“There’s no way to find out without going down to the planet for a thorough look,” said Steropes. Looking at Captain Griffin he asked, “If you’d authorize a mission to the planet, we could try to find out what happened here.”
“I’m sorry,” Captain Griffin said, “but that isn’t going to be possible this time out, as we’ve got other things to do. You remember the Drakuls, right? We will have to solve this mystery some other time. Helmsman, proceed to the other stargate, and let’s see what’s next door.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fourteen
Bridge, Vella Gulf, GD 61 System, July 20, 2020
“The star in this system appears to be GD 61,” announced Steropes. “It is a white dwarf approximately 150 light years from Earth in the constellation Perseus. I do not see any signs of habitation or enemy fighters.”
“Stand down the alert fighters,” said Captain Griffin. “Start the survey; let’s see what we’ve got.”
Officer’s Mess, TSS Vella Gulf, GD 61 System, July 22, 2020
“May we sit with you?” asked Arges.
Sara looked up from her lunch and saw that the three Psiclopes were standing next to her table with trays of food. Lost in thought about the results of their first scans, it took her a moment to refocus on the question. Looking around, she saw that most of the other tables in the Officer’s Mess (the ‘Wardroom’) were full. “Uh, yeah, sure,” she finally said. “Please join me.”
“Thank you,” all three said, nearly simultaneously.
“Have you given any more thought to what we found?” she asked Steropes.
“Yes, I have,” he answered, “but before I draw any conclusions, I would like to rerun some of the scans and tests to make sure we are not missing something or jumping to any conclusions.”
“OK,” Sara said. “When I get back to the bridge...”
She was interrupted by a roar of laughter from the table next to them, where six of the space fighter pilots and WSOs were sitting. Based on her experience with Calvin and his friends, Sara knew that one of them must have said something either really funny or really stupid. Judging by the fact that five of them were laughing and the other was sitting with a blank look on his face, she decided that it must have been something stupid and that the unlucky victim probably just got a new call sign.
“Are they always this loud?” asked Brontes.
“Pretty much,” replied Sara. “You’re lucky; you should see them when they’re drinking. Then they’re really loud.”
“It is to be expected,” noted Steropes, who had spent more time studying warriors than either of the other two Psiclopes. “By their very nature, warriors take things to the extreme, especially those that might be called to combat at a moment’s notice. I believe that it is because they try to experience life to the fullest at all times, since they know that tomorrow might be the day that they are killed. Heroes are the loudest of all of the warrior types. They live faster and burn brighter than any of the ‘normal’ military people. There just happens to be a lot of them on this ship, which makes you notice it more.”
“It has always been thus,” said Arges. “During troubled times, heroes rise.” Both of the other Psiclopes nodded in agreement. “The abundance of hero spirits at this time, however, is somewhat disturbing.”
Sara looked confused. “Hero spirits?” she asked. “What is a hero spirit?”
“On the Wheel of Life,” Brontes said, “there are those that move farther along the Wheel with each passing than the rest of us. Heroes are people that are destined to attempt great things. Sometimes they win and move up. Other times they lose and they move back.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sara.
“We believe that, at a basic level, life is energy,” said Arges. “As your scientists have determined, energy is neither created nor destroyed. Similarly, when someone dies, the energy that animated their bodies is not destroyed, it goes back into the pool of energy that is life. Your philosopher George Lucas was very close to the truth with his concept of the Force. There is a binding metaphysical power that is ubiquitous throughout the galaxy. When someone is born, energy is pulled from this pool of energy to animate them; similarly, when they die, their energy goes back to the pool. We are all part of this pool of life energy. We are able to talk mind-to-mind because we are all One; you just need to have the metaphysical Awareness of the beings around you in order to be able to communicate with them. When we talk mind-to-mind, we form a message in our minds and push it to the person that we mean to communicate with. This is somewhat analogous to one of the tridents that a soldier uses, which forms a bead of antimatter and wraps it with a force field prior to pushing it to where the weapon is aimed.”
“That is an interesting way to visualize it,” said the ship’s chaplain, Father John Zuhlsdorf, who had been walking past. “It is not what I believe, of course, but it is interesting. May I join you?”
“Sure,” said Sara, who was struggling to understand what she was being told. “Please do.”
“Some beings are closer to Awareness than others,” continued Steropes, “and can sense things as they truly are. Most of the great philosophers of old were very close. We believe that the ‘Wheel of Life’ beliefs of Hinduism, Buddhism, Bon, Jainism, Yoga and Taoism were correct in their concept of Samsara, or a continuous flow in the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth. Within this flow resides a power that judges one’s kharma, or the quality of the actions in the completed life, returning the life force higher or lower on the Wheel when they are reborn.”
“In the eternal struggle,” said Brontes, “there are periods where conflict is greater than at other times. Into the conflict are born heroes on both sides, whose task it is to defeat the other side. The number of hero spirits active now indicates that this is to be a conflict of immense proportions. These usually result in the termination of species.”
“How do you know who these ‘hero spirits are’?” asked Sara.
“We can feel them, and, if we have met them before, we can sometimes recognize the stronger ones,” replied Brontes.
There was a pause as Sara considered this. Finally, she asked “And you think Calvin is one of these spirits?”
“We don’t think so,” replied Brontes, “We know so. We have met him before.”
“When was that?” asked Sara.
“It was during the last Drakul invasion of your planet 3,000 years ago,” answered Brontes. “At that time, we knew him as Zeus.”
“What?” Sara exclaimed. “You can’t be serious! Zeus? Zeus was a Greek god.”
“Zeus was a real person, who led the fight against the Drakuls,” Brontes corrected. “After the Drakuls detonated their bomb, sinking Atlantis, we dropped off Zeus and his friends and relatives in Greece. Like the soldiers onboard this ship, we had upgraded them in our med lab. With the weapons they had, they were gods to the unmodified people; however, they started out as normal humans. The spirit that was in Zeus and now resides in Calvin has always collected a large number of spirits to himself.”
Sara looked around the rest of the galley. “And the rest of the troops in the platoon are these ‘hero spirits,’ too?”
Brontes shrugged. “Some are; others are warrior spirits, drawn to heroes like moths to flames. They can’t help it. Some will succeed and become hero spirits in their own right on the next passing of the Wheel; others will fail and move down.” Brontes looked around the galley. “I haven’t seen this big a collection since the Drakuls were last here.”
“I don’t understand how you could say that Calvin ‘collected’ anyone,” Sara asked. “Most of the people were already in the Ranger platoon or were sent by other countries. How could he have collected them? He didn’t have anything to do with their being here.”
“Just by being here, he calls them to duties and tasks that will bring them closer to him,” Brontes replied. “Take Master Chief O’Leary for example. You don’t think that it was an accident that he just happen
ed to be waiting at the exact spot that Calvin ejected from his plane, do you? It is too big a coincidence for that to have happened. Calvin needed him there, and that is exactly where he was, when Calvin needed him to be there, with the skill set Calvin needed him to have. It was Master Chief’s kharma to be there when needed.”
“That was just good luck,” said Sara. “It was serendipity, a case of fortunate happenstance.”
Brontes smiled. “Where you see good luck, I see kharma. It is Calvin’s kharma to be involved in events that will define the future of your race.”
“What do you mean, ‘define the future of my race’?” asked Sara.
“I mean,” said Brontes, “that he will lead the effort that could save humanity. Unfortunately, it is just as likely, perhaps even more likely, that he will fail and be the cause of humanity’s extinction. It has always been thus with the universe.”
Sara was overwhelmed. “Why are you telling me all of this? Why am I even here?”
“We’re trying to stack the deck in your favor,” Brontes said. She smiled and added, “He always does better when you’re near.”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, GD 61 System, July 24, 2020
“GD 61 appears to be the remains of a former red giant,” said Steropes. “All that remains is a dense, hot remnant with about 70% of the Sun's mass. The star has two large super-Earth type planets circling it. One of these is inside the habitable zone, and the other is outside the habitable zone. Neither of these is of any outstanding scientific interest. There is also one more gate in addition to the one we came through.”
“What is interesting,” said Sara, taking up the brief, “is that several years ago, Earth’s astronomers detected an asteroid in this system that was 26% water. This asteroid is part of a large asteroid field that sits in the middle of the habitable zone. The astronomers believed at the time that a rocky planet similar to Earth may have existed in the past. It was their thinking that the asteroid was part of this planet, and that the debris field was from the breakup of the planet. The astronomers thought that this might have happened when the planet was knocked out of its orbit by a larger planet and shredded by the star’s gravitational force.”
“Is that what you think happened now that we’re here?” asked Captain Griffin.
“No,” replied Sara, “that’s not what we think happened. Our initial survey of the asteroid field resulted in some very peculiar data, so we did a much more thorough analysis to confirm our results. The second survey confirmed what we had found in the first survey. There is a large amount of formed chromium steel in the asteroid field, as well as other types of steel and worked metals.”
“What?” asked Captain Griffin. “Steel isn’t a naturally occurring mineral.”
“No, it’s not,” said Sara. “In addition to this, we found large amounts of the former planet’s surface that was melted into volcanic glass. We believe that this planet was previously inhabited, and that it was destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” asked the CO, shocked. “You mean like, blown up? Aside from a Death Star, how do you blow up a planet?”
“It would take about 10 to the 32nd joules of energy to blow up an Earth-like planet,” replied Steropes, “which is what we believe this world used to look like.”
“Who would do such a thing?” asked Captain Griffin. “Why?”
“We believe we have the answers to those questions,” answered Steropes, “and we think we know where we are. There are only a few instances of complete planetary destruction that I am aware of. One of these was at the claws of the Drakuls when they blew up the planet Elspeck. Based on an analysis of the debris, I believe that this system contains the remains of Elspeck.”
“I’ve never heard of Elspeck,” replied Captain Griffin.
“You may not know the name,” said Sara, “but you’ve heard of the planet. Elspeck was the home world of the Eldive. Solomon has come home.”
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, GD 61 System, July 25, 2020
“There can be no doubt,” said Steropes, “the asteroid field is the previous planet Elspeck, which was destroyed by the Drakuls during the last conflict.”
“If they have the kind of power required to blow up a planet,” replied Captain Griffin, “then there’s no way that we can take them on with just this ship.”
“It is unknown how many ships the Drakuls might have now, and what types they might be,” noted Steropes. “The ships that did this were all destroyed a long time ago. Still, my advice would be to step carefully. They are probably not too many stargates from here. This is somewhat awkward, because we expected them to attack Earth from the other direction. There must be a stargate close by that loops back to the other side of Earth’s star lane.”
“I agree that we need to be careful,” said the CO. “I think that this is as far as we ought to come in this direction without a larger force.”
“This also explains what happened in the Gliese 581 system that we passed through on the way here,” said Steropes. “For a long time, we knew that someone sterilized the system next to the Eldive home world, but we were never able to determine who did it. We can now be fairly certain that the Drakuls that came to your planet fled the battle at Elspeck, not one of the earlier battles, and that they went through and sterilized the civilization at Gliese 581 on their way to Earth.”
“Why did they do that?” asked Sara. “Why not stop there and take over that planet rather than just kill everyone and run?”
“I can only guess that it was because they thought the alliance fleet here in Elspeck was too close,” answered Steropes. “They would have wanted to put some systems between them. They probably landed at Gliese 581, filled up their food storage system and took a bunch of slaves. They wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know that they escaped, so they gassed the planet to cover their tracks. That would make sense with Drakul psychology. Luckily for them, they chose the path that didn’t have any habitable planets for several systems, so no one would have looked for them that way. The first habitable planet they would have come to in that direction was Earth. That would have been far enough that they would probably have felt themselves safe from pursuit, especially in an Eldive ship. No one would have questioned them. Had they come upon any of the alliance forces, they could have sent a transmission saying they were in mourning, and everyone would have believed them. It was only through luck that we happened to be on the planet they chose to land on, or they would have taken it over and would be virtual gods on Earth now.”
“OK,” said Captain Griffin, “that answers the questions about where we are and what happened in the system next door, but I’m still hesitant about going any further in this direction. Helmsman! Let’s head back the way we came and continue to Epsilon Eridani.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen
Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Epsilon Eridani System, August 2, 2020
“System is stable,” announced Sara. “No indications of enemy vessels.” The trip from GD 61 through Gliese 581 and then 61 Cygni had gone quickly and quietly with no enemy activity.
“Got it, thanks,” replied Captain Griffin. This was Sara’s first system entry on her own. The CO decided that she liked it when Sara was at the science station. The first thing she had noted was enemy activity. With Steropes or Arges, it was often, “Wow, this is neat!” While the ‘neat things’ might be interesting from a scientific viewpoint, as the ship’s commanding officer she was much more worried about things that were going to kill her and her ship. Once a system was clear of any enemy activity, that was the time to go look at cool stuff. Not before.
“Hey, Skipper,” Sara said. “When you were here last time, there were only two stargates, right? The one you came through from 61 Cygni, and the one you went through to WASP-18, right?”
“I think so,” answered Captain Griffin. “Why?”
“Because,” Sara replied, “I have another one showing on my scope that is so big and so clear, it almost appears to be throbbing with e
nergy.”
“May I see?” asked Steropes, getting up from the extra seat by Captain Griffin. He had wanted to be close enough to help if needed, but didn’t want to look over her shoulder. “I guess it’s possible that we missed one when we found out the planet was inhabited,” Steropes replied as he walked toward the science station. “Things got pretty exciting.” Reaching the scope, he looked down and gave a low whistle. “There’s no way we missed that,” he remarked. “That is new.”
“How did it get there?” asked Captain Griffin. “I thought the stargates were linked black holes. Wouldn’t the shuttle crew have noticed someone running around moving black holes up here?”
“The data would indicate that no one noticed,” answered Steropes, “but I have no idea how this one showed up here all of a sudden. It is close enough to where we enter the system that we would have seen it last time if it had been there. I do not know where it came from or how it got here.”
“It’s almost like it’s calling us,” said Calvin.
“Yes,” agreed Steropes, “and that’s what scares me. It doesn’t have a big neon sign, but other than that, it’s about as obvious as it could be.”
“So close to where a planet was destroyed by the Drakuls,” Captain Peotr Barishov commented. “You do not intend to go there, do you?”
“Yes,” replied Captain Griffin, “I do.”
“What?” barked Captain Barishov. “Why do you think this is a good idea?”
“I have lots of reasons,” replied the commanding officer, “not the least of which is that whatever is on the other side of the stargate manipulated the stargate. Do you know how to do that? I certainly don’t. If they can move black holes, don’t you think that they could destroy this one little cruiser if they wanted to?”
When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony Page 10
