THE VROL TRILOGY (4 page)

Large emigration ships, called
barges, were constructed in a massive, secret underground base in
the middle of Australia, and financed by consortium corporations
from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Peru, Switzerland and The United
States of America. Many felt this to be necessary to ensure the
survival of the human race, as Earth was suffering from
overpopulation and an almost complete lack of energy resources and
food.

Automated terraforming drones,
sent to Azul 20 years ahead of the fleet under the guise of
privately-funded deep-space exploration vehicles, were in reality
to perform minor geological and atmospheric adjustments, thereby
allowing man to survive on-planet without doing significant damage
to local flora and fauna. This process finished three years before
the arrival of the first barge, which orbited the planet after a
long journey of almost 300 years.

Of course, Max
was born centuries later into a thriving and modern society.
Possessing a strong physical constitution, standing 180 cm tall and
weighing in at about 80 kilograms (5'10" and 175 lbs in Earth
measurements), and sporting brown hair and lightly-tanned
complexion (his mother being dega), Max's parents were Charles
Gunnarsson and Clarisa (
née
Martinez), both professors at a local university.
So, growing up in an academic environment, he had all of the tools
he needed to learn and succeed. In fact, he was such a brilliant
student that by the time he was 23 years old he had earned a PhD in
physics, along with three Master's degrees in differing engineering
disciplines (molecular, mechanical and
electrical).

From there he satisfied his federal
service requirement by going to work for the Military, which was
more of a scientific organization than one geared toward
implementing tools of war. As there was no form of conflict on Azul
or the three inhabited moons in the system (Luna, Sienna and Vera,
of which both Luna and Sienna orbited the planet, with Vera
belonging to a nearby gas giant), the Military simply got ahold of
the best and brightest minds available and worked toward the common
goal of making technological breakthroughs. One of these
breakthroughs was the discovery of side space carrier currents, or
SSCC, and Max was deeply involved in it, as its discovery was based
on the theory he postulated in his doctoral thesis.

The SSCC project would
enable Azul's military to respond in proactive fashion to any
external threat. Aside from this, Azul had been receiving radio
signals from an approaching, intelligent alien race, the Artusians,
for several years and saw no reason to let down their guard. The
alien fleet was traveling STL (slower than light), so the military
had a few years to ramp up for their arrival. The SSCC project
facilitated this, as it dealt with
side
space
- a layer of space next to, or below
(or even above) normal space. Scientists didn't know if space was
an alternate dimension; just that Einsteinian physics did not
apply. They found that there were
side
space carrier currents -
strands of energy
moving at extreme velocities, many thousands of times the speed of
light as it existed in normal space.

Max led the engineering
group that developed
the
hook
, a device that enabled a ship to
reach into side space, and drag itself onto the carrier currents
for a ride, which traveled in an infinite number of directions.
Each current strand would run on its own side space frequency, so,
in theory all one needed to do was to tune the hook (which more
resembled a massive electronic spear) to the proper frequency and
get dragged into side space, releasing when at or near their
destination.

But for the first time in
decades the politicos on Azul came to a stand-off - they could not
agree on whether to authorize the hook drive or not. There were
those who wanted to use it to reach out to the stars, and then
those who wanted to return to Earth (or Old-Earth, as they
sometimes called it). No radio signal from Earth had reached Azul
in centuries, and it was unknown if the planet even still existed
anymore. Space telescopes showed it still there, but a telescope is
only as accurate as the light being transmitted to it, and Earth
was light years away.


 As the form of government on Azul was very methodical
and logical (and quite slow to make decisions, which was written
into their Constitution on purpose), they felt it best to study the
hook drive in laboratories, and not in space, while they came to a
consensus on its final implementation.

So, not willing to wait, Max developed
his own hook drive in a private warehouse, working evenings and
weekends in secret, drinking copious amounts of coffee and
listening to ancient symphony music (J.S. Bach was his favorite),
while assembling pieces of the device out of junk parts he had
smuggled out of the Military Scientific Research Complex. He knew
that if he were discovered he would be penalized and possibly
jailed, as the military had ownership over the technology, but he
forged on, intending on returning to Earth as a test. He surmised
that if he could go to Earth and return, then the government would
have no choice but to allow military ships to be retrofitted with
the technology, enabling mankind to go out and meet the approaching
alien fleet - just to make sure they were not hostile, and if they
were, to vaporize them where they floated in space.

His calculations set the estimated
arrival at Earth in less than eight standard days -14,000 times
faster than it had taken the original Exodus to achieve orbit
around Azul. When he was almost finished with his homemade hook
drive, he sought to buy a small transport craft capable of rugged
space travel, so he found an old cargo ship that was used to carry
everything from cattle to shipping containers between Azul and the
local moons. He purchased it after he was approached by a less than
reputable vendor named Ali on Sienna's Verdal continent, and named
it the Machu Picchu, after the historical Inca ruins on Earth's
South American continent. He then flew it back home and filled it
with cargo - camping gear, a water purification system, weapons and
an all-terrain vehicle for exploring on land, before initiating the
process to install the hook machinery.

If Max had a bad habit, it was that he
was a bit chatty - and trusting. He liked to share information with
people, to give them hope, to raise their spirits up, and also let
them know that he was smart. Very, very smart. This was his
downfall, as his ego drove him to give a bit too much information
to Ali, from whom he purchased his new ship.

He didn't mention anything
about a slip drive, but said he was working on something that
would
change mankind for the better
and it had to do with returning to Earth. Ali,
being a shifty and greedy merchant with a rich criminal history and
multiple stints in local jails, thought he could earn a reward from
the military by selling out Gunnarsson, as it was obvious to Ali
that illegal activities were going to take place.

So Ali contacted the local military
annex and started to blab to an unshaven, low-level officer who
looked like he had slept in his crumpled uniform for at least a
week, inventing half of the story as he went along, making wild
embellishments that no one would have believed. In truth, nothing
would have happened, and at best Ali would have been thrown out on
his ear but for one small fact - the scientist had told Ali his
real name, so when Ali said he had sold the spacecraft to a certain
Max Gunnarsson it set off alarms within Azul Military Intelligence,
even though it took a few days for that information to filter up to
the proper ranks. By this time Max was finished retrofitting the
hook drive onto the Machu Picchu and was ready to help usher in a
new era for mankind. Even despite Max's issues with the
authorities, things were never as good in Earth's past as they were
on Azul. And he had left it all, gambling that there was even still
a planet orbiting Sol.

###

At 45 years of age, Rear Admiral Luigi
Bagatelle was the youngest person ever to have attained that rank
in the history of Azul's military. He dedicated himself for years
to get where he was - standing on the bridge of his massive
Juggernaut-class ship, the Revolution, the newest in the fleet.
Without prior indication or warning, his command was assigned the
responsibility of going where no Azul-born human had gone before -
back to Earth.

Knowing full well
that
the hook
had
yet to be tested on such a large ship, he could have been bringing
hundreds of men and women to their doom, but it was his job to make
sure that this technology did not fall into the hands of anyone -
alien or human. He wondered what would happen if Gunnarsson reached
Earth and there was still a society there. He imagined them
capturing SSCC technology and invading Azul, which caused him to
shudder at the thought. Bagatelle had a 100% commitment to the
safeguarding of Azul and the three moons. The federal government
had given special and immediate permission for the military to
outfit the Revolution with SSCC technology, but it was hastily
assembled. Gunnarsson was their lead engineer and was not there to
oversee implementation, and he already had a four-day lead on
them. Fortunately, the Revolution was built to facilitate the
installation of SSCC technology in space dock. Otherwise they could
have had a down time of at least a standard month.

Bagatelle turned to his second in
command, Lt. Commander Alicia Vasquez, and over the comm gave the
order, "All hands on deck, prepare for side space
entry."

The lt. commander nodded and slowly
pulled back a large lever on her control panel. The top of the
massive warship's midsection opened as huge, protective panels slid
back, allowing hook drive machinery to assume its place at the top
of the ship. Masses of tubing and pipes pushed up out the top of
Revolution's hull and lit up with a brilliant glow while the core
energized.

As the glowing increased on the top of the ship, a rift in
side space tore open approximately 10 meters above the machinery.
Millions of individual, colorful energy strands wildly weaved
around and through each other, glimmering and racing, making the
rift look like a supernatural gash in the sky. Then, what appeared
to be a massive, backwards-facing spear littered with electronics
moved up and into the energy field. This was the hook dragging into
the side space field, eventually making a connection with the
proper current frequency. Within seconds the Revolution disappeared
from sight and screen. It was on its way to Earth.

Chapter 3
- Welcome to Earth

Max calmed his nerves, set all flight
controls to automatic and was resting in his sleeping quarters. The
good thing about side space was that, as far as anyone knew, there
were no dangerous objects floating around, so he could relax and
enjoy the ride, the navigation being automated with the hook drive
and on-board computer systems. Once certain coordinates were
reached, the drive would disengage and the ship would drop to
normal space, decelerating to the velocity the craft was at when it
had initially entered into the rift.

After getting up and going to the small
galley, he pushed a button on the food dispenser, causing a warm
cup of coffee to appear in the receiver tray. Max grabbed the
coffee and took a long sip, feeling the warm liquid course down
into his empty stomach, half settling it and half upsetting it with
the coffee's acidic constitution.

He sat back on a crash couch, designed
for poor to tragic landings, but also used as a comfortable place
to relax, he looked over his nav charts he had printed out and
brought along on the journey. They were the last known land and
water configurations from Earth and had layouts of the entire
planet.

Not knowing where to go, he
chose to land near the Urubamba River, in Peru, right at the base
of Machu Picchu, the namesake of his ship. He would then scan the
area for signs of human life, and if none existed then that would
be his base of operations. The first thing he would need to do was
to find a safe place to camouflage the Machu Picchu as it was more
than a certainty that Federation forces were pursuing him. He had
billions of possible landing sites in the South American
continent
alone, but the
high jungle, where the Urubamba flowed, would provide excellent
cover with its many valleys and ravines.

Sol System, 2819

After six standard days in transit, the
Machu Picchu dropped out of side space, halfway between the orbits
of Earth and Mars, the third and fourth planets in Sol system. Max
engaged the ship's fusion-ion drive for some serious velocity, and
started chugging toward the planet of his ancestors. His ship had
been going a paltry forward velocity of Mach 7 when it entered into
of side space, and he needed to arrive within hours, not months.
With the fusion-ion drive at full he would arrive at Earth in one
standard day - much faster than it took Earth's first and only
explorers to Mars, who spent three months on a cramped vessel, only
to tragically never make the return trip home due to an unexplained
accident that resulted in a total loss of life.

As the hours passed he occasionally
went to the galley. He got snacks and was diligent about hydrating,
not knowing what the water situation would be like on Earth. For
all he knew, the planet would be a dustbowl or an apocalyptic death
ball. When the Machu Picchu reached Earth's Moon he jumped into the
pilot's chair and started preparing for atmospheric entry,
analyzing his readouts on weather patterns and other assorted
critical data. All reports came back positive - it appeared that
Earth had a stable weather system, and it was winter in the
southern hemisphere where he was targeted to touch down, so pollen
levels would be low.