Fight for Immortality (STAR-DUST 6) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

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

Seitenzahl: 93

Beschreibung

Sir Arthur Newcraft and specialist Mark Merlin are captured and interrogated by the alien invaders. While Sigurd is on his way back to his home solar system, the knowledge of the organic spaceship Paurusheya is snatched from them. Are the aliens planning to hijack and take over the ship? When Sigurd learns of the kidnapping, he does everything in his power to find and free Sir Arthur and Mark. He is supported by Princess Xyaala, a Xxiin. While his relationship with Paurusheya continues to deteriorate, Sigurd is ambushed and shot, at least that's how it looks to Amanda, his partner.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 6

Fight for Immortality

© 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: 978-3-818727-15-4

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.

Table of content

Return flight to earth

Captured

The new home

The search for Sir Arthur

The Para-Shield Generator

Attack of the Mernchen

PAURUSHEYA's takeover

Lord of immortality

The real world begins where it seems to end. Look around vigilantly and be ready to look behind the scenes of the objective, and if you are lucky and well prepared, you will look at the real world. Then the new life will begin for you.

Never be too sure in life. Your feelings are determined by externalities that you can only partially influence yourself, and the delta is your destiny. A little humility in all your actions gives the guarantee to follow the right path in your life, regardless of success and failure. 

Return flight to earth

We were on our way back to Earth, or rather, to our solar system. When I thought of 'we', I guess I just meant Amanda and myself, Sigurd Westall, two small human beings among the wonders of the universe.

I was just standing in the shower and my thoughts were trying to decentralize.

Hopefully now my subconscious did not come along with stupid sayings.

Since it had developed virtually to an independent intellect, I had to live again and again with the fact that strange thoughts entered my head, which told me, what I had to do or to omit.

It had been peculiar enough that the queen of the Xxiin could intervene in my thoughts just like that.

I had put a stop to that with a few nanobots. They controlled the neuron networks in my head accordingly, so that an interception of my thoughts was no longer so simply possible, however the communication with all extraterrestrial beings, which I had met so far, took place by telepathy and thus I could not withdraw naturally completely from it.

Even PAURUSHEYA had got into the habit to 'speak' with me more and more telepathically.

My thoughts circled around Queen Yiilyix, around Xaa, the leader of the space island XAAL, who followed us with a second spaceship of the Xxiin and around the Mernchen and their goings-on on earth. I wonder what Sir Arthur was doing now.

Alethea, the material hologram of the ship in any case had withdrawn with Queen Yiilyix.

As it had turned out, they were somehow related. I still hadn't really understood how the Ur-Xxiin people had managed to turn into 'living matter' in the first place. They had merged into the starship PAURUSHEYA as well as two other smaller starships that had later transformed into the Venus Station TRISHARANA and the Japetus Station MAITRI.

This had been possible so easily because the Xxiin were apparently organic nanites.

I was interrupted in my thoughts when the door computer reported the request for admission of a visitor.

I acknowledged entry without knowing who was coming to see me, tied a synthetic scarf around my waist, and exited the wet room.

Amanda stood somewhat lost in the middle of the cubicle, looking around helplessly.

When she saw me, she was visibly startled, and a shy smile appeared on her face. I didn't know her like that at all.

"Hi Amanda, I'll be right with you!"

She just nodded and sat down in one of the two armchairs that were next to the cabin window.

"Take your time. I just talked to Alethea. We'll reach our solar system in about an hour."

I stood in front of the locker room wall and changed into fresh clothes. It was strange with this organic ship.

Alethea, the material hologram, represented the entity PAURUSHEYA, the spaceship we were now in.

I had always thought about what I was holding in my arms when Alethea and I were together. This technology was so advanced that you couldn't really grasp it, much less understand it.

About seven hours had passed since leaving Xelio, the Xxiin home planet in the Epsilon Eridani system.

After a substantial meal with Amanda, I had retired to my cabin and slept dreamlessly.

I had expected Alethea to come to me, after all, she had sought me out against the will of Sir Arthur, after my so-called abduction, or so Amanda had told me.

But as it seemed, she had preferred to exchange old memories with Yiilyix, the Queen of the Xxiin apparently.

I had to admit to myself that I was already a little disappointed.

"I can't get the report of that mystical storage unit out of my mind. That the Xxiin are so-called organic nanites, which develop intelligence and an intellect when more than 10,000 individual beings congregate, I understood. But how did the Ur-Xxiin manage to transform into living matter? And how do the millions of inorganic nanites that are in the dust disk around Xelio fit into the picture?"

I had sat down with Amanda by now and merely shrugged.

"I don't know anything more than what you and I have heard, either."

"Another question then arises for me regarding the Mernchen. How do they fit into the overall picture and what do they want?"

"I intend to find out just that. As you know, I was able to eavesdrop on three Mernchen technicians in a crashed spaceship. They need certain rare earth metals that have become components of their body chemistry and whose supply has apparently been depleted in their home system."

"They are now trying to get to the companies that have sufficient supplies of these rare earth metals through Life-Int-Ltd. or through which they can get to the producers and then infiltrate them."

Amanda had identified the situation perfectly correctly.

My subconscious mind once again ran verbatim in my mind the wording of the last overheard conversation:

"Of the eleven rare earth metals needed, the deposits of dysprosium, terbium, and europium in our system have been depleted, but Earth has enough of them, as we now know. We have been working for two years to take over important positions in the economically structured society of mankind. Now it should be time to harvest."

"Am I correct in assuming that you intend to settle the Xxiin people on Venus?"

I awoke from my thoughts and looked at Amanda in amazement. She had changed the subject on the fly.

"Some of them are already there, after all, and their livelihood on their home planet has been taken away from them, as you've noticed. The only habitable continent on Xelio has been massively devastated by the Mernchen, don't forget that."

"Yes, of course, I know that. But can you decide that so easily without at least consulting with the leading nations on Earth? After all, Venus is Earth's immediate neighboring planet in our solar system. I would imagine that not everyone would agree to an alien race spreading out there."

"What do you think I should do? Should I just go to my government and tell them that there is alien life? That aliens have already been trying to infiltrate major industries for two years!"

Amanda looked at me intently.

Before she could give me the appropriate answer, I replied, "Of course, I can provide evidence now. But how do you think the rest of the population would react? Because one thing is for sure, it will no longer be possible to keep this knowledge secret. Knowing humanity as I do, there will be a panic and on top of that the world powers will try to secure their own interests. There will be a lot of deaths, and I'll be damned if I'm going to be responsible for that."

In essence, Amanda was right. But I simply could not do justice to the public in my present situation. It was too fantastic and too dangerous in terms of the current balance of power on our planet if the truth came to light.

"Aren't you making it a little too easy on yourself?"

"No, why? You forget that even before my so-called abduction by the Xxiin on Venus, I encountered nanites in the catacombs of TRISHARANA Station. At the time I thought they were artificial nanobots, but I have since come to believe that they were probably organic nanites or even a variety of the primordial Xxiin. I have built up a strong affinity for them and I think I can appreciate them very well. They pose absolutely no threat to humanity."

Was Amanda playing the Advocatus Diaboli to me or did she mean what she said?

Why was she trying to make me feel guilty?

Of course, I had already thought about the new situation in our solar system myself.

Following Sir Arthur's intention to build up a powerful organization with headquarters on Saturn's moon Japetus, to be able to better control extraterrestrial activities, I had already gone a bit further mentally.

To protect ourselves, we also needed the right tools. For this I counted naturally also a partnership with the people of the Xxiin.

If they are resident in the future on the neighboring planet of the earth, there would be even a common interest, which had the protection of our two spheres of life as a basis.

Because of this I had also arranged that several million inorganic nanites from the dust disk around Xelio flew with us.

They had saved me and the space island XAAL, the former mother ship of the Xxiin, from the destruction by the Mernchen. They would continue to serve the new MBF organization well in the future. I planned to station them in the asteroid belt between the planetary orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Another consideration was to distribute the nanites in the Oort cloud around our solar system, as a protective shield, so to speak.

The only problem with this was that they would then have to move around the Sun at a cupped distance of about 1.6 light years. For this, however, their present number would not be sufficient by far.

I wanted to discuss the two possibilities with Sir Arthur immediately after our arrival on Japetus.

I did not mention any of this to Amanda at first.

"Come, let's not argue. The ship will have reached our solar system soon. We should be in the control center then."

She just nodded, smiled at me a little strangely and together we left the cabin. 

Captured

The room looked like a cellar vault. A worn sandstone staircase led down a barrel-vaulted corridor to an expansive vaulted enclosure.

An old oak door, anchored with rusted hardware in the thick rubble stones of the vaulted wall, closed the cool, windowless dungeon.

Two wooden cots stood one behind the other against the left side wall.

A dim light bulb hung in its holder on the power cable from the vaulted ceiling, which barely came to a height of two meters in the middle of the room.

Two human bodies lay motionless on their backs on the cots, as if laid out. Their eyes were closed. But by the regular lifting and lowering of their chests, one could tell that they were still alive.

The room was located very deep under the fort, a former stud farm on the outskirts of Salisbury.

The old fort served as headquarters for the English section of Life-Int-Ltd. This is also where all the information that came from the U.S. converged.

"The sherry tastes strongly of almonds and hazelnuts, but I can still taste out the Palomino grape. What a delight! You can tell it was air-matured in unsealed 600-liter casks."

Sir Arthur was dreaming.

He held the glass in his hand and raised it against the light. The sherry was a golden yellow color and pure. With light circular movements he swung the glass.

He was about to bring it to his mouth when the contents began to freeze.