The Oort Federation, page 34
eThorpe in PS Ad Astra, eBork in PS Alan Shepard, eSally in PS Edgar Mitchell, eBrad in PS David Scott, and eJohnny in PS James Irvin exited nullspace geometrically spaced around Frohlic at 5,000 kilometers. eThorpe’s EPD showed only four ABO ships orbiting 3,000 kilometers above the planet. The Sergei Krikalyov seemed to be missing, and that bothered him.
“Adrhun, what is the status planetside?” eThorpe asked Gloalorn through their private circuit.
“My best efforts notwithstanding,” Gloalorn answered, “the dissidents will attack government house shortly.”
“What has been the effect of Chairman Butler’s visit with the Boss?”
“The Boss is willing to work with the Chairman across the board. Sir, this is a big deal! It could spell the beginning of genuine change for Frohlic.”
“Where are you right now?”
“I just left the Boss’s office. I’m trying one last push to prevent the groundside attack. The problem is, these guys seem pretty confident. They’ve got no reason to unless they have something going with Orlov that I don’t know about.”
There was a pause of about five minutes in Gloalorn’s transmission. Then Gloalorn commenced transmitting again.
“Oh shit! A heavy-duty laser bolt just struck the government building. The dissidents are attacking along the main boulevards. Another bolt…another…they’re moving in my direction…can’t escape…” And Gloalorn ‘s transmission ended.
eJohnny’s ship, PS James Irwin, dropped toward Frohlic from 5,000 kilometers, slipping in and out of nullspace to avoid enemy fire, as Johnny focused on taking out the ship that had just hit the government complex. At 3,500 kilometers, his MBH took a direct hit and imploded. The flash washed Frohlic with bright white and traveled outward past eBraxton and his ships, past Damvet, eventually reaching the limits of Aster’s Oort Cloud and beyond. Johnny and crew were gone.
eBrad and eBork in Scott and Shepard rendezvoused 3,500 kilometers out to take on Johnnie’s attacker. eSally in Conrad stood off supplying covering fire. They made the kill, but another ABO ship dropped out of warp in position to take out eBrad and PS David Scott. In a split-second maneuver, eSally drove Edgar Mitchel between Scott and the attacking vessel. She took the bolt and spiraled away before soundlessly imploding with the loss of her entire crew.
Both Brad and Bork fired on the attacking vessel leaving nothing but space junk in its place, but that didn’t help Sally.
The two remaining ABO ships were still positioned on the other side of Frohlic. eThorpe pinpointed their positions by EPD and vectored the Shepard toward one while he headed toward the other. They both moved in and out of nullspace rapidly, releasing a laser bolt, particle beam, or anti-matter beam every time they entered normal space. They caught Orlov’s ships by surprise. By the time they reached the enemy vessel positions, nothing remained but shattered pieces of warp ring and Lance, and bloated, floating bodies.
“Neil Armstrong, it’s Ad Astra. Frohlic is secure.” Thorpe did the transmitting, so eThorpe could focus only on keeping the ship alive.
“Roger. This is eBraxton. What’s your status?”
“It’s Thorpe. We lost Edgar Mitchell and James Irwin with eSally, Sally, eJohnny, Johnny, and both their crews. No recovery. Did they all have current backups?”
“I think so, but I don’t know. I lost the Aldrin with eSam and his crew, and Conrad took a hit. The crew is gone, but Daphne got out somehow. We’re looking for her right now.”
“Wouldn’t her E-disk pull her out of there?”
“It’s supposed to. Don’t know what happened.”
“This is eThorpe—we’re on our way!”
Daphne slowly opened her eyes. She was disoriented, as if she were floating in an anti-gravity tank. The bright colors of the Milky Way filled her vision. My ship, the Conrad…what the hell happened? Where am I? She moved her arms and legs. They’re okay. She tucked and rolled to change her position. The Milky Way seemed to move around her. No sensation of movement…my God! I’m in my spacesuit…in space. She tried her communicator. “Hello…hello…” Nothing at all. “Mayday! Mayday!” Still nothing. My E-disk malfunctioned. She tried to reach for it or her hyper-disk. Shit…can’t access them. They were in her pockets, but her hands were encased in her spacesuit sleeves. This is a design flaw we never considered, her analytical side said, while she tried to push down the panic that her emotional side slipped into her consciousness.
“Mayday! Mayday! It’s Daphne O’Bryan. I was in Conrad above the ecliptic near Rogan. Now I’m just floating in the void…”
No use, I’m not getting out. Nobody can hear me. She shuddered. I really don’t want to die like this, even if my backup is activated. It’s not getting this. There will be no record…none at all. Once again, she pushed down panic that threatened to overwhelm her.
“Mayday! Mayday…”
Kimberly…we did so much together—the closest of sisters, lovers, friends. She shuddered and cast her gaze across the infinite void surrounding her. I’m all alone. Kimberly, where are you? Thorpe, you clumsy anachronism, lover, friend…I need you! She tucked and rolled several times, trying to find anything familiar anywhere around her. The stars were different…a few familiar patterns but somehow nothing recognizable.
Then Daphne heard a woman scream—a forlorn, pitiful scream. She opened her mouth to answer and discovered that she was screaming. Get your act together, Girl, she told herself…and screamed again, quieter this time. Her heart was pounding, and the stars surrounding her seemed to pulse in rhythm with her heart.
Suddenly, directly in front of her, Daphne saw a star pattern she recognized—the constellation Libra. Zubeneschamali, its brightest star, seemed to flash at her. Zubenelgenubi (the star Johnny Oort brought up) and a couple of other stars formed a large triangle. But wait, she said to herself, another star occupies the center of the large triangle. It’s faint, but I can see it…magnitude 6.5 or so. It shouldn’t even be there. Daphne gasped.
“That’s Sol!” she cried out. “My home! I can see my home. I’m not lost after all!” She shouted with glee.
“Mayday! Mayday…Come and get me, guys!”
“I’ve got a hit on my EPD,” eBraxton said.
Kimberly and Dale had joined Braxton by portal in Armstrong’s control room.
“Give me the exact position,” Thorpe said from Ad Astra.
With the coordinates, eThorpe moved as close as he dared by MERT Drive and then came to a stop relative to the object on his radar. Thorpe had already suited up and was out the lock the moment relative motion between Ad Astra and Daphne ceased.
He jetted toward her with his TBH boots, coming to the top of her head, out of her vision. He reached from behind and slipped his arms under hers, turning her as he did. The astonishment on her face said everything. Thorpe pressed his helmet to hers.
“Daphne…are you okay?”
“Just scared out of my mind…that’s all,” she answered, her relief apparent even through the transparent globes. Then she pointed to Libra. “Look…there’s Sol…Home!” She burst into tears and threw her space-suited arms around Thorpe’s helmet. “Take me home!” she sobbed. “Take me home!”
“I’ve got you, Daphne. You’re safe.” He pulled her close to him so she could feel his body through her spacesuit. As an afterthought, Thorpe added, “And you don’t even have to lift your sweater!”
Epilog
KUIPER BELT—NEW KUIPER JOINT STATION
It was the busiest day Dr. Jackson Fredricks had experienced since eThorpe first gained consciousness in his Los Angeles lab what seemed like so long ago. When the alarm first sounded with the arrival of termination signals from Daphne’s crew, he let it run its course. But then, wave after wave of arriving termination signals caused him to shut down the alarm. He didn’t need it, as he and multiple crews were present, and rejuvenating personnel were already at work as the signals arrived.
“Where’s Daphne?” Fredricks shouted as the signals piled up. “Where’s Daphne?” But his hands were full, so he put the question on the back burner while ensuring all the designated backups were viable and conscious.
As Sally came to her senses in the recovery chamber, all she said was, “What about Brad? Is he okay?”
“Yes, Sally,” Fredricks said, “you saved his life.”
Sally smiled broadly without covering her mouth. A jumble of thoughts filled her mind. “I have to go, Dr. Fredricks, right now.”
As Sally hurried to the office she shared with Brad in the next-door Phoenix complex, she contacted him. Her signal transited multiple portals before Brad answered in PS David Scott somewhere in the Aster system.
“Can you meet me in our office in Joint Kuiper Station? I’ve got something to show you.”
Sally found Brad waiting for her as she entered their office. She ran to him, throwing herself into his arms.
“You’re okay! Oh my gosh! You’re alive and well!” Joyful tears flowed from her eyes as she snuggled into his arms and pressed her face to his massive chest.
“I love you, Chị ơi!” Brad said huskily, wrapping his arms around her diminutive figure. “I love you!”
After several minutes of quiet sharing, Sally looked up at Brad with bright eyes and said, “I was in the middle of digging around a lot of older astrophysical and cosmological research when the battle erupted.”
“So, what else is new, Chị ơi?” Brad said, grinning at her as he pulled her face from his chest to kiss her warmly.
“No, really…look at what I found.”
Sally pulled up a 3-D chart of the known universe. A visible arrow pointed to the Milky Way galaxy at the center of the image. Another arrow pointed to a region about 500 million lightyears across and eight billion lightyears distant. She pointed to the region.
“A hundred years ago or so,” she said, “cosmologists seriously thought this might be an area where our universe came into contact with another universe—within the greater multiverse.”
“That would have been what? Eight billion years ago?”
“Some of them thought the interaction was still taking place when the light left that region.”
“And you’re telling me this why?”
“What if they were right? What if we had the means to get there in a relatively short time?”
ASTER SYSTEM—ASTEROID BELT
Isidor Orlov moved UZ Sergei Krikalyov between his locations at the inner edge of the Asteroid Belt and near the Aster-Frohlic L4 point, slipping in and out of warp to reduce the chance he would be detected. He had observed the destruction of his entire fleet with deep pain, aware of the irony. Survival of the fittest indeed! Regret was pointless, though, and he’d been unable to interfere without putting Krikalyov and himself in mortal danger.
On his Link, Orlov pulled up an image of Natasha—something he had not done in years. In the image, she was fresh and beautiful, barely out of her teens. She would be in her middle years by now—or perhaps rejuvenated to twenty-something again. He grunted, briefly overwhelmed by a sense of loss before returning to the moment. With his fleet destroyed, this obviously was not the time to walk boldly. Orlov set in the coordinates for his new Udachny Complex in the Kuiper Belt and departed the Aster system at maximum warp.
ASTER SYSTEM—FROHLIC
A rejuvenated Adrhun Gloalorn settled behind his desk in the newly constructed government complex at the center of Frohlic’s capital city. He glanced up at a holoimage of his predecessor, Chairman Bardan Talock—the Boss.
He expected to live through at least 130, but he only made it to eighty-seven, Gloalorn thought as he firmly pursed his lips and set his gaze on each of the three dissident leaders standing before him. I think this would have pleased him.
“Gentlemen, please be seated,” Gloalorn said. “Let’s see if we can figure out how to make this thing work.”
ASTER SYSTEM—INTERGALACTIC SHIP ANDROMEDA
Riding in a stable orbit between Rogan and the Asteroid Belt, Intergalactic Ship Andromeda dwarfed any mobile structure ever built by humans, Oort, or Asterians. Its disk measuring 5,500 meters across and 300 meters thick, housed the largest mini-black hole ever constructed by Roganians or humans—fully five kilometers across. One side of the disk looked like a city, filled with buildings large and small, automated manufacturing facilities, streets, alleys, parks, and even several brooks and streams. The other side was a landscape complete with mountains, meadows, rivers, and even an ocean beach. The entire structure was encased in a transparent sphere that kept atmosphere in and radiation out. Like the Kuiper Joint Station, both sides experienced diurnal solar changes that mimicked the days and nights of all three worlds.
The populations of three worlds stood and cheered as 10,000 adventurous souls, humans, humanized Oort, Roganians, and Frohlicans, departed on the grandest expedition ever conceived. Holocams representing news services from three worlds focused on IS Andromeda with tense anticipation.
One moment Andromeda filled the holovision tanks on three worlds—the next, she vanished.
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Cast of Characters
MAIN CHARACTERS
(alphabetically by first name)
Adrhun Gloalorn—Asterian prisoner from Frohlic
Brad Kominsky, PhD—School of Mines—Phoenix Senior Scientist eBrad—Upload version of Brad Kominsky
Braxton Thorpe—Icicle: A Tensor Matrix
Thorpe—The original Icicle—later, a downloaded version of eThorpe
eThorpe—renamed original Thorpe when Thorpe was downloaded
Braxton—The independent backup—later, a downloaded version of eBraxton
eBraxton—renamed original Braxton when Braxton was downloaded
Dale Ryan, PhD—Phoenix research scientist
eDale—Upload version of Dale Ryan
Daphne O’Bryan, PhD—Partner and Chief Scientist at Ogden Enterprises eDaphne—Upload version of Daphne O’Bryan
Isidor Orlov—Russian oligarch head of Udachny Enterprises
Jackson Fredricks, PhD—Phoenix Chief Scientist
John Butler—Chairman of the Oort Federation
Johnny Oort/John Ortman—an Oort individual—later, Johnny eJohnny—Upload version of John Ortman
Kimberly Deveraux—Partner and Chief Information Officer at
Ogden Enterprises
eKim—Upload version of Kimberly Deveraux
Masin Arcah—Asterian prisoner from Rogan
Max—Daphne’s tabby cat
eMax—Upload version of Max
Maxter—Clone of Max
eMaxter—Upload version of Maxter
Sally Nguyen, PhD—School of Mines—Phoenix Senior Scientist eSally—Upload version of Sally Nguyen
Sergii Anatoly Borisovich, Academician—Udachny Enterprises Senior Scientist
SECONDARY CHARACTERS
(alphabetically by first name)
Bardan Talock—The Boss, head of Frohlic’s government
Bexel Carok—Frohlic dissident leader
Botex Ravnan, Captain—Commander of Frohlic Military Outpost One
Dvra Okai—Roganian shuttlecraft pilot
Frank Meriweather, PhD—Mars Station Chief Scientist
George Fulton—Incoming U.S. President
Gerald Saxon—Humanized Oort renegade
Gloria Weinhard—Dayton matron
Gregori Yeltsin—President of The Federated Russian Republics under their new constitution
Guo Qiáng, Academician—Project Director at the Institute of
Nanoscience Computing (INC), Chinese Academy of
Sciences—later, Head of the Chinese government
Holon Mavik—CEO of Roganian L2 Group
Jake Rundell—Dayton Chief of Police
John Gabby—Dayton mayor
Norman Bork—Mars Station Manager
eBork—Upload version of Normal Bork
Prozell Squzon—Frohlican pilot of only surviving Asterian ship headed for Aster
Ragnar Whipple—Editor, The Dayton Chronicle
Randy Nelson—Humanized Oort renegade leader
Rhonda Willis—Humanized Oort renegade
Rodney Bailey—Blockchain programmer
Stanley Roka—Mars Station crew member
Zantag Gloalorn—Adrhun Gloalorn’s grandnephew on Frohlic
Zhang Yupei— Director of the Institute of Nanoscience
Computing (INC), Chinese Academy of Sciences
FEDERATION SPACE FORCE (FeSFo)
(rank & alphabetically by first name)
Jerry Culp, Adm.—Commanding Admiral
eCulp—Upload version of Jerry Culp
Rob “Jake” Jacobs, Cmdr.—Operations Commander
eJake—Upload version of Cmdr. Rob Jacobs
Sam Bunker, Master Chief Petty Officer—Master CPO of FeSFo.
Later promoted to Lt. Cmdr.
eSam—Upload version of Master Chief Sam Bunker
eGoff—Upload version of Petty Officer First-class Cameron Goff (The flesh-and-blood Goff was killed with nerve poison by Chinese dissidents in Icicle.)
George “Georgie” Raptor, Petty Officer First Class—Platoon Leader eGeorgie—Upload version of Petty Officer Raptor.
Jack “Tag” Taggart, Petty Officer First-class.
William “Billy” Jones, Petty Officer First-class.
Francis “Claw” Falcon, Petty Officer Second-class.
Kimber “Kim” Jordan, Petty Officer Second-class.
Lars “Doc” Watson, Petty Officer Second-class—platoon medic.
eDoc—Upload version of Petty Officer Watson.
Rauld “Swede” Stefansen, Petty Officer Second-class.
SPACECRAFT ROSTER PHOENIX/FEDERATION SPACECRAFT
(alphabetically by ship)
