by P H Campbell
SEREN:
LEGENDS
of the
GALAXY
A Novel by
P. H. CAMPBELL
COPYRIGHT © 12/2019 by P. H. Campbell
Dedicated to
Brianna Marie Worthington
for the wonderful Writing Aid
program she got me for Christmas.
CHAPTER 1
The World had turned the tide in the epidemic ravaging the Human children, thanks to the ingenuity of the colonists and a unified effort by former foes in a thousand year long war. But as with any battle against illness, turning the tide didn't mean the fight was over. The most critically ill of the children, numbering in the tens of thousands, needed more care and immediate attention than the combined ability of the three, now four, people of The World could muster. Hundreds of thousands more would inevitably die, even though the vast majority of the ill would live, and the future would be preserved for the denizens of The World to continue to struggle on.
The World itself was on the brink of collapse, with the epidemic being a macabre blessing by reducing the number of people it had to sustain. Its decline had been slow occurring over millennia. And it had been just as inexorable as the illness which eventually claimed the lives of everyone so far affected.
As an emblem of the desperation the leader of The World felt in fighting against the epidemic, she had agreed to send a distress call from the ten thousand year old colony ship Wethersfield. They knew there were millennia away from having that message heard and continued on in their attempts to combat the epidemic. But, shockingly, only a few months after the message began going out, it was answered by two miners exploring the World's system for metals and other riches.
The miners belonged to a galactic group known as the Shade Alliance, and were the adopted daughters of one of the former leaders of the Shade. They had influence and the ability to help The World. More to the point, they had technology ten millennia more advanced than anything The World had, and could cure the epidemic almost as easily as walking into a room.
But with their new friends came new challenges for The World. And new challenges arose for the entire galaxy because of the discovery of an enormous wealth of metal deposits in The World's system.
As The World began to close the book on the latest of one of too many existential crises in its dark and violent past, another existential crisis appeared on the horizon: What to do with more wealth than any other system in the galaxy, without having the means to defend themselves?
Seren, the defacto leader of The World, pondered that question, and many others, as she sat talking with the two miners, and learning as much as she could about what new Friends, and foes, The World would soon be making.
When Ash called Cinder, her mother was not expecting any calls, especially not one using the top secret, use only in an extreme emergency, don't let anyone know you have it QUESTOR device she had appropriated from Bleath after the Shade Alliance engineers copied it. On the good side of forty standard years, Cinder was tall and slender with brown hair and eyes. At the moment, her expression was dark. She had a good reason to be as disgruntled as she looked. No one dared to interrupt her when she was sleeping.
She grumbled, knowing that it had to be Ash or Looie, and that some major shit had hit some monstrous fans for either of them to be calling on the QUESTOR. It was the only faster than light, two-way, lag-less method of communicating across the galaxy and though it was being disseminated throughout the United Galactic Worlds, the Shade Alliance wasn't legally allowed to have more than the one they used for official communications.
"Hi, Ash. Did you crash the ship?" Cinder asked the pensive Methman on the screen.
"Not this time, Mom," Ash replied pleasantly, ignoring the implied slur on her reputation. She had only once dented a manifold when she made a hard landing. "We found a lost Human colony in the richest mineral system ever scanned in galactic history. It's on the border, in UGW space for about half its year, and ours the other half."
"That's… complicated," Cinder noted dryly.
"It's not our fault this time," Ash insisted. "They sent a distress signal. And the message was really old-school. Radio. Like, speed of light stuff. Not even a message torp. I don't think their ship even had H-Space drives. The planet's ecology is, well, to put it mildly, completely and totally fucked. It got a major radiation dose sometime in the distant past. Almost all the life is pretty much not there anymore. Big suckers in the oceans, but not on land."
"How long have they been there?" Cinder wondered. Ash mentioned a wealth of metals and minerals. If the colonists had only recently arrived and found a world that wasn't habitable, then the ownership of system could be disputed, assuming the UGW didn't demand to take the best of the best like they usually did. If not, then the colonists would probably negotiate if their technology was only as good as an old-time radio.
"Ten thousand local years, which is about a twenty-five percent longer than a standard year," Ash told her, much to Cinder's annoyance.
"They survived that long?" Cinder sighed, knowing negotiation was the only option, and they'd likely need a lot of help. The Shade Alliance wasn't really in great shape for helping anyone at the moment.
"Yeah, but it's, like, hugely weird here," Ash said. "Split up societies, probably racist. The one guy I met – a really short, stout fellow – about peed his pants when he saw me. Looie didn't even make him blink, so he's used to Humans. And their leader, well, she could be your young twin sister, only her hair is black, not brown, and she has light eyes."
"You mean she's tall, thin and has no tits either," Cinder remarked sourly. Both Ash and Looie were much more blessed in looking feminine than Cinder was.
"She has some, like you do, Mom," Ash reassured her. "But she also has the same height, same build, nearly the same face, and nearly the same voice. Weird, huh? Did you have a family branch that went off colonizing ten millennia ago or more?"
"No clue," Cinder replied, knowing her genealogical history was mostly moot anyhow, since she had no clue who her biological parents were. "So why did they send a distress signal?"
"They have a plague, or something, we can probably take care of," Ash shrugged with the indifference of certainty. "Their technology is on the same level as, well, I'm not up on Human history…"
"I told you to study history more," Cinder interrupted.
"Thanks for the reminder, Mom," Ash grinned. "But they've got electricity, and a strong metal industry, global transport systems, underground, no less, and airships that look like they use hydrogen, but nothing microelectronic, let alone what we have now. The Human colony tech is more advanced, but there's not much of it. We saw some industrial printers that I really want to take apart to see how they worked, but they're, like, ancient. Fifteen thousand standard? Maybe? I mean, really old. The satellite registered as fourteen thousand three hundred years old. It was probably put there when the colony ship arrived."
"Do you have a name for the colony ship?" Cinder wondered.
"Wethersfield," Ash reported.
Cinder looked up the information. Her eyes widened.
"Yeah, they were reported lost," she told her adoptive daughter. "The ship was sub-light, and everyone was in stasis. According to archives, Earth Central never received a confirmation of a landing signal from them. Is that planet about twelve hundred light years from Earth?"
"Uh, about, I guess," Ash confirmed it with her navigation systems.
"Then they're on the right planet, but that planet's listed as uninhabitable," Cinder noted.
"The variety of life on it is the lowest I've seen outside of an asteroid," Ash agreed. "Like I said, the ecology is totally fucked. But
I didn't stick around to hear about how they managed to stay alive. Looie is trying to negotiate a bargain with them to help them with their epidemic. I got out of there because I was really making the short, fat one nervous, and thought I should tell you what we found."
Cinder didn't exactly face-palm over what Looie was doing at the moment, but she knew that any agreement made without the UGW at the table would be hard to implement, let alone enforce. If the leader or leaders of the planet had any sense, they'd get the full story before deciding which side to go with. either side could help them, but any such help would likely include a stipulation that they would join one side or the other.
That was one of the many provisions of the treaty worked out between the Shade Alliance and the United Galactic Worlds regarding lost inhabited planets. That meant the Shade Alliance had to put on the best show possible, since the UGW was so much larger and better able to handle things like ecologically distressed planets.
"So, how rich is this system?" Cinder wanted to know.
"Mom, I wasn't exaggerating about it," Ash told her seriously. "It's, literally, the richest system in metals and rare earths in the recorded history of the galaxy. Each of the inhabitants on it would be quadrillionaires hundreds of times over at the least."
"What's its population?" Cinder wondered.
"A little under a hundred and fifty million, I think," Ash replied.
Cinder sighed again. That much wealth was likely war-worthy, if someone wanted to get down to cases. The Shade Alliance had lots of ships with lots of weapons, but the UGW had more and better ships and weapons.
"Hang on," Ash cocked her head. "Okay, good to know."
"What?" Cinder asked, knowing that her daughter had just mind-talked with her twin.
"There's only one real leader," Ash reported. "Her name's Seren. No family name offered. No titles offered. And she knows when someone lies. Negotiations are going to have to be honest."
"It's best when they are, but are we talking cards on the table honest, or hold and bluff honest?" Cinder asked.
"Don't play poker with her, and under no circumstances should Bleath come within earshot of her," Ash said. "Looie is, well, insistent. This Seren woman scares her kind of like you do when you get pissed. This lady's seen some shit."
"Tell me about her," Cinder asked, curious about someone who could cause the Twins to be cautious around her.
"I've told you most of what I know," Ash admitted. "She's honest, straightforward to the point of being blunt, but smart, very, very smart. She's about our age, by the look of her, and she's the negotiator between all of their nations. And she speaks English, perfectly, even if she has a bit of an accent. Most of the people on her planet don't. It surprised her we did. There're all sorts of contradictory stuff, like ancient tech working perfectly, and other Humans who speak English, or at least that's the impression.
"It might be they found the Wethersfield recently, and found colonists still alive on it, maybe in stasis. That'd explain why she spoke English, but the rest of the planet didn't. Was the stasis tech that advanced back then to keep people alive for that long?"
"Stasis pods have been around for millennia," Cinder shrugged. "Give them enough power and a source of air, I guess it's possible."
"Our pod was about to die, you said, when you found us," Ash pointed out.
"Yours was damaged, and relied on its own power source, with no outside source of air," Cinder reminded her. "A colony ship, well, I don't know much about the old stuff, but they'd have power and, assuming it was on the planet, at least they'd have air. You could probably keep someone alive under those circumstances for hundreds of thousands of years before they died of thirst."
"Was the colony ship launched from Earth?" Ash asked.
"No, Mars," Cinder read. "But the colonists were all from Earth. Most of them were from one nation-state on one of the continents. Mars apparently had some significance for them at the time. That was probably before they finished the terraforming."
"Okay," Ash's acknowledged, not wanting to get into a history lesson. "In the meantime, we're gonna need some med-gear here to help about a million epidemic victims, with tens of thousands in critical condition."
"Fuck," Cinder sighed, shaking her head. "The SA doesn't have the resources to do that alone."
"Yeah, I was afraid of that," Ash nodded. "Does that mean I can call Lyle?"
"As much as you boast about having bedded him, he still denies it," Cinder told her. "Sexual wiles won't work on him. So, no, this should go through the UGW Council, through official channels. We'll send what we can, maybe outfitted to help the sickest, but they will have to help, too, unless we have a few standards to do this."
"I'm guessing not that much time," Ash remarked.
"I'll bring our people up to speed, and get things rolling with the UGW," Cinder promised. "Send me the data you have."
"Being ambassador to the UGW sucks, huh, Mom?" Ash asked, complying with her mother's wishes.
"It's mostly having to stay honest if I have to deal with this thing that bothers me," Cinder noted.
"Maybe they can appoint you liaison to this place, too!" Ash enthusiastically suggested. "This Seren person doesn't like to be lied to, and will call you out on it if you do it. At least, that's what she did to Looie."
"Would I like her?" Cinder wondered.
"Do you like yourself?" Ash asked in return.
"Only on my good days," Cinder winked. "I'll get the ball rolling here. You probably should go back and apply some sensibility to your sister before she gets herself kicked off the planet altogether."
"I don't think the natives are entirely friendly here for non-Humans," Ash said seriously. "I'm pretty sure I'm the first intelligent non-Human species they've ever seen. So, if you bring friends, make sure they're Human looking for now. I'm still trying to get the fur on the back of my neck to lay down properly."
"I'll pass that along," Cinder agreed.
Ash returned from her call, followed by a small entourage of awed, and nervous, Borderlandians and Electrians. She had some difficulty telling one from the other, but when she looked at faces, she could tell a stark difference. The Borderlandians, who had varying features, didn't seem hostile. Not so much the other ones, whose features were almost the same.
'These people are weird,' Seren heard in her head as Ash came in the door.
"Not so much weird as that they've been through a lot," Seren corrected her, glancing at Ash's involuntary entourage. They faded back and closed the door.
When Seren glanced back at Ash and Looie, they both were looking at her as if she'd grown ten feet tall and spouted horns and fangs.
"What?" Seren asked, alarmed that something was dreadfully wrong.
"Nothing to worry about, Seren," Ash smiled reassuringly.
"I was about to explain us and she was going to tell us about herself," Looie informed her. "But you're better at that than I am."
Seren looked at Ash, who sighed, thought about a concise way to do that, then said, "Depending on how well you can follow the tech, and keeping the explanation simple, Looie and I are designed clones."
"I think I can relate to that," Seren agreed, her expression showing a knowing that she probably shouldn't have had, given the tech of the planet.
"We're all created beings," Looie agreed, gesturing at the three of them.
"We are?" Ash was both surprised and curious about that.
"We chatted," Looie pointed between Seren and herself.
"Ah…," Ash seemed to take her word for it, not wanting to satisfy her curiosity at the moment, marking it on the "to do later" list.
"Ash and I are cloned entities derived in part from a translation device created by a collaboration between a Human male and a Methonian female," Looie explained.
"Methonians, who look like I do, don't speak verbally," Ash explained.
"You seem to speak fine," Seren observed, amused.
"Yeah, I'm a Methman," Ash explained. "That
's a fusion between a Methonian and a Human who is basically a Methonian-appearing person who can talk verbally. I'm not a pure-bred Methonian. They call us Fusions mostly."
"And I'm not a pure-bred Human," Looie added. "I can mind-speak like a Methonian, but I look Human. I'm called a Humonian. I'm a Fusion, too."
"I believe we went over this once," Seren observed. "You guys would get along great in the Borderlands." At their blank expressions, she explained, "That's where the breeds on this world live – someone who appears to be a Magentian, only with Electrian traits, and others with the appearance of Electrians with Methonian traits."
"Are the Borderlandians officious oafs with rules and regulations and all that?" Looie asked.
"No, they're pretty much the opposite," Seren told her. "Whatever works, goes, as long as no one gets hurt."
"I just felt a shiver," Looie admitted with a grin at the thought of a whole society so like the Shade Alliance.
"Your nipples are hard," Ash noted with a frown. "How many times have I told you not to wear your sheer spacesuit when we meet new people?"
"At least she's interested in what we're talking about," Seren offered an out.
"Do you like girls?" Looie asked her, noticing where Seren had glanced.
"I'm attracted to people, not genders," Seren admitted, realizing that she should be more diplomatic, though the Twins didn't seem to mind the converstation. "But you were saying something about being a translation device?"
"Right," Looie got back on track. "Basically, our DNA was intentionally designed – you know about DNA?"
"DNA I get," Seren confirmed.
"Good," Looie nodded. "So they based our DNA on a Methonian and a Human – the Human was male, the other female, and they made a biological construct that could talk like a Human but understand mind-speech like a Methonian."
'This is mindspeech,' Ash added in Seren's mind.
Seren frowned as she felt the brain activity again, but not quite yet getting the nuances of how it was done.
