“Do you want your immortal soul to go to Hell? There is a child aboard that ship who is in the hands of unfit parents and who will never know the light of our lord Jesus Christ!”
The Commandant knew that to answer truthfully would result in his being fired by the P.M., but he had to do it.
“Prime Minister, the Concord is an Alissa Two class light merchant built and operated by the Freyaspace Corporation. This vessel is built with two mounts for class two beam lasers rated at five hundred megawatts each. Under Freyan law that vessel is authorized to be armed for self defense. As she is carrying an executive of the corporation and his family I would fully expect her to be so. And the attempt to seize a child passenger from her parents in open space is by interstellar law is clearly an act of piracy. As Commandant of the Space Patrol I must follow only the laws of nations and of nature. And you sir, can tell the Archbishop to go fuck himself.”
With that the Commandant hung up the phone.
Monday, August 26, 2013
A Bit Of Work
The beginning of the seventh chapter of the current novel:
Did I say that I hate having to supervise from a distance?
We held mock space battles and boarding exercises with the Guardian as the target ship. In each exercise companies of the Ranger battalion would take turns as boarders and defenders.
My Fourth Incarnation was a bit annoyed at my constant presence on the command deck aboard the Eagle.
“Don’t you have a desk on the ground?” He once asked me with a clearly annoyed voice as we observed a boarding exercise.
“Yes.” I replied to him politely.
“You also have a wife.”
I turned to look at him silently. He spoke again.
“Seriously, I remember what happened to our marriage in the first incarnation.”
“Our marriage?”
Number Four took a very annoyed and lecturer tone of voice in his reply.
“Evelyn Boatman Number One and our one and only Susan.”
“Oh yes, I remember.”
“She went back to Earth and it was our fault.”
And she remained on Earth until the end.
I spoke again.
“Our fault?”
Number Four looked forward and lowered his voice.
“Fine, I understand, the language isn’t set up for multiple incarnations of a person to have a conversation, particularly concerning a private matter. The point is that I remember being overworked while building the escape fleet, I remember the divorce, and I remember the subsequent results. And so should you, and I don’t want to see the whole thing happen again.”
“You aren’t married to Cheryl.”
He turned to speak at me again.
“And the way you are pushing yourself right now neither will you. Seriously Number Three, you need to take a break, put on some music group files and dance with her. She’ll love it.”
I silently stared at him.
“Oh come off it!” He said. “Don’t give me the silent stare treatment!”
I broke off the stare and looked about the command deck. Everyone on deck was putting on the appearance of being hardwired and fully dedicated to their work stations.
Number Four spoke again.
“Look, you can call it a rehearsal for the arrival celebration, the point is that you need a break.”
“What about you?”
“I’m not supervising this entire operation, you are.”
“You also want me off of your ship?”
“Yes.” He replied. “Just trust me, we’ll get it right.”
I had no idea how to respond to the argument. So I took a break. I clearly needed it. And Cheryl and I conceived our first daughter.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
A Work In Progress
I've already written the epilogue of my current novel project:
Time passes and life continues.
Zoe grew up as a fully human young woman and pursued the man of her dreams. In this case my fourth incarnation, for this I don’t blame her at all, but then I am clearly biased.
The wedding ceremony and celebration was held in Landfall on Zion. A live band played for the event.
Zoe made the first request.
“Could you please play ‘Have You Ever Had It Blue?’”
“My pleasure ma’am.” The lead singer replied.
The fellow actually resembled Paul Weller of The Style Council, even down to the British teeth.
As the happy couple began to dance Cheryl turned to me and asked a question.
“Why don’t we dance that way?”
“Let’s try it.” I replied.
I stood up and took her hand.
Human Life is a joyous and a learning experience.
Live with it.
Thursday, August 01, 2013
Unusued Portion
I originally wrote this segment for a novel in progress. I eventually used part of it as dialogue in the second chapter:
What are your questions on this block of instruction?
So why are we here?
Why did we escape the Solar System and settle on the planets of Alpha Centauri?
The fact is that we live in a dynamic universe. A universe whose internal material components are subject to change by entirely natural means. Life, including human life, is the result of a series of an entirely natural processes. The process of life is also a localized acceleration of the process of entropy, the conversion of matter to energy. Simply by living each of us is accelerating the ultimate decline of the known universe. Please don’t tell the environmentalists.
For simple forms of life survival is simply an accident of nature. For Humanity survival is the result of the function of the active mind. And we will think and do what is necessary to live what is properly a human life.
Believe it or not there were people back on Earth who objected to our escape from extinction and actively worked to prevent it.
I am not kidding.
Some of those people believed that our lives were the result of the will of a being commonly known as God. And that the event that would ultimately destroy all life on Earth was also the will of God. They believed that the extinction event was brought about because of our collective sins. The primary sin being the constant refusal to obey the commands of God as transmitted through his self appointed spokesmen. The vilest of our sins being the persistent habit of actually thinking on the basis of the actual facts of reality. The believers in the God Premise deemed us guilty of these crimes and wanted us to sit down without resistance and die for our sins.
Absolutely not, we decided.
The idea that God could eliminate Mankind at a thought and did not require an actually natural event to kill off our species simply did not enter their minds.
This assumes of course that those who believe in the concept of God had actually functioning minds.
There were also those who believed in the concept of material equality. That everyone had to be materially equal regardless of the actual amount of productive thought and labor. They believed it was unfair for us who could build starships to escape the Solar System. We who could should not do so because it was unfair to those who could not. That the truly fair course of action was to do nothing and for all of us to die together.
This view, which was purely emotional, was clearly wrong.
And finally there were the self-appointed elites. They believed that only they had the best of the collective interests of Mankind in mind. And that only the best and the brightest members of the Human collective, as defined by themselves, should be allowed to escape extinction by the means available.
That the elites have always lived off the thought and labor of those they deemed inferior and invariably made decisions for their own benefit was never, ever, mentioned by them or their willing servants.
The fact was that we would not sacrifice ourselves for the benefit of what was in fact a band of lazy and mindless losers.
The fundamental moral value is life. But human life is not simply physical existence. The human mode of life also requires an active mental existence.
In order to live as human beings we must see things as they are and act as we conceive as necessary.
Live with it.
What are your questions on this block of instruction?
Friday, March 01, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
First Chapter
I just posted the first chapter of my novel on my Live Journal page.
This is not set in the Official Traveller Universe.
http://otherles.livejournal.com/11664.html
This is not set in the Official Traveller Universe.
http://otherles.livejournal.com/11664.html
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