The spirit of the fate tablets (STAR-DUST 18) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

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

Seitenzahl: 85

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Sigurd's outer appearance has been transformed into the image of M'pfank, a crew member of Captain Solaakk's former crew of the MARSCH, by the influence of the tablets of fate. Sigurd does not yet know what MOhowkuh, the spirit of the Tablets of Destiny, really wants. After Alethea has detached herself from Sigurd's body again, the two have also become physically separated. Sigurd has also lost his memory. At first he actually believes he is a Maul'aaf called M'pfank. Back on the spaceship MOOR, he is sent to a special unit tasked with scouting out the star ziggurat. Alethea, together with the Gravo designer Saviier, also takes part in the expedition to the Krsutner continent.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 18

The spirit of the fate tablets

© 2025 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: 978-3-819032-80-6

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.

Virtual realities surround us as soon as we are born. Every person has his very own view of things. Reality is a subjective experience of things. Imagine that one day you wake up in a foreign body, see a completely new world with foreign eyes. Are you reborn? What has happened? "Only a dream", you think, but this "dream" does not end. You have no choice but to accept the new realities, even if you think that this reality is no longer your reality.

Table of content

The Maul’aaf M’pfank

On board of the MOOR

Past, in the palace of King Šamšī-Rohh II

The expedition

Land of the inevitable

Revolt of the subconscious

The projection planetarium

Stress factor unknown

In the catacombs of ANUN'HA

The Maul’aaf M’pfank

I woke up with a mad hangover.

The first thing that kind of worried me was the fact that the artificial light was very dim and had a greenish cast to it.

On the other hand, I was also grateful for it, because it calmed my eye nerves and made the headache a little more bearable.

A low, background buzzing sound also began to worry me. I couldn't remember where I was now.

Then, suddenly, the memory came into my consciousness. I was in the merchant ship MOOR, sharing a sleeping cabin with M'otow. We both had belonged to the crew of the MARSCH, which had been shot down over the planet of the Akkattarier by an alien power.

Now the whole memory came up again. I sat up carefully.

Nevertheless, the pain began to rumble more violently in my head. M'otow's bunk was at right angles to my sleeping place, also with the long side against the cabin wall.

Opposite us was a narrow door that led into the adjacent wet area.

The cabin room was pretty much finished with that. Right next to the entrance bulkhead were two very small built-in cabinets, a narrow table with two seats, which were bolted to the floor with the legs.

The room was no more than fifteen square meters. Everything looked very functional.

The air padding of the bunk base was getting a little old, anyway, every time M'otow turned sideways there was a sound as if a cat was mewing.

I got up quietly so as not to wake M'otow. He had been partying most of the night and had only been in his bunk a short time.

The door to the wet room squeaked pitifully as I pulled it open. What I saw next wasn't exactly exciting either.

The shower consisted of a badly corroded shower head and the floor was a corroded metal grate.

The shelf set into the wall and the light fixtures it contained didn't look much better.

Somehow, all of this didn't feel right to me.

Normally, the sight should be familiar to me from the MARSCH, but the longer I looked and thought, the less I remembered.

It all seemed so strange, and I began to wonder where I was at all.

I did not belong here, nevertheless it was my life or better said, it should be.

I activated the shower, let a cold shower pour down on me, and stood it for a full ten seconds until I cursed and left the room backwards again, since the water jet could no longer be deactivated.

I stumbled somewhat awkwardly toward my bunk when a deafening, shrill sound seemed to come from everywhere.

My almost forgotten headache immediately set in again.

I spontaneously covered my ears with both hands.

"What the hell is going on?"  

M'otow sat bolt upright in his bunk, glaring at me like I was crazy. His bushy eyebrows stood on end, bolt upright.

It must have been a sight that took some getting used to for the Maul'aaf suddenly standing in the open bulkhead.

I stood stark naked and dripping wet in front of my bunk, while M'otow looked at me with a fixed stare.

His little ears kept twitching up and down.

I gazed musingly at the elongated drawn nose dominating his face, which stretched from his forehead to his mouth. Somehow the sight of him seemed strange and unnatural to me.

"Proximity alert, you bulbous noses. Out of your bunks. Everyone to your stations but make it snappy!"

The Maul'aaf at the bulkhead was gone as quickly as he had appeared. Only the bulkhead remained open.

From outside, his loud voice could still be heard several times. He went from cabin to cabin, waking the crew.

M'otow growled visibly tried to himself and staggered to the wet room. I hurried to dress.

Outside in the corridor it became louder. The shrill alarm ended abruptly and only the loud voices of crew members leaving their cabins could be heard.

"M'otow hurry up. We're already late," I called toward the wet room.

I hadn't quite finished the sentence when someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out into the hallway.

"M'pfank what are you waiting for anyway? You are my pseutroni-mesh. Before I trust myself to the machine, you must check it again, remember?"

I looked somewhat confused into the face of a very large Maul'aaf who suddenly stood beside me.

"Come on. Leave M'otow where he is. We've got proximity alarms. Who knows what's going on out there. All the engines may well have to go into intercept mode, and Suhl'back is probably the last person who wouldn't be ready with his combat boat then."

Anyway, now I knew who I was dealing with and hurried to follow him. Suhl'back was the pilot of a combat boat and I was his mechanic. At least that's how I had understood it.

What was wrong with my memory?

I could no longer remember everyday things. We ran through narrow corridors and other crew members streamed out of the side corridors. With about twenty people, we bridged two decks in a freight elevator.

I felt somehow out of place among them. Was I really one of them? A strange mood suddenly came over me.

I looked into Suhl'back's face as I left the cabin. My gaze swept over the other crew members, who were now running in small groups toward the three hangar bulkheads that lay directly in front of us.

I was among them, running in the same direction, and yet I felt completely alien. Again and again the thought came to me that I didn't belong here at all.

But if not here, then where did I belong? "M'pfank you're dreaming! Get that crate ready to go. I'll give you two and a half time units for it."

I automatically followed the pilot as we entered the hangar through the right bulkhead. Lined up along the hangar wall to the left and right were the combat boats.

Suhl'back headed directly for the first boat on the right. The cockpit protruded behind the pointed nose of the boat like a foreign body.

I missed something like wings. Of course, the combat boats were mainly intended for use in open space and not necessarily for flight through a planetary atmosphere.

Aerodynamics played absolutely no role here. The whole craft looked inert before, only the fin-like struts at the rear of the otherwise like a small cigar box looking flying machine, gave the image of a mobile and airworthy unit.

I stood in front of the machine and watched as the entrance to the cockpit opened.

As it did so, the transparent side panel simply swung upward over the top of the boat and under the ring-shaped weapons system.

That the two double-circular and star-like circles on the hull where the armament of the combat boat was at first only a guess on my part.

But I wanted to know it more exactly. I had never seen anything like this before. As simple-mindedly as I could, I asked Suhl'back, "Do you want me to check the weapons system as well?"

With that, I slowly walked toward the inner circle, under which the entry part had slid.

Suhl'back looked down at me from the pilot's seat and replied, "You keep your hands off that baby. I've already done an analysis check and all the values are stable and in the positive range. You'll just burn your fingers!"

He laughed briefly and loudly. In fact, I could now see a dark red glow in the individual hole openings that were in a star shape on the wreath.

"I'll release the magnetic latches on the engine chamber cover. That's where you can go to work on the drive and the energy wedges. But stay on schedule!"

About ten feet behind the pilot's cockpit and four feet in front of the fin-like struts at the stern, the entire wall paneling abruptly opened and swung upward as well.

I walked slowly toward the now-open engine room and glanced furtively over at the other combat boats, where the mechanics were already busily going about their business.

I looked into the chamber, completely disoriented, and was only amazed at the complexity of the technology that was revealed to me there.

In any case, I understood absolutely nothing about it, consequently I was not a pseutroni-mesh, as Suhl'back had dubbed me.

What was I then? This question immediately arose in my mind afterwards.

While my thoughts started to race for the repeated time, turning in circles and I began to lose myself in them, I reflexively pretended to take care of the machine.

After some time, still with my head in the machine chamber and musing to myself, the noise level inside the hangar increased again. I looked up.

Engines were starting to run on many of the machines. So it was time to finish the maintenance work.

So I pretended that everything was fine and gave the pilot a hand signal to confirm. Immediately the engine cover closed, and I hastily withdrew from the machine.

Slowly, I strolled toward a group of pseutroni- mesh who were standing at the hangar bulkhead and talking animatedly.

More and more engines were being started and idle engines were being tested.

It became very loud in the room, so that one could no longer understand one's own words. I left the hangar with the rest of my colleagues.

As the bulkhead closed behind me, I was suddenly struck by silence like a hammer blow. My ears cracked several times and my right shoulder felt numb for a moment. Before I could wonder any more, however, M'otow was suddenly standing in front of me.

"All just cold smoke once again. I had to interrupt my well-deserved sleep for this!"

"What do you mean?"

"The proximity alarm has been lifted. They did locate ship signatures that suggested the same type of fighter ships our captain shot down, but they were gone just a few time units later."

I wondered where he was getting all this information from.