After a period of waiting for their fellow organisms to return from the stick figure journey the collective on the cliff side could now only hear the agonizing horror of millions and millions of fellow organisms somewhere faraway screaming before the abrupt silence of death. Some seemed to cry out pleading for mercy, but then they become silent as if they suddenly ceased to exist. All the beings on the ravine wall listened to this terrible sound, and then trembled with horror at what they had just heard as millions, no billions of their fellow comrades that they before knew so well all suddenly screamed out in pain and then were gone.
*
Randa eventually calmed down, but her respect for her father had become permanently tarnished after the microwave pistol incident. Another parent had disappointed a child. It would not be the first time and certainly would not be the last. Yet another child in the universe now grew up swearing that they would be nothing like their parent.
Meanwhile off the planet out in space, Captain Swain’s ship had at last arrived at the star Yat to carry out its Pripican mission to spy on Prospero’s operation. They had been discretely monitoring all electromagnetic activity that they could pick up from a position far away from the planet Caleb, which they were slowly approaching. Then Gonzal spotted the comet with the altered trajectory that none of the gravitation data of the system could explain.
“Captain! That comet has had its trajectory altered so that it will crash in the side of the planet Caleb. The effects are sure to be catastrophic for the entire world.”
“Good catch Gonzal. There doesn’t seem to be any low to how far a Nephrican like Prospero will stoop to get his way.”
Gonzal also became aghast at the reckless planned abuse of a planet. “Why are Nephricans so destructive in whatever they do?”
The Captain ventured an answer. “Nephrican evolution has always been a kind of rushed job. They are exquisitely intelligent and rationally convinced of their own superiority. I believe that superiority however, really masks a deeply rooted inferiority. The three tentacles they evolved for mobility are an example of a being not really taking the time to evolve from ocean to land. Instead of fur they rushed evolution to produce skin-cloth for warmth on the land environment. I think this rushed evolution is a consequence of the extra stomach in the skull near the brain, which also gave them the cleverness to become a dominant planetary species.”
The Pripican Captain trotted over to the communication controls to call his Chief Engineer. “Ceres! I need the microwave beam weapon prepared immediately. We are going to stop Prospero’s latest experiment on a defenseless planet.”
Ceres had been in the engine section with her engineering comrades Lonzoa and Sebast. “Yes Captain. The ready light on the targeting controls will be turning on soon.”
She passed the order on to her subordinates. “Lonzoa! Activate the microwave generator. Sebast! I need you to re-rout the power accordingly. The Captain wants to shoot something.”
“They all trotted off to their tasks. Meanwhile Ferdinand, the Captain’s fur-covered humanoid son walked onto the bridge. “Sounds like we are preparing for battle.”
“Not exactly son. Prospero has positioned a comet to strike the planet Caleb soon. I’m going to stop that from happening.”
“It will probably give away our position.”
“This is why we came. If we don’t stop that comet we may have no evidence left that any life on Caleb is being destroyed by Prospero’s teraforming operation. I think it is time to get to the truth of this. We need to stop the Nephricans from possibly destroying the ecosystem of a planet. We, as Pripicans, have a right to force him to at least wait till we can confirm the status of the planet Caleb one way or another. This is why our ancestors wrote that right into the treaty that followed the Great War.”
Ferdinand knew when his father had gone beyond changing his mind.
Then the Captain gave the orders. “Gonzal, do you have the comet locked on target?”
“Yes Captain. I’m awaiting your order.”
“Fire!”
They all watched as the comet on the view screen, for no apparent reason, suddenly started to break apart and extra tails began squirting out of the 3 or 4 pieces it broke into. Then all the pieces exploded into fuzzy clouds that then disappeared into nothing.
“You see Ferdinand. It only takes a beam from a microwave weapon and an ice comet melts away like it never existed.”
*
Prospero almost immediately noticed his comet bomb disintegrate right before his eyes on the comet view screen. It didn’t take Prospero’s analysis long before he realized that a microwave beam melted the comet. After that it took him seconds to triangulate the point in space where the microwave beam originated. Prospero shouted out an order to Beatariel as his eye closed in on the image of Captain Swain’s ship above them far away in space.
“Beatariel! To target this ship with a neutrino bomb or something prepare! It a Pripican spy ship I out of the sky want shot is.”
Beatariel had been quick to just do its master’s request. “As you wish master.”
On the Pripican ship they were still congratulating themselves on stopping the comet, but Gonzal never stopped monitoring the planet for a possible retaliation. Ferdinand wanted the ship moved away from their current position, but the Captain still talked to the Chief Engineer Ceres about a job well done. Beatariel however, didn’t respond to this from the planet. Instead it had been a satellite closer to the Sun that sent the neutrino bomb on its calculated trajectory. It would be several minutes before Ferdinand convinced his father to move the ship.
They moved the ship into a position less likely to be spotted from the planet. Gonzal never noticed any response from the planet Caleb, and began to widen his scan for possible attacks. The genius of Beatariel’s quanta-nanocoded targeting anticipated the likely probability of their current defensive repositioning of the ship along with 485 other likely positions, and Beatariel decided to include that position along with 53 of the other positions in the calculated trajectory of its neutrino bomb attack.
The engine room exploded where the microwave generator that produced the comet-melting beam existed, and Lonzoa and Sebast almost instantly perished in the depressurized engine room. The rest of the crew scrambled for the ship’s virtual particle ejection craft. Gonzal the Navigator, Ceres the Chief Engineer, and Antone the Physician all got to the virtual particle craft, and were ready to eject from the ship. They all waited for the Captain and his son Ferdinand while the ship came apart.
“I’m not leaving the ship son. This is all my fault.”
“Nonsense father! You are of no use perishing with this ship.”
“No. I’ve stabilized the reactor. It will hold up long enough to bring it in for a landing. If anything it will distract them from locating the ejection craft, and we can use the equipment I can bring down with this ship.”
“We are depressurizing. We won’t survive.”
“Go son! It’s a Captain’s duty to go down with his ship. Go on the virtual particle craft with the rest.”
It had been a small ship and Antone yelled from the lifeboat in response to the conversation. “The ship is of no use either way you two. Both of you need to join us on this craft.”
The Captain started putting his hind legs into an environment suit. “If you’re going to stay with me son then put on a suit. Otherwise go with the rest of them.”
Father and son both stayed with the ship in environment suits, while the rest of the crew jettisoned in a short-range virtual particle driven craft to come to an easy landing on the planet Caleb close to the research facility.
That did escape the watchful eye of Prospero who had been obsessively focused on the flaming spacecraft that obviously would be steered towards his planet for a crash landing. It would also come in close to the facility.
“Beatariel the wreckage of that ship find, and as prisoners any survivors take.”
“As you wish my master.”<
br />
*
The ship only caught on fire more as the Captain skillfully guided it in through the atmosphere for a landing. Ferdinand strapped himself in and tried to put fires out with controls that turned on automatic extinguishers throughout the ship. It had been a very difficult landing, and they both were rattled by the four bounces the ship made on the icy surface area of the planet where the Captain had selected for landing. There would just barely be enough power left for some reverse accelerators to bring them to a halt.
Captain Swain just collapsed at the controls after all four legs buckled. Ferdinand frantically tore off his straps and rushed to his father to assist. “Father! You did it! Are you alright father?!?”
He examined his father and began to try to revive him when he realized that his father died during the crash landing. The last thing he did would be to activate the reverse accelerators before the bounces that the ship took on the slick surface killed him with multiple concussions to the head against the now smashed control panel. Somehow after being afflicted by all that the Captain still finished the landing before allowing his body to die.
Ferdinand still moaned over the centaur-like body of his dead father when Beatariel ran up in its robot body to point a weapon at him.
“You must now surrender as my prisoner, or else I will make you join your colleague there in death.”
There had been no resistance left in Ferdinand who returned with Beatariel willingly to the all terrain vehicle it had drove out there to transport its prisoner with. The sad truth realized by all of the ship crew would be that Prospero’s research facility now would be their only hope for survival on this freezing planet.
Back at the teraforming and research facility Beatariel reported to its master after securing the prisoner. Randa, who had been confined to her room for her own protection during the now foiled comet impact event, began to realize that they now had a visitor.
“Master, the survivor has been secured in a holding cell. The other is dead near the wreckage of the ship.”
“I there life-craft to land with the rest of the crew land may have been think. There more bodies should have been. I the prisoner will interrogate.”
“They stopped our plans to thicken the atmosphere when they melted that comet. How will I be granted my freedom now? There will not be another possible comet for maybe a hundred planetary orbits.”
“Your complaining stop! Our agreement that you free when the planet Caleb a habitable temperature for Nephricans is will be was. I just as well you in a magnetic matrix to your molecular structure disassemble encapsulate could.”
“No master, not that. I just wonder how we will warm up the planet now?”
“I another plan have. I the authorities to a phantom matter singularity bomb test have convinced. The star Yat in a pool of phantom matter exists. The resulting phantom matter singularity most of the star’s phantom matter would consume. The resulting star will grow, and warmer be.”
Prospero had convinced the Nephrican authorities that his phantom matter bomb would be a new kind of non-toxic nuclear weaponry. It really had been his plan B to make the planet warmer. Prospero convinced them that the resulting phantom matter singularity would be temporary, and would just consume the immediate nuclear fallout, some other matter, and the surrounding phantom matter of the star that the planet Caleb orbits. Prospero however, knew that the resulting singularity wouldn’t just go away, and the singularity could consume the whole planet Curirem (Yat-1) if not properly contained. Prospero intended to contain the phantom matter singularity, which would also thin out the star Yat’s surrounding phantom matter ring. The phantom matter singularity would also expel higher-evolved elements from its poles that he could only speculate about. Prospero predicted that this would make the star Yat burn larger and hotter enough to extend the habitable zone well within the orbit of the planet Caleb. Only Prospero really knew the plan for what they would do about a singularity of Phantom matter that would then be orbiting the star Yat.
* * *
Admiral Mull had been interviewed in his office for a news broadcast to announce a new space mission to the star Dol. Admiral Mull would be destined to become the first Nephrican to reach Dol where rumors of the existence of intelligent life had already been leaking out to the general population. The reporter followed up while his two assistants each waved a camera in each hand at different angles around the reporter’s and the Admiral’s heads. The editor sat over in a corner of the room typing away on his editing device that fed the interview to the airwaves in almost real time.
“You you the same ship that almost Captain Mynervood and his crew killed will be using say. That dangerous is. Why it again not explode will?”
“That my investigation back goes. My investigation that Captain Mynervood’s mission by Captain Mynervood was sabotaged concludes. He psychotic has become, and may already The Beyonder mission to Holdus have destroyed.”
The reporter had been ineffective in suppressing his joy at hearing the breaking news about the famous Captain Mynervood. He quickly covered it up with a look of shocked disbelief. “This a shocking allegation is. Why Captain Mynervood such a thing do would?”
“I it a mutation from too much space travel is am afraid. The good Captain and myself always good friends have been. I lately he of something he the continuity of existence calls perceiving has spoke am afraid. He if he the ship while in hyper-acceleration he one with this will become destroys believes. Captain Mynervood well not is. If he to Holdus he apprehended for his own good will be gets.”
The reporter had been thrilled with the important news that Admiral Mull announced in this interview. The Admiral would prove that the fusion design Captain Mynervood had tested is sound after all, and then he would use that information of sabotage against his rival. The truth had been that over the years Admiral Mull had become consumed with a passive aggressive jealousy of Captain Mynervood the great explorer who laid down the foundation for this galactic empire. At first he just wanted Joberk away from him while he took complete control over the Space Agency. Mynervood took all the glory while Admiral Mull did all the paperwork, and accounting, and planning. Now Admiral Mull planned to destroy his rival with disgrace while also becoming the first Nephrican to make it to the star Dol. Admiral Mull fantasized about becoming the god of those little blue Doldorians that had been filmed for quite some time by top secret spy satellites positioned in orbit above Doldoria.
Even if the Agents of Ea fail, who he had allowed on board The Beyonder after all to compel Adma to murder his rival, there were still other traps he had laid down to sabotage The Beyonder to finally destroy the great Captain Mynervood. The Admiral just had to stop at the star Yat first on his way to Doldoria, and bring the components for a phantom matter bomb project to Prospero. Captain Mynervood probably would not live long enough to complete that part of The Beyonder mission even if he manages to make it to Holdus. The Admiral had drifted away into his gloating thoughts when the reporter repeated his question to get his attention back.
“Admiral Mull sir? I you the theory that there life on Doldoria is support said?”
*
“Admiral Mull sir? I you the theory that there life on Doldoria is support said?”
Hagan Hiedalli had seen enough of that news broadcast. “Can you that broadcasting device please off turn? I enough have seen.”
The Negolim underground agent had been with her to prepare the deep space radio wave transmission pressed a button, and the broadcast news on the wall screen then disappeared. He intended to help Hagan Hiedalli send the information to The Beyonder that she had learned about Admiral Mull’s attempts to kill her husband. Now she also had the breaking news that she had just watched to also warn her husband about. Her husband, Captain Mynervood would receive this message while the ship slowed down, but she has to send it now at the speed-of-light for the transmission to catch up to the ship about 6 Earth months later.
After the assassin had left Hagan
Hiedalli for dead, her quanta-nanocoded friend Beatarkameed contacted physicians in the Negolim underground, and kept her alive while they got there in conspicuously rapid time. She now lived, thanks to them, with most of her healing complete, and would soon be fully recovered. The cover story of her suicide needed to change after no body had been available for the suicide victim. The suicide message originally found there needed to quickly be forgotten. Now Hagan Hiedalli had become wanted for foul play, and the blood found at her home had been attributed to a made-up murder victim she evidently had been seeing intimately for sometime. The story now claimed that the suicide message had been part of her failed attempt to fake her own death with the murder.
Now Hagan had become an indoctrinated member of the Negolim Underground. Her newfound friends were now assisting her in getting the message of what she knew to her husband on a ship currently traveling to the star Holdus a light year away. She hoped it would reach him in time to stop her son from whatever his mind control handlers were making him do.
Her Negolim underground friend actually had been indifferent to the rivalry between the two competing Eagolim space travelers that were both just trying to become the greatest Eagolim of all time. Nevertheless he had been proud to assist Hagan with this as a fellow friend in the underground, and a friend whose enemy happened to be his enemy. He explained to Hagan that the Negolim Underground resisted the changes that were being brought by the Eagolim because they viewed the Eagolim as an alien invasion attacking the Nephrican race from within their own DNA. As futile as the future looked for their species the Negolim could only, after all, defend what they were. Hagan’s Negolim friend announced that the star port transmission tower had finally been successfully hacked into from his Negolim Underground control room. Hagan Hiedalli then started to think about what she would be about to say.