Chapter 1

It had been a long night, Daniel Markez had been Working hard for the last week out in the debris fields near Pittsburgh, he was officially a freelancer, but had a contractual agreement with the Junkers, they employed him on a 3 week on, 1 week off basis to haul around cargo, run patrols and do the occasional pickup job.
His shoulder was killing him, It was an aching pain all the way though it, and it was always red and sore, It just never seemed to heal, and nobody knew why. He couldn’t even remember how he had damaged it, it was just always there.
He recently completed a pickup with a corsair operative working deep under cover trying to get into the LSF hierarchy, He normally didn’t concern himself with the affairs of others, a skill you learn very quickly to adopt while working for the Junkers, but this corsair was very loose lipped once he got drunk. Markez was paid a tidy sum to extract the operative from fort Bush and transport him to Leiden base in the Galileo system, the Lane hackers were expecting him, and he had a ride from there to the sigma systems.
During the long ride the Corsair managed to find Markez’s hidden bottle of bretonian Scotch and demolish most of it before he knew it was gone, It was a shame, because a bottle like that would fetch a good price, Maybe even bribe a Molly or two.
Markez learned some details about an operation called the road to Rhienland and something about a liberty navy cruiser disappearing from Alaska.
He knew better than to probe for info, especially from a Corsair, and definitely never to reveal what he knew to anyone else, it could be very dangerous.
After dropping off his passenger he headed to the bar on Leiden base, to enjoy cold ale.
He sat back at his booth, nestled near the corner of the bar, and looked out into the dark matter field while sipping on his lager.
Occasionally a chunk of purple black rock would drift by the window, followed by a slight trail of gas and dust.
He was just staring into oblivion when he overheard a conversation a few booths back, two people were talking about a run from the Hood in the Dublin system towards the Tau systems, He overheard something about a strange sensor blip that showed up for a brief second while being pursued by a pack of Gaians, A chunk of metal about the size of a star tracker, drifting about 30 clicks out from the Arran ice cloud, just before heading into the Tau 31 jump hole. Markez heard the man saying he was planning on going back to check it out, but couldn’t make it out there for at least a week.
Hanging with the Junkers he heard of all sorts of rumors, and had learned that sometimes they pay off. He was off for the next week so he decided to make a small trip out there, it would only be about 42 hours there and back, He shouldn’t have a Gaian problem, they usually got along well with Junkers.
He tuned out of the conversation and continued with his drink, his neural net beeped, indicating that the hull repairs to his Rhino were finished. Making the run through the dark matter clouds were always hard on the hull plates, no matter what you flew.
He finished his Lager and got up, heading out the door towards the hanger.
It was a nice base, long passages and plenty of room, Just what you would expect for a commercial installation, He wondered how the Lane hackers actually managed to get hold of such a fine base, let alone get most of it out this far. It was clear a large proportion of it had been stolen from liberty space somewhere, most pirate bases were just hacked out of a large asteroid and were pretty rough inside.
He walked up to his Rhino and punched a code into the pad next to the hatch, there was a whirring noise as the interlocks disengaged, and a slight clunk as the hatch popped open.
“damn, it still clunks” he muttered to himself, It never did that when it was new, and the ship dealer didn’t want to know about it, claiming that the warranty was void because of the profession he was in, Whenever he got the ship repaired, he asked for it to be fixed, but nobody could ever fault the problem.
He pulled himself into his flight chair, the harness slung loosely over his shoulder but not secured and powered up the engines. There was a slight jolt as the hangar bay tractor beam moved his ship towards the airlock.
“Freelancer epsilon dash 3, you are cleared for departure, be advised heavy navy patrols around trade lanes”
“Roger that, Leiden base, thanks for the hospitality” He clicked the transmitter off and headed out the airlock. As soon as he was clear of the airlock he punched up the thrusters and hit the afterburner, he wanted to clear the radiation field inside the dark matter as soon as possible.
Markez set course for the nearest trade lane gate, and engaged the cruise engines, all the time holding the thrusters at full burn. Normally the thrusters would cut out while the cruise engine charged, but he had a friend who was handy with ship engines and had set up 2 rechargeable shield batteries to keep the afterburner going for just long enough for the cruise engine to kick in.


20 hours later Markez was exiting the jump gate into the Edinborough system, it was a pretty uneventful flight, with the occasional police scan, and lane hacker disruption to the gates, the auto pilot had already been programmed with a few waypoints, heading out towards the Tau 31 jump hole.
After passing the jump hole and heading out into deep space he boosted the power to the scanners, He sat back and let the computer do its work.
It wasn’t the first time he had been out of the colonies, he often went exploring, usually finding ancient alien artifacts and then selling them for a tidy profit. After his parents died in a rouges attack when he was 5 he was adopted by a family on Manhattan, He worked hard and bought himself a ship, loving the ability to stretch his space legs, and take down a few rouges too, After a while killing rouges became boring, and he loved the thrill of exploring new parts of space.
Once he headed out past Kusari space, about 2 weeks into his trip he found a beautiful planet, covered in rolling red grasses and magnificent white sandy beaches. He considered selling its location for a small sum, but decided to keep it a secret instead and use it as a ‘holiday home’
It was truly memorable watching the 3 moons set into the distance, he daydreamed about returning and staying for a week or so when suddenly there was a beeping form the computer.
He looked down and saw a large piece of metal floating about 20 clicks away, he adjusted the ships heading and cruised towards it.
Soon he was very close, close enough to visually make out what it was.
It looked like a piece of ship hull, complete with an attached turret, there were some interesting scorch marks around the edge, almost like a plasma weapon had been used on it.
He continued scanning it, building a database in its trajectory and speed, if he was going to work out where it came from he would need some clues. After he had the info he needed he tractored it into his hull.
There was only enough provisions on board to stay out in deep space for another day or so, besides he had to be back at work in a few days.
Markez punched in a new course into the computer and headed back to the Edinborough system. It would take a few hours, so he hit the auto pilot and headed into the cargo hold for a look at his catch.

Walking around the chunk of metal he noticed it was a color he had never seen on anything from the colonies, and the turret wasn’t recognizable as any weapon he knew, there was a strange scorching around the muzzle, and some writing along the base of the turret. It looked sort of like Bretonian but didn’t quite make sense.
He decided that an ‘expert’ would need to be consulted on this one.
As he walked out he felt that all familiar ache through his shoulder, and decided that the best remedy at the moment would be a little bid of grog and a joint of genuine Los Angeles Grass. He still wondered how the original settlers managed to sneak a contraband plant through cryo and then to the planets, but either way, it was a hit with the teens, and nowhere as bad as cardamine.



Chapter 2

The flight back to Sirius space was a long and boring one, Markez spent time analyzing the computer data on the trajectory of the wreckage, while the auto pilot continued his course to Trafalgar base. He had an old friend there, working in the docks and holding the reputation of being a living legend, able to repair anything. It was him who had first come up with the idea of linking shield batteries to the thrusters, it would be good to see him again after such a long time.

Finally he was cleared for landing on Trafalgar base, the heavy doors opened and the base tractor beam guided the ship into its cavernous hold.
The ship made a groan as it settled its weight onto the grav pad, Markez moved to the hatch and opened it. He was surprised to see a blackened face with a slight scowl on it staring up at him, Under all that dirt and grime lay the face of his child hood friend Roger Sparson, Or ‘Sparks’ to everyone who knew him, the name came about because there was usually sparks coming off anything he repaired.
“So what have you broken this time huh?” said Sparks “Is that shield still working, or did you clip another asteroid with it?”
Hey sparks, just thought id drop in and say hi, oh yea, can you fix my hatch? It’s making that noise again.” Markez replied with a grin.
Sparks lifted the spanner in his hand and threatened to hit him with it, the hatch was a bit of a sore point, it was about the only thing sparks couldn’t fix, and he hated when Markez reminded him of it.
They made their way to the bar and sat down at a booth, a young lady dressed in a small top came and offered drinks.
“So, Markez, how’s the debris field treating you? Found any good junk lately?” smiled Sparks.
“Nah, Just the usual scrap metal and busted rouge ship. I have got something interesting in the hold I want you to have a look at though, I found it a day or so ago out past Edinborough, I had a little nugget of info pay off” he said with a smirk.
“Info hey” said Sparks “sounds like your up to your usual tricks”
Markez began to tell sparks about the people he had overheard on Leiden base, and that the wreckage he found had a turret on it, but it was nothing like he had seen before, and the ship it was from looked like it’d be pretty big, he went on about his plan to track the debris and see if he could find the rest of it, maybe make a few extra credits on salvage, but that trip would have to wait until he did another 3 week stint in the debris field.
Throughout the whole time sparks just sat and listened, sipping on his sidewinder fang, neither of then noticed an old haggard man listening to them from a nearby table, finally the man got up and shuffled over to the table, and sat besides a startled sparks.
Slowly he began to talk of a tale, a myth that was sometimes heard.
“You gentlemen are looking for a ship huh? I know a story of a lost ship, lost in the time of the great settlement, and I’ll tell you it for a warm meal and a drink or two.”
Markez looked directly at the man. “The story of the Hispania. Everyone knows that one, I suppose next you are going to tell me some tale of glowing blue ghost ships? I’ve heard that one too. Go away, before I stuff you out an airlock.”
“Not the Hispania” replied the old man “but a different ship, a battleship from earth.”
That last word got Markez attention, he had only heard that name in stories told to him by his grandfather, about the planet that all humans came from, and a great war that drove them from it.
Slowly he raised his hand and beckoned for the bar girl to come over,
“Go on, old man. Tell me of this lost ship”
“Very well” He said. He placed his order with the bar girl and then began his story.
“It was the 23 century, Man’s darkest hour. During the end of the Great War on earth, the 5 sleeper ships broke through the blockade and headed for Sirius. The Enemy forces weren’t able to follow the sleeper ships, and in haste a battle cruiser was retro fitted with a hyper engine, its mission was to follow the sleeper ships, and report their position back to earth.
The battle cruiser followed a few months later, and sent several probes to distant corners of the galaxy, all of them seeking the hiding place of the sleeper ships, rumor has it that the battle cruise managed to find the Hispania, and critically damaged it before the Hispania managed to destroy it, but I don’t believe that. I’ve seen the Hispania with my own eyes, and the outcasts guard it fiercely.
I had heard form a deep space wanderer of a ruined hulk drifting in the vastness of space, a very long way out past Bretonian space, but he had spent over a year in deep space on his own, hopped up on cardamine.
Another rumor tells of a probe of unknown origin found on the planet Ayr back in the 760’s by a survey team, If you are familiar with Ayr, It is in the Edinborough system, so it may be nothing more than a coincidence, or it may be a link to the legend.
Either way, it’s only a story, and I thank you for the meal”
The old man rose slowly, and shuffled away.
Markez and sparks sat quietly for a few minutes, contemplating what had just been said.
Sparks broke the silence “so, you going to show me this piece of treasure of yours?”
“Yea, let’s go have a look” replied Markez.
Both of the men stood up and headed for the hangar.

Sparks looked over the chunk of ship, and studied the turret in detail. He was fascinated by the strange writing on the base of the turret. He ran his finger gently around the scorched muzzle, probing the weapon for any secrets.
“Well, I’ll need to run a few more in depth tests to work it out, but I can tell you that this isn’t from around here. Look at the metal, it’s got some strange sort of alloy through it, I haven’t seen that before, and this cannon, It’s definitely plasma based, but I have never seen scorching like that, it must be extremely powerful. If I can get it running it would be worth a small fortune, or you could comfortably take on a Rheinland gunboat with it.
Can you leave it with me? I’ll need it for a few weeks”
“Yea, I have to get back to Manhattan space anyway. I’ll be back here in 3 weeks and then I think I might go exploring” Markez opened the rear cargo door on his rhino and loaded the wreckage onto a hover skid.
“Don’t get into too much trouble” He grinned at sparks “I’ll see you when I get back”


Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

Good so far.

Hopefully you'll update tyhis more than I do mine!

Han shot first. Never forget that.

I second Neuro

Bobby Knight + green paint: "HULK MAD!"

Not bad, though I think I know whats next.

well thats nice nuttypro, keep it to yourself. You never know, you could be way off. You'll just have to wait and see.


Chapter 3

Daniel Markez had just finished his 3 week shift for the Junkers, He landed only long enough to grab some clothes and his guitar, A family heir loom that hat been passed down through the generations, It was the only thing he had left of his parents, and it kept him company on long trips.
He set course for Trafalgar base and arrived fairly quickly. He had told the Junkers he wouldn’t be back for a couple of months, so he was free to do as he pleased.
After docking he headed straight to Sparks repair bay, and found him hanging inside the hull of a Cavalier. The only things visible was his feet, and about half a leg. Sparks was completely unaware of Markez’s presence, and Markez used that to his advantage. They had always played practical jokes on each other. Once for a laught, Sparks had rewired all the controls in Markez’s first ship in a completely random order. Markez didn’t know what was happening, He’d push the throttle and the ship would bank left, he’d try and counter it and turn right and the afterburners would fire, Then when he tried to open a comm. channel the Hud would turn on and off.
This time it was Markez’s turn to have some fun, He noticed a large tub of grease sitting on a bench, normally used to lube the hatch hinges. He reached into it and got a big lump of it in his hand and carefully smeared it onto the bottom of Sparks boots, making sure he was unaware of it. Then quietly he stepped back to the door, wiped his hands clean and called out to sparks.
“Hey, Sparks! What did you break this time?“
Sparks began to shuffle out backwards, and then made the slight drop to the floor. As soon as his boots made contact they slipped right out from underneath him and he landed square on his ass, Markez was laughing so hard he didn’t see the spanner leave Sparks hand and land directly in his stomach.
“Ouch! Yea, I guess I deserve that, But im still getting you back for the time you filled my ration pack with laxatives” Markez replied, while rubbing his stomach.
“yea, that was pretty funny, Especially the bit where the Bretonian cops thought you were a crim trying to get away and detained you for a few hours.” Laughed Sparks
“Anyway, I had a look at that cannon, I even got it working. Its probably the most powerful weapon ive seen before, It has some sort of new design of firing matrix, Gives it about 700% more power than a normal plasma gun. Im guessing that they regularly replace the barrel on it, because of the massive power and heat generated.
And that metal is like nothing around here, the alloys are unique. The closest match to the alloy is from the sleeper ship hull plating.”
“So maybe its off a sleeper ship?” questioned Markez.
“No not possible. The sleeper ships never had weapons this powerful” replied Sparks
“I also sent a message to a friend of mine, the bartender on Perth station, orbiting around Ayr. I asked him if he had ever heard about a probe being found on the surface of the planet, he said he recalled a story told to him by his dad about a probe, about the size of a torpedo, that was badly damaged in its crash landing, but they always just assumed it came from one of the other colonies and just threw it away.”
“sounds like a mystery I’ll have to explore” said Markez “I’ve got a few months off, so im going to head out into deep space and see what I can find. Ive got to get supplies first, but that can wait, lets go have a drink”
Markez and Sparks headed off to the bar and chatted about old times, women and general mayhem.


The next morning Markez awoke with a splitting headache and an equally sore shoulder, He should have known better than to drink El Diablo, but Sparks was very persistent and practically poured it down his throat.
He slowly pulled himself out of the hard bunk and pulled on his flight suit, After a liberal mouth washing to get the horrid taste out of his mouth Markez headed down towards the commodity dealer, The biggest problem with going out into deep space was a lack of water and oxygen. He had quite a lot of credits saved, so he filled his hold with oxygen and water, and bought a few nice ration packs, just to break up the bland crap that he usually had on long trips.
A few hours later he was heading out the hangar doors, when he noticed a small red plastic tag sticking out of a console lid off to his side. He opened the lid and found a bottle of Kusari saki and a small note saying ‘Stay out of trouble, and good luck’
He thanked Sparks for the bottle and placed it back in the console, that would be nice later.
It only took about an 2 hours to make it to the edge of the Edinborough system, During that time he had programmed the auto pilot to track the course of the wreckage and head to its originating point. He engaged the cruise engines and sat back with his guitar, Slowly strumming a few strings.
It was going to be a very long trip.


Edited by - Agent orange on 4/13/2006 5:54:03 PM

Edited by - Agent orange on 4/13/2006 6:00:58 PM

heres the next chapter. Im really cranking this out, hopefully i can keep it up.


Chapter 4

Markez had been flying for about 3 weeks, and had found nothing of real interest, Other than a Molly escape pod, complete with pilot that had been drifting for at least 200 years in the void. He was beginning to give up and was thinking about turning back, He only had enough supplies for another 4 weeks, and it was at least 3 weeks back.
He finally gave in and disengaged the auto pilot. He was about to turn the ship around when the long range sensors picked up a radio waves coming from a nearby star.
He analyzed the radio waves, they were most likely just coming from the star itself, but the patterns were too regular, it was almost like a modulated signal.
That got his curiosity, so he maneuvered his rhino to head towards the star and continued on cruise engines. It wasn’t much of a course change, he was heading in the general direction of the star.
As he got closer the radio signal got stronger and he was able to listen to it. It was very crackly and distorted, but it almost sounded like music.
He was puzzled as to why there would be music coming from a star, and wondered if maybe it was his lost ship, he noticed that the nav computer was flashing, It had been studying the gravimetric pull from the star, and had updated the course of the wreckage. It was estimating a 73% chance that the wreckage had been swung around by the pull of the star. The nav computer estimated a new heading, and auto programmed a course.
Markez looked out into the depths of space, the blackness occasionally disrupted by a star, or nebula. He looked out to where the nav computer was directing him, there was a distant nebula, a bluish green cloud of gas and rock. He could see 3 stars at one edge of it, and the dim glow of another deep inside.
His attention was distracted when he heard a voice over the speaker system, he hadn’t noticed that the music had stopped, and now there was talking.
He strained to hear it through the static, and heard a few familiar words.
‘*static* delightful perfor *static* the famed *static* and his band *static* Now up *static* solo piece *static* enjoy *static*’
The voices stopped and the music resumed, still heavily distorted by static.
As he got closer to the system the static was slowly clearing, He could hear the familiar strings of an acoustic guitar, strumming away in a melodic rhythm.
The long range sensors began to pick up planets in orbit around the sun, a small white dwarf. There was a distant planet, cold with no atmosphere, then another, slightly closer, then a gas giant surrounded by 12 moons and a massive dust ring, then a habitable planet, a blue ball of oxygen and life deep in the middle of space with 2 small moons in orbit around it. Then finally a molten hot little moon in close orbit to the sun.
Markez set course for the planet. He wondered who they were, and why they were speaking a language the same his. He wondered if they were human, Or maybe some strange alien race. He realized that he was getting no sensor readings of other ships, orbital bases, not even satellites in orbit around the planet.
Maybe they weren’t advanced enough to understand space travel, It could be dangerous to contact them.
Markez pulled his rhino into a high orbit, keeping his ship shielded by one of the moons.
He listened intently to the radio transmissions, which were very clear now. There was more than one transmission, the computer was picking up about 300 separate transmissions all around the planet, Markez noticed that a few of the transmissions were visual as well as audio.
He channeled one of the audio transmissions through the comm. display and was shocked and amazed to see a human female and a human male dancing together in a field of long grass and strange flowers, singing joyously together.
Both of the humans were wearing a free fitting garb, and both had long wavy hair. The male had brown hair and the female had long blonde hair, almost all the way down her back. The female was picking and carrying the flowers while dancing and singing. She took one of the flowers from her bunch and placed it in the man’s hair.
That was definitely one of the stranger things Markez had seen. He tuned into another Visual channel, and saw another man, also with long hair, sitting in the dirt in a small garden, talking about food and plants. It must be some sort of gardening or farming training video, Markez mused.
He decided to scan the planet for a power source, they had to have some way of generating power for all their technology.
His sensors picked up a large fusion generator on the planet, near the centre of the largest city. That seemed very odd that such a primitive society could have such an advanced power source. That’s when he clicked. A fusion reactor is the main requirement for a very large ship to drive a hyper light engine, Maybe this was the lost ship. It had landed here and the inhabitants had stayed and survived on the planet.
Clearly they had an understanding of space travel then, so it would be safe to land.
Markez moved his ship into a low orbit and began to enter the atmosphere. Most pilots wouldn’t attempt it without a docking ring, but Markez had lots of practice from all his visits to his hidden holiday planet.
Slowly his Rhino descended through the clouds, and then neared the ground. He activated the hover pads in the underside of the ship, and brought it to a gentle rest in a small field on the outskirts of the large city. As he was lowering the power levels to the engines, he noticed couple of small children running frantically out of the field. He had obviously startled them, and it was clear that a crowd would be gathering pretty quickly.
Markez raised himself from his seat, his shoulder beginning to ache again, and moved to the rear of the ship. He was musing with the notion of stepping out looking like a strange alien, complete with different colored skin. Green maybe? He didn’t really want to scare the strangers too much, but he wanted to make an impression, more so than just landing a space ship in their field.
He grabbed his vac suit and pulled it on, including his helmet. The visor was dark and had a strong gold tinge to it. They wouldn’t be able to see him until he removed his helmet.
He decided to grab the bottle of saki that Sparks had left for him, and offer it as a gift of good will.
Markez moved to the hatch and opened it. As it cracked open, the blinding sunlight of the planet streaked through the gap. Markez eyes adjusted to the glare and the door made a clunk, indicating it was fully open.
He stood at the top of the hatch, as the ladder folded out below him, he could see the crowds gathering around the field, small children hiding behind their parent’s legs and peering around curiously.
The murmuring of the crowd was clear over the amplified speakers in his helmet.
He looked around before slowly stepping down the ladder, as his foot found solid ground the gathered crowd went silent. They had obviously never seen anything like this before.
Markez stood, contemplating what to do next, when a young man stepped forwards of the crowd, and slowly approached him. The man stopped a few meters away and said carefully “Hello, My name is Jaren, Welcome to Zion, We hope you come in peace, we mean you no harm.”
The man approached a little closer, hesitantly, and held out his hand.
Markez tilted his head to one side, and reached out his hand. He took Jaren’s hand and shook it. He could see the look in Jaren’s eyes, he was terrified, but still brave.
Markez reached up to his neck and began to unclip the helmet. He could hear the whispering of the crowd, and he slowly cracked the seal on his helmet. He lifted it from his head, revealing his scraggly features and short dark hair.
The crowd gasped as they saw another human, obviously expecting a little gray man, or something like that.
Markez held his helmet in one hand, and spoke for the first time.
“Hello Jaren. My name is Daniel Markez, I mean your people no harm, But I would like to speak to your leaders.”
Jaren was in complete shock, this alien was speaking the same language as him, It took him a few moments to regain composure before saying “Ok, I can take you to them, I have a car nearby”
Markez turned around and put his helmet inside the hatch, he closed the door behind him and followed Jaren over to his car. He wasn’t quite sure what a car was, but it was obviously some sort of transport device.
It was a short walk out of the field and he saw a small metallic cart like vehicle with wheels on the bottom and 2 seats at the front behind a small glass panel.
They both climbed into the front of the car and sat down, Jaren pushed a small button on a panel and the car Hummed into life. He pushed the pedals by his feet and steered with a wheel like device in front of him, the car moved away quietly and smoothly.
It must be electric powered, Markez thought to himself. As they drove through the streets, Markez noticed that while life seemed very simple here, there was still a lot of technology around, from the cars to lighting in the streets, even small stores had signs displaying their wares, and automated doors at the front.

After a short journey through the streets they finally arrived at an important looking building.
”This is The Council of Elders hall” said Jaren “I will take you to Rohan, he is the most noted elder. By now he would have already heard of your arrival.”
“Thank you Jaren” replied Markez as he climbed out of the car.
They walked up the stairs, everyone around just stopped and stared at Markez.
Before long they came to some large doors, as Jaren pushed them open he said
“This is the great hall, I cannot follow you in here, you must wait at the end for the elders.”
Markez stepped silently into the great hall, its long corridor stretching on ahead of him. There was a high roof and artwork all over the walls. The hall felt very warm with all the colors and the sculptures.
As Markez headed to the end of the hall he noticed a metallic beam overhead, He looked around and realized that he was inside the hollowed out hull of a ship, there was the occasional glimpse of bulkhead or metal beam, the fusion reactor must be part of this, he thought to himself.
Finally he made it to the end of the hall. There was a long curved table at the back of one wall and a small table just in front of it.
Markez took a seat at the small table and waited. After a few minutes a door off to the side opened, and an old grey man came out. He had a long brown shirt, and some grey trousers, his feet were covered in a soft cloth like shoe, and his wispy grey hair trailed down past his shoulders. His old face sported a rather large and long grey moustache, but hidden behind were a set of intense blue eyes.
The old man walked over to the table and curiously looked at Markez, he was very interested in the flight suit Markez wore. It was like nothing he had seen.
Markez remembered the bottle of saki in his pocket and pulled it out. The old man was a little startled at first, but then realized it was nothing serious.
“You must be Rohan?” asked Markez “I bring you a gift in good will”
Markez held the bottle out to the old man. The Old man took it carefully and opened the lid, he sniffed at the top of it and almost coughed, the Kusari saki was strong stuff.
Finally the old man spoke “Wow, and I thought my son’s moonshine was strong. I am Rohan, and I am the head elder. What brings you to out planet and where do you come from? We though we were alone here in space”
“I am an explorer. I am seeking a lost ship. Rumor has it that it was lost out here somewhere. I noticed that this great hall was once a ship, and you city is powered by a fusion reactor. This may be the ship I was looking for.” Markez. Replied
“Are you from Earth?” asked Rohan.
“You know of earth?” replied Markez “I’m not from earth, I’m from Manhattan, In the Sirius sector. Our people fled earth after a great war a very long time ago.”
“well then, we have something in common then” said Rohan “we fled earth too, but it was just as the war started. Our people do no believe in violence of any kind, We flew through the heavens in search of a new home, far from the bloodshed and destruction. We didn’t want to be part of earth when it destroyed itself. This ship that lies here now was a sleeper ship, holding 3000 people who worked hard to build this new world, we now number at over 600,000 people”
“Hmmm, this can’t be the ship I was looking for then. The one I want left after us, in pursuit of the sleeper ships that founded the colonies.” Said Markez
“The colonies?” questioned Rohan “tell me about them”
Markez began to recite the stories he had learned as a child, Telling Rohan all about the war, and the sleeper ships. He told them about the Sirius sector and all the colonies and planets there. He told him about the different houses and the occasional wars between them.
Rohan listened carefully before asking that Markez never reveal the location of this planet, for fear that they would be once again dragged into a war or violence.
Markez was invited to stay for the evening and enjoy a banquet and musical performances by the local artisans, It would be a lot better than staying on his ship so he agreed. He needed to stock up on supplies if he was to keep looking for this ship.
The evening was a joyous occasion, filled with singing, dancing and amazing food.
Markez even joined the others as they breathed the smoke from a strange ceramic bottle, with hoses coming from it and a glowing pile of embers on top. He felt very free and happy, and often giggled at the bubbling noise the strange bottle would make.
He rested very well that night.



Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

Edited by - Agent orange on 4/13/2006 9:15:59 PM

Edited by - Agent orange on 4/13/2006 9:28:10 PM

Edited by - Agent orange on 4/13/2006 9:48:47 PM

Very good, lots of interesting ideas, good to see that you haveb diversity.

Edited by - NuttyProSci-Fi3000 on 4/15/2006 3:21:32 AM

Thanks Nutty.
So is it headed where you thought it was? I bet you werent expecting a planet full of hippies and bongs?


Anyways. Im allready working on the next chapter, I'll try and get that up later tonight.

Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

I didn't expect the planet, you now have given your self a large quantity of dirrections to go, I'm waiting for your next peice.

I ended up watching movies instead of writing, but heres a little bit to keep you salivating.

I'll get the rest of the chapter up soon.

Chapter 5

Markez headed back to his ship late the next day, He was followed by a large group of onlookers, many had come out to see the ship, but everyone was wondering how it could possibly fly, He was still a little groggy from the evenings celebrations, But had managed to secure a very large supply of food, water and oxygen. He spent a few hours loading everything onto his ship, with the help of Jaren and his friends.
Finally it was time to leave. As the cargo hold door was closing Markez turned to Jaren, “Thank you for welcoming me here. I have something for you, a gift to remember this by” Markez removed a piece of thin wire from around his neck, on it hung a small glowing purple crystal, A piece of an ancient alien artifact.
He handed it to Jaren “look after this, It’s older than anything you could ever imagine”
With that, Markez turned and headed up the short ladder into the depths of the Rhino freighter.
He sat down in the cockpit, looking out at the large group gathered around the ship. He was still wearing the clothes that had been given to him during the banquet. They were very comfortable, very roomy and natural feeling. He began to understand why all the people on this planet dressed like that. They all looked very simple, in their flowing shirts and loose trousers, It wasn’t till he was sitting in the cockpit till he realized that they all had long hair, even the young children.
He noticed Jaren in the crowd, with a smile on his face and the wire around his neck, his hand gripped tightly onto the small crystal.
Markez powered up the engines, a shrill whine coming from the rear of the ship as the reactor reached full operating levels and charged the thrusters.
The ship began to rise slowly, All the children and some of the adults gathered around began to wave to Markez as he began his ascent into the upper atmosphere. Before long he was climbing out of the gravity well and heading into space, the planet becoming smaller and smaller behind him. He had set the auto pilot to continue on its course and was now headed for the nebula on the far side of the system, the auto pilot was heading almost directly for the dim star buried deep within it. The computer was estimating that it would be at least 3 weeks travel to its destination.
Markez sat back with his guitar and played a few cords, whiling away the boredom as the ship cruised through deep space.

After almost 3 weeks Markez reached the edge of the nebula, it was absolutely huge, and the dim star deep within was beginning to get a little brighter. The auto pilot was directing him straight towards it, and as the ship entered the nebula the sensor range dropped dramatically. This was going to make scanning for anything difficult at best.
After a few days he was almost at the star, his nav computer picked up a small volcanic moon in a tight orbit around the sun, as he got closer he noticed the radiation levels rising and it wasn’t long before the annoying voice chimed in and alerted him to it.
Suddenly the radar flashed, there was a sensor reading.
Markez locked onto the sensor blip and started scanning., whatever it was, it was big and metallic.
Markez felt his heart pumping, his adrenaline levels were through the roof. He hadn’t been this excited since his first date. He moved the rhino closer and closer, finally he could see it through the thick haze of the nebula. It was big, A long ship, about as long as a liberty cruiser, and roughly the same sort of shape. It could have easily been mistaken for one from a distance.
The computer had finished its scan, a 3 dimensional model was displayed on the Hud, it showed an impressive armament of turrets and 3 forward cannons. It also showed a large hole in the side of the hull, about where the reactor would have been, and also the boarding hatch.
Markez was close enough to swing his rhino slowly around it, and do an up close inspection. There was a hangar door on the underside but there was no way to open it, all the engines seemed to be intact, Even the hull plating looked good, bar the large hole on one side. The piece of wreckage he had found was only about half of what was missing.
It was perfect, almost.
Its orbit was decaying, and it would crash onto the surface of the moon in about 4 weeks.
Markez managed to find an emergency escape hatch, It looked like a pod had been jettisoned. That looked like his way in.
He maneuvered the Rhino towards the escape hatch and tethered his ship to the massive hulk with his mag claw, usually used for towing around large chunks of metal.
Next step was to get into his vac suit, and prepare for a space walk over, and find a way to bust in.
Markez hated doing space walks in his flimsy little suit, he knew full well that one little piece of rock could easily tear straight through it, and leak his precious life blood of oxygen into the vacuum of space. The only way to minimize the risk was to get the Rhino as close as possible, and use it as a makeshift shield against any debris.
Slowly he opened the airlock and stared across at the massive hulk of steel in front of him.
He stepped out into the vastness of space, his mag boots disabled so he could push off away from the safe confines of the Rhino. It was only about a minute floating across the void, but it felt like an eternity. All he could hear was his breathing through the suit and his heartbeat in the back of his ears.
Finally his outstretched and gloved hand touched the edge of the hulk, quickly finding a point of grip, Markez pulled himself closer and locked his boots to the hull.
He moved slowly and carefully to the open hole left by the absence of the escape pod, He wondered where the pod was, none of the other pods were missing.
It was a large hole, easily enough to stand in, and quite long. He surmised that the pods would have been cylindrical in shape, and probably held about 12 people each.
Slowly he began inspecting the hatch door at the end of the tube, there was a small window in it. Markez brushed the dust off it and peered inside. There was no light, and a few small objects floating aimlessly around the small room.
Carefully he removed a small panel next to the door, It had some connections on it and was obviously the ship interface to the pod. Maybe he could trigger the locking mechanism on the door and pry it open.
Fortunately he had the sense to bring a small bag of tools with him, including a portable power cell.
Finally he was able to find the right connections, and he connected the power cell.
There was an audible clunk as the locks disengaged, not that you can actually hear anything in the vacuum of space, but more feel it through the suit and the metal surrounding the door. Slowly the door began to move, there was a small trail of white gas hissing out of the open fissure where the door once sealed.
Markez positioned a large metal bar in the gap and began to pry the door open. As it opened, the contents of the small room came rushing out the door.
It was finally open far enough for Markez to maneuver inside the door, as he was squeezing though the door, his vac suit beeped at him, indicating only 2 hours of oxygen left.


Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

Chapter 6

It was very dark inside the small room. Markez switched on the suit lights. 2 small lights mounted either side on his helmet sprung into life, illuminating everything in front of him brightly.
The room was almost square, with one door at the end, and 6 doors along one side each leading to an escape pod. On the other side of the room along the wall was a set of lockers, two of them were open, revealing a couple of vac suits.
Markez noticed the same strange writing over the front of the lockers, the letters that looked familiar, yet made no sense at all.
Markez moved back to the entry hatch he had come through and forced the door closed, if there was any pressure in the ship, he didn’t want to lose it.
He moved over to the door on the far wall and began to force it open, fortunately it wasn’t locked so once he had broken the initial seal, the door slid open effortlessly.
Markez decided that his first priority would be to establish condition of the reactor, and see if there was any way to bring the power back online, next he would find the bridge and see if there was any way to control the ship.
He stood in a long corridor, it headed down the length of the ship towards the rear, and disappeared around the corner. To the other side the corridor headed into the depth of the ship, a few doors were visible along one side, and a staircase on the other.
The walls were a bland steel color, punctuated occasionally by a darkly colored panel at head height. There was also a row of lights along the centre of the ceiling, heading along the length of the corridor.
Markez looked down at his wrist, a small panel was glowing on his vac suit. It was measuring various external conditions, heat, radiation and atmosphere.
The readings indicated that the radiation levels from the nebula had dropped dramatically, obviously being shielded by the ships hull, they were at a safe level. The ambient temperature was at about -220 degrees Celsius and there was a slight presence of oxygen, but not enough to support life.
The gravity was still very low inside the ship, the deck grav plating wasn’t operating.
Markez headed over to one of the panels on the wall, there was a layer of dust over it.
He wiped his hand over the panel, and cleared the layer of dust off it. As his hand brushed over it, he noticed a slight flicker of light from the panel. There was nothing visible on the panel so he headed along the passage, towards the end of the ship. The reactor was most likely up that end.
Markez took advantage of the low gravity and disabled his mag boots, he stepped away from the decking and glided gracefully down the corridor, occasionally adjusting his speed and course on the passing door frames and bulkheads.
At the end of the corridor it twisted to the right, and shortly after that there was another staircase. Markez headed down the staircase and out onto another level, he continued moving rearward along the passage, he moved past several open doors, one room looked like a galley, complete with cooking equipment and tables. Another room contained some bunk beds and lockers. The next room was quite open, and contained some comfortable chairs, and what looked to be entertainment and exercise equipment. This was obviously the crew section of the ship.
Markez noticed something out of the corner of his eye, a panel on the wall, but not like the others. This one had the same strange writing on it, and a diagram of the ship, including the deck layout.
Markez stopped and studied it, it would prove to be valuable.
He removed a flat screwdriver from his tool bag and began prying the map off the wall. It would be better of in his company, then left here on the wall.
After a few moments the panel was free. He studied it and located the engine room, 3 decks down and to the real a little more. It was also very close to the hangar bay, he night have to see what’s in there, maybe even enough room for his rhino.
He headed back towards the staircase and headed down another 3 decks, then along the corridor to the engine room. Finally he reached a heavy door at the end. With some persuasion he was able to force it open, as he was leaning against the door he noticed some movement to his side, he turned to look and was confronted by the remains of a person floating barely inches from his head. Markez practically jumped out of his suit, he was not expecting that.
After regaining composure he looked at the floating body, it was in surprisingly good condition, there wasn’t much decay, and the body was covered in a layer of fine ice crystals.
Markez slowly moved past the body, wondering what its fate had been.
He put it out of his mind and headed towards the reactor control panel.
The engine room was huge. It was easily 4 decks deep and was filled with the massive reactor of the ship, there were pipes everywhere, almost all of them leading to the reactor at one point or another.
Markez studied the control panel in depth, none of the writing made any sense to him, but the diagrams were useful. There were also a few mechanical gauges, indicating the status of fuel tanks and the power levels in the ship batteries.
There was still some fuel left in the tank, enough to start the reactor. But there wasn’t enough power in the reserve battery to initiate combustion.
Markez initially thought about the portable power cell he was carrying, it might work.
He found an access port and connected the power cell. The power reading on the gauge spiked slightly, and then dropped back down.
All the systems on the ship had just tried use the power cell, and had drained it instantly.
He was going to need something with a little more juice.
If he could get the Rhino into the hangar, and then connect his ships engines to the main reactor, he might just have a chance.
Markez headed out of the engine room and down towards the hangar bay.
He opened the access door and what he saw was absolutely amazing.
4 fighter ships sat quietly in the bay, docked with their cradles.
They were like nothing he had seen, they looked like an upside down Y shape, their long wings sporting a cannon each, the cockpit was slightly forward of the wings, and also had a cannon on either side. There was a pair of engines on the rear of the ship.
Markez thought for a second, maybe if he could get these ships running and connected to the reactor. It might just work.
One by one he climbed into the cockpit of the ships and started the engines. It was difficult to figure out the first one, but the others were easy after that.
Each of the consoles in the ships glowed with life, their engines humming away, and producing a dull red glow out the rear. Already Markez could see the difference, the hangar control panel was already beginning to glow.
The ships were obviously connected through their cradles.
Markez moved back towards the engine room, the power gauge on the reactor indicated a substantial power level, even the panels around the room were beginning to glow, some of the lights on the ceiling were beginning to flicker into life.
Markez adjusted the controls on the panel. He opened the fuel supply to the reactor, primed the core and started the reaction process. It was almost identical to the reactor in his rhino, just bigger.
The reactor hummed, and began to come to life.
Systems all around the ship began to turn on. The lights illuminated everything brightly, the panels on the walls glowed. The grav plating in the deck turned on and everything fell to the floor with a crunch.
The floating body slammed to the floor and shattered into thousands of tiny pieces, its frozen remains scattering all across the room, an eye rolled over and bumped into Markez’s foot. That was probably one of the most disturbing thing he had ever seen.
If there were any other crew members on the ship, they had probably just suffered the same fall as the body in the engine room.
Markez looked down at his wrist, his data pad was indicating a rise in temperature, but the oxygen level wasn’t changing. The ship must be out of air.
In all his time aboard the ship he hadn’t noticed that he only had another 30 minutes remaining of air. It was time to head back to the rhino.
On his way out, Markez headed past the hangar bay and opened the main doors.
Before long he was sitting in the pilot seat aboard his rhino. The glow from the windows and the engine was illuminating the nebula around the ship.


Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

Heres the next installment.

Im upto 19 pages in Word, and almost half way though.

Chapter 7.

Markez maneuvered his Rhino underneath the hangar doors of the massive derelict cruiser, He had already opened the doors in preparation of his docking.
There was no tractor bay to guide him into the bay, so he moved slowly, using only 10% thrusters in small bursts.
The rhino would only just fit through the hangar doors, they were obviously only designed for the nimble fighters contained within, not a freighter designed a few hundred years later.
It was a very stressful maneuver, one slip up could be the difference between some scuffed paint, and a critical tear in the hull, effectively stranding Markez over 6 weeks from Sirius space.
Finally the computer chimed to say that the ship was clear of the doors.
Markez maneuvered towards a repair bay at one end of the hangar. There was no fighter here, and barely enough room for his Rhino, but it would have to do.
There was a gentle thud as the hull crunched against the steel deck plating, there wasn’t enough room to use the grav pads on the underside of the ship, or it would be pushed into the ceiling.
Markez powered down the engines and moved to the hatch, he pulled his vac suit back on and stepped out into the hangar bay. Within moments he had closed and sealed the hangar doors. The derelict tried to re-pressurize the hangar but there wasn’t enough air in the storage tanks to make it happen, a warning light flashed silently.
Markez began exploring the ship again, he had recharged the oxygen tanks on his suit and had just over 2 and a half hours, he also had the benefit of working grav plating and full power throughout the ship as the reactor hummed silently towards the rear of the ship.
He still had his map, a plate he had pulled off a wall near the crew quarters.
He made his way directly towards the bridge, Finally he made it to the main access door into the bridge. He pressed the button on the side of the door and it slid open with a gentle hiss.
The Bridge was quite large. There were 3 stations along each side wall, and 2 seats with full length consoles in front of a large chair in the centre of the room. Several large screens adorned the far wall.
Markez moved slowly past all the consoles again seeing graphical pictures on them, each corresponding to a section or system of the ship. He also saw the strange writing over all of the consoles.
It was very familiar, Some of the letters were exactly the same as what was used in Sirian language. Some of the letters almost seemed like they were backwards.
The letter R and N seemed to feature a lot, and were reversed in their appearance.
Markez moved over to a control panel to the side of the bridge, it was glowing a dim blue glow, with its strange language scrawled all over it. Markez began to push buttons, in an attempt to make sense of the language.
After a few minutes he managed to find a word that was very familiar. A Bretonian word, often used in the history of the Queen’s family. English.
He selected the word and pressed a button.
All of the screens went black. After a few moments the screens came back on line but now in a language almost identical to the Sirian language.
The word English was replaced by the word Russian, Markez wondered what the word meant.
Markez had managed to stumble across a language setting within the main computer.
As he scrolled through the many various logs and menus within the ships computer he noticed that many of the systems weren’t online. Only the essential systems were operating.
Markez pressed the button to run a system wide diagnostic.
Within a few moments a list had been generated,
Engines, weapons, navigation, communications, shields, hangar controls, blast doors, Environment controls (atmosphere section), internal stabilizers, cryogenics.
There was also a damage report to the hull, indicating a breach on one side of the ship that had been sealed by the blast doors and bulkheads.
Markez had to look twice at the listing of cryogenics, Maybe there were cryo pods still on the ship, and still with crew in them.
He pulled up a ship schematic and located the Cryo bay. The status was that there was no power, no lighting and no atmosphere.
Markez headed down to the cryo bay. He pried open the door and saw a wall filled with pods. There would have been easily 30 pods, all of them cold and lifeless.
One by one he inspected them, brushing the ice from the windows.
Pod after pod contained the frozen remains of a long dead human.
There was one pod that still flickered with life. A body still in stasis sat quietly. It had survived the eternity of time. Somehow the pod had managed to continue to draw power from the critically low batteries, even after the other pods had released their living cargo into the afterlife.
Markez stood back for a moment, puzzled by what he had found.
If this was the ‘enemy’ should he revive them?
The war had been over for 900 years, maybe this stranger would put the past behind them.
Then again, maybe this stranger would take Markez prisoner and try to contact his home world.
He decided it wasn’t worth the risk, he would rout power to the cryo chamber and leave it till he was back in Sirius space.
There was still one pod left. Markez moved towards it and brushed the ice form the window. It was empty. It was most likely the pod of the body he had found in the reactor room. They must have been revived when the reactor went offline.
Markez retuned to the bridge and began to work on restoring the engines.
The thrusters came on line almost instantly, but the main engines were quite damaged.
At least the Ships orbit had been stabilized, there was no risk of crashing into a volcanic moon in the middle of open space.
Markez had seen what he thought was the name of the ship, but he had no idea how to pronounce it. The ship was also lost, so he though it would be fitting to rename it.
He pondered for a few minutes for an appropriate name.
Suddenly it hit him, after being marooned in a distant nebula, and almost suffering destruction of a fiery demise, he realized that the name Phoenix, the mythical bird that rose from the flames was fitting.
Markez finger hovered over the controls for the thrusters.
“The Phoenix is reborn” he said out loud to nobody in particular, and engaged the thrusters. The ship rumbled and began to move slowly from the grips of the volcanic moon.
Next on the list of priorities were main engines, then shielding, then environment, without shields the trip would be very hazardous, but without main engines the trip would never happen.
The damage to the engines was limited to only one part, the main reactor coupling. With luck Markez would be able to salvage it from his Rhino, If it didn’t work, then there was no chance.
The other dilemma was the shield generator. It was completely fused, and there was no chance of repair. The only choice of action was to mount the Rhino shield onto the front of the ship. It would only cover the front section, but it would protect against collisions with debris and small asteroids, a major requirement at high speeds.
Markez had figured out that if he blocked off most of the ship, then dumped the atmosphere out of the Rhino, he would have enough for the trip, just.
He started to work on the reactor coupling. The reactor room was one of the rooms that would need to be sealed, so it was important to get it done first.
After a few hours and a recharge of oxygen into his suit the coupling was repaired. He thanked Sparks quietly for teaching him something about reactor systems, amongst other things.
After a few more hours the Shield from the Rhino had been removed and fitted to the front hull of the ship.
With a push of a button from the bridge the shield was activated. A few more buttons sealed bulkheads and blast doors.
Now for the atmosphere dump from the Rhino. Markez returned to the Rhino and prepared the ship to act as the air filter for the main ship. He removed a panel next to the hatch and wired the door to open manually.
As the hatch opened the Rhino’s atmosphere rushed out into the hull of the Phoenix. It took several minutes before the oxygen levels were high enough for Markez to remove his helmet.
As he removed it, he felt the chill of the open hangar on his face. The stale and pungent smell of the ship permeated all of his senses.
At least now he wasn’t confined to a claustrophobic suit.

Markez retuned to the Main bridge and took a seat at the navigation console.
The nav computer was still offline, but Markez had patched the Rhino computer into the main computer. He programmed in a new course back towards Sirius space and engaged the main engines.
The ship rumbled and moved forwards, slowly gaining speed and heading out of the nebula.
It was going to be a long trip back so Markez began to work on repairing other systems aboard the ship, It should keep him occupied for the journey.


Bloody Bretonians! Almost as bad as the French!

Very nice.