No child ever plans for where they will be when they grow up. We just dream our dreams, read our stories and get on with the important business of growing up. Subconsciously, the dreams we have and the ideas we read (or have read to us) imprint themselves and mold the person we become.
So it was with me. Born to a diplomat's family, I always accepted the fact that humanity was not alone in the galaxy. The Arcean and Drengin were there because my parents said so. The Altarian's mysteriously looked like us, but that never concerned me. It was always the stories of the Precursors that filled my dreams. I would day dream for hours about what they looked like, what they felt and how one day I would get to discover information about them that no one else had ever done.
My mother would look in her own disaproving way, as my father filled my impressionable ears with stories of Dragons who could do magic, machines that required food just like us, insectoid hive minds and the such. And most importantly, how scattered through space were these mysterious artifacts, created by the precursors. Theories of who they were and what happened to them filled my sleep.
As I entered my teenage years, the dreams remained. But I was older, without as much time to spend dreaming the day away. My education was happening to me, and I learned all the knowledge a modern human in the 23rd century needed to know. It was always history that interested me, reading about what had happened. In those moments I was transported back to my youth, as no dry text can explain why the Romans decided to rule the world, or why the Mongols chose to stop their westward push and instead concentrate on the invasion of China. I would dream about the motivations, the thoughts, the dreams of those ancient men, and for a time was transported from the present.
Then the hyperdrive revolution happened. For me, it was a giant change. With the shutting of normal communications with our alien friends, their only career choice was to join the new Federation Explorers Branch. There they would help to discover what the galaxy held. Although I begged them to take me with them to help discover new and intelligent life, I was left to my education. For most students at my school, there was no difference in their lives. Sure, there was no longer direct communication with many of our erstwhile star-faring companions, but what did that matter compared to our compulsory tests on the possessive verbs next week with that ogre Mrs Tanaka?
The news was dominated by the stories of our colonies, as the government looked to make up for their mistake (or so it was called) in giving other races hyperdrive prematurely by expanding our influence in the galaxy. That was until the defining moment of my life, when a ship of unknown organic design appeared in Geo-synchronous orbit and opened contact with our race.
The Iconians had ended their eons old exile from galactic events, and my life would never be the same.
Thanks to all those who write these AARs and have inspired me to write this. I hope you like it, and most imporantly I hope I finish writing it It is based loosely on a game, which I have yet to finish so this story has a way to go yet.
bookmark for self. Keep it comin'!
wow this is awesome!
I was going to post the next chapter, but i've got a heap on today, and off to Barcelona on the weekend, so hopefully next week I'll get the time to finish this off.
Enjoy Barca Muuuurgh and great to see you posting again-great story this-am loving the perspective of telling a history through the eyes of a student
Too much Vodka-Redbull. Far too much.
We shuffled into the Library, all of us looking around and taking it all in. There was surprisingly little to see though, the omni-directional red light made it difficult to judge distances. There were still shadows visible in the walls, and the angular nature of them made me think they were caused by the diffraction of light within larger crystals. I made a mental note to discuss that with Paulo later. Running my hand along the wall didn't reveal much either, the surface was very smooth to the touch. Pressing harder seemed to force my hand away from the wall slightly but it still felt a lot like quartz I had handled back home.
With a start, I remembered what my hidden mission was: to find out how to activate our Library. Given the organic nature of many Iconian machines, along with their extremely advanced robotics I didn't hold out much hope. Still, there was always the change that the taciturn master might accidentally let something slip.
After walking not very far into the building, we reached a larger corridor that was wide enough to take 4 people abreast. We followed the instructions of our translator to line up against one of the walls and I noticed at that point that Carla had ended up next to me, with Paulo on the other side of her. The three of us had formed our own group within the students, and had taken to discussing things between us first before discussing with the larger group, so it was only natural for the three of us to wind up together.
"Do not be alarmed at what you are about to experience," came the voice I identified as the master. "We do not have TVs as you do, so this is how we experience distant events." I gave a grin to Carla and Paulo at those words, curious at what the master meant but also nervous about what was about to happen. Suddenly the lights went out. All around I could hear gasps from the other students, along with myself. I could still (just!) feel the wall at my back, and I pushed against it, seeking something solid until my eyesight came back. I always could feel my hand being gripped tightly by Carla, but I had no idea who it was reassuring, her or me.
Slowly I started to perceive some things moving in front of me. I strained my eyes to try and perceive what they were. At my side I could feel Carla sliding down the wall, as if to kneel down. Judging by the faint rustling I could hear, others were doing the same. As I stared at the faint sights, I could feel the connection to the real world fading away. Less sound was coming through, and I could hardly feel Carla's hand in my anymore, nor the wall against my back. The sights resolved themselves into flashing lights, mostly red and blue, and also into static white dots. The blue and red dots were slowly moving relative to view point, while very few of the white dots (and suddenly I realised just how many there were) were moving at all.
As I struggled to make sense of the view, I realised that the static white light were stars. I was seeing the view of a spaceship! Every second brought things clearer into view, and it started to look more and more like a standard holographic display. I could identify a space station straight ahead, and one of the larger blue lights was actually a planet. Between my view point and the planet the flashing red and blue lights had gathered. Suddenly they disappeared. Then, with a lurch and what felt like a twist in my mind, the view point changed from being me watching a ship in space, to it being me in space. It's hard to describe, but suddenly I was the ship.
With a thought, my view would instantly change to another perspective, and I quickly did a 360 degree scan. Behind was nothing, the only thing close by in space was ahead. My attention focused back to the forward view (I could sense I was moving in that direction) and then strange thoughts started appearing. When I focused on the space station (and the amount of zoom available was incredible) not only could I tell it was neither Human or Iconian, I knew it was a Korath space station, and I had a strong sense of wrongness, like it didn't belong there, along with the feeling that I could do something about it. Closer to me then the station though were many small points of wrongness, that I perceived as dangerous and moving towards me. The sense of impending doom grew greater as I felt them coming towards me, and then there was a hot flash of pain. They were fighter ships!
At the flash of pain, I lashed out instinctively. I focused on the fighter that had fired at me, and fired my own lasers that I knew I had back at it. In pain, I fired everything I had. The return blast I had triggered was several factors stronger then what had been fired at me, and instantly turned the Korath fighter into a ball of plasma, which then disintegrated as it's fusion reactor was destroyed. As I marvelled at the power I had, I could already feel the itch of healing where I had been hit, and knew that it was only minor damage. Still, a thousand stings could bring down the mightiest lion and the rest of the fighters were firing at me by this stage. I could sense a deflective field in evidence, that turned aside shots that were not targeted directly at right angles but several were still getting through. One by one I targeted each craft. Even if they had had shields like I did, the amount of power of each blast would have been enough to overwhelm them instantly, and shortly there was nothing left between me and the space station but expanding fields of radiation.
Although the fight had taken its toll on my body, I could feel the scratches that the lasers had opened healing over already, and my energy levels were being swiftly replenished by the local star. After the short fight I had a much better idea of how my new body worked, and the manoeuvrability of the craft was astounding. I could see that the space station ahead was firing crude rockets and hyper-accelerated bullets at me, which I dodged with ease. Eager to test out what I could do, I dove down the gravity well at the station, determined to fix the wrongness of it. Despite the primitiveness of the weapons, there were a lot of them targeted at me so the sooner I could destroy it the better. Very quickly, I was within range and my lasers sought out the stations fusion reactor. The size of the station meant it would have taken much longer to destroy it myself, so I let the resulting explosion do the work for me. As the explosion ripped the station to pieces, I scanned local space using my new senses. Nothing was nearby, and there was a feeling of rightness about local space. Except for that star over there.... accelerating to an immense speed, I jumped towards the next area of wrongness.
Suddenly I was back in my own body, in my own bed. One minute accelerating towards a hyperspace jump, the next waking up feeling like I hadn't slept for days? What had just happened? Had I really been inside the Library at all? The answers would have to wait, as I physically couldn't move from my bed, so I put my head back down on my pillow and was instantly asleep.
bloody marvellous.
This is probably one of the best stories I've ever read.
Fantastic Muuurgh-what a trip-will be interesting to see whether that spatial experience was real or a hallucination
I had no idea how long I was asleep for. My sleep was disturbed by dreams of being a spaceship again, never the same, always victorious though. I'd never really thought about the Korath back home, but it appeared my sub-conscience really didn't like them.
When I next woke up I was feeling better, but still not 100%. My mouth was very dry and I would have killed for a glass of water. Just thinking about it was hard though, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to get to the small basin in my room to get a drink. There was a beep at the side of my bed, and I looked at my personal drone to see it extending a glass of water at me, using a pincer grip arm that I hadn't seen before. I barely had the strength to take it off the drone and drink it. As soon as the first drop hit my mouth I was guzzling it down though. My stomach didn't feel like it could eat, and sitting up in bed was an effort. As soon as I was up I could feel a massive headache starting.
I could really use an aspirin and some more water, I thought, looking down at my empty glass. There was a beep from the drone, that was still next to the bed. It was holding out a cloudy drink in the pincer arm again. As I looked at it, I got the sense that it was an aspirin dissolved in water, so I took it from the drone and drank it down in three gulps. With that sorted, I lay back down in bed to wait for the aspirin to take effect. As I lay there, I wondered what had happened, and how Paulo and Carla were. I closed my eyes, trying to make sense of the vision. It had felt like I was actually the real ship! Thinking back to it now with a clearer head, the sense of freedom had been indescribable. The ship had felt alive, and I was sure that as long as it was near a star to recharge whatever it used for energy it could stay in space indefinitely.
I heard the door whoosh open and in came Paulo and Carla, both looking relieved when they saw I was awake. I moved over on the bed so they could both sit down on the edge.
"How long was I out for?" I asked. My voice sounded croaky, like it hadn't been used for a while.
"48 hours, you were out of it for 2 days. The drones had to get you here on a stretcher." Paulo replied. "How are you feeling now Ian?"
"Terrible. I feel like I had a fever and I have the worst headache in the world," I said. They both nodded in sympathy.
"We all felt like that," said Carla, "although you were the worst affected. Most of us were able to walk back, and were feeling back to normal by the evening. I don't think they realised just how badly we'd take that sort of experience."
"They do now," Paulo continued, "in fact they're planning on ending the whole exchange until they can re-think how it would work! Which isn't fair, most of us were fine with it, once we got used to it."
"Most of us," agreed Carla, "but not all of us. It was horrible!" she exclaimed.
"Yeah," Paulo grinned, "not all of us enjoyed it. Carla here would have run straight back outside if you hadn't had a deathgrip on her hand. You should see the bruises she has!"
I winced at the bruises that Carla showed on her hand.
"I'm really sorry, I didn't know," I apologised to her.
"It's alright, you were completely out of it, you didn't know what you were doing," she said, waving her injured hand as if to say to forget about it."
"I admit it was weird," said Paulo, "seeing that ship take out the Korath fighters as if they were mosquitoes. The amount of firepower it must have! And most importantly, we were seeing it all real-time. While you were out, we got news that the Korath have surrendered to the Drengin after the destruction of their fleets by unknown attackers!"
"Which is good, but also disturbing," interrupted Carla. "We don't want those genocidal Korath near us, so the fact they're now under Drengin control is good, but the Drengin aren't much better."
"Would you rather be dead, or a slave?" countered Paulo. It looked like they'd been having this discussion quite a bit lately, so i thought it best to interrupt them before they really got going.
"Hang on guys, you're saying you saw the ship attacking the Korath? Is that what everyone else saw?"
"Of course," said Paulo, "we all saw an Iconian ship destroying the Korath forces."
"What do you mean by everyone else," Carla asked, picking up on what I said, "did you see something else?"
"This might sound hard to believe, but I didn't see the ship. I was the ship!" Judging by how they shared a glance between them, they were skeptical of my claims. "Honest, the last thing I remember was destroying the starbase and then jumping out of the system."
"Ian, nobody else felt they were the ship, everybody else was an observer," Carla said slowly. Paulo looked excited though.
"What was it like? How powerful were you, do you think you could defeat anything?"
"I don't know," I said, "it's kind of hard to describe. It was all instinct, it wasn't like I had a manual to read." He looked like he was about to ask some more questions, but Carla got in first.
"I don't think you should tell anybody this," she said, a thoughtful look on her face.
"Why not?" I asked, which was swiftly parroted by Paulo.
"Do you know how many Korath would have been killed in that attack?"
"Who cares?" answered Paulo, "They're not human and they would have done the same to us!" I was more thoughtful though. At the time it hadn't occurred to me that I was killing sentient beings. They were the enemy, and needed to be destroyed. If I was working on instinct, who's instinct was it?
"I think she's right," I answered before Carla could launch into a scathing reply at Paulo. "I didn't have a choice, it was kill or be killed, but not everyone will understand that. They'll just see dead people and look for someone to blame."
"They're Korath," Paulo said slowly, as if talking to children. "No human or Iconian is going to care if Korath are killed."
"We've only assumed the ship was Iconian, we don't know for sure," countered Carla. "The master only said we'd be observing events, not that it was the Iconian's. They haven't admitted it to us that they're responsible."
"Oh yeah? Who else has organic ships?"
"He's right," I said, thinking back. "It was definitely organic, and the ship was able to repair itself. I think it was alive."
"And if it wasn't? Who owns the ship? And what is its next target?"
I tried to stifle a yawn, but wasn't successful. Carla noticed, and stood up.
"Come on Paulo, we should let Ian get some more rest. You still look terrible! And make sure you're at the evening meal so people don't think we're making it up that you're awake!"
"Yeah, we need to show that you're alright so we don't get sent home!" said Paulo, as he got up from the bed as well.
"Thanks for the concern guys, I'll make sure I'm there. I might even be hungry by then!" I gave them both a weak smile. I could tell they were still worried about how weak I was, as they both gave a wave to me as they left the room.
I was tired again. Maybe it hadn't been aspirin I'd taken. I made a mental note to make sure I woke up in time for dinner as I'd promised. As I fell asleep, I thought about what we'd said. Where would the ship attack next? And if it jumped to Earth, what would be the result? Before I could come up with an answer I'd fallen into a dreamless sleep.
Ah ja, the story gets developed. If Ian somehow has a latent ability to command these bio-ships, the Terrans own Precursor Library would serve a great strategic purpose...
btw how long is day on Weber?
I have no idea.... I was assuming something close to 24 hours for a standard cycle, but it's a bit more depth then the story needs to worry about that. We'll just go with 24 as that saves me having to work in a different day/night cycle.
NIce add Muuurgh
I was asking because of this:
"48 hours, you slept an entire day"
I see I need to proof-read a bit more. I'll go edit that, so it makes more sense to subsequent readers. Thanks for pointing it out.
Great addition to the story. I am eagerly looking forward to the next installment.
I was woken by the sound of my drone quietly beeping away to itself in the corner of my room. Strange, I thought, it's never made that noise before. It stopped as soon as I sat up on the bed. A quick check of my watch revealed that I had just enough time for a shower before the meal was meant to start.
So freshly showered, and with a chance of clothes, I made my way into the main area of the building. As I entered the room everybody turned to look at me. I've never been one to enjoy being the centre of attention, so as soon as I figured out where Paulo and Carla were sitting I put my head down and just stared at the ground as I went to get my meal. A few people asked how I was, and I told them all I was fine. It was a relief to finally sit down and be able to concentrate on my food. I could feel that I was blushing furiously.
We'd barely had time to say hello to each other when the Government Liaison man, Peter, came over to ask how I was. After repeating to him that I was fine, Paulo piped up.
"See, there's nothing wrong with him! You should be letting us get back to our lessons tomorrow."
"It's not up to me," he replied, "It's up to the Iconian's. And besides, we only have their word for it that Ian here is unharmed. The government, and his parents I'm sure, would be much happier if he could be looked over in a human facility."
I realised that I hadn't thought much about my parents in the excitement of all we had been learning.
"How much do they know about what's been going on?" I asked Peter.
"Not much. Along with everybody else's parents we've said that you all had a bad experience with some food. The last thing anybody wants, including the government, is parents demanding their kids come home. I'm sure you all agree with that, right?" he asked, looking at all of us for confirmation. We all hurriedly nodded in agreement.
"Now Ian," he said, looking at me, "what did you experience that caused the blackout?" Out of the corner of my eye I could see Carla giving me a look, reminding me not to tell anyone what I had experienced. I quickly repeated the story that Carla and Paulo had said everyone else had seen, about seeing the ship rather then being the ship. Luckily Peter seemed to fall for it.
"That makes things more difficult," he said with a thoughtful air. "The technology to allow people to see with that degree of flexibility far out-weighs our hologram technology, but if it has this effect on humans then it's not going to be of assistance. Hmm."
He sat their thoughtfully for a while. I got the impression that he was from the Xeno Intelligence Branch, from the way he was thinking about future uses for Iconian technology. He was interrupted by a beep from his data slate he was carrying. A quick look at it made him frown, then look at Paulo.
"Looks like you're in luck. The Iconian's have just informed me that lessons will be starting up again from tomorrow. Excuse me, I have to let everyone else know."
Paulo did a small happy dance, a big grin on his face. Carla and I just smiled at his antics, although I'm sure we were both as excited as he was.
I managed to get quite a bit of gossip out of the dinner and afterwards. Virtually no one wanted to return to Earth yet, so the news that we were going to begin lessons again the next day was good news for everybody. The Drengin looked to be getting bogged down in their new Korath holdings, so the chances of them being a threat to Earth, in the short term at least, was looking unlikely. Which made Carla happier, but she was still wary of what would happen in the long term. Paulo was convinced that the unknown attacker (which everybody was certain was an Iconian ship) would wipe out the Drengin forces shortly as well. But if the ship was Iconian, what advantage would that give them? Invasion of a star system was far too expensive, in both time and materials to even be contemplated by Humans. Did the Iconian's have that much of an advantage over us?
It didn't take long till people started wandering off to bed. Everyone was still getting over the effects of the vision, so I didn't feel bad about heading off myself. Running the gauntlet off well-wishers, I quickly made my way back to my room. When the door closed behind me, I had to squint as the light was so bright. Not so bright! I thought at the light, turning around to manually adjust it. Before I could do so however, the light quickly became bearable. I looked at it suspiciously. Had my eyes really adjusted that quick? Or had the setting automatically adjusted itself?
Telepathy? Really Ian, be rational about this! Laughing at myself, I commanded the drone that was in the corner of the room to heel, as I would a dog. It moved to place itself just behind my right foot. Shocked, I sat down heavily on the bed, just looking at the drone. Maybe I had imagined it? I told the drone to move back to its corner. It rolled itself back to its original position.
With a growing sense of excitement, I realised that I had just controlled the drone with my mind. I looked around, to see what else was around that I could order to do my will by thought alone. There wasn't much, but the taps could be turned on and off. The drone was like playing with a remote controlled car, only much more responsive. Best of all though, was I could change the colour of the light. After a bit of experimenting I got it change between the primary colours every 10 seconds. Reluctantly I put it back to its original colour though, as the changes were just too distracting.
I was still very tired though, and not even the excitement of this could keep my eyes open. I eventually lay down, telling the drone to wake me up in time for breakfast. As I got comfortable, I wondered just how much I should tell Paulo and Carla. After Carla's warnings about not telling others about how I had been the ship, I wondered just how she would take it. Paulo would be excited at what I could do, but Carla probably wouldn't. I resolved to tell Paulo only.
In my dreams, the ship was waiting for me.
I'm starting a new job Thursday, so I plan to have this finished very shortly as I probably won't have time otherwise. I'll try and knock out another chapter tonight.
Thanks Muuurgh. This is a good read..good luck with new job.
There was no transition this time. I simply was the ship. Instead of being out in open space I was next to a gas giant, orbiting very closely. I could feel the energy building up inside me from the planets magnetic field as a sense of contentment. There was a nagging sensation though, that resulted in me focusing on one of the stars I could see. With a bit of magnification I realised it was a planet, and a memory surfaced so that I knew it was the planet I had originally been at. The Korath ships had been replaced by large Drengin troop carriers. Judging by the fires that I could see were burning on the planet, the reports of uprising looked to be true. The Drengin appeared to be attempting to carry out an invasion, and the Korath were determined to fight till the end. I wished them the best of luck.
I was starting to get the hang of things. To find out something, I simply focused a thought and a memory would appear with the answer. It was an interesting way of working, only knowing things on a need to know basis. Although I originally had thought that I was here to just monitor, it appeared my mission was more sinister. I was recharging in anticipation of a battle with the Drengin ships! Luckily there weren't many warships in orbit. There was a large cruiser that seemed to be providing an escort to the troop carriers, but mostly there were fighter ships providing ground support. Knowing my abilities as I did, this battle looked to be an easy battle again. But why would I attack the Drengin, after clearing out the Korath? The only logical answer was invasion. Suddenly, it was time to launch the attack.
I accelerated out of orbit, and jumped into hyperspace, reappearing just above the Drengin cruiser. Before they could even begin to target me with their lasers, the cruiser had been hit in many places and ceased to be a threat. My next priority was the enemy fighters. With surprise still on my side they were also easily accounted for, my enhanced ability with the ship's systems allowing me to target multiple fighters at a time. By this time the startled Drengin on the troop transports were starting to react. The large, inefficient transports were quickly cut down, and the wreckage (and bodies) joined the cruiser's in a slow spiral down the gravity well. The remaining fighters in the planets atmosphere attempted to gain orbit to bring the attack to me. They were cut down at extreme range.
The attack had lasted barely 10 minutes, and all Drengin forces had been wiped out. I refused to think about how many Drengin had just been killed; I was sure that if I thought about it the memory would surface, and I didn't want that. I sensed another ship exiting hyperspace, but the sense was one of welcome rather then threat. A ship even larger then myself appeared, its organic shape making it clear it was an ally. It immediately started deploying satellites into orbit, and several dropships were launched down to the planet. It was clear that the planet was about to suffer another invasion, but I was much more confident that this one would be a success. My work here was done, I simply needed to provide support to prevent the transport from attack.
I woke up, bathed in sweat. The memory was frightening. The amount of control I had in my dreams was extremely limited, I had mission goals to complete and I was not allowed any thoughts contrary to them. It was like I had been turned into a robot, against my will, for somebody else's benefit. I wondered what else they could do. If the ship appeared over Earth, would I fire on my own people? Why was this happening? That was the thought that kept me awake, until my door opened. My drone was in the process of leaving. Before it was out of sight, it stopped, and a clear voice came out of it.
"For the answer to your questions Ian, follow the drone."
Sorry for such a short update, the next bit will be quite a bit longer. Probably will contain all the answers as well!
Good stuff Muurgh-I wonder what control the Iconians have over our hero?
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