Windjammer: The Tradership Saga Book 1

by M J Gauntlet

  THE

  TRADESHIP SAGA

  Book 1 - WINDJAMMER

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First thanking the Universal God of all Creation, here and to the far reaches of the known and unknown Universe. Michael and I are two of those rare individuals who believe that science glorifies God. So, we are deeply spiritual and true scientists.

  To the Grant children: Zachariah, Ezekiel, Danielle, Jeremiah and Grandchildren: Sarai and Khane, you are the inspiration for this book. This is your Dad’s special gift, his legacy. Always know how much your Dad loves you. I say loves because love never dies.

  A Special Thank You to Praise Gardea my Creative Director. She has taken me from pencils and a yellow pad, (my preferred method of writing) to one terabyte portable hard drives. Thank you for your hard work, creative mind, artistry, tech savvy and caring friendship.

  Thank you, Ornella! Thanks for providing that Chaplain’s space for Michael during his last months with us. You have done and continue to do so much for all of us, in spite of your own grief.

  Oh, where to begin on the support and love from friends and family? These months after Michael’s death have been hard ones personally and globally. I can never thank you enough for, phone calls returned, texts answered and Marco Polos that kept me sane. Kindness, care, understanding…the list goes on.

  To Jay for sharing Michael’s childlike imagination. James (fellow Wizard) for friendship and good times in Colorado.

  Ann and Joyce, thank you for helping to awaken spirituality within Michael with both love and challenge.

  Ann, Joyce, Rhonda my personal support circle. Even in the days before the book was published, when my heart began to break all over again in writing the memories, you got me through. Thank you.

  Carlos, my brother, my ride or die support. Thanks for stepping into that space of total trust and strength that Michael held.

  Carolyn for always checking on me, even now.

  Thank you family: Irene, Josiah, Sarah, Bemba, Tereza and Joann. Stanley and Loretta. Drayton and Kimani.

  LS Marathon PC Push callers for keeping me connected when I was isolated by grief and COVID. For also, teaching me to be an entrepreneur by getting up every day and getting on with the work of my business.

  My Sorors and My Sands of Pi Beta and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

  Whitney Rene (23rd Psalms) and Marco Polo. You are always a blessing.

  LDS Elders: Prince, Quarles, Keller and others. Thank you for allowing Michael to once again be both teacher and minister during the hardest times in his illness. Continue to bless the world with your love of God.

  If you don’t see your name its because just typing this has created a surge of so many emotions, tears, smiles and laughter, that I may have forgotten a name or many. But thank you, too.

  The Greene family and members of Pine Grove UMC. Thank you for giving us the last Thanksgiving we would have as a family.

  Thanks to David Weber, Michael’s favorite science fiction writer and to all the hundreds of sci fi author’s books we both read that inspired us to bring Zaxxion’s Universe to life.

  IN MEMORY OF THE AUTHOR

  (MICHAEL J. GRANT)

  Master Teacher and eternal student.

  Father of four; Zachariah, Ezekiel, Danielle and Jeremiah. Grandfather of two Sarai and Khane. Caring Father-In-Law to Daniella.

  Brother to two: Stanley and Loretta

  My best friend, mentor, mate, and spiritual partner.

  Michael loved all aspects of Science and Science Fiction. It was this love and his absorption of knowledge from any source that led him to discover God, literally. I remember Michael calling me up one day and saying “I’ve seen God. God is space dust. The universe is made of it, we are made of it, it’s everywhere, in everything and has always existed” Wow! That’s how his mind worked. And from that mind in honor of our children, who were the answer to both our childhood prayers, came the Universe of Zaxxion Grayson.

  Michael was like a radioactive particle, changing whatever and whoever he encountered. Although he is no longer physically with us, Michael molded us, challenged our minds precepts and paradigms, gave us ah-ha moments of revelation, filled us with side aching laughter and left the essence of his love and character within us.

  Greatly missed but eternally loved, we his family, friends, and students find comfort in knowing that now for Michael, there are no limits to satisfying his endless curiosity about everything.

  Dad was a great, loving, and selfless father, teacher, and mentor. He positively influenced any who crossed his path during his lifetime. I love you Dad!

  ~Zach

  Dad was never the kind of person to let circumstances break his character but rather built it into something more. He didn’t always have something to say, but when he did, it was always meaningful.

  ~Ezekiel

  My Dad’s level of intelligence was unlike any other I’ve every encountered. He was like a teddy bear and the stuffing inside that bear was the entire universe. My Dad held me and the world in his hands. I know he is getting all the answers to the many questions he had now that he is free to explore the universe.

  ~Danielle

  My Dad helped me see the world for what it truly is and what it can be. He taught me to keep going on, no matter how tough things get. I’ll never forget him or the happy times we shared.

  ~Jeremiah

  Michael was naturally inquisitive with a strong intellect. A great communicator by nature. He always won hearts with his childlike charms and wit.

  ~Ornella

  Michael was someone anyone could get along with. While our time together was short, it was very memorable. I enjoyed a talks about shows and life. Thank you for being that father figure in my life that I could be myself with. Your anime buddy.

  ~Praise

  To My Friend, My Mate, My Love,

  I love you and miss you more than ever. I miss the sharpness of your intellect, matching mine step for step. I miss our quiet moments sharing, dreaming, thankful for every dream realized. I miss your strength by becoming my eye in the storm, now I must find the eye on my own. I miss trying to find that one topic, that one piece of information you didn’t already know. But what I miss most of all is how you made me laugh so hard my facial nerve spasmed, remember Pittsburgh, hahaha!

  Our dream has finally come true, we are published authors! I’m sure you are seeing the reality of your imaginings as to the content of the Universe, “multi- verse”, space and time. Now, once again, I will NEVER be able to know something that you don’t. Until we meet again My Love, there will always be a scar in my heart shaped like you!

  PROLOGUE

  Unity galactic date 5077.268, Location: uncharted space.

  “What the fuck!” scout pilot Grayson yelled, as he found himself buffeted jarringly in his pilot seat. Frantically, he reached up and pulled down the halo helmet, initiating the meld with the ship’s A.I., which should have enabled him to gain direct cerebral access to the various readouts and conditional ship data.

  S.A.R.A.I., he mentally queried, what the hell is happening?... Silence…

  “Shit! Not good… NOT GOOD AT ALL!” he murmured, as beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, only to be instantly absorbed by his helmet. The comforting virtual stream of data that would normally flood his mind, was absent, leaving an ominous silence. Forcing his eyes to refocus, he used the helmet built in HUD readout and tried to make sense of the intermittent images flashing across his eyes. The holographic readouts showed that he and his ship, had made the transitional jump intact. Well at least the hard part is over, Grays
on thought, while continuing to study the flood of dizzily changing numbers, words and graphics being displayed. First, he had to try and figure out what was causing the ship’s main energy shut down. All that was left were backup batteries and according to the current readouts, that was not going to last for much longer.

  A scout pilot’s profession was inherently dangerous. It was part of the job description. Literally. The word dangerous or some version of the word, appeared 133 times in the Unity’s Space Exploration contract. It was taken for granted, if not explicitly stated, that part of the job description also required an individual who was not quite sane. After all, who but an insane person would take a blind jump into a warped fold in space, not knowing where it would lead. Even if they survived, there was no guarantee that they could get back. This was Grayson’s twenty third blind jump, a Scout Corps service record. While he had found himself in some sticky situations, Grayson and his S.A.R.A.I. (Self-Aware Reasoning Artificial Intelligence) equipped scout ship, had always came back. They were almost legends within the corps. They had the reputation for attempting the longest and most dangerous explorative jumps in the service, without ending in death or becoming MIA. Over half a dozen new transitional jump paths were attributed to their explorations alone, along with a couple of new planetary systems discovered, cataloged and personally named by Grayson. But this time, it looked like it was his and S.A.R.A.I.’s turn in the barrel.

  Quickly, Grayson pressed the series of catches that freed him from his harness and detached the form fitting, interface helmet. He was now completely severed from the neuro-physical connection to the ship and its quiescent A.I. Climbing out of the pilot’s cocoon, he realized, that he risked being fatally smashed against a bulkhead if the ship were to suddenly shift violently, but there was no alternative. He had to check on the status of S.A.R.A.I. because without her, he was as good as dead anyway.

  For the past five years, the service techs back at base had been wangling for him to upgrade his ship from the outmoded S.A.R.A.I. artificial intelligence, to the newer I.R.M.A. (Integrated Reasoning Matrix Analog) A.I. He absolutely, refused to do it. S.A.R.A.I. was the last of her kind, still in active duty in the Unity Empire’s scout corps. He and his A.I. had been together for so long, that they had begun to think the alike. Grayson was certain, that it was this connection, which had played a large part in the majority of his ‘intuitive’ discoveries. Besides, if they decommissioned S.A.R.A.I., she would probably end up in a tradership, or even worse, outsourced as a city administrator A.I., on some backwater planet on the outer rim. He knew she would hate that.

  When he finally reached the central polished column that housed S.A.R.A.I., he was slightly shocked to see the reflection of his disheveled face looking back at him. His tightly curled blonde hair was a fuzzy, matted, mass on top of his head. His hazel eyes were bloodshot, and his normal chocolate complexion, looked shockingly ashy and pale. Removing the tactile interface glove from his right hand, he reached above the smooth polished column and felt around for the emergency access panel. Grayson fumbled momentarily, then thumbed the panel open with his naked finger. It had been so long since he had been severed from the total sensory input with S.A.R.A.I., it felt odd to actually have true tactile feedback from his fingers. When he was linked to the ship via S.A.R.A.I., the ship became his tactile input. The ventilation was his respiration, the engines were his legs, and S.A.R.A.I. was his nervous system.

  The panel slid out and upwards revealing S.A.R.A.I.’s core. Grayson intensely scanned the outmoded analog screen. After a second or two, he let out the breath he was subconsciously holding. While several of her internal system indicators were indeed flashing red, there was no sign of damage to her core memory engrams. The screen showed an unexplainable interruption of both her visual and vocal shipboard data power feeds, and nothing more. Reaching up into the column, he found the bypass toggle and switched its power source from the shipboard fusion plant, to the column’s internal batteries. The blinking red telltale lights, flickered from red to amber and then one by one, showed green across the board. Returning to the pilot’s chair, Ezekiel redonned his helmet and gloves, then sealed himself back into the cocoon’s harness.

  “Interrogative: What has just happened?” S.A.R.A.I.’s voice said, through the now active cerebral interface.

  With a deep sigh, Grayson straightened up, smiled and reached back over his head, to give the column behind him a gentle pat.

  I don’t know S.A.R.A.I., but let us see if we can find out, eh? Run a level three internal and external diagnostic to see what we can see, shall we? Maybe we can discover, whatever it was that caused both you and the ship to go on the fritz, Grayson mentally communicated.

  “You won’t have to look far,” S.A.R.A.I. responded, “There is a rather large object, six thousand point five seven five meters off our starboard bow. It is the approximate size of a Unity battle cruiser and my sensors indicate that it is emitting a distortion field, the type of which is unknown to Unity science. It is this field, which has most likely caused the power disruption within our ship. Also, it seems to have noticed our presence and is apparently powering up, what appears to be a weapons array…”

  Alarmed, Grayson willed his sensors to magnify the image of the vessel, then exclaimed, out loud, excitedly, “Holy shit S.A.R.A.I.! Is that what I think it is? ”

  The keeper awoke from its eight hundred thousand- year quiescence to find an alien construct within range of its passive sensors. Centuries old protocols came to life, as a series of long unused automatic responses became activated. The keeper began to awaken and in doing so, it began to actively scan the intruder.

  **…contact… inorganic intelligence matrix insufficient…it is not another keeper…expanding search parameters…additional organic intellect found…insufficient…it is not one of the makers, yet they interface together…protocols suggest destruction…attempting interface with nonbiological entity…contact…entity has a rudimentary matrix…decision deferred…**

  Unity galactic date 5077.288 unknown space

  It had been over two tendays since they had encountered the discovery of the century, no…make that the millennium, and here Ezekiel sat, chewing on a Nutra bar and idly wondering if this would be the last thing he tasted before oblivion. To make matters worse, for much of the time, S.A.R.A.I. had been immersed in a two-way high-speed data exchange with whatever was on that ship out there. Only occasionally, had she broken contact, to reassure him that she was ‘functioning well within acceptable parameters. When he asked to be included in the data stream, she had steadfastly refused because she said it would most likely fry his neurons. The one time he tried to sneak a peek by secretly overriding her lock out, he was rewarded with a flood of blindingly intense high-speed data, that left him unconscious for two days. After that frightening experience, he sat resignedly in his cocoon.

  It takes a great deal to rattle the scout pilots of the Unity Survey service. They are some of the hardiest and rugged individuals to be found in human space. Before becoming a scout for the Unification Empire, each individual candidate is subjected to a series of rigorous training regiments, designed to weed out the physically weak or the mentally unsound. The Unified Human Imperium invests millions of eunits into the training of each scout, to ensure that the U.H.I. will end up with best equipped and most stable individuals, to entrust with the expansion of its ever-expanding empire.

  Even with the extensive training, the most advanced ships and cutting-edge neuro-micro technology at their disposal, almost a third of the scout pilots never live long enough to collect a pension. The very nature of their work forbade a lengthy tenure or job security. Yet, despite the inherent dangers of the profession, there were always enough misanthropes, rugged individualists and anti- authority types to fill the newly vacated positions.

  The Imperial Scouts and their slaved A.I.’s were tasked to discover shorter routes between planets and, when possible, virgin planets for colonization. This meant, th
at the scout pilots and their A.I. ships main onus was to search for the elusive, undiscovered space folds. These folds often indicated transitional jump points, which lead to either, already known star systems or into uncharted space. There was always the possibility that the fold itself, was caused by the gravimetric forces of a collapsing star at its terminus, which meant instant death upon transitional emergence. Fortunately, such celestial occurrences seldom created wormholes stable enough for transit. Seldom… but not never.

  During the entire tenure of the average scout pilot’s career, he or she might make a dozen or so blind jumps.

  The number of meaningful discoveries that might result from any of those jumps, could easily be counted on the fingers of one hand. All too often, a blind jump would lead to cul-de-sac; a section of empty space, where the nearest known star system was often several light years away in normal space, making it useless for practical navigation.

  Even if an undiscovered star system was found at the terminus of a jump, it would usually turn out to consist of either, a pair of gas giants orbiting close to their star, or a series of planets that were no more than barren rocks. The latter, usually orbiting a sun that was either too hot or too cool for practical exploitation. One in a hundred blind jumps might yield a semi-habitable planet that could be a candidate for colonization after extensive terraforming. Rarer yet, was the discovery of a planet that was in the ‘Goldilocks’ orbit and ready for colonization with a minimal of terraforming. Occasionally, a scout might turn up the remains of some ancient, primitive civilization on some backwater system at the edge of nowhere. These might be of interest to galactic historians or anthropologists, but they were often little or no use outside of those areas of study.