Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “Stoarior, Tym, and Livie,” she said in a chant. “I know I’ve never really prayed to you three before, and I know that I probably did something that made you want to take Hannah away from me but. I have a request, and I will do anything you ask for in return. I want you to kill Chloe and Jake.”

  “We,” Jainuzei said as he placed his hand on Alisha’s shoulder from behind. “We want you to kill them.”

  Alisha looked up and smiled at Jainuzei’s bandaged chest.

  Had he been human, Jazz’s attack would have pieced his heart.

  The Siege of Sirius Preview

  Interstellar Expedition Space Agency HQ (IESA)

  Paris, Earth, Sol system

  February 19, 2033, 08:21 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Rebecca Foster strode into IESA HQ, a tall, white, and pristine building in Paris. It was formerly the location of the ESA before it was badly damaged during the Hashmedai invasion of Earth some fifteen years ago. The elevators made a digital dinging noise as they slid open giving her access to the top floor of the facility. Rays of sunlight beamed through the skywalk as she moved away from the elevator and toward the office of director James Barker.

  She took one last glance through the windows and fixed her eyes on the Paris skyline amazed at how fast the human race was able to rebuild this city and many others across the globe. Most people born after the war had no idea of the amount of devastation that transpired during that dark moment when two billion human souls came to a sudden end. Only a history book provided them with that knowledge unless they traveled to the regions of Earth that society hadn’t gotten around to restoring, or the many glass craters that scarred the world in some regions like the east coast of North America.

  She stepped away from the window and the reflection of her short brown hair and dark-blue IESA uniform with the flag of the United States stitched onto the shoulders of it. Many of the personnel she passed in the hallways had a uniform like hers; each had a flag of their birth nation. She entered the director’s office where Barker sat at his desk with his hands folded. The flag of the United Nations of Earth hung on the wall behind him, while two chairs were parked in front of his desk. In one of the chairs a familiar face Foster hadn’t seen in years was seated. A young man with dark skin, short black hair, thin and nicely trimmed beard also wearing an IESA uniform, Dominic Williams.

  “Foster, glad you could make it,” Barker said as she took a seat next to Williams.

  “Dom too?” she gestured to him with a smile. “We in trouble?”

  “Big trouble,” Barker said. “We’re sending the two of you away from Earth. For a long time.”

  Foster looked at the aging director with her eyes wide open. “You’re kidding right?”

  “He’s serious, Foster, they found out.” said Williams. “Found out we’re too damn awesome.”

  Foster and Williams had met in the days following the invasion of Earth, the two stuck together and made sure to share the same interests so they always had an excuse to watch each other’s backs. There were no laws during the first year or so after the main Hashmedai command ship was destroyed after all. Those years of watching each other’s backs lead to the two becoming members of IESA and the shared dream of exploring the great expanse beyond the solar system.

  “Congratulations, Captain Foster,” Barker said to her as he offered her a new rank pin. He then addressed Williams and offered him a new rank pin as well. “And congratulations to you, Commander Williams, your flight to Sirius will happen.”

  “Thank you,” she said while she resisted the urge to jump up and scream with joy. “What made things change? Thought the Carl Sagan was on hold indefinitely?”

  “New President, new rules,” said Barker. “Construction on the Carl Sagan continued and is near completion.”

  “You mean you knew it wasn’t scrapped in favor of new warships?”

  “Had to keep a lid on this, people want more protection for Earth, not science and exploration ships. With that said the Carl Sagan will be the last for a while, the next ship in the pipeline will be a warship.”

  “When do we get the keys, and move in?” Williams asked.

  “That’s our next challenge, rather your challenge,” said Barker. “We don’t have a full crew yet.” Barker handed the two of them data crystals. “These are dossiers of people you should consider for the expedition. I’ll leave that in the hands of you two to recruit the best.”

  “Us?” Williams asked.

  “These people will not only be your crew, but your family,” explained Barker.

  “We’ll be a long way from home, Dom,” Foster said to Williams. “Best we put that team together.”

  “That, and I need to contact hundreds of colonists that were rejected due to lack of space, and tell them never mind, we got room still,” said Barker.

  Williams stood up, eager to get started on the new task at hand. “Well then, let’s get to it.”

  The two left the director’s office and made a brief detour sitting down in the cafeteria on the lower floor. They viewed the contents of the data crystals on their handheld data pads and began the tedious task of skimming through its contents while indulging in small lunch and coffee breaks.

  There was a respectable list of names that appeared on their screens. Each name had biographies, psychological reports, education, and work history background details attached. Foster winced and sighed, she underestimated the amount of work recruiting a team for interstellar exploration was going to entail.

  “That’s quite a list,” Williams said as he put his data pad down.

  “Um, yeah. Tell you what, I’ll look into recruiting senior officers,” she suggested as she will be Captain and therefore the one dealing with senior officers the most.

  “Fair enough, I’ll select well-rounded people for the rest of the crew.”

  She tossed her pad onto the table they sat at and addressed the next problem before her. Her roast beef sandwich was getting cold. “Where will you start?” she asked after finishing three bites of it.

  “I’ll look into securing our psionic first,” Williams said. “That, and it will give me an excuse to visit the Radiance embassy.”

  Foster smiled and somewhat regretted not taking on that task herself. “You just want a free trip to Jamaica.”

  “You know me too well!” Williams said with laughter. “Jealous?”

  “Maybe.”

  The galaxy outside of Earth was controlled by two factions. The Hashmedai Empire; the invaders of Earth, and the Radiance Union; a five-species collective who came to assist the human race defeat the Hashmedai Empire. In the aftermath of the invasion many of the governments around Earth crumbled. From the ashes rose a new global government, the UNE one that was aided by the Radiance Union as they shared their technology and knowledge of the galaxy with the human race.

  Part of the reason why the human race recovered quickly after the devastating war was largely due to a fleet of Radiance ships that arrived at Earth from Alpha Centauri, the nearest Radiance controlled system. They uplifted humanity, helped rebuild cities, and guided the human race in constructing ships capable of interstellar travel. Like the UNE, which was formed by marrying all world governments together, IESA was formed as the ESA merged with NASA, CSA, Chinese, and Russian space programs, to name a few. According to Radiance, Earth existed in a region of the galaxy that was largely unknown to the union and the empire. IESA’s goal was to advance into that region of space before either of the two galaxy nations did, to explore, chart and colonize it, further cementing the UNE as a third galaxy superpower in their corner of the galaxy.

  The ESRS Nikola Tesla, ESRS Stephen Hawking, ESRS Freeman Dyson were the first three IESA ships built and were planned to be launched at the same time from Earth to explore the unknown and establish humanity’s first extrasolar colonies without the watchful eye of Radiance. And now the ESRS Carl Sagan will be joining that fleet, taking explorers and colonists to the stars.

 
University of British Columbia

  Vancouver, Earth, Sol system

  February 21, 2033, 18:55 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  The voice of a well-spoken man echoed throughout a crowded lecture hall within the confines of UBC. Foster entered the hall and kept her footsteps silent and her appearance low-key, no need to draw attention away from the eager students as she wore her IESA casual uniform. The young generation of students looked at the man who stood front and center before a series of holographic pictures depicting star clusters and planetary objects. Her father would have been proud to see how far humanity had come when it came to astrophysics.

  Gone were the days were students learned about science based on scientific knowledge discovered by humans. Now students studied knowledge that was given to the human race by the Radiance Union, such as the information that was being disclosed in the lecture by acclaimed astrophysicist Doctor Travis Pierce. All of the breathtaking stills from the holographic presentation were planets and star systems discovered and explored by the Radiance Union.

  Travis Pierce was a tall man with light brown hair slowly turning grey. He dressed in a professional manner as he waved his hand about to interact with the holograms around him. He spoke about the hundreds of Earthlike planets in the galaxy and how the evolution of life there differed slightly between each world. Students tapped the touch screens of their data pads as they took notes and saved its contents onto data crystals for future study.

  “And that concludes all binary systems that we know of with life carrying planets around them,” Pierce said as he waved his hand in a circular motion, the holograms around him faded away.

  A student placed their hand up to ask a question, Pierce nodded to them. “Don’t you mean what Radiance knows?”

  “True, most of what I presented today is all based on knowledge Radiance has shared with us.” Pierce said. “Human exploration beyond Sol is limited to Alpha Centauri and Proxima Centauri.”

  “But even then, the only reason humans exist there was because Radiance helped them escape the invasion, right?” asked another student.

  Pierce folded his hands together and smiled at the student. “That’s correct, nevertheless, that is the limit so far as human exploration goes. Outside of that, everything we know about the cosmos has been studied with telescopes here in Sol or shared with us via the Radiance database. This is why it’s important we start exploring the cosmos on our own, with our own ships, so that we can discover for ourselves what’s out there.” Pierce looked at his holo watch as the minutes forced the new hour to arrive. “Well our time is almost up, are there any other questions?”

  Another student lifted a hand up to ask. “Sorry, I got a bit of a stupid question,” they said.

  “Now, now, there are no bad questions,” said Pierce. “If every brilliant mind throughout human history thought their question was stupid we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

  “What’s your take on the Dogon and Sirius?”

  “Ah, a hot topic as of late,” Pierce said as his face began to flush. “Before we go on, how many of you are aware of the legend of the Dogon?” Three hands rose up amongst the sea of bodies. “Well, long story short, an indigenous tribe in western Africa known as the Dogon believed that thousands of years ago they were visited by extraterrestrial visitors who called themselves the Nommo. The visitors allegedly informed the Dogon about space, the planets, and that Sirius, the system they claimed to have come from, was not one system but a trinary system.”

  “But didn’t your presentation say that Sirius is a binary system?”

  “Yes, that’s because our observations only discovered the two stars as well as long-range ones Radiance had made as well. Needless to say, the legend has been debunked for a number of reasons. Those that read my book about the Sirius mystery know that the arrival of Radiance and the Hashmedai proves that life and interstellar travel exists beyond Sol. There are some people out there that argue that perhaps there was some truth to the legends. Now to answer your question, I think its bullshit.”

  Laughter erupted in unison from the hundreds that were in attendance.

  “Think about it,” Pierce said. “The Nommo were described as being half fish half man.”

  “Like mermaids and mermen?”

  “Precisely, how can a species that lives underwater with no legs build ships and explore planets?”

  Pierce wrapped up the lecture, sending a trove of students carrying data pads out into the hallways where Foster had entered. She moved her way down toward Pierce as he began to gather his computers, data pads, and notes. Pierce looked up and saw Foster approach, her uniform caused his face to wince as he laid eyes on it.

  “Dr. Travis Pierce,” she said to him.

  “That’s me, how may I help you?”

  “I’m Captain Rebecca Foster of the IESA.”

  “Ah.” He looked away and continued to gather his belongings in a large leather sack.

  “I’ve been appointed to the command of the ESRS Carl Sagan and—”

  “Sorry, I’m not with IESA anymore.”

  “And you ain’t tellin’ those kids what you really think about Sirius either,” Foster said. “Pretty sure years ago you were saying the opposite about your belief about the Dogon.”

  “I wrote that book from an objective stance, my personal thoughts from social media were not included in the final copy. Besides those were different times, back when I had the chance to explore space.”

  “I’m giving you that chance now,” she said while taking a step closer to him. “I’m putting together a crew; I’d like you to be a part of it.”

  Pierce placed the strap of his bag around his shoulders and fixed his eyes on the exit. “I think I’m fine where I am.”

  “Are you? From my point of view, you’re takin’ back your beliefs, I reckon it’s to make yourself look good to keep getting work like this.”

  “I got appointments I gotta go to today.”

  “That’s fine. But if you change your mind let me know, I need a science officer and IESA will be more than happy to reinstate your commission.”

  Exotic resort

  Manila, Earth, Sol system

  February 25, 2033, 17:29 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Hot humid air covered Foster’s body as she made her way into a tropical forested clearing. She seldom paid attention to the cup of latte in her hands, it was far too hot to be drinking a warm beverage in this weather, but the caffeine was too important to pass up. Large palm trees bestowed shade on a gathering of people engaged in complex yoga moves as they stood above mats on the fresh green grass. Foster did a double take when she realized at least half of the yoga students were of the Hashmedai race. She did another double take to learn that her informant was indeed correct, the brilliant engineer Foster came to speak to, Jasmine Rivera, was indeed a yoga instructor.

  Rivera was a young woman, no older than twenty-five by her exotic Filipina looks, a combination of Hispanic, Asian, and Caucasian background. Her long golden-brown hair was tied in a pony tail while she held a pose that would have made Foster groan in pain. Her human and Hashmedai students gracefully followed suit. The Hashmedai were dripping wet in sweat more so than their human counter parts. It was understandable as the Hashmedai race did not fare well with Earth temperatures, especially in regions like the Philippines.

  The Hashmedai evolved on a planet called Paryo that orbits a red dwarf star. As such it received little light and heat compared to Earth. Their world was mostly covered in permafrost apart from its equator which was warm enough for ice cold liquid water to exist. Naturally a species that evolved on a planet like that thrived in the cold and suffered in mild temperatures or hotter.

  Rivera took notice of Foster and brought an unexpected end to her session. “OK that’s it for now, let’s take a break,” Rivera said, and then repeated in the Hashmedai language which sounded like Russian, no surprise considering all Hashmedai had an accent that was very similar.

&nbs
p; The yoga students left Foster and Rivera alone, as the two women shook hands and introduced each other. Foster couldn’t help but ask. “How the hell did you do that?”

  “I’ve been doing yoga for years,” said Rivera.

  “I mean teach it to Hashmedai, especially in this heat are you trying to kill them?”

  Rivera pointed to several buckets of ice located next to the yoga mats the Hashmedai were on. “They stay cool with those.”

  “Still, they’re Hashmedai.”

  “Now, now, the yoga is for sharing,” Rivera said. “These Hashmedai will take what they’ve learned and experienced and pass it on to the rest of their kind. Peace, wellbeing, love, they will not commit violent acts against our people.”

  “Tell that to Radiance and the UNE.”

  “I sense a bit of tension in you,” Rivera said and dragged Foster over to a vacant mat by her arm. “Let me introduce you to the basics.”

  Rivera began to stretch and fold Foster’s body into some strange yoga form, out in the beating morning sunlight. Foster made sure to get a firm grip of her coffee cup.

  “Uh, that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then why did you come?” Rivera saw the coffee cup in Foster’s hands, and took in its sweet soothing scent. “Is that pumpkin spice?”

  “Hell, yeah it is.”

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Coffee shop around the corner.”

  “There’s a coffee shop here?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I’ve been here for so long, and I never saw it.”

  “Which is why I’m here,” Foster said. “You’ve been off the grid too long, time to come back.”

  Rivera crossed her arms. “You’re not from around these parts, huh?”

  “I’m from Los Angeles, born in Nashville if you wanna be exact.”

  “Ah.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.”