Initiation Series: Series One Compilation (Terran Chronicles)

by James Jackson

  The suits are able to absorb nuclear radiation and convert it into energy! Cindy has told George and Olaf to stop doing this due to the risks involved. I have been chatting with Patrick about his suit, and what he can do with it, he is no dummy after all.

  Olaf used his suit and has saved us from certain death, but Cindy’s fears were not unfounded. Radiation somehow leaked in, killing him. The Kord took his body, still in his bodysuit, in an attempt to revive him. Even with their advanced technology, they failed.

  Eureka! By sheer luck I was checking Cindy’s control panel while George and Patrick both had their suits connected to the power grid to recharge. Not only that I was able to select each suit, but George’s is drawing a lot more power. I selected his suit, then Patrick’s. That was when I found it. Patrick’s suit is set to ‘reduced mode’ while George’s is ‘unlocked’. This explains now, why George’s suit was dented by a bullet when he was shot at in Manhattan, and yet later, he withstood the full barrage of the Effen raider’s weaponry. Sometime in between these two events, his suit was unlocked, and that had to be done from a command chair of one of the alien ships. When I selected Patrick’s bodysuit, an option appeared. I selected the icon, and it unlocked his bodysuit!

  If Olaf’s suit had been unrestricted he may have survived the radiation from the reactor. I quickly checked the other terminals, and it definitely seems that only the command chair has the ability to review the suits.

  I then discovered that George has both a power module, and the most advanced construction module listed in the Gamin database attached to his suit. He is one smart cookie. I wonder if George even knows about the suits being restricted. I have not yet had a chance to tell anyone of my findings. I am waiting for the appropriate time.

  Propulsion

  There are a number of systems on board that I am totally unfamiliar with. Watching the crews add the numerous lift rockets, and then install the controlling console next to John’s station is making me nervous. No one really knows how the various systems work, and yet here we are adding more. Each rocket rivals a Saturn V, and carries an incredible amount of fuel.

  It seems that George rode shotgun next to the alien Sharz, so he got to watch how one of their shuttles operated. But damn, this thing is not a shuttle, it’s a beast.

  Cindy wants me to help John and Andrew figure it all out, we’re so screwed.

  Update: We have figured out the thrusters, the sub-light engines, and the main drive, but the ship is so underpowered, that we have to stop to let the capacitors charge after each use of the main drive.

  Navigational Shields

  I discovered by sheer luck that they do a lot more than receive data, they also transmit some kind of signal to the Gamin satellites that orbit Earth. Lucky, ‘cause those satellites were trying to carve this ship up with their lasers.

  These shields also deflect small objects and are definitely independent of the dampening shields. Not sure if this system is one shield, or multiple shields. I can’t find anything onboard that runs them either.

  Damn these shields are a mystery, objects can’t pass, and yet the Effen Raiders were able to fly through them and attach their ships to our hull. I must figure this out.

  I am still struggling with how these shields work, but I have learned that we are missing main shield generators! Although the outer hull has emitters in place, without these generators, we’re limited to navigational and dampening shields only. Yet another missing component I wish we could have obtained from the derelict. Judging from the schematics, it seems we need hundreds of these generators, and a ton more power to run them all.

  Dampening Shields

  We landed on the moon, and when we opened the ramp, these shields kept the atmosphere inside the ship, and yet George was able to push his way out. It was quite comical when he fell, and slid face first on the moon’s surface. I am starting to figure out why they have multiple types of shields.

  These shields engage with the main engines, or at least the main drive won’t activate without these operating. Yet we can shut them down when stationary, or leave them on.

  Thankfully, the system is designed to keep these powered at all costs when maneuvering. We flew into a mess of small debris particles today. When Cindy ordered the main drive be activated, I thought she was nuts. We survived, and now know the ship’s systems draw power from everywhere and anywhere to keep these shields operational. I am still trying to figure these shields out; somehow, they transfer data to the internal gravimetric dampeners, another system I am trying to fathom.

  Ah ha, these shields stop us from ending up like squashed bugs during speed changes, or any other maneuvers for that matter. Interestingly enough, they feed data to the RMC, and both systems engage automatically with the main drive. I will have to monitor this.

  Gamin Satellite Grid

  The lunar base has a wealth of information on these, amongst other things. They use some pretty darned advanced solar panels; they not only provide communications, they are also equipped with a weapon. The best description I have found for the weapon is, it’s a polarized particle beam. They looked just like laser beams when they were carving into the front of the ship. Each satellite is only about fifty meters in diameter, and comes with its own capacitor.

  I have been trying to work out how these work as well. Gamin solar panels are black and seem smooth, yet when looked at under a magnifying glass, vast numbers of prisms are evident.

  Eureka! The panels appear black because light does not reflect back. These buggers absorb all visible light, and even light from other spectrums. I wish I had more than a tiny sample to work with. As it is, this one was crafted compliments of George. Damn, is there anything he can’t do with that suit of his?

  Navigation

  It feels as though I am using a sextant on a submarine. When we’re hovering in space, I have to look out the window to see where Earth is, and I am supposed to plot a course to Mars!

  Thankfully, John seems to have a grip on the thrusters and gravity lift system, but as for the sub-light and main engines, we don’t even know if they were completed when the aliens left.

  We have all stuck a pile of sticky notes to our terminals as we try to figure out what each symbol does. George has been very patient translating each one for us. How the heck he can make heads or tails of the alien symbols? I may never know.

  Hooray, I am still here writing; the sub-light engines work, and I found Mars!!! Yeah for me. I am not telling them I got lucky though. A bunch of extra symbols appeared when we moved out of Earth’s orbit. Sure enough, one was a map of our solar system. All I did was click on the planet that should have been Mars, touched a bunch of symbols that George has said loosely translates to ‘yes’, and the ship gave me telemetry. I ran the data through GUS to confirm the figures before sending the information to John’s console. Pretty easy really, just scary because I have no idea what I am doing.

  Main Drive navigation is a breeze, it’s just like sub-light maneuvers, except for the fact that we can’t turn when using it. So, it’s plot, go, then stop. Well, we have to stop anyway, our nuclear power plants aren’t providing anywhere near enough energy to run the ship. I am trying to make sense of the main drive system and all of its associated systems. How are we not affected by time dilation? Or are we? This will take more time to work out. Time!

  It also seems rather odd that we only receive data on stars to about twenty light years. Not very far for an interstellar ship. Perhaps the Gamin came from a nearby star system?

  The terrorist that killed Jim and brought GUS down, has caused us no end of issues. Without GUS, I have no way of crosschecking telemetry anymore, and I am supposed to plot us a course home. We have somehow ended up some twenty-two thousand light years away from Earth, give or take. Damn it, not so long ago I couldn’t even find Earth when we were on top of it.

  GUS is fixed, but it’s running slower than ever. I am still impressed that it works at all. I have a more accurate fix on our lo
cation, and unfortunately, I was right. We’re way out past the back of Bourke, it’s going to take a heck of a long time to get home, if we can at all.

  What a day, a new Gamin console has been brought up from the derelict spacecraft we found. So exciting! WOW! The new console not only provides accurate star positions for thousands of light years, but we also learned that the Gamin that came to visit us were only a few of their kind. They exist in vast numbers!

  Oh my! Regent Voknor of the Gamin appeared on the bridge screens, and asked to speak to George! Why him? What makes him so special? Following this, we have disconnected the new console. If we can track others, perhaps others can see us, and we don’t want that.

  Note on navigation; we can’t see structures that have been built in space, as we found out when we plowed headlong into a monstrous space station. We also discovered two more races though! The Kord who were on the space station we ran into, and another race that just shot at us, then left us all for dead. We seem to have blundered into some kind of space war.

  Mining Vehicle

  A bunch of the crew has been taking turns zooming around the moon’s surface in this tracked vehicle we found. It’s only about three meters wide, four tall, ten long, and has dual blades that curve inward and upward. It reminds me of a little of a bulldozer. The blades divert material up and into a hopper-like area where a specialized absorption tool, like the one George uses on his suit, converts the scooped-up material into base components. Any surplus energy gets directed straight into the vehicle’s power cell. It can run for around forty hours before requiring a recharge, as some hapless crewmen found out. Though designed for one operator, people were going out in pairs. One would teach, the other would learn.

  This little beauty has been helping me figure out some of the Gamin symbols.

  We have been saved again by George’s ingenuity. Thanks to some Kord escape pods, he has rigged a mining craft to fly in space, to collect debris in the hopes that we can fix the ship. That’s all we do, repair the ship from one mishap to the next.

  Shuttle

  The alien shuttle is awesome. The American space shuttles look pretty sad by comparison when they’re all lined up together in the hangar deck. It’s a small atmospheric craft that measures around four meters high, ten wide, and fifty long. The shuttle uses thrusters, coupled with a basic gravity landing system. It has a single deck with a pilot area that seats two, and has storage space for two Gamin bodysuits. The pilot area can be sealed off from the storage area, which itself can either seat twenty, or carry cargo. The sensors on this craft are quite effective, allowing it to survey planetary bodies, and/or asteroids. It seems as though the craft has a flight time of about fourteen hours from its single power storage unit. This time varies depending upon the demands of the tasks required. It has no weapons and is poorly armoured, but is a hell of a transport craft for us.

  Thanks to this find we have made numerous trips to and from Earth. I have boxes of spare laptops now, and am feeling more confident about our mission.

  I don’t know how we could have surveyed the planets, or done anything without the alien shuttle. Thankfully the Effen Raiders did not have enough time to take the last one. Damn, they just about got everything else, including all the wonderful goodies we had been collecting.

  Gravity Plating; Internal and External

  We are finally figuring out the gravity plating, it’s a lot more complicated and advanced than we first thought. Somehow the navigational shields and dampening shields work with some of the ship’s systems to maintain a standard gravity, and prevent inertia from effecting us during maneuvers. But is this data handled by the navigational shields or the dampening shield? This is driving me nuts. Not sure how this works.

  I heard about the crewmen that died when they were standing on the standard plating, and not gravity plating, when we accelerated. Apparently it was quite messy, and since then, Cindy has issued strict orders that everyone is to be on Gamin plating during any maneuvers.

  What were we thinking when we filled the gaps in the ship’s hull and decks, with steel plates? They can’t do anything, fortunately we removed all the extra deck plates before they tore the ship apart. The alien deck plates transfer power and receive data from the various systems to maintain an inertia free environment, while at the same time, provide an artificial gravity. Simple, except still not one hundred percent sure that I am not missing something.

  Matter Conversion Technology

  Watching George craft objects from thin air is astounding, understanding how it all works is another matter. Thus far, I have learned that the technology converts heavier elements into lower elements easily. Reversing the process is inefficient as it requires a lot of material, and instead of generating power, uses vast amounts of it.

  A careful review of the mining craft shows that it only has the ability to absorb objects. The alien ground vehicle stores the collected resources and energy in specialized cells. These are like some sort of capacitor, but nothing like those on board the ship that only hold power.

  Though water and edible foods can, in theory be created, doing so would require exorbitant amounts of energy. When pressed, George told me that the bodysuits are just not up to the task. The suits do have limitations, wonder if the Gamin have food dispensers? I asked George about this today, and he told me that the Gamin eat meat, lots of it. Turns out the Chinese provided a lot of meat to the aliens, seemingly in exchange for one of their power units. Anyway, I digress.

  Internal Gravimetric Dampeners - IGD

  Not sure how these work, yet. Like so many other systems, I plan to find out though.

  This system receives input from the dampening shields, then sends data to RMC. Not sure what else it does.

  This system is independent to the RMC yet receives data from the same source and... and... I still don’t know what it does. I do know the system is independent to the gravity plates.

  Eureka! This system dynamically adjusts the ship’s internal gravity plates to compensate for ship speed changes, and other maneuvers.

  Relativistic Mass Compensator - RMC

  I ran into this when perusing the Gamin database. This system receives data from the IGD. Not sure how it works.

  Somehow this system interpolates dampening shield data with relativistic speed for mass calculations. Data is then fed to the internal gravity plates in order to maintain an inertia free gravity environment.

  Seems to be a redundant system, perhaps a backup?

  Thinking of Earth where years have passed, instead of months, I wonder, perhaps this is the system that prevents time dilation effects when traveling faster than light?

  If this is the system, then that would explain why it always engages with the main drive. But how is it that only three years have passed, and not more?

  Internal Gravity

  It feels strange watching the ship bank and turn over planets and not feel any motion. Throws off my balance at times, and it seems to make Cindy queasy.

  The gravity is heavier on the ship, or it makes everything else heavier, not sure how to apply the thinking to this. Everything is heavier, it’s just weird.

  Regent Voknor contacted us, told us to go home, then not only gave us the information on how the internal gravity works, he adjusted it to an Earth normal. This was done while his fleet was many light years away, scary to think he has that much control over this ship. I wonder what else he could do? For a second, I thought I saw all the formulas in English, then they were gone.

  I think I have it figured out, thanks to the Regent. When he sent specifications, and adjusted our gravity to Earth’s, I got to see the process first hand. It seems way overcomplicated!

  Okay, here goes.

  Dampening shield data is transferred to the IGD, then feeds output to the RMC which, in turn, also receives raw data directly from the dampening shields and the navigational shields. As a cross check perhaps? It seems like a redundant step. The data required for the artificial gravity
is then calculated by the RMC.

  The gravity plates themselves are purpose built, with layers of chargeable particles protected by thin bands of a specialized material. These particles are charged to meet whatever gravity setting is required. Power requirements seem to be very low. Additionally, these plates can be powered by any source. Simply being connected to the ship’s grid anywhere at all is sufficient.

  Finally, the gravity plating is attached directly under the internal hull plates that make up the flooring on the ship, the shuttle, and even the mining vehicle.

  Our own efforts at augmenting the unfinished areas have caused more harm than good. It seems they were shaking the ship apart.

  The new race we ran into, literally, call themselves Kord. They are short, furry creatures with black pits for eyes. They are an unusual and quiet species, with advanced technologies. They’re repairing our ship so fast it feels surreal. They want us to take their survivors home, we probably will.

  We have arrived at the coordinates given to us by Golward. An enormous space station hangs in orbit over a planet not too unlike Earth. Our ship is inside one of its many docks, and the Kord are repairing the outer hull for us. We were not permitted to leave the ship, not even when they took Olaf’s body. We have no idea what the Kord space station looks like on the inside, and have no idea of its air, gravity, or anything. I had better start writing some notes about them too.

  Gravity Landing System

  The entire underside of the ship is made up of gravity plates, except for the sections that were not completed. I am told that the underside shimmers and emits an odd noise, when engaged.

  The shuttle uses the same lift technology, just on a smaller scale. While the shuttle is able to land and take off from planets, the Terran has too many gravity lift plates missing to do this.