by Trevor Wyatt
Table of Contents
Title Page
Description
Dedication
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
Explore The Pax Aeterna Universe
The Mariner
Encyclopedia Galactica Vol. 1
About the Author
The Seeker
A Pax Aeterna Novel
By Trevor Wyatt
Copyright 2017 by Pax Aeterna Press
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.
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Description
Humanity has colonized the stars.
Over 150 years, no sign of life has been found.
But when it does…
It will greet us with blood and fire.
It was supposed to be the dawn of a new age.
The Terran Union was spread over dozens worlds.
Peace reigned in our space.
Sure, there were problems with the Outer Colonies.
Some problems with pirates.
But we weren’t prepared for First Contact.
We weren’t ready for the war.
We watched as the aliens burned our worlds.
We tried desperately to fight back at first.
But it was in vain.
Eventually, we learned from our failures.
We became stronger. Tougher.
Now, we have our forces ready.
We aim to strike back.
Show that humanity is stronger.
We have one last chance to strike at them.
If we succeed, we survive.
If not, we die.
Now the only question is…
Is the galaxy ready for us?
Dedication
To my secretary, Simone Le Rouge
Chapter 1
Jeryl
The vastness of space is always disquieting. Sure it’s beautiful to look at. But in the back of your mind, you also know that you’re hurtling through empty space in a microcarbon tetrapolymer tube. One small deviation from some pretty tight specs and your ass is grass—lungs bursting as you depressurize.
No matter the stellar phenomena that we chart. No matter the beauty that we see. At the back of my mind is always the notion that space is cold. Unforgiving. Empty. It doesn’t care whether you’re good or evil. It doesn’t care about your political faction. Or whether you hooked up with your first officer on shore leave. It kills with impunity.
I’m sitting in CNC on the Terran Union Starship that they’ve named The Seeker. I used to hate this name when I first took command. Now I love it. Two years of commanding an Armada frigate patrolling the border with the Outer Colonies will do that to you. I know each of my crew personally. Hell, I hand selected almost all of them at some point or another as people left and needed replacing.
“We’re approaching the last known coordinates of The Mariner, Captain,” our navigator, Henry Docherty, calls out from his station.
“Cut FTL drive and return to normal space,” I order, sitting back in my chair. I can feel the hum of the ship change as the FTL drives are disengaged from Engineering. The ship falls into the normal space from the folded space it was travelling in.
“Visual,” I order and the view screen comes on in front of me. It dominates the far wall of CNC and gives me the visual sensors to see what’s happening outside of The Seeker. Sure, there are double-plated transparent microcarbon glass panels running along the sides of CNC, but I don’t know what the designers of this frigate assumed they would do. They’re as big as portholes on an ancient seafaring craft. You can’t hop on your tip toes and look out of those to get a view of the outside. You can’t make command decisions.
I bet it was done to bolster morale. To distract people from becoming claustrophobic. To not have them dwell on the fact that they’re in a box travelling several times the speed of light through the cold unknown.
Only, I wouldn’t want to look out of the fucking windows and keep being reminded of that, if I really had a problem.
“Mr. Lannigan,” I say to my Science Officer. “Coordinate with Ms. Gaines and scan the area for The Mariner.”
The science officer nods and makes room at his station as Ashley Gaines—the shapely first officer for The Seeker—comes over to join him.
Not for the first time do I sigh as I watch them work. I’ve done everything that a Captain can do in this situation. I’ve delegated tasks to my crew and now all I can do is sit back and wait for the next piece of information on this godforsaken mission.
I know. I don’t sound too happy. Well, that’s because I’m not.
We’re out here in the far fringes of the Terran Union. The closest station, Edoris Station, is 20 light years away. That’s roughly 20 days that we’ve been travelling. No colonies. Just empty space and giant balls of gas and dust.
Admiral Flynn was insistent that The Seeker had to go see this out.
“Jeryl,” he said to me. “If it is something where the Outer Colonies are trying to come through our back door, no other person I want investigating it than you.”
The only problem with that logic?
The Outer Colonies are all the way on the other side of the Terran Union. Even if they had ships as powerful as the Union, I doubt they could get all the way around it without attracting some sort of attention. Besides, the distance to traverse through empty space would be prohibitive.
Which means, the more I think about it, that whatever is causing The Mariner to not respond to hails from Edoris Station is not related to the Outer Colonies. And I would know. I’ve had experience on the border. Most of my time in the Armada has been rotating on and off ships that patrol the border.
There’s brush fires, sure. Isolated incursions. More to harry and provoke The Union than anything else.
I mean, there hasn’t been a war since as long as I can remember. Hell, since as long as anyone can remember. The last sustained conflict was during The Schism. That was just about fifty years ago. Back in 2147. Everyone knows about it because they teach you in History. But no one who lived through it is around serving in The Armada now. So all we have to go by is what we learned in school – how Earth sent out her children into the stars. And how those children grew older and began to help their ailing parents from the ravages of its nuclear war. How rebuilding Earth was deemed to be impossible—scientists of the mid 21st Century, after the nuclear wars that rocked the planet said that it would take at least a thousand years of rebuilding for the planet to go back to pre-World War III conditions.
Except they hadn’t factored in space travel. Or colonies. They hadn’t factored in humanity’s drive to survive when backed agai
nst the wall. And how from the ashes of post-atomic horror Terra came together. Did away with the old institutions. Implemented a unified voice. And looked to it’s children to go into the stars and send back the resources to rebuild.
And rebuild they did. To the exclusion of all else. Large percentages of colony budgets were earmarked for rebuilding efforts, and for the first generation or two it was done with pride. People were contributing toward the rebirth of the cradle of humanity.
But fast forward another generation and you saw grudging acceptance of the way of life that called for sacrifices to be made so that a world that very few had ever seen could prosper.
Another generation and you saw hostility at the situation of giving up your hard work for a world hundreds of light years away. And then the farthest of Terra’s children—those in the outermost colonies—said one day that they had had enough.
And they threw off the yoke, as they believed it to be. And once again, humanity went to war.
But that was fifty years ago. The Terran Armada was nothing compared to what it is today. Rebuilding was the focus, remember? There was very little need for defensive or offensive space ships. We hadn’t encountered any alien life. We still haven’t. The few frigates and cruisers that were in service were used to ensure hostilities didn’t get too bad. And to ensure that the proper material flowed back to the Homeworld.
Eventually, with the Colonies being granted their independence—all 57 of them—tensions cooled and the long vigil across a border began.
That was the last conflict anyone had ever fought.
And like I said, all the research and all the exploration hasn’t uncovered any trace of alien life. Sure, we found moss growing on a rock on New Chrysalis. Signs of vegetation here and there, a sign that the universe isn’t asleep while the humans destroy themselves. But no sentient life.
For as much as we believe, humanity is alone in the universe. Left to explore on it’s own. Left to fight amongst each other as we colonize the stars.
So then if it wasn’t the Outer Colonies, and there’s no such thing as non-human life … then what could be preventing The Mariner from responding to us?
That’s the only mystery that makes this mission worth a damn. Solving that problem.
A part of me is betting that because The Mariner is a deep space exploration vessel, with a small crew complement, that those egghead scientists are probably lost in their own little bubble, exploring some stellar phenomena of the month. Not realizing that we had to be pulled off our course to go rescue some scientists with their heads in the clouds.
We’ll probably find them and they’ll realize they somehow turned off their communications grid. Or maybe they took it offline so that nothing would bother them with their research. You may scoff, but I’ve seen it happen before. It wouldn’t be the first time.
That’s when Ashley walks toward me.
I can tell she’s walking toward me even though I’m not turned to her but looking down at my pad. I can smell the slight perfume that she indulges in every morning. The smell that I remember when I go to sleep at night. The smell that I breathed in when we were on shore leave in New Sydney. When we found ourselves accidentally at the same resort. Drinks and dinner. A bottle of New Sydney wine in my suite. And then a weekend of sex.
And then, when the music stopped at the end of shore leave, replacing all that with professionalism. To cover up the awkwardness. To make sure that we didn’t have to talk about what we had done to each other the night before.
Ashley comes closer and the hairs on my neck stand up. Something is definitely up.
She leans closer and whispers in my ear.
“Captain,” she says softly so that no one can hear. “There’s something you should probably see. In private.”
Chapter 2
Ashley
“In private?” Jeryl whispers, cocking one eyebrow as he looks at me. I stand straight, my lips pursed as I feel the palm of my hands growing sleek with sweat. That was a poor choice of words, no doubt about that.
After the New Sydney incident, I’ve struggled to push my way past the ensuing awkwardness. I do my best to act as professionally as possible, but sometimes there’s a crack in my shell. I can’t help it; every time I close my eyes and remember those warm days back in New Sydney, Captain Jeryl just turns into … Jeryl.
The Armada frowns upon their officers falling into the personal relationship trap, but everyone knows you can’t keep people boxed in a vessel for too long without something happening. Usually everyone’s sane enough to keep things professional while they're in outer space, but things change the moment they feel gravity’s pull.
You adjust to the atmosphere, you grow accustomed to the slight variations in weight, and you trade your uniform for some expensive dress smuggled from one of the Outer Colonies. You drop the formalities, look at all that time off in your calendar, and inevitably you find yourself with a glass of wine in one hand.
That’s what happened in New Sydney.
Just a short break between deployments, but there was enough time for crass jokes, a bottle of wine, and a night between the sheets at The Oath, one of the landmarks of New Sydney. Jutting more than two thousand feet skyward right in the center of the metropolis, the expensive hotel provided the perfect setting for a weekend of drinking and forgotten boundaries.
But this time there’s no glass of wine in my hand, and the soft sheets of The Oath’s suite are on the far side of the universe, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m wearing my uniform, the First Officer badge clipped to my chest, and I have a job to do.
“In private,” I repeat with a nod, nervously running my tongue between my dry lips. I ball one hand into a fist, and try to hold his gaze without allowing the First Officer mask to drop.
“Okay,” he breathes out, reading the serious expression on my face. There’s no smile on my lips, and that probably helps put all the awkwardness to bed. How could I be smiling right now? Finding The Mariner and reporting the situation back to the Armada should be a simple enough job, but now I’m not so sure about that.
I’ve been serving under Jeryl for a few years now, and I’ve learned to develop that quick intuition the Armada tries to impart on its officers. I’ve been in more border skirmishes (if you can even call them that) than I can count on the fingers of one hand, and I’ve lived through so many false alarms that I’ve already forgotten about half of them. But this is … different.
This isn’t a pirate raid in one of the mining colonies, and it sure as hell isn’t one of the border confrontations. There’s no one trying to encircle the Seeker, and I haven’t heard the ship alarms for months now. We’re alone in the vastness of space, and still … there’s just something wrong about the whole situation.
It feels as if I’m standing on the shore, my feet buried in the sand as I watch the ocean slowly recede away. The water just flows back, slowly crawling into the depths, and then the whole ocean rises up to swallow you. The readings I’ve just seen… There’s no way for me to be sure, but somehow I feel that there’s a tidal wave on the way.
Turning on his heels, Jeryl marches across the CNC and I trail after him, that anxious tightness taking over my heart. Stopping for a second, he allows the biometric sensors to recognize him, and the door to the Captain’s private office slides to the side and into its metallic partition.
Spartan and rigorous, his office is a reflection of the discipline that allowed him to climb through the ranks. His desk is uncluttered, and the chair behind it is so carefully placed that the whole office looks more like a set than an actual working space. If I didn’t know all about the ungodly amount of hours the Captain spends in here, I would assume he got his Captain rank by being an effective pencil pusher. The Armada is full of these types nowadays—the memories of war are distant and faded, and there are few men I’d trust to lead the way if shit hit the fan.
But Jeryl … Jeryl I’d trust.
Surrounded by bureaucrats from all
sides, Jeryl somehow has managed to retain a certain ruggedness that’s a throwback to all those war stories you hear about with The Schism. Yes, if that tidal wave ends up being more real than I want it to be, I’m glad to have Captain Jeryl at the helm.
“What’s going on, Ashley?” he asks me as the door closes behind us. His lips are a thin line, and his voice is clipped and terse. I look back into his eyes for a moment, the hard edge I see in there reminding me that right now I’m his First Officer and not the woman sleeping next to him in some high-rise suite in New Sydney.
“Take a look at this,” I start, walking toward the round workstation that takes over his whole office, a round metallic platform with a sleek surface, barely noticeable holographic projectors mounted all around its curved edges. It’s smaller than the central console we have in the CNC, but it’s still imposing enough to have a few officers around it.
Placing my closed fist over the workstation, I spread my fingers and the whole surface lights up as the sensors pick up my fingertips. The holographic projectors heat up in a fraction of a second, and the main control dashboard appears in front of me, a see-through projection I could use even if I had my eyes closed. As complex as the dashboard may seem, the Academy drills their officers so hard when it comes to bureaucracy and logistics that the whole thing becomes second nature to a fast learner.
Slowly moving my fingers in the air, almost as if I’m weaving an invisible web, I pull up the readings the Science Officer alerted me to. After the radar alerted us to the presence of debris in the area, I sent a small probe out so that we could have visual confirmation; I thought we’d just found a small asteroid field, nothing remarkable at all, but the visual readings quickly dispelled that notion.
“What am I looking at, Ashley?” Jeryl asks me, placing his hands on the edge of the workstation and leaning forward, his eyes narrowing as he focuses on the images I just projected. There, a few shards of contorted metal seem to float freely in the vastness of space, just tiny crumbles of glittering debris in a dark canvas.
