Solaris Fall: A Behemoth Ascending Novella Page 2
“With all due respect, Consul, we should activate the military immediately before it’s too late,” Valentis said, showing disbelief in the way the Consul was acting.
Atlas straightened himself on his chair, looking straight into Valentis eyes. “My dear friend, how long do we know each other?
Valentis remained silence for few seconds, trying to get where the Consul was going with that question in a moment of maximum alert. “Over one hundred Terran years, sir,”
“Exactly,” Atlas replied, holding his cup of tea. “In all this time, how many times was I wrong?”
Valentis began feeling uncomfortable with the surreal situation. “Sir, I do not know where you are going with this, but we must declare the state of emergency even if it’s only for precaution. We must be ready. If these are hyperspace vortexes, an enemy fleet could be here in a matter of hours. Do you understand me, Consul?
Atlas nodded. “Perhaps you are right, Commodore. Do as you consider necessary.”
Sometimes, Commodore Valentis though that the Consul was senile, and it was necessary an early retirement of political activities.
◆◆◆
For the last four hundred years, the city of Atlantis has flourished in peace at the north-west coast of the Libyan continent. The city was built in a concentric series of rings in a shallow sea that engulf that continental area. It was surrounded by tall mountains, green and fertile plains full of life and was rich in natural resources. Atlanteans weren’t from Terra, as they named the planet, they were from a distant world over six hundred light years away in the Helix System.
This human race was descendant of the Vegans, but their world was destroyed by a supernova. When they found Terra, this one was occupied by the Thubans. For what the Atlanteans found out after driving them away from Terra was that they slaved the human native population to work in the mines extracting gold and other valuables. The natives also said the reptilians used to sacrifice them and drank the blood of the victims to invigorate their power. The Atlantean leader at that moment, Consul Atleanis, grandfather of Consul Atlas, was horrified about such stories. Most shocking event for him was the children sacrifices the evil aliens were practicing.
After years of investigation, Atlanteans found out that the natives weren’t an evolutionary casual product of nature; they were created genetically by the reptilians to serve them as slaves. They found in the native’s DNA traces of Lyran, Vegan and Syrian genetic codes mixed to create a super human species capable of hard work in bad and harsh conditions.
One thing shocked the Atlanteans scientist, a small proportion of DNA, less than one per cent, was reptilian. That discovery meant the new human race named by the reptilians as adamu was very aggressive and war-like. In fact, when Atlanteans found Terra, the world was in a state of insurrection. Some native civilizations revolted against their creators and masters, all of them fighting with iron weapons.
Atlanteans had another city in the middle of the ocean, Poseidonia, two thousand kilometers away. It was a beautiful city in an archipelago where the military and the scientific installations were located. Atlanteans didn’t want too much involvement at Terra as the planet belonged to the natives, but they wanted a gradual advancement of the civilizations on the planet to interbreed with them and one day, form a new civilization with Atlantean culture and technology.
◆◆◆
High Commander Enki was in the Command Center of his flagship, the one thousand five-hundred meters long battleship Thuban Executor, waiting to exit hyperspace in Solaris System. They were known by Terra’s natives as Anunnaki, but different terms were also in used as Nephilim, The Fallen or Evil Ones.
Thubans were a shape-lifting race thanks to their advanced genetic technology which they used to trick some of the humanoid worlds pretending to be their gods. At Terra they adopted the appearance of tall humans with beards, making easier for the natives to accept their dominance.
Two-hundred thousand years ago, they arrived at Terra founding a primitive race of hominid that resembled the empire’s ancient enemy, the Starhumans, but in an early stage of evolution. Thubans attempted to slave the hominids, but they couldn’t work the mines as their primitive brains didn’t understand the orders given to them. After several years training the primates and failing miserably in the endeavour of extracting gold that Thubans needed, the Thuban Council accorded to modify them to qualify working in the mines; the Homo Sapiens was born.
Discrepancies rose in the Council as the idea of giving advanced intelligence to those inferior apes could be worrisome in the future if it was handle in a hasty way. Another reason for that genetic engineering was the following: Thubans fed themselves with humanoid flesh and blood, changing forever the course of this world.
“We just exited hyperspace High Commander, outside the gravity well of the eighth planet,” reported the Second Officer Ynnie, after dropping out from hyperspace in a far sector of the system, just for precaution.
“Excellent,” Commander Enki said with a deep and sharply voice, after the stretching gut sensation vanished. “Set course to the third planet of this system, let’s see if there are Starhumans here interfering with our gold and slaves supplies as Exploration Commander Ulbaral has reported. I reckon it was just a patrol fleet what he discovered.”
One scout ship scanned Solaris System few years back with disturbing results; Starhumans were in the system. Exploration Commander Ulbaral waited out of the system in the Kuiper Belt when the scout returned with the bad news. Act immediately, Ulbaral departed to Thuban Prime where High Commander Enki was finalizing the preparations of his new and updated fleet.
“Course set,” Ynnie replied, pressing some icons in his tactical display.
“Sensors indicate numerous civilian spacecraft in the third and fourth planet, possibly Vegan design, and four warships, heavy destroyers class,” Sensor Officer Okyd informed.
“Damn Vegans!” grumbled Enki infuriated. “Set fleet in battle condition, let’s destroy those damn bastards!”
“Fleet in battle condition, Commander!” Ynnie reported.
“They are more advanced than us,” said Second Commander Marduk with a concerning voice. “They could easily drive us out of this system forever. Remember, they have hundreds of systems including the Pleiadeans as allies. No one wants to engage in battle with a Pleiadean vessel, not even a Lyran one!”
“They are far out of their region of space and our latest reports showed the Starhumans are more divided than previously thought. Our intelligence services, with the help of the Sozarians pirates, believe that each of their worlds are independent and the only tie with the alliance is purely for trade. Only in few occasions they joined their military forces together, being an exception our defeat four hundred years ago. We need the gold of this planet and the slave race we genetically modified to work in the mines,” Enki replied, frowning his brow in anger. “Without that gold, our planet’s atmosphere will disappear in a few years and our people will die.”
Thuban had an atmospheric problem for centuries now. They polluted so much the planet that gold was needed to keep the solar radiation from sterilizing the planet’s surface and converting Thuban, once a blue-white world, in a barren wasteland.
“We could always resettle another planet or steal the atmospheric retention fields from this Vegans. We know by the same pirates, Vegans possess such technology. Just think about how much gold we could have if we don’t need to vaporize it in our homeworld atmosphere,” Marduk answered, worrying about the consequences of such suggestion.
“Watch your words, Second Commander. You are talking about our homeworld and that is sacred!” Enki said, gazing straight into Marduk’s reptilian eyes.
In just a few hours, High Commander Enki could finally get the victory he needed from his eternal enemies, whom will pay a high price for interfering in his claimed sector of the galaxy and got into control of the gold planet.
CHAPTER TWO
In the fourth planet of S
olaris, as the Atlantean baptized this star system, a colony of over one million people flourished.
Mars was a barren world, but it hasn’t been always like this. Hundreds of millions of years ago, this planet had plenty of water, a thick atmosphere and life but everything changed when a planetoid the size of Terra’s moon collided with it, altering the molten core and mantle of the planet. Slowly the core solidified, and Mars lost its magnetic field, leaving the atmosphere without possible defense against the cosmic radiation which stripped most of it away from the planet into the vacuum of space.
Deep beneath the surface in Mariner Valley, Atlanteans built a colossal piece of machinery, so technologically advanced, that it could bring the planet back to life, making Mars a garden once again. The device was called the Titan Project and it was a huge laser cannon powered by anti-matter that shoots into the solid outer core and melts it. If enough energy in a determined frequency was shot into the solid outer core, this one, in a matter of time, would melt and become liquid again, initiating like that the rotation between the outer and the inner core. Atlanteans had never done this before in the past but Lyrans did it with fabulous results. Mars was perfect for it, except for its low gravity, only a third of normal Terra’s gravity. Terraforming technology in the Starhuman Alliance was one of the most advanced in the known galaxy and the new developments in gravitational fields were very effective in planets like Mars, avoiding health problems to population derived from growing up in a low-gravity world. Most worlds in the alliance were almost as Terra in size and gravity. They had plans for terraforming Venus in the future, but further technological developments had to be made.
“Status of the Titan Cannon?” Commander Padis asked, his gaze checking the data from the last test.
Padis was a veteran of the last war and now acting as Governor of Mars. He was over five hundred years old, but he looked like an earthling in its forties. That was the result of thousands of years of genetic manipulation. Vegans could live a long and healthy life for over eight-hundred years. They knew no illness, but only one thing could end their lives before their natural life span; the war with the Draconians Thubans.
“Ready for a new test at your order, Commander,” Vera replied with a soft voice.
Vera was the AI in charge of the Titan Project. She seemed as human as Padis was. If one day she decided to get a body, she could be transferred to a synthetic one, but so far, she had refused. The procedure was called Soul Transferring and the synthetic bodies they used were completely bionic. All Starhuman allies used AI’s to maximize the productivity and efficiency of the systems. No world in the alliance did any kind of manual labour for millennia, leaving AI’s and work robots in charge of everything. It was a system that worked for them, but it had its problems; humans became complacent and weak. Vera had a holographic 3D display all over the complex. She could materialize herself anywhere and she looked so real as a human. She resembled a young woman in her twenties, long dark hair and deep black eyes. Her skin was tan brown. She dressed a white uniform with red lines along the trousers sides. That was the standard uniform for officers in the Vegan’s fleets. Only forty crew members operated the largest ships of the fleet, the dreadnoughts battleships.
“Set up a new test in the next thirty minutes, this time at full power,” Padis ordered.
He wanted to see the full potential of the cannon. If this last test was successful, Mars outer and inner core would be fully functional again in the months. The population would be safe in the dome cities, protected by a powerful energy screen. No marsquake or volcanic eruption, such as Arsia or Olympus Mons lava could penetrate it.
“Final test ready in thirty minutes,” answered Vera in her melodic voice.
In the last test, the cannon melted an area of hundred kilometers around the valley. The idea was to heat that molten metal into a state of near plasma to trigger a chain effect that would affect the whole planet. Nevertheless, there were some side effects to this mechanism: Marsquakes and volcanic activity could engulf the planet in years of instability, but it was necessary to build a thick atmosphere and a magnetic field. Nonetheless, something else was missing to create a garden; water.
“Commander!” Larissa, the communication operator shouted, her eyes alight with fear. “We got reports of a Draconian fleet between Neptune and Uranus. They exited hyperspace over ten minutes ago.”
“Damn! Abort test and evacuate the civil population to the underground bunkers of the complex. Order the military to be deployed and launch fighters,” Padis ordered, his face showing a frightened look.
They didn’t expect the Draconian to show up at this moment. He wondered from where this fleet came from. If the reports were true, the Draconian were retreating for the last centuries of war. It seemed the latest report about the Draconian-Starhuman Alliance war was wrong.
◆◆◆
Back in Atlantis, at the center of the ringed island formation, Consul Atlas was in the situation room of Command Center and Government Palace where the governmental powers inhabited.
“Situation report, Commodore,” asked Consul Atlas to the Commander in Chief of the Atlanteans military forces, Commodore Valentis.
“Twenty-three enemy vessels have been detected between Neptune and Uranus and are advancing rapidly. Estimated engagement time is twelve hours,” Valentis reported, staring at the Consul. He has warned him of this outcome, but the old man didn’t want to listen. Now, they were in a precarious situation. Over the last century, Valentis has requested the construction of new warships and shuttles to evacuate the whole population if needed, but every time his requests were refused by the Consul and his cronies, all of them in an age of complacent and accustomed to luxury. He knew well that his race didn’t have a chance in a long-term war against any adversary as they grew weak over thousands of years.
Atlas nodded, his eyes lost in the shrews. “Who are they?”
“Mars is informing the enemy is a Draconian fleet, possibly Thubans,” Valentis stated with a deep sigh. “Their long-range sensors are much better than ours.”
The Consul turned his gaze toward Senator Tyron. “We need more information.”
Senator Tyron was Atlas’ civilian personal adviser. Another crocked politician according to Valentis’ standards. “I suggest sending a diplomatic mission to the Thubans, I feel they are more reasonable than we have believed before.”
Valentis couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. “Are you losing your mind? Don’t you know who are the Draconians?”
“These are the Thubans!” uttered Senator Tyron with closed fist. “We must try every diplomatic channel possible before we send our fleet!”
“What fleet?” Valentis recriminated. “We’ve got four destroyers with personnel ever proved in battle, not forgetting our more powerful vessels are light years away aiding the Syrians against some pirates’ gunships. How many times did I request for warships construction? Why the hell did we build a spaceyard and station over Mars? I guess you all know the answer, for nothing.”
“Enough!” Atlas shouted, gazing at both furious men. “Any vessels in the area?”
Valentis shook his head in disbelief. “No sir, the nearest ones are tug-crafts in the rings of Saturn, bringing water-ice to Mars.”
Over five hundred small tug-crafts were deployed between the asteroid belt and the rings of Saturn to bring small asteroids with a big amount of water-ice or just pure chunks of it, launching them in a shallow trajectory against the planet’s atmosphere to melt the water.
Sensor Officer Allumin turned his face with narrowed eyes toward Commodore Valentis. “We got a freighter approaching Ceres, the Agincourt. It could intercept the enemy fleet near Jupiter in four hours if we send it now.”
Valentis remained silence for a moment, considering the proposal. He knew the only way of impeaching the Consul was with the support of over sixty per cent of the cabinet, but the Consul bought every single member with bribes and opulent luxuries. He stepped over to the offi
cer’s display and studied the data. “Do it,” he ordered, now gazing Consul Atlas. “Sir, I recommend ordering a complete telecommunication black out in every mining operation and scientific post across Solaris, perhaps the enemy won’t attack them.”
Atlas nodded in agreement. “It’s prudent and wise we do that. Nara, send the orders.”
Comm Officer Nara nodded, pressing some icons in her tactical display. “Orders sent, Consul,” she said in a soft voice.
◆◆◆
On board of the Thuban Executor, High Commander Enki was watching the tactical display that monitored all Starhuman vessels. There were not many, most of them just cargoes or freighters transporting raw material and water-ice from the outer planet’s rings.
“Damn Vegans! They think this solar system is theirs!” Enki shouted, spitting on the metal ground.
“High Commander, I think they are terraforming the fourth planet. Those small tug-crafts are transporting big pieces of water-ice and launching them into the planet’s atmosphere. I also detect some movement in the outer and inner core of the planet,” Second Commander Marduk reported as he read his tactical viewscreen.
Enki remained thoughtful for a few moments and then, replied. “Send the Ascendant Ripper and the Behemoth Ascending with a few escort cruisers and annihilate every human in that world once we pass the fifth planet’s orbit. We must not let them have a second blue-white world here.”
“High Commander, with all respects, we could use that planet for ourselves as military base,” Marduk said, fearful of the High Commander.
Marduk had a problem, and that was honesty, very rare among Thubans.
High Commander Enki’s gaze changed in wrath. “We don’t need a planet like that one, low gravity and small. In fact, we don’t need a planet at all. We need their inhabitants as a food source, slave labour and their gold! That’s all. But for this, we need to annihilate the goddamn Vegans. They can no longer serve as slaves, they must die.”