Battle of the magical demimonde (STAR-DUST 12) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 100

Beschreibung

2279, the tyrant Sol'altoo becomes active for the last time. He has recreated the Artifact City on one of the super-Earths in the Sol system and wants to forcefully make the planetary system of Earth a part of the Zetschn'cha universe. The Solar Fleet under General Pronder, as well as Queen Yiilyix of the Xxiin people, who have settled on Venus, stand together against the enemy. While Sigurd with his ship PAURUSHEYA penetrates the energetic half-world, the fight for the artifact city takes place in the Earth system. There Sigurd finds a message from Amanda. She has gone into the stasis field of the Artifact City in 2019 and is still waiting there for her release.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 12

Battle of the magical demimonde

© 2024 Jens F. Simon

Illustration: S. Verlag JG

Publisher: S. Verlag JG, 35767 Breitscheid,

All rights reserved

Distributed by: epubli a service of neopubli GmbH, Berlin

ISBN: 978-3-818751-91-3

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. Any exploitation without the consent of the publisher and the author is prohibited and will be prosecuted under criminal and civil law. This applies to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution and making available to the public.

Time is your greatest enemy. You are on a narrow path in between. What exactly this means, you can only guess, but never know. Should you ever arrive at your destination, your mind will no longer understand where you are and what you wanted. The certainty that your life so far has not been meaningless will be displaced by the satisfaction of doing it all over again, should you get the chance.

The climax of your life seems to have come when you think you have achieved everything. When the rest of your life seems to be straightforward; when there seem to be no new challenges; when you think you have really arrived. Do not be so sure! Never be sure. The moment you feel good again, you are already standing with both feet in a reality behind reality and will start a new journey.

Table of content

Star space of the magic ring

Deployment at the 'Ring of Srem’

131 years of MAITRI, the children of MBF

Sol'altoo's last battle

The last mission

The end of the artifacts city

The end of the magic construct

Amanda's rescue

Sigurd's dream

Star space of the magic ring

The message came from a Mellran explorer ship. Calgulla had wordlessly forwarded it to me. I could still remember well to have already received a similar information.

At that time, I had been invited by the Mellrack Council, whose spokesman Solgalla had reported on a mysterious event: "Two of our explorer units have made a strange discovery during their mission at the edge of the Hyades star cluster. At the space coordinates available to us, quite several Zetschn'cha ships were located. Evaluations have revealed that there is a radiation source in this space sector that emits super radiation similar to that which became appropriate in the Earth system."

"The space sector has been under constant surveillance by us since the time one of our explorer ships detected the anomaly there. Five Zetschn'cha ships have now been located there and have gathered in a cluster. It's the largest gathering in years."

Calgulla looked a little nervous. I hadn't remembered him like that.

"Somehow I'm coming to the conclusion that you're assuming the ships' destination might be the Earth system, am I right?"

"My suffering in this absurd world is an inescapable fatality that constantly forces me to go on. To get to the point, in recent years the population of Zetschn'cha in the Venusian colony has decreased considerably. In fact, I believe their numbers could now be counted on the fingers of one hand."

He stood in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at Earth.

The Blue Planet shone as brightly as ever in its timeless beauty, and my mind seemed to reminisce for a moment as I now stood beside him and looked down at the Earth as well.

"Not much has happened since you just disappeared into the Honduran rainforest that time 11 years ago. Surprisingly, that has changed a lot after your so abrupt appearance. Now events are precipitating!"

He glanced at me briefly from the side. I had told him only outlines of my experiences.

I had only rudimentarily addressed the various time transitions, and of course he knew nothing about my physical change, multiplicity with Alethea, and the resulting new abilities.

I looked over to the ship's control panel where Alethea was standing in her Xxiin body and communicating with the ship PAURUSHEYA.

"Dark room call from Mellrack. I'll put it on speaker," I heard Alethea's voice at that moment.

"This is Solgalla, spokesman for the High Council of Mellrack. Calgulla, do you read me?"

Before Calgulla could step closer to the console to Alethea, a mike formed from mold energy directly in front of his mouth.

The dark-space call came directly from the constellation Chameleon, 90 light-years from Earth. No image transmission was possible at that distance.

"I read you, Solgalla!"

"One of our observation ships has detected increased ship activity in the monitoring quadrant with the radiation anomaly. The ship pod has increased from five to seven starships. The Earth government has already been informed of this. The alien ships are regrouping, and projections of their ship movements clearly indicate that a joint departure can be expected within the next hour. The Earth system is given as the destination. The Mellrack Council, in coordination with the Earth Government and the Solar Fleet, has dispatched a contingent of 15 battleships to the anomaly coordinates. They have just departed."

Calgulla looked briefly in my direction, as if to make sure I had heard everything.

Before he could say anything himself, I heard Solgalla's voice over the loudspeakers again: "Attention, the ships of the Zetschn'cha have just switched to overlight. General Pronder will be informed at the same time. Our ships in the Earth system have also been placed on alert. Solgalla out!"

I now looked at Calgulla a bit concerned. It became apparently serious. But what was the tyrannical mage Sol'altoo up to?

"Our ships will not reach the coordinates of the anomaly for at least ten days. Engine technology is constantly being developed, but we still have 102 light-years to cover."

"How soon do you think the seven Zetschn'cha spacecraft will have reached our solar system?"

"According to evaluations available to the MBF from the last encounter 11 years ago, they have entirely different engine technology than the Planetary Union. The appropriate energy levels exceed anything we have to offer. Unfortunately, I can't answer that question for you. We'd have to have a lot more details about their propulsion technology to do that."

I looked from Calgulla to Alethea, but she couldn't help me here either.

"All right, then. Let's fly to the artifact city and wait for the Zetschn'cha there. I think that's where their destination is!"

"Then I will now leave you and transfer to the RECON. General Pronder has already put the entire solar fleet on alert. That's fifty ships, after all. They will protect the inhabited planets, as the case "Götterdämmerung" provides. I will follow you with the RECON to the Super-Earths."

After the prism room transported Calgulla directly back to the RECON, we started with the ship in the direction of the super earths.

The PAURUSHEYA made the short distance of about 1650 million kilometers in a short twenty minutes. We had immediately gone into a stationary orbit over the artifact city.

I was sure the ships were headed this way. General Pronder was not so sure. For him, the priority was to protect all the inhabited planets in the solar system.

Accordingly, of the 50 starships of the Solar Fleet, he had made available only three that had left for the Super-Earths.

Calgulla had already started with the MBF ship RECON eight hours ago and should arrive soon. Nothing had happened here yet.

"Maybe this general of the Solar Fleet is right after all and the ships of the Zetschn'cha have another goal!"

"I don't think so Alethea. But you do have the ability with the PAURUSHEYA to lay down a broadband scan over the solar system. The ship signatures in question are stored in the ship's computer."

"Attention, alien ships are just leaving the overlight phase," it sounded overloud from the central speakers.

This rendered my last comment moot.

I didn't bring myself to look at the proximity scan to know who we were dealing with.

The seven Zetschn'cha starships were still flying at fifty percent light speed toward the super-Earth with the artifact city. They had come out of superlight in the inner rim of Oort's Cloud and their active shields glowed the brightest red as thousands of meteors and a still dense layer of dust crossed their direction of travel, rapidly reducing their speed even further.

Like a gigantic doomsday channel, they came spitting fire toward us. The protective fields of their ships must have been loaded up to maximum values.

Alethea had already launched several drones when we arrived, so I was able to get a good overview on the central screen. All outer sensors and weapon arms, which looked like long tubes, were still folded up on the 420-meter-long and 250-meter-wide hull of the PAURUSHEYA, which was now also raising its protective shields.

The technology of the Zetschn'cha ships must have been quite advanced compared to the other Union peoples, at least they had covered the flight over 165 light years in less than ten hours.

An Earth ship still needed over 14 days for this.

The PAURUSHEYA sent already for minutes a greeting message with the request to answer, at the same time we accelerated with 500 kilometers per second square into space, towards the seven ships.

I now took the initiative. The distance to the seven ships, still flying in a bunch, was rapidly decreasing and was now only 700,000 kilometers.

"This is Paurusa. You are in a planetary system protected by me. I demand immediate contact. Explain yourself and stop your journey."

I nodded unconsciously to Alethea and telepathically sent the appropriate instruction. Weapon arms whipped from their resting position from the outer hull into space.  PAURUSHEYA looked like a giant octopus, darting its tentacles toward its victim.

Then the Nebular ship opened fire.

A gigantic fire wave surged toward the alien ships.

"I want to speak to the mage Sol'altoo immediately!"

The warning apparently succeeded. Or so I thought.

Then came Alethea's call, "They're fanning out. Four ships are opening fire on us as well, while the other three are veering off and trying to reach the Super Earth. The shield load jumps to 60 percent, still rising. Opening combat mode!"

The ship would now calculate and attempt to apply newer and newer attack tactics based on constantly incoming combat action data.

"We must prevent the other three ships from reaching them Artifact City. That's our top priority!"

Alethea understood and resumed combat mode. Immediately, the shield levels jumped to over 90 percent.

"One type of radiation hitting us cannot be identified. It is primarily responsible for the heavy shield loading." 

Alethea pulled the ship into a loop like a kamikaze plane and tried to dive away overhead to the bottom.

But the PAURUSHEYA was not built for that, in fact it was too sluggish. Only then did I realize her intent.

All the weapons arms, which were up to 50 meters long, bundled into a single tube 200 meters in diameter, and in this complicated turning maneuver they directed themselves at a single attacking ship.

There was a single burst of fire and a dazzlingly bright beam of energy with a tremendous dimension struck the Zetschn'cha ship with light speed.

While our sensors were down due to the new sun rising some 120,000 kilometers ahead, I noticed that a second energy blast had occurred, then the PAURUSHEYA had regained its footing and was rocketing toward the planet below, while in our rear a second ship dissipated into pure energy.

"The three Zetschn'cha ships have just entered the atmosphere of the super-Earth."

On the large central screen, the images transmitted by the drones were transmitted and analyzed.

Suddenly, the screen lit up as white ray trails shot toward the Zetschn'cha ships from two different directions like lightning bolts.

"This is space island XAAL, Queen Yiilyix speaking. We have received your call for help and have immediately rushed over. We can handle these three attacking ships on our own. We don't need any help, Princess Xyaala is piloting our second ship! You take care of the other two."

Astonished, I looked to Alethea.

"Surprise! I took the liberty of radioing our Xxiin friends on Venus just as the Zetschn'cha ships were leaving Overlight."

"Oh, and I thought the Venus station TRISHARANA was hidden behind a cloaking screen and inaccessible from the outside."

"The PAURUSHEYA has a special code," was the terse reply.

I could get upset about that later. Now it was time to act. I opened a new radio channel.

"This is Paurusa. I expect an immediate cessation of combat, otherwise you will be destroyed. Tell your mage Sol'altoo that I will pay a visit to his ridiculous little empire with my force. Now take off!"

I had shouted the last sentence so that even Alethea looked at me somewhat disturbed. In fact, the three ships that had almost reached the surface of the planet retreated in flight and joined the two ships that remained in free space.

Queen Yiilyix and Princess Xyaala were just closing in on us when the five ships switched to superlight.

"The Xxiin people have decided to finally shut down the cloaking field over our settlement on the planet Venus and contact the Earth government. We ask you, Sigurd Westall to act as mediator!"

The queen's voice just stopped when I heard another from the speakers: "This is RECON. Our tracking has two massive energy bursts appropriate. I hope we are not too late!"