Looking back over my life, I know I lived a good one. I was born to a middle class family. I got decent grades and went to an above average college. My first job, after college, was at an office in Maine. Assistant Manager was my official title at a medium sized paper company called, Brown and White Paper Company . It was at this job that I met my wife, Elizabeth. She was my first and only love. It must have been fate that the first woman I fell in love with was the one I would spend my life with. Someone was looking out for me.

After 10 years together, we moved south to Virginia. I worked at a different branch of B&W. By this time, I had climbed up a few rungs of the company ladder. Me and Elizabeth were blessed with our first child around the time I was chosen to run the Virginia branch. I was a young buck compared to the men who ran the entire organization. I aspired to one day join them in that highly esteemed conference room.I just had to bide my time and not do anything too drastic to mess up all the good I had going for me.

My time came another 10 years later. I received a call about midday from the CEO of Brown & White. He told me that the board of directors wanted me to fly to the headquarters in Seattle to talk about an opportunity. I was delightfully surprised. I confirmed the scheduling and thanked him. The next call I made was to my wife. Then I went straight to the airport from work.

Once in Seattle, the men there told me that I would be relocated to Seattle to run the entire eastern operation. I was overjoyed. My wife and, by this time, two children relished in my enthusiasm for the new city when I arrived back in Virginia. We packed up and drove cross-country. I spent 30 years doing that job. I retired at the age of 70 with a nice pension.

Looking back over those years, I know I had a good life. Rarely was I ever uncomfortable. Oh God! Rarely was I ever uncomfortable. I did not live life, life lived me.

A long long time ago, deep in a dense jungle, there lived a man and a woman. The woman had long luxurious brown hair and sparkling brown eyes. She was beautiful. The man had a well sculpted physique and blue eyes that reflected the sky. They laid on a thick moss covered boulder, one day, near a river. The river was rocky and fast flowing. Nearby was a waterfall that spilled a thousand feet down into a great, dark pool.

The man got up from beside her, and walked towards the waterfall along the tops of rocks. She watched as he neared the waterfall’s edge. He bounded from one dry rock top to the next. Where the water dropped off was a large rock with moss covering the portion above water. The man leaped to this point and stood looking over the edge. He raised his arms and dove head first over the cliff.

The woman was shocked. She got up and followed after him. She leaped from rock to rock. when she arrived at the large rock on the edge she got down and crawled to the edge. The man was no where to be seen. She continued searching. A small bright something started to come up from the deep. It was the man. He cheered her on. He told her to jump.

She was scared. She had never jumped from this height before. The water rushing past gurgled in her ears. The moss under her toes felt spongy. Her hand started to tremble. The man shouted again, goading her on. She was nervous. He told her everything would be alright. She backed up away from the edge. On the far side of the large rock, she started a run toward the edge. She built up momentum, but at the last second she tried to stop. Her foot slipped and she fell backwards. Her head clipped the mossy rock, knocking her unconscious, her limp body fell off the edge and tumbled into the pool below. She went deep into the dark water.

The man sucked in a big breath and dove under to find her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her up to the surface. She coughed up water and came back around. He kissed her forehead and swam toward shore with her on his back. The two crawled up the sandy beach and laid on their backs to catch their breath. Before they could, the man heard a stick break in the woods.

He knew what that meant. He got up, grabbed her hand, and led her to a tree near the pool’s edge. The tree had a fat trunk and a tall, reaching branches. He put his hands on her hips and tossed her high into the tree. At the peak of the toss, she grabbed the nearest branch and held tight. He told her to climb. She did.

Near the jungle’s edge, two shiny green eyes peered out at the pair. The man grabbed a rock and prepared for combat. A jaguar, with spots black as night on a bright yellow coat, stalked out of the jungle and growled at the man. He shouted back. It looked hungry. The man raised the rock and shouted again. The jaguar continued to get closer. The man hurled the stone at the ferocious feline. It dodged to the side and ran at the man. Behind him was the sheer cliff face, and to his side was the jungle. The jaguar pounced at him, but he rolled toward the jungle. It missed and it’s front claws hit the rock wall. The man grabbed a heavy stick from the jungle’s edge and swung at the jaguar. It hit it’s hind quarters and shattered. The jaguar roared. It limped around to face the man again. He had only the stump handle from the shattered stick in his hand. The jaguar pounced onto the man with it’s injured leg. He was on his back. The jaguar’s claws dug into his flesh. He screamed. It’s mouth was going to bite his neck. He jammed the stump into it’s eye. It jumped off him. It still had one good eye.

The woman, high up in the tree, watched the scene. She knew if he was killed, she was next. She continued to climb higher. As she climbed, the branch she stood on broke. The pieces rained down upon the two fighters. The man grabbed the nearest stick and swung again. This time he hit the jaguar in the face. It was delirious for a moment. He swung again. It’s neck cracked. He was furious. He swung again. The jaguar’s face erupted in blood. It fell to it’s side. A weak growl escaped it’s fatigued body. The man picked up a mossy rock and finished the jaguar off.

Chapters [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 ]

We finally knew where in the universe we were. Our position was less than one light-year from the star system Alpha Centauri, a stepping-stone to Sharmali Centauri, the nearest star-system to Earth with a habitable planet. An astronomer in Sweden found the planet, Sharmali, in 2034. Man colonized it in 2042 and it has thrived since. The Federal presence in this area was relatively light, as there is only one planet with a population numbering only in the billions. Other systems in the Federal Colonies have a few planets with quadrillions of citizens.

I was on my way to turn myself in for grand theft water. Jude and Rudy were flying on my starboard side in my ship, the Sativa. Guile was in the Waldron on the port side. I could see Jude through the green tinted cabin windows. She looked beautiful in front of a starlight background. Guile radioed me when we were 1000 km out from Sharmali Station.

“Sir, we are nearing detection range. Should we wait here?” he asked.

“Affirmative,” I responded. I opened a new channel, “Mick, you read me?”

“Loud and clear,” the familiar voice said.

“Alright, buddy, I am putting the crew in your hands. Cutting all radio contact now. I hope you know what you’re doing,”

“I hope so too,” he replied.

I neared the station. It was a defense station. Shuttle bays lined its lower walls. A hundred or so small, one-man ships waited eagerly to destroy any threat to the planet. I ignored incoming radio signals. The freight lazily cruised toward the station. I killed the forward engines and drifted. No warning signs, yet. Soon, they would run my ship ID numbers and know exactly whom I was.

“Attention, your ship is listed stolen. Prepare to be boarded,” said a transmission on the emergency channel.

“Here it comes,” I said out-loud to myself. I unhooked my harness and waited. Ten ships with flashing blue and red lights launched from the station. They descended on my position. The sheriff landed on the freight. I opened the airlock for him. I could hear his heavy boot steps as he neared the bridge door.

“Open up, this is the Federal Sheriff of Sharmali, we know it’s you Kox,”

“Oh great, who is this clown?” I said under my breath. I opened the door without getting out of my chair.

“Stand up, you’re under arrest,” the sherrif replied. His voice sounded eerily familiar.

“Franky!?” I was shocked.

“Shut up Cap,” he said through clenched teeth.

“How? I knew Mick had a plan, but — how?” I asked.

“You have the right to remain silent,” he was handcuffing me,”anything you say or do can be used against you in the court of Law. You have the right to an attorney”

Sheriff Franky escorted me out to his ship. We left and had a chance to talk while the other officers flew the freighter into the fueling port.

“Mick and I were transported aboard this incredible ship, Cap,” he told me. “Technology like you wouldn’t believe. I thought they had killed Mick. I saw his dead body, but it was missing the head and spine. I guess they have a way of preserving consciousness artificially somehow. The aliens gave a false command from Federal to promote me to sheriff of this station. I flew Mick’s ship into port, and no one asked any questions. They gave me a gun, this fancy uniform and everything,”

“My God, ol’ Mick’s done it again,” I laughed.

“Look, sir, I am going to have to put you in a jail cell until your trial in 24 hours,” he explained.

“I understand.”

Franky flew us into Sharmali Station. He had his own special port labeled with a 6-point star above, the sheriff symbol. He led me off the ship in handcuffs, through a series of hallways and down a locked elevator. We arrived in a stinky jail pit. Iron bars sectioned off 4 x 4 foot rooms with toilet holes and cots made of metal.

“In here, scum,” he said. Franky was selling the role. He pushed me into an empty cell and I fell onto the hard concrete.

“When’s chow time?” I asked.

“Whenever I say it is, boy!” Franky shot back. Criminals make the best police officers.

Guile, Jude, and Rudy were waiting for a transmission from Mick 1000 kilometers out from the station. Mick was waiting until Franky passed along the message that refueling of the freighter was complete. The crew fell asleep. It took almost a day to refuel a freight of that size.

“Attention! Franky will not respond to my messages. Get up you knuckle heads!”

“I resent that,” said Jude, her eyes remained closed.

“Aw little lady, get your ass up and over to the station,”

“What’s the deal, Mick?” asked Guile, rubbing his eyes.

“Wake up. Kox is in jail and Franky is M. I. A.,” he responded

“Great, I knew we couldn’t trust that guy,” Jude said.

“Let’s whoop some ass!” shouted Guile as he punched his engines leaving Jude and Rudy in his wake.

“The captain’s cell is number 117. From the outside, it’s 16 degrees off center counter-clockwise, 12 meters up,” Mick relayed to Guile.

“Read you,” Guile said. He was ready for action. His ship was armed with a deadly accurate laser cannon.

“Punch in this access code, I am going to take control of your laser,” Mick instructed.

“Your commands will be delayed, I can do it,” Guile responded.

“You are a knuckle head.”

“Mick, what should we do?” asked Rudy.

“You are the decoy,”

“Oh greaaaaat,” said Jude.

“Fly in high. The tower will see you first and send out the militia while Guile frees the cap,”

“And the freight?” asked Rudy.

“The captain is our priority right now,”

“Mick, I swear, if this plan goes down the shitter, I’ll have your head,”

“Too late,” said Mick. He laughed. They all did. It was nervous laughter.

Guile came in towards the station from directly below. A gravity sensor was the only thing that could detect that blind spot. Jude and Rudy distracted the tower from above, so the gravity sensor trigger was never set. Guile’s laser was strong enough to melt the hull like butter. He aimed 16 degrees counter-clockwise 12 meters up. He fired. The shot was two degrees off clockwise. I saw the man in the cell next to me disintegrate in a fiery mess before my eyes. Fear like you would not believe shot through my body. I jumped to the window and peered outside. This was not in the original plan. Guile fired again. This time he was on target. I dove for the far corner of my cell. The wall erupted in a fireball. I was whisked outside by the tremendous pull of air rushing out. A human body can survive for 8 minutes in the dead of space.

These were the most uncomfortable minutes of my life. My eyes bulged out of their sockets. The temperature must have been negative 50 degrees Celsius. My body was numb instantly. The blood in my veins was like syrup. I was suffocating to boot. Guile opened his airlock and the computer guided his ship for a perfect recovery. They designed the airlock for catching stray bodies. It was a normal occurrence in our world. It shot hot fresh O2 into the sealed airlock. I was alive again. I took a seat behind Guile.

“You fried somebody next to me,” I said.

“Collateral damage,” he said coldly. “Jude’s in trouble topside,”

Continued…

Chapters [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]

We were destitute. We escaped certain doom, but uncertain doom was not much better. We had plenty of water, but food was another story. The freighter had rations for a six man crew to last two months. Fuel would run out before then. We had to find a source of He-3 if we were going to make it out of this alive.

The only source we knew was the giant sphere of assorted gasses that almost killed us. The giant that did kill Franky and Mick. Aw, Mick, a man I  had known since flight school. The best man at Jude and my wedding. I wished it had been me out there, but then I remembered Jude. I couldn’t do that to her.

“Capt— come — Kox — Read me? Kox the Ox. Come in.” A scrambled message came through on my terminal. Only one man knew that nickname. I must have heard it wrong.

“Jude what frequency is that message on?” I asked. She was my communications operator.

“No frequency I’ve ever seen. It isn’t registering on our server. I don’t even know how it got through,” she said. Her puzzled expression confirmed it.

“Can I reply?” I was hopeful.

“Sorry, I don’t know, um- well if we just broadcast on all frequencies it’s bound to be the right one,” she replied.

“Do it.”

“Broadcasting,” she said.

“Mick, that you buddy?” I said into a small speaker on my terminal.

“Kox! God man — had me worrie–” the voice replied through static.

“Had you worried? I thought you were dead,” I responded.

“This place — it’s great. So bright. I love it here. Wish you could be here, buddy,” the static was mostly gone. Jude had a way with comm. That’s why I married her. Not because she can twist the right knob, but because she did what I wanted without me having to ask.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“The food is great, just like ma’ made back home,”

“Man, that’s amazing,” tears swelled in my eyes, “Mick, we’re gonna come get you. Give me your coordinates.”

“Not this time, Ox”

“Quit foolin’ around, give me your coordinates,”

“No can do,”

“Gi-give me your coordinates! Tha-that’s an order!” My voice quivered.

“You have to take care of Jude,” he replied. I knew he was right. Mick had always been smarter than me, “I’ll be right here for you, buddy, always.”

“You’re right. Yah always were,” the radio was silent for a few minutes. My mind reeled. “Where are you transmitting from?”

“That gas giant was no planet. It was some kind of alien ship. It used gas to hide itself. My body was teleported inside. Franky wasn’t so lucky, God rest his soul. My brain is connected to their ship somehow. I can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel anything I want. I can access their system too, just dont ask me how,”

“They wanted our water,” I said. It was the most valuable commodity in the universe.

“Bingo,”

” We still have a teraliter left,”

“I told them to leave you alone, and they listened, don’t know why,”

“They know who they’re messing with!” I joked.

“Ha-ha, you know me. Look, I can access their starmaps. I’ll give you a safe route home. There is an outpost near your position. You can turn yourselves in there,”

“That’s great you have a map, but there’s no way I’m turning myself in, not after all this,”

“I’ve got a plan,” he said. I believed him.

Continued…

Chapters [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 ]

The gas giant was fewer than 10 kilometers away. The first effects of the incoming planet was the magnetic field. It engulfed the ship. Each of us could feel an increasing charge in our bodies. It was like static electricity in every inch of our being. Next was the crushing gravity. We were already pushed into our seats from the freighter’s powerful engines. Now we had the force of a billion billion tiny particles pulling on us. Everything felt heavy. Flipping switches became a difficult task. Steering became impossible.

“My chest is caving in, I can’t breathe!” Jude cried.

“We need to lose some weight,” I said between strained breaths,”and more power to engines.”

“Got it Cap,” said Guile. He was well built. The best prepared to make the journey to steerage. He undid his harness and rolled out of his chair. He slid down the floor and fell onto the wall. The artificial gravity that normally kept us walking on the floor could not compete with an entire planet. He opened the door out to the hall. It  slammed open. He fell through the opening and landed on the adjacent wall. He took many heavy steps to the end, where steerage was. The gravity was now incredibly intense. Jude was passed out. I could barely grip the steering wheel. Rudy breathed hard, but was still with me.

Guile twisted the knob to the door, but it’s design had it swing away from the gravity. It felt to Guile like 300 pounds. He put his heavy boots against it, grabbed the handle and pushed hard. It creaked open. He slid the tip of his boot in the opening and pushed again. This time it opened enough for him to get a good handhold. He pushed once more and it flew open. He slipped inside, the metal door slammed shut behind him. BANG! ANG-Ang-ang. It reverberated in his ears and made them ring. His thighs burned and his joints ached. He had to make it to the emergency booster switch. It was a simple terminal near the reactor cores, about 15 feet away from the door. During normal operation this is a thought-less activity. Now, it is a daunting feat of strength and grit. Guile scrunched his face and lifted that first boot.  It hit the  metal hull of the ship and made a dull thud. His clothes weighed heavy. He quickly pulled on his laces and the knot came undone. He stepped again and the boot slipped off. Any weight was multiplied in this environment. He pulled the other boot’s laces, this foot’s sock came with the boot. He was lighter, but still only half way there. He took another step. His hair was heavy. He stepped again. His radio ripped through his pants and fell to the floor. One last step. He fell to his hands and knees and crawled to the terminal. He found the strength to activate emergency thrusters. The ship sped away from the planet. The gravity weakened.

They were safe for a few minutes. Jude came back around. She sucked in huge gulps of air. Rudy and I watched the distance to the planet. He quickly tried to calculate the amount of H2O we could hold on to and still escape. He had always been good with numbers. Rudy was a thin man with one eye missing. In it’s place was an implant that let him see infrared, ultraviolet, and zoom. I had always said that I would get one if I lost an eye.

“Sir, based on these readings, we can ditch half of the payload and still escape.”

“Hear that Guile?” I said over the ship’s loudspeaker.

“Loud and clear,” he replied into the steerage terminal.

“Make it so,” I said.

The emergency boosters had spent their entire hold. They work by storing a by-product of the fusion reaction, H-He. A normally impossible molecule, made possible by the incredible pressures and temperatures in the reactor core. When shot directly into the engine they cause an after-burn effect that propels the ship faster.

Guile worked to release the cargo. The planet neared again. It was relentless. Guile climbed out of steerage and walked down a side-hall to the cargo hold. 9.5 teraliters of H2O was enough for all of them to live out their days in comfort and luxury. It was painful to let it go, but being crushed to death under thousands of pounds of noxious gas was slightly less so. He accessed the terminal that opened the cargo bay doors. On this ship, they had been modified to allow liquid in the cargo hold. The doors opened and water poured from the tail end of the ship. It swirled behind them and spiraled into the gas giant.

“Alright, Guile. That’s enough we’re out of the gravity well,” I said over the radio. Guile’s radio was in steerage. He didn’t get the message. We were losing decaliters by the second. Gold was pouring out our ass.

“Guile! Close the damn doors!” I repeated on radio. No response.

“Guile! Close’em! NOW!” I shouted into the loudspeaker.

“Read you, Cap,” He replied into the terminal.

By now we had only 1 teraliter left. Enough to support a small space station, but far from the 9.5 we started with. Guile came back into the bridge after we had safely gotten away from the planet’s gravity and electromagnetic influence. It no longer knew where we were, or rather, it wasn’t chasing us. I had no clue if it knew anything. I guess I didn’t know much then, because we still had no idea where in the universe we were.

Continued…

Posted in Space Bandits ]]> http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/space-bandits-5/feed/ 6 Doug gasgiant2 http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/space-tales-4/ http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/space-tales-4/#comments Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:24:41 +0000 Doug Lance http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/?p=202 ]]>

Chapters [ 1 | 2 | 3 ]

“Give me a location, Jude,” I said. We had just jumped through folded space, unguided. I assumed everything arrived together, since any other arrangement and we’d all be dead.

“Negative, sir,” Jude said back.

“What do you mean ‘negative’?” I asked.

“I have no clue where we are. Gravity mapping gives me nothing. No communications on any frequency. We’re lost, sir,”

“No, we’re safe,” I said and smiled. It was true, the police had no idea where we were. We had stolen 9.5 teraliters of H2O from TransAqua shipping company, and gotten away clean as a whistle.

“Listen up crew,” I said over radio to the entire, mostly vacant ship. Rudy and Guile heard me from the bottom deck and Mick from steerage, “We don’t know where the hell we are, but I do know we got away with it!”

“Yahh!” Mick said, alone. The rest of the crew cheered.

“But we’re not out of the woods yet. Lets get back in our ships and figure out where the hell we are,”

The crew used the freight ship as an outpost to explore their new location in space. The ships ran on He-3, a helium ion that can be used to create a sustained nuclear fusion reaction, the same process that creates energy in the sun. It was normally found in abundance on gas giants.

Me and my crew were well stocked for survival. We had enough fuel to power our ships for a week. If we dipped into the freighters fuel tank, a month. Food would run out before the fuel did. We had enough water to support millions, forget about the 6 people lost in space. We were ready to explore and reconnect with civilization.

Jude used a gravity mapping technique to find all sources of gravitational flux near their position. With extremely sensitive equipment, all gravity pulling on a weight, no matter how insignificant, is registered. Given enough time, she would have a rough 3-D map of their position. Mapping at the speed of light, Jude kept me updated on any potential fuel sources or civilized planets, preferably wealthy ones.

A week afte the jump, Rudy and Guile had just tapped the freighters fuel tank, when I received a message from Jude.

“Sir, I found something big,” she said through static.

“I’m on my way,” I said. I made my way to the communications tower on top of the freighter, “What is it, Jude?”

“Sir, it’s a gas giant. I finally found the mass pulling on everything in this area. It’s about Jupiter sized,”

“Outstanding. I will have Rudy and Guile check it out, keep it up Jude,” I said and walked out of the Comm-station. I grabbed the radio off my hip and relayed the message. My men refueled and went to explore the new planet. Back in the main bridge, I sent the orders to Franky and Mick who were already far from the freighter.

“We read you sir, new coordinates confirmed, stand-by,” replied Mick.

I patiently waited until my men arrived at the planet. I could see their position on my terminal. A 3-D hologram projected in the middle of a 5 foot wide cylinder. I saw tons of dust and tiny specks orbiting a huge globe, and two little white dots with code-names and verification IDs flying towards it. Franky and Mick were the first to arrive at the planet.

“No signs of life, sir, no comm, no visual activity. It’s a dead planet,” relayed Mick. At this distance our messages were delayed a few minutes.

“Alright, Mick, go into low orbit and scan the upper atmosphere. We are looking for He-3 and any organics,”

“Affirmative, sir,” Mick replied. He followed out the orders and fifteen minutes later I received, “Sir, we found something, some thing.”

“What is it, Mick?” I asked. No response, “I say again, what is it, Mick? Do you copy?”

“Sir, we are nearing the planet now,” it was Guile on the other ship, “What are our orders?”

“I lost radio with Mick. Do you have comm or visual?” I sent back.

“Negative, sir. There is a lot of magnetic interference coming from the core of this planet,” Guile replied.

“SIR! Get Guile and Rudy outta’ here! This planet is, is alive! Ahh!” A frantic message from Mick came in.

“God damnit, pull back Guile, now!”

“My god, sir, Mick he’s, his ship, it’s gone, sir. Mick and Franky, they’re both dead.” Guile relayed. He had already pulled back a safe distance, but he was witness to the giant planet moving to consume his companions ship. It was as if the planet had a mind of it’s own and could move itself through space. Imagine Jupiter moving through space like a fly through your room. “Sir, it’s coming for us, what are our orders?”

“Get back to the ship,” I ordered.

“It will follow us,” Guile said.

“I am aware of that,” I replied.

“Copy that, sir, ETA 10 minutes,” Guile said.

Jude and I scrambled to warm up the freighters engines. We now had 7 minutes to do what normally took 20. We went to steerage. Jude was frantically pushing buttons on the command module keyboard. 6 minutes to get the engines functioning. I left Jude to finish that task, while I ran to the bridge to check on Guile. He was 3 minutes out and the planet was right behind him.

“Jude, we gotta go, now, what’s the status–” I began to say over radio, but I was pushed back into my chair as the engines kicked on.

“Fully functional, Sir,” she replied.

“Excellent work, get up here,”

I steered the huge freight away from the incoming planet. Guile was behind, but catching up. We were at full speed. Guile’s nimble ship landed on mine as we sped away. He secured his load and both crew members came aboard. The massive freighter was being pulled into the planets strong gravity. I readied the jump engines, but without Mick we could not override the safety measures. We were doomed. I told the crew to brace themselves, this could be it, the end. The planet gained. It’s gravity was pulling on us inside the freighter now. We could feel doom sucking us in.

“I don’t want to die, I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die!” Jude was crying.

“Shut up will yah! The Cap’n has got us outta tougher spots,” Guile said.

“Strap yourselves down, this is gonna be one wild ride,” I said.

Continued…

Imagine your body is put into a state of timeless sleep. You could slumber for a hundred or hundred thousand years without causing any damage. The time comes when you awake. You are floating in an abyss, free of light. At first, you think, “This is the afterlife,” but slowly your eyes adjust. The light around you comes into focus. You see stars upon stars. In every direction there are millions of specks of every color. It feels like you are floating with no sense of up or down. A round door below you opens and a bright white light pours out. The light reveals the globe in which you are drifting. A man floats through the door and tells you about your new environment; it is a giant wagon-wheel space station orbiting Earth, the center of which you are near. It is a great enclosed structure that supports human life in outer space. Around you are thousands of people living out their daily lives hundreds of miles from the Earth. You only have one simple question for your new guide: “Why would humanity want to live in space?”

The reasons for Mankind to move to space are numerous, the most universal being freedom. In space, Man has freedom from government oppression, religious discrimination, scientific restrictions, social stratification, and, most obviously, gravity.

As of right now, there are few laws governing space. The base of space laws is the Outer Space Treaty. It is signed and ratified by all space-faring nations. It states that no country can place nuclear weapons or any other weapons of mass destruction in orbit of Earth or station them in outer space. Interestingly, the Treaty does not prohibit the placement of conventional weapons in orbit. The Treaty also states that all moons, asteroids, and planets are the property of Mankind, meaning that no one person or group of people can claim any objects from outer space. The inability for nations to claim territories is an area of heated debate and in the future it could be reversed. As it stands right now, space is the next Wild West. We could escape the thousands of years of accumulated law and regulation by venturing into space.

Religion and science go hand in hand. Religion is Man’s attempt to explain its current circumstances and science is the testing of those explanations. In some places on Earth it is a crime punishable by jail or even death to practice certain religions. In Saudi Arabia any religion other than Islam can be punished by death if the accused does not recant. When Man lives in space, if a group of people want to organize and create an independent religion they can. Imagine a space station of Buddhist monks who simply sustain life and meditate while their craft drifts through space for all of time. Science is limited by our terrestrial bonds. Some risky experiments cannot be carried out on Earth because of the potential to kill all life as we know it. In space, we can engineer all the synthetic bacteria and mutant viruses we want without putting other people in harm’s way. Mankind would also be safe from global destruction since we would be living in many separate space dwellings. Should a world-wide nuclear attack happen, Man would survive and live on.

Some people are not religious, but it would still be desirable for them to live independent of the rest of Mankind. Communists, hippies, nudists, the sick and prisoners could all be separated. These sub-societies could form and build their own home in space, or they could have their home built for them in the case of prisoners and the sick. Prisoners on an orbiting station would have nowhere to escape to but the empty vacuum of space. Sick people in space could not infect anyone on Earth, thereby lowering the number of inflicted over time. It is possible to simply quarantine people over time to cure contagious diseases.

On a rotating wheel space station there is a force similar to gravity. As the wheel-station spins, it creates a downward force that simulates gravity, much like spinning a bucket of water fast enough around your head keeps the milk from pouring out. The pseudo-gravity of this type is strongest near the outside of the wheel and weaker as you journey to the center. In the center there would be zero gravity, just like the space outside of the station. Without gravity, life takes on a whole new spin. Transportation is simple. There is no air resistance in space. A vehicle could theoretically be pushed by a human hand and arrive at its destination miles away. Sports, acrobatics, and dance are opened to a myriad of new possibilities. Sport games in three dimensions, like football in spherical fields instead of the standard two dimensional rectangles would open space for commercial interests.

Beyond freedom, what is humanity’s major motivation? Money! Space has the opportunity for the greatest accumulation of wealth Man has ever seen. Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are full of useful materials. An asteroid 1 km in diameter would contain 30 million tons of nickel, 1.5 million tons of metal cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum. The platinum alone would have a value of more than $150 billion. As of 2009, there are 400 known NEAs with 50 more being discovered each year. That means there is roughly $60 quadrillion waiting for us and $7.5 quadrillion to be discovered every year, numbers that are likely to increase with advances in detection technology. 10% of those NEAs are closer than the moon. In effect, there is more money than all the wealth on Earth whizzing around purposelessly through space. 3554 Amun, one small nearby asteroid, is worth about $20 trillion. There’s $8 trillion worth of iron and nickel, $6 trillion worth of cobalt, and about $6 trillion in platinum-group metals. That’s more iron than Man has used throughout all of history. Totaling all the resources hidden in asteroids orbiting our Sun is truly mind boggling. The iron alone is enough for $7 billion per person on earth. Add in nickel, cobalt, gold, silver, platinum, copper, titanium, and uranium, and the total rises to over $100 billion per person. That means if we were to mine the resources that are available, either every person on earth has the potential to be extremely wealthy or we have the potential to support many billions more people.

With all these resources, Man could build great things. If the single asteroid, Ceres, were to be manufactured into orbital space colonies like the one I have described it could form a useful surface area 150 times that of Earth. Beyond just waiting for us to mine its resources, space is eagerly awaiting tourists. The next hot destination could be a sub-orbital journey to the high atmosphere. Eventually orbiting hotels will offer their customers one of the best views from anywhere on or off the planet, along with weightless recreation and rocket trips. When your family has been all over Earth and nothing seems exciting anymore, a rocket blast to the stars for a week could be a new adventure.

I think Man’s greatest motivation is neither freedom nor money, it is adventure. Between 1607 and 1617, 11,000 Englishmen came to the new colony of Virginia. In 1617, the population of Virginia was 1,000. How was it possible for 11,000 people to come and yet to have only a population of 1,000? 10,000 people died throughout those 10 years of habitation. Yet people continued to come. Why? They came because life in Europe was intolerable and because they wanted to come to a new land to start a new life. No matter the chances, if they succeeded it would be something new. Man has climbed every mountain and dove to the depths of every ocean. We have expanded from Africa to every continent of the globe. There is one final frontier, the endless abundance of outer space. We have the possibility for every player on this Earth to come out ahead. This is a threat for those people who wish to remain in control over the peoples of our planet. That is why the first people moving to the stars will be the exceptionally creative free spirits, among whom I hope to be a part.

Kevin sat in his Laz-e-boy recliner for a long time. He knew that the world in the Mindgate was his own creation. That kind of freedom and power scared him, that’s why he is back in reality instead of exploring his Mindgate. It was late in the afternoon. That short experience had taken all day. He made a sandwich. He ate it on the couch, in front of the TV. His mind turned off and he fell asleep.

At about 2:30 AM Kevin went back into his Mindgate when he entered REM sleep, the dream state. He was floating through the galaxy at incredible speed. The stars flowing past him felt like he was flying through a thick swarm of fireflies in a dark tunnel. They shined on and off and he was large enough to bump into them. He felt like a cosmic child playing with his galaxy toy. Kevin grew to the size of the galaxy. It was perfectly normal to him, of course. He was large enough to see the higher structure of the universe, the flowing of galaxies into a lattice that spans all of creation. He saw into the past in all directions to the beginning of creation as growth continued. Expansion of Kevin’s mind allowed him to expand his dream state awareness to super-human levels. He continued to expand until he nearly became everything. He did not know what would happen if he allowed himself to become the universe. This scared him. He was back in bed, sweaty and exhausted.

The next morning, Kevin woke up at 10:03 AM to his girlfriend’s ringtone.

“Girlll you give me gooosebaamps, yah girlll you give me goosebaaamps.”

“Beep.”

“Yah, hello?” Kevin said.

“Kevin, are you asleep? My sister’s wedding is today. You were supposed to be here at 9:30!” a female voice said.

“Oh,” he said.

“Get up, get your clothes and drive over here, now,” she said.

“Ok,” he said and hung up the phone, “whatever.”

Kevin was still physically and mentally exhausted. He stumbled around his house collecting his shirt and jacket from the closet, pants from the laundry room, and tie from his dresser. He threw the clothes on a hanger and went out the door still wearing the clothes from the day before. In the driveway sat his ’98 Ford Mustang. It was beat up after a few accidents, but with the $50,000 he received for the Mindgate experiment he was going to fix it up.

He arrived at his girlfriend’s house 15 minutes later. She greeted him at the door and shepherded him into the bathroom. It was about an hour until the ceremony started. Once she could see him in the light in the mirror she noticed his nose was red and puffy. She asked what happened to his nose. He said he didn’t know. It was from the operation. They implanted through the nostrils. She stripped him and pushed him into a cold shower. He woke up. He washed up and got dressed. They had time to relax before the beautiful ceremony. The reception started across the street from the church in a hotel.

Kevin was not sure how his mind would react to a few brews. He asked the bartender for the lightest draft. He poured him a tall Natural Ice, Kevin slipped a 10 dollar bill across the table and nodded at the bartender. It tasted like water. He finished it at the bar and asked for something a little darker. The barkeep poured a Budweiser. He gave another 10 and another nod. Kevin did not feel any different after the first one, and all of his visual indicators read nominal. He carried the beer over to sit with his girlfriend.

“Hey Mary, lets dance, come on,” he said as he grabbed her hand and put the beer on the table.

“You never want to dance. What are you drinking?” Mary said.

“It’s not the alcohol, come on,” he said this time standing up. She got up with him and followed him out to the floor. The two danced together for a few songs. Kevin was having a good time. He realized later that his implants allowed his body to relax more than normal to recharge his mind more efficiently. He finished the Budweiser after dancing and returned to the bar. His indicators all read nominal and he felt normal, but of course his implants were skewing his indicators to let him have fun. They were growing a mind of their own.

The bartender poured him another beer and he gulped it down. He began to walk away, but a hand grabbed him back. The bartender rubbed his thumb and forefinger indicating Kevin did not pay for the beer. Kevin reached in his pocket, but it was empty. The bartender saw his face turn up from the barren pocket and let go of his arm.

“On the house,” the bartender said.

These kinds of things never happened to Kevin. He was beginning to embrace his new implants. If they can get him free beers, they might just be useful after all. He returned to his girlfriend’s table. She was gone, but her sister, the bride, was sitting alone. Kevin sat next to her. She asked how his night was. He said it was the best night of his life. She thought he was embellishing, but his emphatic expression changed her mind. She saw something new in him that she did not see the last time they spoke. Mary came back to the table and plopped down on Kevin’s lap.

“Lets get out of here,” she whispered in his ear. Kevin smiled.

Continued…

The next morning, Kevin woke up at 7:04 AM. He stretched his arms and plopped his feet out of bed. After rubbing his eyes, he realized something was different. He was no longer in his bedroom, yet at the same time he was. His bedroom had taken on a new form. He saw things as simply existing in relation to each other without labels, definitions, or explanations. Simultaneously, he knew the history of everything in his surroundings. He could also project farther into the future. Kevin’s understanding started as a trickle, but quickly picked up speed to become an undammable flash flood.

He knew his body was perfectly normal and that the world was just as stable as before, but this new information was pulling on something far below the surface of Kevin’s awareness. His entire experience had been revamped with a new level of depth and acuity.

Kevin took a long inhale of fresh air. He noticed his room smelled different. It was something he never smelled before. The new sensations stirred his mind to seek out more new experience. He went into his kitchen. On the dining table was a packet given to him by the doctor that implanted his Mindgate. In the packet was a booklet titled How to Enter your Mindgate. Kevin turned the title page over and began reading.

“To enter your Mindgate you must be relaxed. Take a minute to settle yourself in a comfortable chair.”

Kevin jumped up with his stapled guidebook in hand and went into his study on the second floor. His Laz-e-boy recliner sat half reclined. He leaped over the extended foot rest and landed deep in the soft cushions. Kevin resumed reading.

“The Mindgate experience can be extremely traumatic to the uninitiated. Proceed at own risk. Implants are designed for removal with minimal to no damage to individuals. With that in mind, take your relaxant dosage as prescribed by your physician.”

Kevin put down the paper and flipped down the leg rest. He went into the kitchen for a glass of water. The package on the table had a bottle of pills inside. He took out the suggested dosage of two and gulped them down with big swigs. Back in the chair, he continued.

“Read this next step in it’s entirety before attempting it. Close your eyes. Quiet your mind. Imagine you are floating in the emptiness of space. Soft black velvet expanding in every direction. Allow yourself to give in to the abyss. Once the mind is quiet, allow thought; no matter the direction. Any resistance will pull the mind back to it’s old habits.”

Kevin understood the directions. He tried to relax, but the warnings from earlier got his nerves sizzling. He did not want to leave earth or his life. He wanted to go back to normal. His pulse monitor alerted him to the accelerated heart rate. A few deep breaths and it was back to ‘nominal’. The reagents in the pills began to take hold of his body. His heart rate dropped and Kevin felt beyond safe. He read over the directions again, and this time slipped into his Mindgate for a moment.

For that moment the world disappeared. What replaced it was distinctly Kevin. It was an amalgam of his childhood bedroom and his new house. His childhood bed was in the center along with his toys littering the floor, but it was decorated like his adult room. Outside, fuzzy trees and other green shapes could be seen under a large blue blob. Kevin focused on the outside and it became clearer. He could see varieties of trees and the sky had lazy clouds floating by. Kevin spun around to walk out the door. He grabbed the knob, but it did not move. He pulled hard, and the door opened to reveal nothingness. One more step and Kevin was headed for an endless tumble into the void. The unreality of it scared him. He was back in the recliner.

Continued…

The operation was a success. A cluster of 12 small nodes were implanted into key areas of Kevin’s brain. He awoke in a small, sterile room alone. The first thing he noticed was how normal he felt. As though there was nothing new between now and before the operation. His hand’s looked the same, his legs felt the same, and he was still conscious. In reality, the new neurons were maintaining a comfortable level of consciousness while rewiring his entire brain. They harvested all the knowledge contained within his mind and reorganized it to be more efficient. Meanwhile, the head doctor strolled into the room followed by an attendant nurse. She checked his vitals while the doctor spoke.

“Total, total success my boy. How do you feel?” asked a middle-aged man stooping over Kevin.

“Normal. I thought something would be different by now,” he replied.

“It takes time. Your body is adjusting to the new cells. Abilities beyond human should begin to appear as your own awareness expands to accept them,” the doctor explained.

Just as the doctor finished talking, Kevin noticed some strange colors at the peripheries of his vision. His eyes darted to check out the mysterious shimmering. As he looked at it, it moved out of sight. He looked once more, but again it moved to the border of his peripherals. The doctor noticed the strange eye movements and told Kevin to relax. The nurse twisted a small knob on Kevin’s IV that increased his medicine dosage. His body fell back into the bed, and a smile spread across his face. His vision was overrun with a myriad of sparkling colors. It looked like a rainbow tie-dyed on his retinas. The colors faded and clear words could be seen floating in front of him. ‘Body Nominal’ it said in green letters.

“Do you see that doc?” Kevin asked.

“See what, Kevin?”

“Those words… it must be the implant,” he replied.

“What does it say?”

“Body nominal in bright green,”

“Incredible… let me know what else you see. It will take up to 24 hours for the full effect to take,”

Soon, without moving his eye, Kevin knew his heart rate, blood pressure, height, weight, body fat, hydration levels, blood sugar, and how long until he had to go to the bathroom. It was a miracle of modern medicine. He was becoming more aware of his potential with each passing moment.

Continue reading Chapter 2…

The local people of the island were blue skinned like the monkey’s fur, but unlike the monkeys their front was bright blue and their back was dark. The blue skin helped them hide from sharks as well as barracudas. The light belly, when looked at from below, looked like the surface of the ocean with the suns rays bouncing off. A dark back looked like the bottom of the ocean from above. It was near perfect camoflague.They were an isolated, but adventerous people. Most of a man’s life on the island was spent out fishing on the ocean. Their boats were long with outriggers for stability in the turbulent ocean. The men would go out past the riptide, to the far side of the coral to dive for fish and small sharks.

In the center of the island was a long dormant volcanoe. It had struggled to build this island over millions of years, but now was resting as a mountain. The people of the island built their homes high up on the mountain where they could farm their big potatoe-like vegetables that complimented their diet. Small huts spiraled up to the peak. On the wide, flat top lived the shaman king of the island, Keemotep. He was a loving, generous man adored by all the locals.

The people of the island expanded and grew in numbers. Their homes turned into a city. That city grew as well, into the mountain. Sky scrapers thousands of feet high were easily carved from the volcanic stone. The people prospered, but were quickly running out of space on the island. They made preparations to venture past the coral.

Continued…

He turns his back on the sea and returns to the wharf from his perch on the pier. His body bounces along the wooden boards. Back on land, he resolves to leave the city forever. Leave to a place he could not return. A train running out of town left every 6 hours starting at midnight. If he could wear a watch, it would say 11:00. He had a full hour, and he would only need half an hour to catch it.

Beyond the wharf was a four lane street lined with shops and apartment buildings. He walked to the street and waited. He did not know the time, so he was in no rush. An old man, strolled past him and hailed a taxi. He slipped past the man as he opened his door for a free ride. The old man instructed the driver to take him 5 blocks north. The ghost wanted to go south. He bore his ethereal hand deep into the mans chest and disrupted his heart rhythm. The old man kicked the seat of the driver, who, after seeing fear in his rearview, slammed the brake pedal to the floor. He got out of the taxi and flew out his door. He went into the back seat and pulled the old man out onto the asphalt. The assassin slipped between the front seats and into the driver’s door. He hit the gas pedal, and pulled a full 180. He had a train to catch.

Continued…

Chapters [ 1 | 2 ]

I ordered my crew to fly us to the jump point. Each colonized star system had a jump point. From that position, it was safe to jump to every other star in the Federal Colonies. Our communications were buzzing with police chatter. If we could only get to the jump point, we would be safe. There are a dozen potential stars.

We carried very precious cargo. Our cargo was 9.5 teraliters of H2O. In this age, water was life, especially on Mars. It is vital for Mars to have a constant freight route of incoming water from Earth. In return, they ship back Martian culture for the Earthlings to compare themselves. Martians represented an enemy to fear and hate, a fool to ridicule and humiliate. Martians were no better than the rusty dirt they lived on, to the Earthlings.

When my crew and I stole that freighter, it represented a very valuable haul. We had 12 Federal police boats after us. They could not fire weapons at us, because of the thin hull and our cargo. One missile fired with poor aim could spell disaster for the people of Mars.

We made it to the jump point, but the Feds beat us there. They had shut it down. We had no communication with another jump point. We would have to make an unguided jump. I told the whole crew, even Mick in steerage. We were all ready. No one had attempted this before and survived. We had no choice. Federal prison was beyond a nightmare. Mick over rid the fail-safe protection on the sub-space engine, a machine that pinches the fabric of space to bring two distant points next to each other. I instructed Jude to take us to the star system of Alpha Centauri. That is where I wanted to go; where we ended up, I am not sure.

Continued…

Posted in Space Bandits Tagged: Chapter 3, mars fiction, Sci Fi, short story, Space Tales ]]> http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/space-tales-3/feed/ 10 Doug wormhole http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/space-tales-2/ http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/space-tales-2/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:21:42 +0000 Doug Lance http://freelancefiction.wordpress.com/?p=118 ]]>

Chapter [ 1 ]

Before the crew left the ship to defend, they had sealed the airlock doors tight. That did not stop Mick. He pulled out a device the size of a slice of bread from his coat pocket. The code numbers showed up on the screen. He punched them in, and we were in. I didn’t ask questions with Mick, he always got the job done. Once inside, we split up. Each of us had our own job. I headed to the captain’s quarters to see if we were lucky. I would eliminate him there. Jude and Franky went to the bridge to make sure no one was on board to call for help. Mick primed the huge freight engines. Rudy and Guile were on clean up duty. They ran throughout the ship searching for any one still on board. We had 10 minutes before the Federal Police ships arrived.

The captain was asleep in his quarters. I suppose his crew did not want to upset him by waking him up when his ship was under attack. I eliminated him quietly with a small injection from my tool belt. His body shut down in 5 minutes without any mess. I radioed Guile.

“I need pick up in the captains quarters,” I told him.

“You got it, Cap,” he replied.

I made my way to the bridge. Jude and Franky had already taken control. They both had fully automatic rifles. The crew on-board was unarmed. This area is usually calm, so they did not expect a pirate attack. We herded the crew to the air lock and sealed them out. Mick had the ship ready for launch.

I took my seat on the bridge. Franky and Guile secured our ships on the landing pad. Mick was down in steerage warming up the engines. We were home free if we could fly ten thousand kilometers to the nearby jump point. At a jump point, we could jump to any other star system that also had a jump point. We would have made it too, if not for the Federal Police.

Continued…