Ruler of the nanites (STAR-DUST 5) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

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

Seitenzahl: 93

Beschreibung

Sigurd Westall has been abducted from the Venus station TRISHARANA by alien intelligences. While the Mernchen, an alien race, continue to infiltrate the Life-Int-Ltd. on Earth, the organic spaceship Paurusheya wants to start the search for him immediately. However, Sir Arthur Newcraft cannot justify losing the only connection to Earth. Sigurd is sent to the nearby Epsilon Eridani system, where the Xxiin people ask him for help against an overwhelming enemy. At the same time, he makes a stunning discovery that elevates him to ruler of the nanites.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 5

Ruler of the nanites

© 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: 978-3-818727-13-0

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

The Xxiin race

PAURUSHEYA's solo run

Attack of the Mernchen

In the Epsilon Eridani system

The secret of Stonehenge

The secret of the Mernchen

The living matter

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 yourself can only partially influence, 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. 

The Xxiin race

The interior of the basket house was rather gloomy, and since I had looked into the very large and extremely bright sun disk before, white dots and a bright circle still wove across my iris.

I stopped immediately after entering and rubbed my eyes. Slowly they became accustomed to the new light conditions and revealed to me the true appearance of the Xxiin.

Of course, I had already expected something similar since I had contacted the nanites.

Directly in front of my eyes hovered a dense cloud of dust, glowing reddish, at least that was my first impression. Of course, I could guess that it was not dust particles that had gathered there.

Involuntarily, my field of vision changed as I focused on the cloud.

It hung about a meter above the ground and rotated slightly. At first, all I could see was a flurry of small bodies.

The more I concentrated, the more details I could make out. In the most diverse reddish hues I saw them, organic nanites.

"We are the ruler of the large space island," I now heard a strange thought in my head.

The movements of the individual beings I saw spontaneously slowed down. Did the thought come from them? Was I seeing the Xxiin in their true form?

"You are on the right path. We are the Xxiin, and we are the Xaa! You are on the space island XAAL on the way through the big nothing to our home place."

"Be careful, the Xxiin are reading your mind!"

The strange and nevertheless own absolute thought of my subconscious stood razor sharp in my head.

The cloud of nanites moving in the air in front of me had contracted and was rotating less quickly than before.

"If a telepathic connection is possible, then the para-shield generator no longer works. You can accordingly use your powers again!"

I was startled only briefly, then I had caught myself again.

"Human, who calls himself Sigurd Westall, be sure that you are a guest on my ship and not a prisoner."

The words of the Xxiin who had introduced himself to me as Xaa were still reverberating in my mind, when I had already carefully lifted one of the two steel heads standing at the sides of the entrance a few inches off the ground with the power of telekinesis.

It was only supposed to be a test and after what I had just been told, there didn't seem to be any real danger for me now.

"Of course, as our guest, you are not subject to any restrictions!"

So Xaa had noticed that I had become telekinetically active. Startled, I let go of the robotic body that served as an exoskeleton for the Xxiin, and there was a muffled sound as it touched the ground again with both feet.

Of course, after this strange statement that I was a guest, the question immediately arose as to why I was being forcibly compelled to board this spaceship.

"I am speaking on behalf of the Queen. After the TRISHARANA, as you call the station on the second planet of your home system, told us about you, the Queen's decision to bring you to her was only logical. Of course, we couldn't just send you an invitation, it had to look like a kidnapping. The eyes of our enemies are everywhere, even here aboard my ship!"

The telepathic transmission broke off abruptly. I had understood little of what Xaa had been trying to tell me.

It seemed to me that he was already assuming more knowledge about the overall situation than I really had.

It wasn't long before I heard his thought message again.

"We are on our way to our home system. It is known to you by the human name of Epsilon Eridani and only about 10.5 light years from your sun. Queen Yiilyix will be able to answer many of your questions. She will inform you immediately. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience we have caused you, but the tense situation has left us no choice. We are flying into our home system right now. In a little less than half an hour of your time, we will have reached Xelio. Please accompany me!"

The cloud of Xxiin rose a little higher and then moved straight toward the exoskeleton I had telekinetically lifted earlier.

On the steel head, the two eye sockets opened as the approaching cloud bisected and the organic nanites floated into the head through the two openings.

It looked as if two thin plumes of noise were literally sucked up by the steelhead's eyes.

In an instant they disappeared into the head and the eye sockets were closed again by a reddish glowing disk.

"Come, follow me," I heard the summons in my mind.

This time it was not through the huge biotope with the hot sun disk again, but Xaa's way led into a narrow corridor.

The corridor was in semi-darkness and my pupils again needed a few seconds to adjust to the light conditions.

But I didn't have exactly those few seconds anymore. A roaring flood of energy hit me.

My subconscious reacted faster than I could do to press my belt buckle and activate the protective field.

It would have been far too late, too, because the flood of radiation had already reached me before I could even lift a finger. Xaa's exoskeleton glowed brightly and began to liquefy in my abdomen.

He was on my right side, and as the telekinetic interception field protected me, his robotic body got even more.

I was still standing upright in the middle of the narrow corridor while Xaa was flung to the side.

"Are you all right inside?"

My telepathic question was not answered at first. Long ago, the energetic protective shield was now around my body again.

The dimness of the hallway was flooded with a frantic flashing blue light that seemed to come from the walls.

I was now standing in front of Xaa, who was first leaning at a slight angle against the side wall and then sliding down it. I covered him with my body against another bombardment.

But none came again. Instead, a bulkhead in the wall opposite became visible that I had not noticed before.

Two steel heads came out, and while one of them dropped to his knees next to Xaa, the other, with an elongated weapon in both hands, charged past me into the corridor from where the attack had come.

I watched as the steel head next to me tampered with the eye sockets of Xaa's exoskeleton lying on the floor with an instrument.

It took only seconds, then the accesses opened, and two plumes of smoke left the head and floated directly into the second steelhead, who still held the instrument in his hands.

Apparently, this robot's head had been unoccupied by the Xxiin.

The entity calling itself Xaa responded immediately after the eye sockets closed again, and I heard its telepathic message: "My exoskeleton unfortunately suffered damage in the sneak attack that made it impossible for me to contact you. We rely on the positronic-neutronic control of our carrier robots to make telepathic contact with organic beings."

He was silent for a moment and rose.

"Forgive this dastardly ambush. We could not have anticipated it, though indeed we had to assume that the renegade Mernchen would now show their true colors."

Again, I understood too little to ask a meaningful question.

"Please be patient a little longer. Queen Yiilyix will explain everything to you. Please follow me to her now. The space island XAAL has landed in the meantime."

When we left the huge ship, I had initially expected to enter a space port or at least a base for spaceships.  But far from it. There was not even a solid ground.

The support plates of the landing legs stood on a green meadow. However, I assumed that not the entire weight of the ship rested on them, but that the main mass was held weightless by an antigrav unit.

In general, such a device should be standard for spaceships. At least that's what I had read in my books.

I looked around with interest. The landscape I could overlook had a very close resemblance to the biotope aboard the XAAL. Even the living baskets existed.

However, they looked many times larger and more massive than I remembered them from the spaceship.

At about 1000 meters, I could see a particularly large and exceedingly magnificent basket building. It seemed to be even larger in its entire extent than the ship behind me.

"The palace of our queen," was already the telepathically given message in my mind. For better or worse, I had to get used to the fact that any Xxiin could read my mind so easily.

The palace shone golden yellow to orange and ochre in the setting sun.

The Xxiin were organic nanites and from a few 10,000 individual beings they developed a mental intellect, they became intelligent.

Now when I entered the room, at first I thought Xaa had made a mistake. I had expected a very large, spacious, and bright throne room, where Queen Yiilyix would greet me.

In contrast, this small, gloomy room was a real disappointment.

I wanted to turn to Xaa, but he had already disappeared from the face of the earth. I stood as if lost in the middle of the otherwise empty room and waited. My inner tension was rising.

I tried to recognize something concrete in the gloom surrounding everything. Did it just seem that way or did the air around me somehow begin to grow denser.

Dark wisps of mist were rising from the floor throughout the room. Then I noticed that the fog was slowly gathering in a place about two meters in front of me.

It was eerie as a human figure formed out of the gray and white web. More and more details became discernible.

Then, explosively, the process accelerated, and a young woman stood before me, smiling up at me. Startled, I took a step back.

In front of me stood an image of Alethea.

"I don't think that's funny at all!" My thoughts must have been more than angry, because immediately the shape of the face and the hair changed.

"It was not our intention to hurt you. We thought it would please you specially to face a creature you cherish. We thought it would elevate the contact and our relationship to a friendly level!"

The thought message appeared in my mind and synchronously the woman in front of me moved her lips.

In front of me now stood a strange being in the form of a human woman, who was very pretty but no longer bore any resemblance to Alethea.

"We are Queen Yiilyix. We are the quintessence of the Xxiin. We are made up of about a million individual beings. Be welcome human you who call yourself Sigurd Westall."

"What do you want from me? Why did you kidnap me and how did you know about the existence of the TRISHARANA? Why did it help you and what were you doing in our solar system together with the Mernchen anyway?"

Once started, more and more questions came to my lips. Here and now was the opportunity to get all the answers.

"Sit down, human, you who are called Paurusa, guardian of the incomprehensible power."