GalTech and the Shadow Warriors: Growth of a Star Empire

by Magnum Indiana

  The team boasted scientists from several nations. They swore to each other to keep everything secret from their respective governments until the end-of -month reports were due. They knew their discovery was huge and that every government would want it for their own. Their objective was to publish a paper before any of the governments could suppress it and start killing off the research team to keep it quiet. Paranoia and universal distrust of their governments won the day.

  Several members of the team put papers on the World Wide Web and emailed everyone they knew before anyone else on the team had a chance to spill the beans to their government and probably get everyone killed. The phenomenon could be duplicated easily with inexpensive components. Almost everyone who held Thomas Edison as a hero started cautiously playing with faster-than-light travel applications. They were cautious because of the field day the holo-press had with the severed arm story. Blogs and web-based discussion groups ran rampant. It was more infectious than the launch of the mini-computer era.

  The key components were simple and consisted of an air-tight vehicle braced and insulated to withstand cold vacuum, a reliable holographic-PC with extra memory mini-marbles, a variable power supply with a few extra batteries, a decent but inexpensive personal holographic transceiver, and an entangled photon encryption and transmission device that most retail shops used for securely transferring credits. That might only cost the average shipping-clerk-turned-space-explorer a few months’ pay.

  Many ended up stealing a delivery van or buying a shell without the engine from a junk yard. Ceramic-to-metal welders became items in high demand and, since the first FTL hop could get one safely beyond atmosphere, airtight, heavily welded delivery vans became handy space vehicles. Thousands of web sites sprang up describing how to make a door that was airtight or create a small air lock.

  However, with a van or even a used pressure vessel, one needed more equipment. One needed a few cheap cameras to vacuum-mount outside to compensate for windows paneled and welded shut. One also needed a couple of spare oxygen bottles, a diver’s air scrubber, a combination temperature controller and heat transfer unit, insulating, and a few more safety gadgets for the two to six hours of exposure to space.

  A planet on fire with a sense of adventure found many people anxious to overcome common sense and paranoia. Colleges found their astronomy courses full. Astronomy professors found they could make a sizeable extra income by giving lectures at night and charging a hefty price for seats. Astronomy books, both new and used, demanded a premium and paid for many fraternity parties.

  Many died learning that the hop into space was easy but the hop to one inch above the ground was almost impossible without many sophisticated instruments and some real computing power. The most notable mistake left a large crater in the thankfully empty parking lot of a shopping mall. For weeks, media all over the world carried the story and gruesome pictures of the remaining pieces. Perhaps it actually discouraged an aspiring Columbus or two, but not the movement.

  Parachutes came back into vogue. Prevailing blogs said one should hop from space to a safe fifteen-thousand feet above the ground to avoid burning up like a meteorite upon entry and to assure enough height to open a parachute if one came in over a mountain.

  At first, space-modified vans became one-use vehicles as our FTL explorers learned that one could hop from space to several thousand feet above earth and bail out. This left the van to fall where it would. Surprisingly, that created only a handful of innocent deaths and only several million in property damage. The news media made such a major issue about the irresponsibility of space explorers that most put parachutes on their vans and hopped in and out of the atmosphere to assure a bailout over water but close to shore.

  Anyone who lived to make a second trip learned the value of an altitude sensor. As an advertising ploy, skydiving schools and altitude sensor manufacturers offered them free along with instructions to open the parachute automatically at a given altitude. Few were prepared to actually land on a moon or planet and survive to come back to earth. Even fewer were prepared to disembark, collect samples, and make it back into their vehicles.

  Stolen vans and converted pressure vessels falling out of the sky got to be a large enough problem that free transportation to anywhere in the world with no questions asked was offered to those dropping vans one half mile off the coast of South Carolina in an area where the State wanted a new reef. The foundation making the offer also offered free boat pick up day or night and marked the target drop site with strobe lasers. This also gave the foundation the first glimpse of any treasures brought back from distant places and the US government assurance of a safe quarantine period. Only a few of the new extraterrestrial microbes proved harmful to plants or small animals. People, animals larger than a schrew, and insects were spared. No lab rats gave their lives during quarantines.

  Eventually, most governments threatened to shoot returnees out of the sky if they did not come down in an approved area with quarantine facilities available.

  The US Government quarantined returnees and their treasures for at least 72 hours before letting them and any new microbes lose on an unsuspecting planet. Surprisingly only one alien microbe made it back successfully to wreak havoc. It ate the North American, Mexican, South American and Cuban tobacco crops. Most US, Canadian, and Mexican smokers decided to quit rather than smoke the harsher Russian or Turkish tobaccos.

  It turned out that news services created and funded the foundation to get a jump on news worthy items. Thousands went, hundreds returned, and dozens brought photographic or material evidence of successful trips.

  Eventually, RV companies started manufacturing and remanufacturing small, cheap, space vehicles with automatic parachute systems and landing systems that would let you survive up to a ten-foot drop to the ground or a parachute drop in an earth-like atmosphere. They also had air tight door systems that easily opened at 9,000 feet so you could actually get out of the van and parachute to the ground in an emergency.

  One advertised the public safety and civic responsibility of its fail-safe parachute system. Two weeks after the ads started, one of their six thousand pound vans opened its parachute automatically because the driver passed out from exhaustion during the return flight. Unfortunately, the parachuting van still had enough weight and speed to knock down half of a two-bedroom ranch home in Lawton Oklahoma.

  A problem aspiring space pilots often found fatal was the issue of velocity. To put it simply, if you were going fifty miles per hour and did an entangled-photon or "EP" hop, you were still doing fifty miles per hour when popped out of the hop. Also complicating the issue was the direction you were going before the hop. It did not change when you came out of the hop. Few were able to afford to put a propulsion system of any kind on their vehicles. Most thought that if they hopped at dead still each time they would never build speed to worry about. The issue with that of course was gravity. People that survived two or more voyages to space made even more on the lecture circuit than did the astronomers. After the first fifty books were published about trips and lessons learned, would be astronauts started to catch on.

  Many who survived their first space trip moved to Islands that had little or no government agencies to dampen the fire of exploration with a new regulation every week. Naturally, private explorers beat ponderous governments to space by incredible margins.

  Each successful returnee farther fueled the fire of exploration beyond any government’s ability to control it. Astronomy became the course of interest even in high school. Governments and even churches did some ugly, interesting, and mostly unsuccessful things trying to control the dash to space. Many explorers found pleasant planets with life but no people, came back for families and pioneer gear, and decided never to return. Governments, churches, companies, and organizations started funding exploration and colonies. Companies quickly developed instruments to allow a final hop to six inches above the ground. As with the PC revolution of the 20th century, sensors, specialized s
mall computers and all needed gear became available quickly, cheaply, and with standard interface buses, connectors and interchangeable components. Eventually a visionary company replaced FTL drives with MFTL drives (Much-Faster-Than-Light.) The new MFTL drives were smaller, cheaper and many times faster.

  Inexpensive and accurate MFTL travel spread humanity quickly across the stars. Various Governments of Earth tried to own and control colonization. They captured, taxed, and bullied many planets and colonies because of their superior space fleets. Governments could afford ships that could stay in space for more than the week or two limits of the less costly exploration ships. The world learned quickly about hydroponics and practical environmental systems.

  Governments also lost many military skirmishes trying to hold land and buildings. They eventually fell into a quagmire of financial problems and chaos. Riches abruptly quit flowing from the stars and capital found more profit in investing in newly found planets. Leaders and people with vision abandoned Earth in the early exodus. Remaining governments spent their time focused on fighting each other for what remained rather than on growth. The growing colonies ignored and forgot about a faltering and no longer threatening Earth. Stars on star-charts acquired new names as people spread to those stars.

  English became the default universal language that spread to the stars, probably because it was the language that all the papers and most blogs were in at the outset of the movement. However, each empire sprinkled it richly with nouns and adjectives from the languages of the Earth cultures that also spread to the stars. Then there was the occasional French or Chinese colony that stubbornly clung to the mother language claiming it somehow created more intelligence, fostered more creativity and built a foundation for superior culture. The results did not justify the claim.

  Ultra Radical Muslims moved their Jihad to the stars. Moderate Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite, went to different stars to avoid the Ultra Radicals.

  The largest out flux seemed to be the conservatives of every nation escaping the liberals, socialists, and the entitlement-laden political systems that they found stifling. Almost every religion decided to fund colony planets that practiced only their religion.

  Political Insights: Earth’s attempts to own and control colonization created armed colonies that invested a majority of their excess gross products into a defensive arms race. Hundreds of colonies were able to pick off a portion of the fleets earth sent to collect colony royalties. Most let them land and captured their ships. Space warfare with MFTL ships, missiles, and things that could shoot in vacuum was all about detection and shooting or jumping quickly to another location. Some of the colonies, usually in close proximity to each other, formed alliances to pool their resources to defend themselves.

  A strategy of parking war ships above a planet and threatening to bombard the planet with hyper-velocity projectiles, or "rocks-from-a-rail-gun," did not work too well when even a poor colony planet could program a cheap, un-manned van to emerge in the middle of a threatening war ship.

  Space fleets were not too expensive unless you wanted large ships that could spend a lot of time in space. Most colonies invested in hundreds of detection satellites or platforms. They kept their fleet of small, armed ships grounded where they could quickly respond to an invader or pirate. The size of war ships was determined by the number and type of weapons it housed, the number of people required to man them, oxygen, food, water, environmental purity, in-system power, etc.

  Poorer colonies would have several places secreted in space where one of their small ships could jump to pick-up oxygen or munitions. Eventually, the strategy evolved to expand these secret caches, automate the pickup procedures, and have a few small ships always on patrol in space around their planet. Remaining ships were usually stationed on moons or on the top of the tallest mountains so they had less gravity well to negotiate with micro jumps to get to an altitude safest for a long jump. Gravity greatly complicated jump calculations. Even with strong shipboard computers, the movement of the universe and the rotation of the star system you were leaving made most trips a multiple jump affair. Seeing a destination did not mean it had not moved since the light left it and hit your eye.

  Ships, star maps, navigation, and weapons were the focus of technology for years and made great advances. Sol type planets turned out to be relatively common in the universe.

  This led to the creation of multi-star empires. By the time of this chronicle, it had created five major and four minor empires that formed three Alliances. The three Alliances encompassed all nine star empires.

  When Earth appeared to be sufficiently weak, some of the empires took the initiative to attack Earth fleets. Two empires attacked the military bases that Earth had established on its moon. Earth drove off the attackers but only after the moon bases were effectively destroyed.

  When it became evident that Earth could easily become a radioactive cinder, the central government fell. Most of the best and brightest people fled to the colonies when the end became obvious. The new Earth government aggressively sought peace and agreed to disarm. The severe lack of talent, capital, and leadership created by the exodus to colonies sealed Earth’s fate for a long period.

  Eventually, Earth had to plead for economic assistance as consumer confidence and the erosion of productivity and innovation crumbled its economy. None of the alliances of colonies felt strong enough to gobble up Earth. In spite of the desire to conquer the conqueror, the liability seemed just too big. The entitlement mentalities and politicians would not change. Earth was left to flounder. Millions of entitlement addicts died as the actual workers and entrepreneurs left the planet. Patience with politicians and media wore thin and attempts at political spin brought anger. Political promises recognized as blatant lies often resulted in the murder of the guilty politician.

  The far-flung empires prospered, grew, and found reasons to use and continue to build their weapon systems. There was a frantic push to build the industrial bases of each empire and the empires grew larger space fleets to safeguard their investments.

  The Sleet Alliance comprised three enlightened monarchies: Frank, Republic Des Amis (RDA) and Teaman. The Frank Empire and the RDA were both highly advanced military powerhouses while the Teaman Empire was financially strong and boasted a strong research and development base because of its extensive University systems. The Sleet Alliance formed a long tube of stars instead of the more traditional ball shape of the other Empire Alliances. The Teaman Empire lies in the middle of that tube.

  All three Alliances raced to lay claim on hundreds of unaligned colony worlds and vacant habitable worlds. Piracy became an unfortunate fact that saw new, weak colonies ravaged and their people taken as breeding and working stock to populate colonies established by pirate lords.

  The Teaman Empire’s safety lies in reliance on its partner empires for military protection, providing a Swiss-like banking haven, and providing the best educational system (complete with advanced research laboratories and R&D spin off companies) in the settled galaxy. The Teaman Emperor, William Jasper the First, became rightfully nervous about its apparent weakness as compared with its partners. He set forth the foreign policies that carry forward to the present. The Teaman Empire subsidized the Teaman University and GalTrust, its largest bank. Teaman University develops the most advanced weapons known to man and survives because it agrees to sell them primarily to its Alliance partners and the other two Alliances instead of building a threatening military fleet of its own.

  The Teaman Empire does maintain a small fleet for protection of its planets. Though small, it is highly respected and keeps space in the Teaman Empire free of pirates. The Teaman Empire supplies mercenaries to colonies as counter insurgent forces. It is careful to assure other Empires that their small counter-insurgent teams are not the start of a large standing army. The nature of the Teaman Mercenaries bio-enhancements is the Teaman Empire’s carefully guarded secret. The second emperor set forth an aggressive program to help insure the safety
of the empire that combines the use of well-trained, bio-enhanced mercenary forces that would make The Teaman Empire a bitter pill to try to swallow. The desire to absorb the Teaman Empire was also diminished with the entanglement of the Empires banking system with all other alliances and their empires. He focused on mercenaries, education, and banking to protect his Empire.

  Author’s Comments

  I know that the end left you thinking, “Come on Magnum, there has to be more.” There is definitely more. The next book is already written and undergoing final tunes and tweaks. I am guessing that this will be a series of six to twelve books. I originally thought to write this as a series of television shows and let some upstart sci-fi enthusiasts with equipment and at least some prior video experience take a stab at it. Hmmm.

  In the next book, Kat is blooded on her first missions, GalTech adds a couple more key players, and both the company and the Empire Go through growing pains. Sharp readers have asked me when bad things will happen. Know that they are coming, read on, and enjoy that anticipation is the best appetizer for a multi-book meal. It is hard to know hot without knowing cold. It is hard to experience bad times without knowing good times. Enough said.

  I am blessed. Some very sharp and fun people have agreed to do advanced reviews and offer suggestions before I go to publication on a book. I am sending each book out to my AR (Advanced Review) Team for some honest feedback and suggestions. I actually take most their suggestions and make many changes before I publish. The AR team could use a couple of new members if you enjoy that sort of thing. If you do not like the cover art and can do better, please contact me.