Endeavour (Ark Royal, #18), page 1
Table of Contents
Endeavour | (Ark Royal, Book XVIII)
Author’s Note
Cover Blurb
Prologue: The Sphere, Virus Prime
Prologue II: London, United Kingdom
Chapter One: London, United Kingdom
Chapter Two: London, United Kingdom
Chapter Three: HMS Endeavour, Sol System
Chapter Four: HMS Endeavour, Sol System
Chapter Five: HMS Endeavour, Sol System
Chapter Six: HMS Endeavour, In Transit
Chapter Seven: HMS Endeavour, Virus Prime
Chapter Eight: The Sphere, Virus Prime
Chapter Nine: Research Station, Virus Prime
Chapter Ten: HMS Endeavour, Virus Prime
Chapter Eleven: HMS Endeavour, In Transit
Chapter Twelve: HMS Endeavour, In Transit
Chapter Thirteen: HMS Endeavour, In Transit
Chapter Fourteen: HMS Endeavour, Dyson System
Chapter Fifteen: Dyson One, Dyson System
Chapter Sixteen: HMS Endeavour, Dyson System
Chapter Seventeen: HMS Endeavour, Dyson System
Chapter Eighteen: HMS Endeavour, Dyson System
Chapter Nineteen: HMS Endeavour, Dyson System
Chapter Twenty: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-One: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-Two: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-Three: Shuttlecraft, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-Four: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-Five: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Twenty-Six: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Twenty-Seven: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Twenty-Nine: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Thirty: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-One: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Two: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Three: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Four: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Five: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Thirty-Six: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Near South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Eight: South Gate, Dyson Two (Surface)
Chapter Thirty-Nine: HMS Endeavour, Dyson Two (Interior)
Chapter Forty: London, United Kingdom
End of Book Nineteen | HMS Endeavour Will Return In: | The Lone World | Coming Soon.
Afterword
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Appendix: Glossary of UK Terms and Slang
And now, check out Desert Clash by Leo Champion:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Endeavour
(Ark Royal, Book XVIII)
Christopher G. Nuttall
Book One: Ark Royal
Book Two: The Nelson Touch
Book Three: The Trafalgar Gambit
Book Four: Warspite
Book Five: A Savage War of Peace
Book Six: A Small Colonial War
Book Seven: Vanguard
Book Eight: Fear God And Dread Naught
Book Nine: We Lead
Book Ten: The Longest Day
Book Eleven: The Cruel Stars
Book Twelve: Invincible
Book Thirteen: Para Bellum
Book Fourteen: The Right of the Line
Book Fifteen: The Lion and the Unicorn
Book Sixteen: Fighting For The Crown
Book Seventeen: Drake’s Drum
Book Eighteen: Endeavour
http://www.chrishanger.net
http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/
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Cover by Justin Adams
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All Comments Welcome!
Author’s Note
Endeavour is set roughly a year after Drake’s Drum, and draws on characters established in that cycle – The Lion and the Unicorn, Fighting for the Crown and Drake’s Drum – but it is intended to be as stand-alone as possible.
As always, I welcome reviews (hint, hint). I’ve also been broadening my social media presence – please check the list at the rear of the book, then follow me if you are so inclined.
CGN.
Cover Blurb
For generations, the human race has feared an encounter with an alien race so advanced their technology might as well be magic. And yet, no such alien race has been encountered ...
... Until now.
During the Virus War, human explorers discovered proof of alien technology that was beyond human understanding, technology so strange it was impossible even to guess at its function. Now, in the aftermath of the war, HMS Endeavour embarks on a mission to the core of the alien civilisation ...
... And discovers a mystery older than the human race itself.
Prologue: The Sphere, Virus Prime
Racism, Doctor Athena Gaurs told herself, is a mental illness.
It didn’t help. Her heart began to race as she drifted through the Sphere. She had spent most of her professional life working with aliens, studying their cultures and technologies in the hopes of promoting interspecies cooperation and harmony, yet the Sphere was just too alien for her mind to process. It was so huge, built on such a great scale, that she felt like a fly crawling across a cathedral window, something so far beyond the poor creature it couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it was crawling on. The other alien races humanity had encountered, in nearly a hundred years of contact and conflict, had all been understandable. Whoever had built the Sphere was not.
She tried to calm herself as she glided onwards. The Sphere was inert, powerless, and yet it wasn’t. The xenospecialists had noted and logged everything from strange lights, with no discernible source, to faint flickers of energy and gravitational pulses that came and went so quickly that even the most sensitive equipment in the known galaxy was barely capable of detecting their presence before they were gone. Athena had read the reports, when she’d been assigned to the project, and she’d had trouble understanding why so many of the exploration team had managed to get lost in the structure. She knew now. The interior seemed purposely designed to be confusing. There were even hints it restructured itself when humans weren’t looking.
And some of us are sure we’re being watched, she thought, grimly. What if we are?
The thought taunted her. It had been nearly a year since HMS Lion had stumbled across the Sphere, during the final days of the Virus War. Since then, a covert project had been mounted to explore the alien artefact and unlock its secrets, a project that – so far – had produced precisely nothing. Athena had read the reports from the first teams, brimming with excitement and enthusiasm until they’d started their work. They’d drawn a series of complete blanks. They didn’t know what material had been used to produce the alien artefact, let alone what it was intended to do. They didn’t even know why it had remained undetected in the system for so long. There were even people who wondered if the Sphere hadn’t been detected because it simply hadn’t been there.
A shiver ran down her spine as she drifted into the next chamber. It was hard, sometimes, to avoid the sensation she was being watched. They hadn’t found anything to suggest they were, but that was meaningless. Whoever had built the Sphere was so far ahead of humanity that their surveillance tech, assuming they even relied upon something as primitive as tech, might be completely undetectable. The human race could produce bugs so small they couldn’t be located without the proper equipment. Who knew what the Builders could produce?
She frowned, turning slowly to take in the entire chamber. It was a bare sphere, within the Sphere, the bulkheads utterly unmarred by even the slightest hint of writing. The bronze material had defied everything humanity had thrown at it, from pens designed to leave marks on everything to laser cutters capable of slicing through a battleship’s hull. It was maddening to think of all the secrets waiting for discovery and exploitation, if only they could figure out how to unlock them. And yet, they’d found nothing. There was a small but growing consensus amongst some of the scientists that there was nothing to find.
This installation was clearly not abandoned in a hurry, she reminded herself, grimly. They had all the time they needed to strip it bare, taking everything save for the shell itself.
It was possible, she’d been assured. The Sphere might be nothing more than a hollowed-out asteroid, as far as the Builders were concerned. They might have abandoned it, secure in the knowledge they’d taken everything that could be used to unlock their technology or leave a trail of breadcrumbs to their homeworld. Athena would have believed it herself – she knew how carefully warship datacores were swept for sensitive information, then rigged for destruction if there was even the slightest chance the warship would fall into enemy hands – if she hadn’t seen so many oddities surrounding the alien structure. It just didn’t feel dead and cold, abandoned like so many mined-out asteroids. It felt as if it was watching and waiting as the team probed its innards.
Perhaps it’s an intelligence test, she thought, as she proceeded into the next chamber. And we’re failing.
Athena keyed her sensors, taking a reading and comparing it to what she saw. The results made no sense. They never did. Some suggested the Sphere was bigger on the inside, some suggested it was imploding ... she gritted her teeth and looked at the nearest bulkhead. Her sensors insisted the walls were closing in. Her naked eyes told her the bulkheads weren’t moving. Athena sighed, inwardly. There was no way to know if the Sphere was spoofing their sensors deliberately or if the structure was just too alien for the sensors to handle. Athena wasn’t sure, sometimes, if she could handle it. The Sphere was just too big.
We’ve seen larger structures, she reminded herself. But none of them were quite so solid.
She shook her head slowly as she made her way onwards, feeling oddly isolated even though the rest of the team was only a radio call away. They’d been told, at first, never to be alone on the alien structure, but they’d rapidly discovered that the more interesting events only took place when there were only one or two witnesses. It didn’t help when they reported their findings back to Earth. Athena had a feeling, reading between the lines, that there were factions on the homeworld that thought the researchers were seeing things. There was no shortage of tales of weird sightings in the depths of space, of alien starships and entities that were – somehow – never captured by starship sensors. It was generally believed most of the stories were made up, and yet ...
Her radio crackled, once. Athena keyed her wristcom, a shiver running down her spine. She’d been told to remain in touch and, if there was a hint she was losing contact with the rest of the team, to back out at once. The Sphere just wasn’t safe. She thought she saw something at the corner of her eye, a flicker that was gone when she looked. Her radio crackled again. There was no reply. She swore under her breath as she made her way back to her hatch. Perhaps it was nothing, just a random burst of energy within the alien structure. Perhaps it was not ...
Light flared, behind her. Athena spun around. The chamber had come to life, glowing energy flaring through the air. A wave of panic shot through her. She was alone and defenceless and utterly unaware of what was happening ... she found it hard to believe, deep inside, that a super-advanced race would deliberately seek to harm her, but it was hard to be sure. How many insects were trodden on by humans, without any malicious intent? The light grew brighter. She hoped – prayed – that her recorders were still working. They were meant to record everything and yet, ever since they’d started exploring the Sphere, there’d been odd gaps. It was suddenly very easy to believe the Sphere was toying with them.
The glow sharpened, the lights becoming something oddly familiar and yet alien ... it took her several seconds to realise she was looking at a holographic starchart. Humanity’s holographic projects always had a faint sense of insubstantiality, a reminder they really were nothing more than illusions. The alien projections were so sharp, so perfect, it was hard to believe they weren’t real. She reached forward, despite her training, and felt resistance as her fingers brushed against a holographic star. Solid-light projections? They’d always been theoretically possible, but no one had made them work. Not until now.
And then the hologram snapped out of existence.
Athena felt a sense of overwhelming loss as darkness crashed down on her. The starchart was gone, as if it had never been ... her radio crackled, her team trying to contact her. She barely heard them, tears prickling in her eyes as she tried to come to terms with what she’d seen. Her CO was demanding she report immediately, that she make her way back to the starship, but she couldn’t bring herself to reply. Would they believe her? Athena hadn’t believed some of the stories she’d heard, from the first teams to explore the alien structure. It would be ironic, indeed, if her team refused to believe her.
“I ... I think I found something,” she said, checking the wristcom. The sensors insisted they’d recorded everything. She hoped, desperately, that they were correct. “I’m on my way.”
Her heart started to pound, again, as she recalled what she’d seen. The sensors might not have recorded anything – there was no way to know, not until she got back to the ship – but she had. There were ways to get memories out of someone, even memories that they didn’t consciously recall. She could be hypnotised and urged to draw out the starchart and then ...
If that was a starchart, it might have shown me their homeworld, she told herself. We can find them. And then, we can learn so much ...
Prologue II: London, United Kingdom
“They used to say my ancestors couldn’t see the white man’s ships on the horizon, so alien they were to their experience,” Admiral Lady Susan Onarina said. “I think I understand how they felt.”
The First Space Lord studied the report from the Sphere. Training and experience demanded she rebuke the xenospecialists for a decidedly careless approach to exploring the alien structure, although – going by the reports – it was clear they’d had little choice. The weirder manifestations never showed themselves to more than two humans and there was only one witness to the alien starchart. Susan didn’t like the implications. The Sphere was clearly neither dead nor understood. It might be playing with the human explorers, it might just be letting off random bursts of energy, or it might be something in-between.
It was just too alien for anyone to be sure. Of anything.
“I always had the impression such stories were exaggerated,” Admiral Paul Mason said, as he sipped his tea. Her old friend, and occasional lover, had been running the top-secret research program into the enigmatic aliens since the first traces of their existence had been discovered, back during the war. “They might not have been capable of building ocean-going ships, but they certainly understood the concept.”
Susan nodded, although she wasn’t so sure. Humanity had encountered two alien races – three, if one counted the Virus – that possessed more advanced technology, but it hadn’t been that advanced. The tech had been understandable. Human scientists had been able to reverse-engineer captured alien technology or, knowing something was possible, simply figure out how it was done and produce their own version. It had never been easy – and she knew there’d been admirals who’d expected the scientists to simply wave a magic wand and put the new tech into production instantly – but it had been done. Here, though ... the scientists didn’t even know where to begin. The tech was just too different.
The RAF of the Second World War might not have been able to duplicate a jet fighter of the Troubles, she reflected. But at least they’d understand the concept of a flying machine. Here ...
She shook her head, slowly. The Sphere didn’t have any technology, at least as far as the explorers could determine. It was just an empty shell. And yet, it was clearly doing something. Susan had read the reports, each one little more than empty speculation that read like something out of a science-fantasy novel. The tech was welded into the bulkheads. The tech existed in some weird alternate dimension. There was no tech. Instead, there was an alien ghost playing games with humans unable to so much as detect, let alone deduce, its presence. They just didn’t know.
“The starchart does match the local stellar environment,” Mason said, quietly. “And, if the tramlines are as laid out on the map, we can get a ship to the alien homeworld.”
“If it is their homeworld,” Susan said. “And if they’re not trying to lure us there ...”
The thought chilled her . She was a student of history. She knew what happened when a primitive race met a more advanced one, even when there was no malice involved. The primitive race found it hard, almost impossible, to take the shock. How many human societies had collapsed, falling to pieces in the wake of contact? The Vesy really hadn’t had an easy time of it, after they’d encountered humanity. The gulf between the two races was just too wide for them to catch up, at least quickly enough to matter. Susan had read those reports too. There was a very real chance the Vesy would lose what remained of their own culture, becoming little more than copies of humanity. And the hell of it was that copying humanity might be their only chance to survive.
