by S. H. Jucha
ELVIANS
A Silver Ships Novel
S. H. JUCHA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by S. H. Jucha
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by Hannon Books, Inc.
www.scottjucha.com
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-2-7 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-3-4 (softcover)
First Edition: October 2020
Cover Design: Damon Za
Acknowledgments
Elvians is the twenty-second novel in the interwoven series of The Silver Ships and Pyreans, which tell the stories of Earth colonists and the spread of humankind throughout a galaxy filled with alien races.
I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, David Melvin, Ron Critchfield, Pat Bailey, Tiffany Crutchfield, and Gerry Hartman, I offer my sincere thanks for their support.
Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.
Glossary
A glossary is located at the end of the book.
CONTENTS
1: Stealthy Survey
2: Seedlings
3: Enticement
4: Intrusion
5: Deloy
6: Core and Arches
7: Interventions
8: Unavailable
9: Core’s Reps
10: What Happened?
11: Citizens
12: Vyztram
13: Z’s Search
14: Conversations
15: Interrupted Meeting
16: Life Givers
17: Waiting, Waiting
18: Reset
19: Reinforcements
20: Compromise
21: Time to Decide
22: Adjustments
23: Opportunity
24: Two Waves
25: Thirteen Drones
26: Who’s in Charge?
27: Reconstruction
28: Projects
29: Visitors’ Surprises
30: Greetings, Vyztram
31: Amazing World
32: Various Sentients
33: We Need One
34: Sentient Females
35: Transit Tripper
36: Transfers
37: Courtesies
38: Goodbye; Greetings
39: Agreement
Glossary
My Books
The Author
1: Stealthy Survey
For the scouts, this was a return to the system of the flora symbionts, the Ollassa. During the first visit, Killian, Bethley, and Trium aboard the scout ship Vivian’s Mirror were interdicted by Ollassa warships, which necessitated an intervention by Alex’s fleet. The SADEs had named the system Vinium before they understood the local race’s term for themselves.
Then Linn, a third lead SADE reported,
The SADEs’ pauses were atypical, and it didn’t bode well for the news.
Renée blew out a harsh breath.
Cordelia supplied images to the city-ship’s holo-vid. The scouts had captured telemetry of the vehicles involved in the mining and processing operations.
Cordelia, who was the fleet’s premier imagery artist, used Z’s observation to break up the gigantic machines that crawled across the asteroids’ surfaces.
The holo-vid displayed the passing marks of a monstrous machine. Julien adjusted the input, and the tracks led to an intricate structure, which had been scooping frozen gases, processing them, and offloading compressed blocks of purified material. However, it was no longer moving.
Z commented.
Thoughts of Artifice shot through the minds of those on the bridge.
The bridge audience watched a new conveyance unit role out from a pile of spares. Using a combination of wheels and treads, the spare drove around to the front of the disabled machine. Then the upper section of the machine rolled forward to combine with the spare. Then it traveled onward,
continuing to mine and process resources.
Another machine hurried to the disabled section and began diagnosing the problem by attaching sensor lines to connections available on the side of the unit.
Tatia found the lack of information frustrating. Something had destroyed Ollassa warships before any damage could be done to the mining sites.
Alex replaced the holo-vid imagery with that of the invaders’ ship. Unlike the system probe, which hadn’t been able to supply information on the monstrous ship’s size, the scouts provided detailed telemetry.
Humans’ implants absorbed what the SADEs already knew. The huge ship possessed a central element four times the diameter of the Freedom. In addition, while a city-ship was ovoid, the invaders’ ship was a globe, of sorts. It wasn’t a solid sphere. Rather, there was a solid mass that comprised the center. A long buttress extended from the globe to provide a mount for multiple engines. Then enormous loops sprouted from the top of the globe and met at its bottom. Along the loops’ lengths, thin connectors linked the loops with the central mass. Tiny pinpoints of light shone along the loops, indicating residences.
Alex began pacing, and the audience made room for him.
Julien offered.
Franz reasoned.
Several small transports had exited the bottom of the invaders’ ship and laid on courses for various excavation sites.
The audience waited and watched as the transports neared various areas of the belt.
Cordelia selected telemetry from Genoa’s ship that gave humans a good view of an asteroid that had accumulated blocks of frozen gases. Each block was a one-meter cube.
A transport came to a halt overtop the stack of cubes at a distance of about one hundred meters.
A compact machine raced out from the reserves. At the site of the frozen blocks, it unfolded until it resembled a crane, with its length bent in two. Then it gripped the uppermost block, made a slight adjustment to its position, and extended the crane arm with a snap.
The block was launched at the transport’s bottom. It sailed upward, crossing the hundred meters, and disappeared into the transport.
There were a few moments of the audience’s stunned silence, while the crane machine neatly and accurately delivered every block to the transport. When the operation was complete, the crane returned to its compact shape and hurried back to the pile of reserve equipment. Then the transport sailed on to the next asteroid.
Alex had halted his pacing to stare at the holo-vid’s display of the transport’s collection of resources. A cold feeling swept up his spine. In his years, there hadn’t been a contact like this. A technologically superior race was collecting resources from a foreign system, effectively repelling resistance, and going about its business. While the hubris was galling, the potential for a calamitous encounter was more than significant.
The slow response indicated to Alex that the phrase indicate to them was too vague for the SADEs. It was understandable, considering the Ollassa communicated via ultrasonic frequencies that emanated from their blooms. Ship-to-ship communications for the Ollassa involved comm systems that could pick up, transmit, and broadcast the waves from the blooms.
