Shadows of Golstar
By Terrence E. Scott
Text copyright © 2012 Terrence E. Scott
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
Prologue
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
Epilog
Prologue
Near the close of the 22nd century, Einstein’s law had been circumvented; the long-held dream of a practical, working star drive was finally realized, providing the catalyst for what would be called the Great Exodus, the first mass migration of humankind out beyond Earth’s solar system. The migration continued for decades and as Earth’s population shrank, influence and control of the long-entrenched Earth governments waned and allowed those choosing to remain, the freedom to experiment in different directions.
New societies arose from remnants of the old. Extreme religious views, obscure branches of science and polarized political ideals were well represented among these fledgling nations. However, as years passed, the technology that overcame the light barrier once again became an enticement. The Earth-bound governments saw the same opportunities as had their predecessors. The awakening lure of spreading their beliefs out among the stars, creating empires of their own design, had become irresistible.
A number of these latter Earth-based nations would leave the home planet in hopes of creating their own brands of utopia. Shunning the unified ‘Confederated Planets’ that had evolved from the first migration, they headed out in varying directions, far from Confederated Planets’ boundaries.
The second wave of the Great Exodus began, but sadly, this migration did not achieve the same success as the first. Many governments were ill-equipped for such an undertaking and met with catastrophe before finding a habitable planet. Others, more fortunate, found homes only to succumb later to disease, starvation or some other unexpected calamity. Still others, having succeeded in establishing a tenuous foothold on their new planet, discovered their views of society were flawed and fell to anarchy, war and often regressed to primitive levels.
As a result of these misfortunes, only a small number of the later migrations succeeded in creating societies that would flourish in far remote locations scattered across the galaxy. Centuries slowly passed and these societies grew, remaining in relative isolation from the greater human civilization that originated from the first wave of the Great Exodus.
As the Confederated Planets continued its own expansion outward, it would sometimes chance upon one of these remote outposts of humanity. Dwarfing the independent human settlements, it was inevitable that the smaller populations would be re-absorbed into the fold of the “greater interstellar civilization.” Over the centuries, this pattern would be repeated until the Confederated Planets encountered a pocket of humanity far different from the rest.
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It started with the Confederated Planets’ discovery of a new nebula. The nebula, designated as 266AZ7, was aptly nicknamed the Farway Spiral. An extremely rare planetary system was found orbiting a Sol-class star within one of the nebula’s arching tips. It possessed eleven planets; incredibly, three of the planets were in earth nominal orbits and oxygen-based.
News of the discovery was suppressed from the general public and commercial interests. The government sought exclusive rights to all rewards arising from this discovery and the information was limited to a few high-ranking government scientists and bureaucrats.
More detailed information was needed. Deep-space probes were quickly modified to extend their range before being quietly launched on their clandestine journey. The voyage to the distant spiral stretched the probes’ navigation and propulsion capabilities and at various stages of their journey, probes malfunctioned.
Fortunately, one probe reached the outer perimeter of its destination before its telemetry was lost. It transmitted sufficient data to support a new discovery; the system was already inhabited. With this unexpected news, the government considered the reintegration of what now looked to be a lost colony. Presence in the region could greatly extend the government’s reach and it followed that steps were taken to initiate the first contact.
The Farway Spiral was a significant distance from Confederated Planets’ controlled space and a manned expedition would tax resources and technologies, but greed far outweighed the risks, and arrangements for an expedition were immediately undertaken. Soon, four ships and a supply tender secretly embarked on their historic voyage.
The expedition took over five months to reach the outermost boundary of the planetary system. Communications frequencies had been monitored throughout the voyage, yet the linguistic team was unable to decrypt the signals originating from the system’s unknown inhabitants. Approaching the orbit of the outermost planet, friendship messages were transmitted on all known communications frequencies. The expedition had waited until it neared the system to reduce the time lag before attempting to communicate, but the ciphered noise continued and there was no indication the expedition had been heard.
As the small fleet continued its approach, another discovery was made. It appeared to be a sensor grid of unimaginable scope, comprised of a myriad of featureless spheres, each approximately three meters in diameter. The grid was comprised of millions of the satellites. The precise positioning and tracking required to maintain such a construct were astonishing. It blanketed the entire planetary system, yet oddly no signals or radiation could be detected; it appeared inert, dead.
The network of satellites triggered alarm in members of the armed forces taking part in the expedition. The ships were halted and scientists, engineers, members of the military and ship captains paused to discuss the discovery. The fleet remained stationary until it was concluded that the satellites were part of an automated early-warning network; further analyses provided no new information.
However, the expedition remained suspicious. The magnitude of the early-warning system indicated a strong military mind-set. A sensor grid of such breadth was far in advance of Confederated Planets’ current capabilities and was a clear sign the inhabitants were likely advanced in other technical areas as well.
Naviga
tion through the sensor net would require careful plotting. Even had they wished to remain undetected, if the grid was to activate, it would not be possible. So, as a further precaution, the expedition broke its routine communications schedule for a singular transmission. Data describing the sensor net was sent back to base operations. Then, at a drastically reduced speed, the expedition resumed its course and the frequency of the friendship message transmissions was increased.
The explorers continued their observations and soon found, in addition to the sensor satellites, a number of spheres, estimated at over two kilometers in diameter, orbiting the five outer planets in the system. Each planet had a complement of two of these enigmatic orbs. The scientists reasoned these spheres were the controlling mechanisms that maintained the satellite network.
The ships were again halted and discussions resumed. After lengthy exchanges between the expedition’s members, it was agreed the mission would continue given that no overt hostile action had been encountered. The discovery of the orbiting spheres would be included in the next regularly scheduled transmission.
The expedition’s ships further reduced their speed as they traveled deeper into the system. When it was again time for the scheduled data transmission, news of the recent discovery of the orbiting spheres was included. Unexpectedly, at the start of the transmission, the expedition received signals that saturated the transmission bandwidths. They could not transmit; the signal was effectively blocked. The source of the jamming was originating from newly activated satellites that comprised the sensor grid.
It appeared to be the prelude to an attack. The military contingent immediately took control and backup inter-ship laser signaling systems were activated. The short-range light-wave system was unaffected by the jamming and an emergency condition was successfully declared throughout the tiny fleet.
Claxons reverberated throughout the expedition’s ships compartments and corridors, signaling frantic crews to emergency stations. The expedition had limited weaponry and was no match for an organized military assault. Rather than chance a confrontation, the expedition would abandon its mission and return home straight-away. The ships immediately reversed course and headed out of the system.
Ship sub-captains anxiously hovered around crew members monitoring their sensors. Weapons handlers sweated in their gunnery blisters, pondering the size of an attack they might be ordered to repel as the expedition continued its attempts to transmit its situation. The ships aligned their transmitters to boost their transmission and searched for gaps or weakness in the jamming signals, but without success.
Still, the expedition made good progress and escaping the outer planet’s gravity field without any indication of pursuit. They were well away from known weapons range and the tension within the expedition began to subside. They were mere minutes from the safe-point that would allow them to enter subspace.
They almost made it. Seconds from transitioning into subspace, the ships’ onboard sensors registered multiple energy pulses originating from the vicinity of the outer planet. With little time to assess the meaning of the sensor data, it is doubtful the explorers knew of the approaching maelstrom before being vaporized into elemental atoms.
Later it was determined the “control spheres” were actually massively armed space fortresses, which instead of controlling, were themselves controlled by the linked satellite sensor grid which also functioned as a gigantic integrated computer. The fortresses’ weapons used a type of skip-space technology that allowed streams of energy to dip into and out of subspace within planetary gravity-wells. Energy beams pulsed out from one of the fortresses deployed around the planet and easily spanned the distance to swiftly and systematically destroy each fleeing expedition ship. None of the expedition’s members saw the momentary bright flash of their demise. Rapidly dissipating particle clouds were all that remained of the expedition’s ships and crews.
For months following the destruction of the expedition, Confederated Planets scientists continued to receive the expedition’s time-delayed data. Only when the control center failed to receive the expedition’s last scheduled data-packet, did the scientists become aware of a problem. They notified the military and waited for the transmissions to resume. The interval of silence grew and government officials were apprised of the situation.
The members of the Confederated Planets ruling Parliament became concerned on hearing of the break in communications. However, when a delayed in-depth analysis was completed on the expedition’s last subspace data-packet, the sensor grid discovery awakened the government to the potential danger, and soon concern grew into alarm. The government was shaken by the possibility of an attack on the Confederated Planets’ explorers.
Conjecture grew and worst-case scenarios were contemplated, fueling passions within the home military for a quick reaction with armed forces. The Space Corps and Marine contingents advocated an immediate military response and found receptive ears within Parliament. Soon, with growing self-righteous anger, a secret assembly of the Parliament decided to send a heavily armed expeditionary force to retrieve the expedition or at the worst, search for survivors.
An elite battle group was quietly dispatched to the Farway system under the guise of routine war games. The plan was to determine the fate of the explorers and if necessary, be prepared to engage in armed retribution. The fleet consisted of two newly commissioned flag battleships capable of inflicting damage to hardened, planetary-based defenses, four medium attack carriers, each equipped with 100 “Stinger A220” tactical space-to-air fighters, and six destroyer-class escort ships.
The last message received from the battle group, after a long uneventful voyage, was that the ships were crossing the outer boundary of the system and would begin the search for the missing expedition. Communications silence would be observed for the remainder of the mission. No further transmissions were received until months later when three emergency message drones made their way back into Confederated Planets’ territory. The information they held told of an overwhelming attack. All the ships appeared lost.
Parliament and the military were stunned by the complete destruction of the battle group. The unthinkable possibility of an interstellar war was now a cold reality. And bringing the battle to such a distant foe would strain the public and military to its limits.
The drones contained telemetry on the satellite defense grid and the orbiting fortresses, and analyses on the encryption employed by Farway’s inhabitants. The encryption looked to be based on old-earth protocols. The data confirmed the inhabitants of the system were definitely human, extremely hostile and in possession of a superior, lethal technology they had not hesitated to deploy against their brethren.
Confederated Planets had made two forays into the Farway system, both to disastrous ends, and the government believed it was only a matter of time before the militaristic inhabitants of this distant system would further react and make a definitive move toward the home planets. In preparation leading up to a public declaration of war, the government made plans to assemble an armada to retaliate and defend against this newly revealed enemy.
War preparations were barely underway when remote monitoring posts reported the approach of a ship of unknown configuration, originating from the Farway Spiral, heading toward Confederated Planets space. Warships were dispatched along calculated jump points to disable and capture the intruder or failing that, destroy it before it could threaten the inner systems.
Heavily armed attack corsairs met the foreign vessel shortly after it exited subspace, midway on its projected course. Warnings were transmitted along with a weapons salvo across the ship’s bow, but the alien ship ignored both messages and maintained its original course, recharging for its next entry into subspace. The corsairs immediately attacked with pulse lasers, missiles and deadly rail-guns. The intruder was momentarily lost in a cloud of plasma gases, electrical discharges and shrapnel, but after a few seconds, the ship reappeared, unscathed. It made no attempt to return fire.
At the next jump point, a larger force was sent to engage the intruder. Undamaged, with its progress unabated, the ship continued on its course. Confederated Planets then attempted to ram the intruder with an unmanned warship packed with enough explosives to destroy a small moon. The impact triggered a spectacular explosion, but as if by magic, the ship emerged from the expanding ball of devastating energy, whole and unharmed. When it reached the heavily traveled civilian traffic routes, the military was forced to cease its futile assaults. They could only monitor the strange ship as it made its way toward the heart of Confederated Planets. Entering the inner systems, it abruptly changed course and made directly for Confederated Planets’ center of government on Terra II.
Terra II had been cordoned off to civilian traffic, and in one last attempt, the planet’s own hardened defenses focused their energies on the approaching ship as three battleships attacked from the rear. This assault was as ineffective as all the previous attacks. The alien ship finally halted 160 kilometers above the Seat of Parliament and hovered in a geo-synchronous orbit.
For three days, all attempts at communication failed to elicit a response from the ship. Finally, at the end of the third day, it sent a single burst of data. The ship then broke orbit, and began a course back toward Farway. No attempts were made to prevent its departure or to follow.
The ship’s transmission was soon translated and found to be a simple warning. In old English, it stated that any further entry into “Golstar” space by Confederated Planets ships would be considered an act of war. Parliament hotly debated the meaning of the message, but in the end, a point had been made and the message clearly received.
At the edge of then-charted space, the government quietly put the Golstar system in quarantine, making it off-limits to members of Confederated Planets. Stories were created to explain the “runaway star-liner” and how it had been pursued and ultimately destroyed by the military. Nevertheless, over the years, some of the real facts leaked to the public. Even so, through the passage of time, rumor and speculation became myths and legend. The quarantine continued to be enforced and Golstar’s isolation remained unbroken for three centuries.
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