Guardian Stone 1: Stone Genesis (2 page)

Juneau, Alaska – June 27 – C Day minus 64 –

Hank’s Recruitment Day

Hank had been tinkering about the lodge for several days. Essentially unpacking memorabilia from his career in the Marines and deciding where he wanted what. He had routinely shipped items he wanted to keep to the lodge, so sorting through the accumulation was taking time. Uncle Pete was a big help with suggestions that appealed to the esthetics of the lodge. Hank made sure that he was getting plenty of exercise and that was aided by the many trails in the Juneau area.

Juneau actually has more miles of trails, 260 miles, than it does roads. Just the week before, he had been hiking the Windfall Lake Trail and had encountered a brown bear. The creature was about 900 pounds of lean muscle as it had obviously come out of hibernation only recently. At the encounter, bear and man were only 60 feet apart. On seeing Hank, the bear stood up on its hind legs and looked, then snorted and sat down in the middle of the trail, very unusual behavior. Hank froze and started talking softly to the bear. The bear watched and listened for about five minutes and then wandered off on the Northeast side of the trail. Hank waited until the bear had wandered off and could no longer be heard, then continued his hike. He was puzzled by the bear's reaction but also thankful. His firearm never left the sling position on his shoulder. Later, his Uncle Pete thought that Hank was telling a tall tale and came to the realization after a few minutes that he was not. Pete likewise had never heard of encounters describing similar behavior.

Hank was considering where to place his computer and realized that the model he had sitting on his kitchen table was woefully out of date. He was emotionally attached to the computer since it had been a gift from his father shortly before the Kajaki incident. It had been good for email, some research on the inter-net and entertainment. He thought it would be a good idea to get a newer computer and provide plenty of capacity and speed since he now wanted to track household expenses and needed an updated model for communications with Reever Enterprises. He muttered that the way things were changing, a new model would be out of date before he was satisfied he was competent with it. He had been researching the machines available and had narrowed his choice to a machine that looked promising and would fit his needs when a voice startled him saying, <
You might want to reconsider that purchase, the machine in front of you is superior to anything on the planet
.
All you have to do is type S1Barana when you power up.
>

Hank had always had good reflexes and turned around quickly to see who had spoken but there was no one there. He knew that Uncle Pete was on his way to town because he heard the truck leave thirty minutes earlier. "Alright, this is not funny, who is there and where are you and how did you get in here?" He knew the doors were locked and could not imagine how anyone had managed to get inside.

The voice came again and said, <
Henry, my apologies, I am not physically in the room or in the lodge with you, it was not my intent to startle you.
>

At this point Hank realized that he was hearing the voice inside his head in much the same way he had heard Sam during the battle in Kajaki. So either he was going crazy, had an overactive imagination or he was truly hearing a telepathic message.

"Whoa! My world? 510 years old? Pass you on to me? Just who or what are you?  What is going on?"

agree that this all needs explanation, in fact there are quite a number of things we need to discuss and it might be best to do it where I live. Besides, I have some people who I would like you to meet and they are on station now. Will you agree to accompany me and we can get on with the explanation?>

Curiosity was driving Hank up the wall, so he decided to play this through. He thought to Barana <
OK, but where are you
?> Before he could finish the thought, he was somewhere else, no longer in his kitchen.

Barana thought to him,

Hank thought "
this is getting stranger and stranger
" but he did as instructed. As he turned around, he was startled to see Uncle Pete standing there.  "Well it’s about time. Nephew, brace yourself for a shock. It will be good to not have to conceal some things any longer. Come along. You are going to love this. I guarantee it. By the way, I really am your uncle, your grandmother is my sister." He then led Hank to the room mentioned by Barana. He entered a room that had a large table and he was stunned to see his grandparents and parents seated around the table, enjoying a cup of coffee and some light pastries.

His Grandfather was the first to react to his presence, "Boy you look like you've seen a ghost, or maybe a passel of them, come take a load off your feet, have some coffee and goodies. Pete you old rascal, join us. Barana will transport you back down when you are ready."

He walked slowly and wide-eyed over to where they were all sitting and his mother rose and gave him a huge hug. That broke the ice, they were all hugging and there was not a dry eye in the room. Hank finally got out a quip of his own with, "seen a ghost eh, well you all are the liveliest looking corpses it has ever been my pleasure to see and I can't tell you how good it is to be called 'boy' again gramps. This is all a bit much and I am still trying to get my mind around it all, but this is a bit difficult to take in. I thought you were all dead in that plane explosion."

Barana interjected
,

Then he really noticed what was on the other side of the room-wide sliding glass doors leading out to a balcony. He was beginning to feel like the term sensory overload was just not up to the descriptive task. "Good Lord, how big is this place?" The scene he was viewing appeared to be about 1,000 feet from the ground and consisted of mountains, forests, trails, grassy fields, with a horizon that had a disconcerting curve in the distance like some huge bowl, the reverse of what one would see on Earth. To his left and right the ground appeared to rise to eye level in the distance and continue upwards.

His father, Alexander Stone, responded, "Son, let me start with some explanations and you can pop in with questions as we move along. A lot of things that you have seen in science fiction movies and television shows are a reality on this station. What you are seeing here is essentially a view from inside a tube. That accounts for the unusual horizon. The strange horizon, by the way, is the hardest thing to get used to on a station. This station, Station One, was built many light years from here and has been in orbit around Earth for the last 480 years, so, yes, before you comment, it is capable of superlight speed and is in cloaked mode so it cannot be seen from Earth or for that matter from space. We believe the current top speed is in the neighborhood of 12,000 times the speed of light but are not really sure just how fast it can go. There are studies underway to improve that speed but it is not clear just how much that will change. We can reach most systems within 27 light years from here within a day as hard as that is to imagine and that is not even using top speed. I also understand that Barana has come up with a drive enhancement that will multiply our top speed by a factor of 25 or more and that is hard to imagine. That improvement has not yet been installed but will be shortly."

"The accommodations and capabilities of this station are hundreds, if not thousands of years ahead anything Earth is capable of at this time and probably thousands ahead of anything Earth could conceivably build. You will see things that are quite similar to what you are used to but far more advanced. This station is 60 miles in diameter and 260 miles in length. We have six habitation areas on this station. Three are in the inner zone habitat and three in the outer zone. The habitats are 9 miles high and 50 miles across. The habitat area we are in now is in the outer zone. The Station is designed for 438 million but is capable of supporting in excess of 650 million persons. We do not plan to approach that. Likelihood is that we will not approach the designed 438 million. Right now, there are about 75 million persons on this station."

"The closest thing in military parlance to describe its function is that it is like a futuristic aircraft carrier/naval base, and that really does not do it justice. It is fully self contained and self-supporting. Everything I am about to tell you about this vessel is necessary because in about 25 years, every life in this section of the galaxy will be under direct threat by the entities that call themselves the Glarin. They have been destroying everything in their path and so decimate the systems they visit that few if any are able to rebuild. The Glarin usually leave no one alive.  They feed off the resources of the system and contaminate what they do not use. We will have to go out to meet them because we do not want to let them get even close to this system and that my boy, will be your job. You will be in command of this entire operation." 

Hank was startled, "Whoa, wait a minute, I am only a sergeant who was bumped to the 'O' ranks five years ago as a battlefield expedient and I know a limited amount about command, and furthermore…."

"Just hold your objections until you hear the whole story and then we will talk about it. Besides, that objection doesn't wash because you retired as a Major. People just do not make Major in the Marines in just five years these days unless there is real talent at work. Whether you know it or not, you were being fast tracked for the General ranks, so the Corps has a pretty good feeling about your talents. You have about 20 years to grow into the role and the training you will have available from Barana is far superior to all the military academies on Earth rolled into one, along with the tools to integrate and apply what is available to you. Beside, you have already done the boot camp, so the rest should be a snap."

"Your Mom and I along with Uncle Pete and your Grandparents were recruited by Barana just over 40 years ago. Grandpa and Grandma Dieter are on an exploration ship with Fador's wife, Far-Amin so they will not be back for a while yet. You too have been on station previously but were not aware of it because you were asleep or unconscious at the time. Once you had a bad infection and on another occasion you had a serious injury.  In both instances you needed the station's medical capability."

"Let's start with a rough description of the physical plant and then go where ever that takes us. From the outer hull to the floor surface you saw when you looked out the window, the distance is five miles. We are about 1000 feet above that surface. From that inner floor down there to the, um 'ceiling' is roughly 9 miles. The inner zone habitation area has the same vertical and length dimensions and is built around a tube that has a radius of 15 miles while this one has a radius of 25 miles. The difference in perceived horizon is therefore substantial."

"There is a tube at the core of the station open to space that runs the entire length of the station and it is 8 miles in diameter. That is where we have physical access to the station and that's where the doors are located when it is necessary to use them. It is also where most of our manufacturing is located. That tube is also a monster space dock. It is where our ships are built. We have been referring to this structure as a station, but in fact it is a star ship. More importantly it is also a warship and a self-sustaining habitat capable of housing and feeding more than 500 million persons comfortably."

"This station is a Type 1A class Antoran Starship/Station and is the only one of its kind. There are currently 19 additional stations of the Type 1B class in operation. These are 200 miles in length and the same 60 miles in diameter. The Type 1B can support about 292 million persons each and twice that in a pinch. Most are currently in the Tau Ceti system about 11.9 light years from here. They are focused on refitting of various kinds and completion of improvements on those ships, those that do not have the latest gizmos available. This one is the prototype and is the command center."