The Memnon Incident: Part 1 of 4 (A Serial Novel)

by Marc DeSantis

  Then the Sphinx appeared. Evander was a guarded man, letting little that was concrete be known of his past, though speculation about the gaps in his revealed life story was rampant. He was immortal, he claimed, and the evidence, such as it existed, seemed to bear that out. He had reigned as the self-styled King of Tartarus for more than thirty years, without showing any signs of aging. Ultra-expensive rejuvenation treatments had been known to restore a measure of vigor to old men and women, but not over such a long period. Everyone grew old and died eventually, except the Sphinx, who had appeared to be a youthful man not much past thirty-five over the course of three decades.

  From almost nothing, and in the space of a single generation, Tartarus had transformed itself under the direction of Evander into a modern nation-state, unifying first its own world, and then those in its system. Then it sought to grow larger.

  Few thought that it stood a chance against the long-established militaries of the Great Sphere. But Taurus was quickly defeated and absorbed. Novgorod was thrashed, and lost several systems. Even cruel and warlike Ajax had suffered a sharp defeat at Nakajima, and gave ground.

  Expanding a star empire was a difficult thing. The distances involved were enormous, and communications between worlds could only be maintained by jump vessels, which were costly. The Tartareans, the conventional thinking went, would be slowed by the need to digest their conquests, and then by the continuing drain on their finances of their administration.

  But Tartarus moved from strength to strength. Its bureaucrats were famed for their competence and probity. Economic productivity of newly-incorporated planets was higher after absorption than at any time before, and royal revenue of the middling-sized Monarchonate was equal to the largest of the other Great Sphere states.

  The Sphinx left the direction of his empire to his faithful bureaucrats, and professed a lofty remove from the day to day running of the nation. In addition to his claim of immortality, he made the equally startling declaration that he was the descendant of humans who had been stolen from Old Earth by alien creatures in ancient times, that his ancestors had traveled among the stars with these aliens for millennia, and then had been released after the period of tutelage had been completed. He was possessed, he said, of secret knowledge imparted by these masters, beings of unrivaled wisdom and power, and he had been directed by them to unite humanity under his banner.

  That was what Evander had said. The reaction in the Sphere was anything but predictable. Most learned observers had expected that humanity at large would erupt in laughter and derision, and this had indeed been the reaction among the intellectuals, the artists, the political class, and so on. The common folk of the Sphere had a different take on him, however.

  The Sphinx some thought, was a savior, a man sent by superior beings to lead a fallen humanity to a better life. That Evander professed to have knowledge deriving from aliens, no sentient species of which had never been encountered in the tens of thousands of years that humans had roamed the stars, was of no moment. Misery was omnipresent in the Sphere, but Tartarus, that forgotten, backwater world, had risen high and fast. It could easily feed its people and educate its children. It could heal its sick folk and offer a future better than the past. Perhaps the Sphinx really did have special knowledge gained from nonhumans. Who cared about that if he could produce such welcome results?

  The thinkers had bet on the ordinary man’s xenophobia, but had not reckoned with his desire for a better life. Tartarus promised that, and delivered. A number of colonial worlds lying just over the frontier with Tartarus in the Orb and Dacia systems expelled their "foreign" Ajaxian garrisons and gladly welcomed the arrival of Tartarean frigates in orbit. Others, independent worlds these, petitioned the Sphinx directly, requesting admission to his Monarchonate. They were graciously accepted without much fuss, after first abolishing slavery on their worlds and legislating the complete legal equality of women.

  The warrior empire of Ajax scoffed at this progressive sensibility, sneering that Tartarus was effeminate and weak. Attacks by their hulking ships on outlying systems caused initial difficulties for Tartarus, but in short order the Monarchonate crippled Ajax’s main fleet at Nakajima, and carved a sizable slice out of the Ajax’s border territories.

  The people of the Halifaxian Republic were at a loss. They could not help but take pleasure in the humbling of Ajax’s arrogant warrior aristocrats, with their gaudy uniforms, obnoxious strutting, oppressed serfs, and general beastliness. But Tartarus’ increase was hardly reassuring. Halifax had always thought of itself as the beacon for humanity in the Great Sphere, a city on a hill to which all would or should aspire. Yet Tartarus was succeeding in all things, not just in war, but also in economic development, commerce, and the arts.

  More had read many of the novels and plays that had emerged from Tartarus in the last decade. Poetry from the Monarchonate was widely regarded as the best produced by humanity since the Bright Century of Zinj V. But where, the citizens of Halifax asked, was the freedom? There was a high personal cost to belonging to Tartarus, that some would pay, and others would not. The Tartareans, in return for stability and evident prosperity, had given up all say in their governance. There was not a single meaningful election held in the realm of the Sphinx, a man who ruled as an absolute monarch in the classic sense of the term. Even the aristocracy of Tartarus had been sidelined, their traditional privileges reduced or stripped away entirely. Men of merit and ability staffed the posts of the rising empire, and administered it well, by all accounts. There was only one government too. Unlike Halifax, where federalism was the order, allowing for the formal equality of the member planets, the Monarchonate was professedly a despotism, with all subsidiary governments being considered only lower-level agencies of Evander’s government on Tartarus. Every prefect, every planetary governor, every mayor even, was just a functionary of the Sphinx's central authority.

  The Republic was a wild free-for-all by comparison, and its people were enormously proud of their long tradition of political liberty and personal freedom. Halifax, a watery world orbiting an ordinary yellow star, had been settled in a later age of colonization, in a time short on hard details but remembered as broad legend, by humans seeking freedom of thought from the Second Empire and its harsh laws. Their remains were still to be seen on the Omte continent where carved titanium steles declared their insistence upon freedom. A hatred of tyranny was embedded in the souls of the people of Halifax.

  Like Tartarus, Halifax had been overlooked by the powerful, and bypassed by history. Its efflorescence came much later, when it met, and shockingly defeated, a fleet of Third Empire war galleons come to reclaim her in the name of “human unity.” Whether the scale of the victory was quite as impressive as Halifaxians liked to claim was debated by historians. Some argued, convincingly enough, that the grand fleet smashed millennia ago was merely a reconnaissance force sent to explore the outer edges of known space. The failure of the Third Empire’s fleets to return was not due to fear of the impudent Halifaxians, but to a complete lack of interest in the boondocks plot of space, loftily titled the Great Sphere by its current inhabitants, in which Halifax was located. The Third Empire had continued to grow in almost all directions for centuries after the Battle of the Belt, as the clash was known, and did not reach its zenith for a full millennium afterward.

  Triumphant Halifax subsequently rose from next to nothing to be the leading state of the Sphere. It gave its people freedom, and the benefits of democracy were real, but Tartarus was undeniably making great and rapid strides of its own despite, or maybe because of, the top-down rule of the Sphinx. Evander was a passionate supporter of the arts, what the Tartareans called their alto kultur, an all-embracing term for their highest literary, artistic, and intellectual endeavors. Scholarship in Tartarus’ universities was of the highest quality, profound, and extensive. History was an intensely practiced discipline, with the study of several periods having been revolutionized by scholars of the Monarchate. Skeptics suggeste
d that Tartarus’ emphasis upon history was nothing more than a sham, intended to bolster their king’s thin claim to the mastery of all humanity. Their archaeological digs had a habit of discovering convenient remains of vanished civilizations, such as those of the Tower Builders of the moons of Oriens IV. Holding the remnants of the great civilizations of the past, the Sphinx seemed to be saying, made him their legitimate successor.

  This brought More back to just who the Sphinx really was. Was his presentation of himself as the inheritor of some secret wisdom all a bluff? More thought that it must be, a slick gambit played in his early years of climbing to power on Tartarus. The Sphinx had made a claim that must have been astounding to all those who heard it, and they had listened, since it got their attention. As time wore on, Evander either could not or would not drop the charade. Perhaps he thought that it added to his mystique, and thus his hold over his people.

  And what of them? Did the people of Tartarus really care if their leader was endowed with knowledge beyond human ken? He had met a handful of Tartarean naval officers, dressed proudly in the finery of their service. They had all been of the opinion that the Sphinx was what he claimed to be. The proof of his superior powers was in his achievements as the master of Tartarus and its surrounding systems.

  Very well then, More had told them, and left it at that. But he had also read some of the Republic’s own intelligence reports concerning the strange figure on the throne of Tartarus. Halifax’s government suspected that the Sphinx, while being a man of rare, even exceptional talents, was not the beneficiary of some alien tutoring, but had perhaps in his wanderings discovered, or come into the possession of, some form of ancient technology that offered him enormous power. His unprecedentedly long life was evidence in favor of this hypothesis, and his obvious hunger for archaeological work, his extensive support for numerous expeditions to no less than a dozen worlds, bespoke a faith in the importance of old technology and science, antiquikraft, now lost to man.

  More's console chimed. The tired face of Ensign Garand emerged as a hologram above the console.

  "Captain, Kongo wishes to tightbeam with you. Priority Alpha."

  "Put me through, ensign."

  "Aye, Captain."

  The face of Matt Heyward, captain of Kongo replaced that of Garand. "Priority Alpha. This must be big," More said. "I thought we were staying dark until I figured out how to get us out of this turd pile."

  Heyward gave him a devilish grin, the same smile that had made him irresistible to women since More had known him at the Academy at Cold Bay. "Good to see you too, Andy," Heyward said. "Let's cut to the chase. Our recon ship has found an Atlantis class vessel, dead and drifting in the Oort cloud along with us."

  More's eyes widened. "As if this mission could not go any more off track." The term 'Atlantis class' did not signify a real ship, it was merely a codename given to any spacecraft of unknown origin, especially ones of ancient origin. Upon a sighting, all other non-wartime orders were suspended, and the Atlantis vessel was to be either salvaged for study by the Republican Navy or destroyed to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. 'Enemy hands' meant anyone not of the Republic.

  "How big is it?"

  "Enormous," Heyward said matter-of-factly. "It has to be a capital ship. It's taken a beating, but it's mostly whole. We think that the crew abandoned ship. It's likely been drifting for thousands of years."

  "Any guess as to how old it is?"

  Heyward shook his head. "We scarcely recognize the markings. The design is different from anything we've ever produced or seen before. It might be Third Empire, maybe older. We put an explorer team aboard. We're waiting to hear what they find."

  There was a long silence before More responded. "This changes everything, Matt. I hoped to be out of here in a few days, once we had recovered anyone who might be left alive on Golden Lion. Now we can't go anywhere without dealing with this Atlantis. I'm not even sure what the proper protocols are. When was the last time an Atlantis class was ever discovered? Two hundred years ago, back when the Strawberry was found?"

  "That's what my records say," Heyward nodded. "And she was just a pleasure yacht."

  "She still had more advanced astronavigation systems than what we had in service back then."

  "We can't let this get away from us."

  "We won't, Matt. Good work. Let me think about this, and let me know what your team learns."

  "Will do, Andy."

  "I am going to have to send one of you back to bring support from home. Since you are already aboard the Atlantis, I will send Tommasina to Halifax to call in reinforcements. I'll handle the recovery operation for Golden Lion. In the meantime, don't be seen. We don't want the whole damn Memnonian navy descending on us and getting its hands on a priceless relic of an elder age."

  "Won't happen while I live," a smiling Heyward promised. "I don't like to share my toys."

  Chapter Four

  Hamilton, Halifax planetary surface

  Julius awoke with a start. The chiming alarm ended his sleep abruptly, causing his heart to race. He rubbed his eyes, and pressed the top of his bedroom vidscreen. A familiar face resolved, glowing brightly in the darkness.

  "It seems that I have woken you,' Silas Gates said.

  "That should not come as a surprise," Julius grunted. "What is it? 0400 hours?"

  "A little earlier. But let's leave that aside for now."

  Julius yawned. "What's the matter?"

  "The destroyer Kestrel just crash-displaced into the Halifax system. The ship is half-wrecked, but her captain reported to High Command that she has found an Atlantis class derelict. We need you out there. Now."

  Julius was suddenly wide awake. "What did you say? You really mean it?" Julius knew that Atlantis class was an innocuous codename, meant to throw off enemy surveillance, to describe a rediscovered ship hailing from distant antiquity, and a potential treasure trove of ancient technology.

  "No son, I am just calling you at this rough hour to tease you. Of course I do! Pack your bags for a long duration trip. You will be put into cryosleep for the journey, but you will be out there for weeks, maybe months."

  "What happened? When?"

  "The details are sketchy. We sent a squadron to follow up on reports of arms transfers from Tartarus to Memnon. Our ships were ambushed. Not all made it out. While they were running they stumbled upon a spacecraft of unknown identity. We need someone on site to check it out."

  "I thought Memnon was an ally."

  "Not anymore, it seems," Gates said. "Captain More's asked specifically for you."

  Julius blinked. He had not seen his cousin Andrew in years. They had never been especially close.

  "Why me?"

  "It's your expertise with ancient ships and their drive systems that he needs."

  "Just how old is this ship? Don't they have anyone onboard who can figure this out?"

  "Not quite." Gates leaned forward and whispered. "He thinks that it is about fifty thousand years old." He tapped on a console just outside of Julius' own view of him. "That dates it to the height of the Second Empire. It could be one of the finest ships we've ever seen."

  Julius was speechless. He swallowed hard. "You are joking."

  Gates frowned. "Does this look like the face of a joking man?"

  No, it did not. Gates was many things but not much of a jester, particularly not where technical matters were concerned. His education at Halifax's finest technical institutes had been meticulous, and his security clearances with Navy HQ were the highest possible. It made sense now that the order to ship out for Memnon would be transmitted through Gates. They certainly would have known that young Julius Howell was a capable engineer, top-notch, he thought not so humbly, but they would have wanted assurances from Gates about his reliability before letting him in on the Atlantis secret.

  "This is huge," Julius said, stifling a yawn.

  "How remarkably incisive you are," Gates chided. "A fifty thousand-year-old ship? Yes, this is huge."


  "Sorry if my adjectives are lacking," Julius said. "It's early, and my vocabulary hasn't booted up yet." He scratched his head and coughed. "What am I supposed to tell people about where I will be? I can't tell them about the ship. They will ask where I have gone." Julius had a girlfriend, her name was Alexandra, and parents, as well as other family. They would want to know where he was.

  "Admiral Warner has a cover story ready, and will put it out for you once you are out-system. He is going to say that you were required to go on a spur of the moment mission to Timaeus IV. He will make up something about you having special skills with drive units that required your presence there. You will be out of communication for months."

  "I do have special skills with drive systems."

  "Don't let such high-level attention go to your head, kid. You have some unique knowledge, but I can't tell you why it is necessary. They haven't told me any real details. Now get ready and head to Hamilton Spaceport. You can catch a shuttle to orbit and dock with the Cormorant. She is in the yard getting ready. She will be taking you out at 0700."

  "That's just three hours from now!"

  Gates smiled. It was genuine and avuncular. "Yes, but I think you'll make it. I wish I could be going with you."

  Julius hurried down the ramp of the little Mosquito class shuttle, his boots thudding on the steel deckplates of the Cormorant. A young woman greeted him at the foot of the ramp. "Julius Howell, I presume," she said.

  The Navy was always so formal. Who else could he be? Julius nodded. "I am."

  She smiled without warmth. "I am Ensign Felicia Thorpe. I will show you to your cryochamber." She extended an arm to closed blast doors leading off from the docking bay.