Mapped Space 1: The Antaran Codex
The Antaran Codex
By
Stephen Renneberg
Copyright © Stephen Renneberg 2014
ISBN:
978-0-9874347-8-4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means,
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the
product of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is coincidental.
Cover design by Damonza
http://www.stephenrenneberg.com/
ALSO BY STEPHEN RENNEBERG
The Mothership
The Siren Project
The Kremlin Phoenix
DEDICATION
For Elenor, with love.
15000 BC - 2130 AD
Rise of Planetary Civilization on Earth.
2130 - 2643
Rise of Inter-planetary Civilization throughout the Solar System
2644
First human ship reaches Proxima Centauri and is met by a Tau Cetin
Observer.
Dawn of human interstellar civilization.
2645
Earth Council signs the Access Treaty with the Galactic Forum.
First Probationary Period begins.
Tau Cetins provide astrographic data out to 1,200 light years from Earth
(
Mapped Space
) and 100 kilograms of
novarium (
Nv
, Element 147) to power human starships.
2646 - 3154
Human Civilization expands rapidly through Mapped Space.
Continual Access Treaty infringements delays mankind’s acceptance
into the Galactic Forum.
3154
Human religious fanatics attack the Mataron Homeworld.
Tau Cetin Observers prevent Mataron Fleet from destroying Earth.
3155 - 3158
Tau Cetin ships convert human supplies of novarium held in Earth
stockpiles and within ship energy plants to inert material.
3155 - 4155
Galactic Forum suspends human interstellar access rights and imposes
1,000 year Embargo.
Contact with other civilizations ends.
Many human outposts beyond the Solar System collapse.
4126
Earth Navy (EN) established by the Democratic Union to police
mankind when Embargo is lifted.
Earth Council assumes control of the EN.
4138
Earth Intelligence Service (EIS) established by the Earth Council.
4155
The Embargo ends. Access Treaty reactivated.
Second 500 year Probationary Period begins.
Human interstellar travel resumes.
4155 - 4267
Earth re-establishes contact with surviving human outposts.
4605
The Antaran Codex.
Chapter One
: Vulpecula NP-28697
Navigation Point
Non System Space
Outer Vulpecula Region
1,068 light years from Sol
Autonomous Beacons
"
Silver Lining
, power down your engines and prepare to be
boarded!" A stern Democratic Union voice ordered the moment we unbubbled
and began maneuvering for the final run to Macaulay Station. “Do not attempt to
re-engage your star drive, or you will be fired upon!”
It was the one thing every
freighter pilot dreaded, being jumped after stopping for a course correction.
While we were bubbled and travelling faster than the speed of light, we were
blind, but safe. Once we dropped to flat space however, with sensors retracted
and the autonav crunching numbers for the next leg, we were a sitting duck. Sensors
were always stowed inside the hull during superluminal flight to protect them
from bubble heat, giving a well positioned raider the opportunity for a
knockout blow while their victim was still blind.
“Are they showing a transponder?”
I asked, knowing we only had seconds to decide whether to run or fight.
Jase Logan, my twenty six year
old copilot, watched the curved display in front of his acceleration couch
anxiously, waiting for our sensors to deploy through the
Lining’s
windowless hull. At times like these, Jase was all
business. He was blonde, brash, quick to anger, yet he had the makings of a fine
pilot in spite of an oversized reckless streak. He’d been born on Oresund and,
like most
Ories
, had been well on his way to becoming
a mercenary before I knocked some sense into him a few years back and put him
to work. When the automated transponder signal appeared on his display, he
relaxed. “It’s the
Nassau
!”
This was Raven space and
transponders could be faked, although I’d never heard of the local Pirate Brotherhood
pretending to be Earth Navy. That would have elevated them up the navy’s kill-on-sight
list, something most Raven commanders wouldn’t risk.
“Does the energy signature
match?”
Jase watched his display intently
as we scanned the approaching ship. Ravens had many tricks, but faking E-plant emissions
wasn’t one of them. “It’s definitely her. She’s eight thousand clicks out and
closing, weapons hot.”
Our optical sensors locked into
place and began feeding real time imagery to the flight deck’s wrap around view
screen. A dull gray frigate appeared, dead ahead and coming in fast. Her hull
bristled with sensors and shield emitters, while spaced along her topside were four
heavy guns in armored turrets. The ENS
Nassau
was the long, unforgiving arm of Earth law with enough firepower to blast any
human ship or outpost that threatened to violate the galaxy spanning Access
Treaty – ensuring none did.
“What’s she doing out here?” I
wondered aloud.
The navy regularly inspected
ships for contraband, although the trek to Macaulay Station was no prime trade
route. Human ships passed this way once every three or four weeks, hardly justifying
sending such an expensive piece of hardware out snooping around boonies space.
If they knew we were smuggling, it would take an inspection team equipped with nanometric
scanners to find our shielded compartment, equipment frigates didn’t carry. Even
so, we were only carrying pleasure-grams for the miners on Macaulay. Nothing
too kinky or weird, just enough to help lonely isolated men relieve their
boredom. The p-grams were borderline illegal, not enough to get the
Lining
impounded, just slapped with a
hefty fine that would make this run a loss maker.
I flicked on the ship-to-ship
communicator. “Hi
Nassau
. Glad to see
you’re out here keeping the space lanes safe.
Silver Lining
standing to.” The spit-and-polish navy types would be
irritated by my sloppy comms discipline, but I wanted them thinking I had
nothing to hide and no understanding of navy protocols.
The frigate rolled crisply, bow
over stern, aimed its four maneuvering engines towards us and began decelerating.
The navy weren’t exactly a welcome sight, but they were better than Ravens who
would have stolen our cargo and left us dead in space without a second thought.
Nevertheless, the navy made all traders nervous, mostly because every one of us
smuggled a little, just to make ends meet.
“She’s heading for the port
lock,” Jase said as he tracked the
Nassau’s
trajectory. “You want me to meet them, Skipper?”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“You better warn Izin.”
Izin was my engineer and a tamph
– a terrestrial amphibian. Physically incapable of human speech, he relied on a
vocalizer to produce human sounds. A small number of his kind had been marooned
on Earth in the twenty first century – over two and a half thousand years ago –
shipwrecked survivors of the Intruder War, a conflict that had raged across a
third of the galaxy long before mankind was ever aware of such things. Izin’s
ancestors had started the war, but fortunately for us – and everyone else –
they’d been defeated. The cluster of stars they called home had been under
close blockade ever since by a fleet millions of years more advanced than any
Earth Navy ship. Quite simply, the Galactic Forum – the nearest thing the Milky
Way had to a governing body – considered the Intruder Civilization too
dangerous ever to be let loose on the universe again.
The only tamphs not under
blockade lived on Earth, now uncomfortably a part of Human Civilization where –
limited to mankind’s relatively rudimentary level of technology – they posed no
risk to the rest of the galaxy. They stood far ahead of us on the evolutionary
ladder and could have become the apex species on Earth if they’d arrived a
century earlier. Instead, the descendants of the shipwrecked survivors had formed
a small, remote enclave north of Australia known as Tamph City, technically an
autonomous region within the Democratic Union. Tamphs were tolerated, but
viewed with suspicion due to their reputation for a kind of mild mannered
violence few humans understood. They could slit your throat before you even
knew they were there, but if they gave you their word, they’d honor it to the
grave. At least, the males would. The females were treacherous to a degree
impossible for humans to understand.
Most humans didn’t realize that
in the highly matriarchical tamph culture it was the females who wielded the
power and started the wars, not the males. That’s why the females lived
secluded, powerless lives in Tamph City, doing little more than breeding within
agreed population limits, and why they were never allowed to leave Earth – at
the polite insistence of the Tau Cetins. The TCs were the leading Orion Arm
civilization and the only Forum Observer species in our part of the galaxy.
Observers weren’t exactly the law, but over millions of years they’d earned the
respect and trust of other Forum members and now held a privileged position
interpreting Galactic Law and advising the Forum membership. Observer species
also possessed the most advanced technology and wielded the greatest military
power in the galaxy, which for humanity meant we ignored their counsel at our peril.
Fortunately, Izin was male and we
had an understanding. He served aboard my ship with complete freedom, providing
he carried out his duty diligently and didn’t kill anyone without my
permission. So far, he’d never given me cause to doubt him.
I tapped the intercom. “Izin, you
there?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“The navy’s coming aboard. Stay
out of sight until they’re gone.”
“As you wish, Captain,” he
replied. Because his voice was synthesized, it was always difficult to tell how
he felt, although sometimes his choice of words hinted at his emotional state.
“Plot the course to Macaulay,” I
said to Jase as I slipped off my acceleration couch. “I want to get out of here
as soon as the navy lets us go.”
“You got it, Skipper.”
By the time I reached the port hatch,
the
Nassau
had mated airlocks and was
equalizing pressure. Presently, the inner hatch swung open and a hulking Union
Regular Army Colonel wearing a dress dark blue uniform with an abundance of
gold braid stepped through, ducking his square head under the hatch rim.
“Are you Kade?” he asked
brusquely. “Sirius Kade?”
“Yeah,” I replied, glancing into
the airlock, looking for the scanning team. “Are you doing this alone?”
“This is no inspection. You’re to
come aboard the
Nassau
.”
“Says who?” Inspections were one
thing – I was bound to submit to those by law or the
Nassau
could legitimately blast us into our constituent atoms – but
being taken aboard a navy ship without charge was illegal, not that legal
niceties counted for much out here.
“I’m not at liberty to say.” He
motioned towards the airlock and waited. “I’m authorized to use force if you
resist.”
He was physically larger than me,
obviously modded for strength. I knew from experience the genetic engineering
they subjected URA troopers too included an unhealthy dose of brute courage, but
I was ultra-reflexed, not that he would have any idea what that meant. My
enhanced speed could turn this mountain of muscle into an unconscious lump of meat
faster than he could blink, but then I’d soon have ten assault troopers pounding
me into the bulkheads in retaliation. After I regained consciousness, I’d have
to explain how I took out a URA Colonel unarmed – not something I could do.
“Seeing as you asked so nicely,”
I said, stepping into the airlock, followed by the Colonel. “You want to tell
me what this is about?”
“Nope,” The Colonel replied, staring
straight ahead.
“Have I got a docking ticket
outstanding? Owe some back taxes?” I persisted, but the demeanor of the URA
officer remained impenetrable.
A pair of dark blue uniformed troopers
saluted the Colonel as we stepped out of the airlock, then subjected me to the
usual probing and scanning civilians endured before being allowed to enter a navy
ship. I expected the standard retinal, alpha wave and DNA scans, but they made
me strip, then subjected me to a full biomap – something I hadn’t had to endure
in eight years.
That’s when I knew something serious
was up.
There were ways of faking
identities, of modifying appearances, even of tricking all the common signature
scans, but there was no known way to fabricate a perfect copy of a human,
although we could never rule out the possibility alien-tech could do it. A
biomap was the only truly, incorruptible means of verifying an identify, which
is why b-maps were so carefully guarded and so rarely used. Before I’d stepped
aboard the
Nassau
, I’d have sworn the
only validated version of my b-map was locked away in a high security facility
over a thousand light years away on Earth.
So how did these muscle bound
storm troopers get a copy?
The troopers finished their body
scan and motioned for me to dress while they ran a full pattern check. By the
time I was pulling on my dark brown flight jacket, my face appeared on a
display beside their equipment: unkempt brown hair, green eyes, sharp cheek
bones and a slightly bent nose. The nose used to be straight, but some lab rat
on Earth had decided more than twenty years ago that giving it a slight twist
would help disguise the radical genetic engineering I’d been subjected to. By
the time I no longer needed a disguise, I’d grown used to the crooked nose and
decided to keep it.
“It’s him,” one of the troopers
said.
The Colonel nodded for me to
follow him through cramped metal corridors to a briefing room which I knew from
experience adjoined the ship’s Tactical Warfare Center. Without a word, the
Colonel left me alone listening to the hum of the ship. Presently, a hatch
opened giving me a glimpse of the crowded TWC beyond. It was just as I
remembered, filled with screens displaying every detectable object within reach
of the ship’s sophisticated sensors and manned by officers wearing interactive
suits that networked them into the ship’s real time data stream.
The view of the TWC was suddenly
blocked by a statuesque woman with dark brown skin, finely sculpted features and
penetrating eyes. Lena Voss wore a dark, well tailored civilian suit with a colorful
scarf around her neck and small diamond earrings, although no wedding ring. I
hadn’t seen her in a long time, not since I’d left the service. Not
surprisingly, she’d hardly aged a day, but then neither had I. My chronological
age was forty six, while she was closer to seventy, yet neither of us looked a
day over thirty. Longevity was a side effect of the genetic reengineering we’d
both been subjected to, and though the EIS would never admit it, keeping us
alive longer gave them a better return on their investment.
“You’re late,” Lena said,
motioning me to a seat at the metallic conference table.
“I didn’t know we had an
appointment.”
“Your flight plan out of Indrax
said you’d be hopping this navpoint two days ago.”