The Returning Children

Prolong

March 28, 3090 one light minute away from Pluto.

The headphone suddenly busted with static then it started to clear up. “This is mission control center Pluto. Go? No Go? Over.” I reached down to the switch box on my belt which controlled the mic, flipped it on over to hot mic, and responded softly.

“We are a go! Up linking now. Over.” While I was speaking to Pluto mission control center, I reached out to one of the switch on the panel in between of the copilot and my mircogravity seat, clicked a couple switches to on. Suddenly with no warning, the screen to my left came to life with a bust of static then the screen stabilized then data begun to scroll cross the screen. It was looking good.

Shortly by about one minute later, Pluto mission control center responded that they were just now receiving the signal nice and clear; that the data was looking excellent from what they had seen so far. I tensed up then they begun to announce the check down. “Population is a Go! Over.” The tension in me suddenly released like a compressed spring and I started to work on my checklist.

“Roger. Over.”
“Nav computer is a Go! Over.”
I glanced over to my copilot and smiled a thin smile then spoke “Roger. Over.”
“Life-support system is a Go! Over.”
“Roger. Over.” I responded softly as I double-checked my data that were scrolling cross the screen to my left.
“Com system is a Go! Over.”
I shake my head a bit, that one check was somewhat reducent, but they still intended on doing it. “Roger. Over.”
“Cryogenic system is a Go! Over.”
At the mentation of the cryogenic system I thought a bit about the amount of trust that over thirty thousand peoples was putting on our shoulders. “Roger. Over.” I spoke softly with renewed awareness of the burden that was placed on me and my copilot, I glanced over to see how my copilot was doing and he gave me an thumbs up and grinned.

One thing odd about the Armstrong drive was how they functioned, thought the jump appeared instanious to an outside observer; the observer might notice that the ship had aged sightficaly. An hundred years jump would appear to happen instanious but the odd thing is that the ship would actual physically age an hundred years, including the crew unless they were in hibernation, and guarded by an special field that protected their body from the side effects of the Armstrong drives. However this special field was increditable expensive and norious for breaking down.

“Armstrong drives are a Go! Over.”
I didn’t recolize that I was holding my breath so I let it out slowly and smiled as I whispered into the mic “Roger. Over.”

There was a loud bust of static then it cleared up to the sound of a thousand-control center member clapping, as the com person was announcing, “All systems are a Go! Go! You’re a Go for engaging the Armstrong drives! Good luck to you all and Godspeed! Go! Over!”

My copilot face broke out into a broad grin and responded cheerfully “Thanks you guys have done an wonderful job! We will do our best! Over!”

I looked over to my co pilot and grinned, he responded by grinning and giving me the thumbs up. “Its time!” I almost shout.

“Main power bus one, online!” I spoke as I flipped the switch guard covers off the bank of switches to my right and started to flip them up. Thought in this age touch pad were more effective and quicker in responding, most space craft stayed with old fanshed switches because they were tougher and harder to break, in addition they had the clicking sound that notified the pilot or any crew that some one or they flipped an switch.

“Roger. Over” My copilot responded as he was double-checking the checklist.

“Main power buses two, online!” My copilot spoke as he flipped the guards off his bank of switches and was thumbing them up. Suddenly the screen above the data link screen went alive but remained blank.

“Armstrong Nav computer is online now!” Almost the second that it left my mouth the screen begun displaying complex graphic images and at the bottom of the screen data begun to scroll across the screen as the computer was processing complex mathematic formula for calculating an safe route though Armstrong space.

It takes tremendous amount of processing time and power to calculate routes though Armstrong space because there is also couple of other interesting effects of Armstrong that pilot would desire to avoid. One interesting thing is how the space is kind of compressed and distorted, in some area the Armstrong space is strongly compressed, its usually in regions of high gravity like near stars, or near the galaxy core, and due to the nature of Armstrong drive, if you get too close to these compressed area the effects are usually fatal. Then there is also the effect of distance to time; you make an hundred light-year jump you age a hundred year. No one have been able to find a way around this effect other than using the flaky and norious energy fields that are designed to disable ageing temporary, but they’re norious for not working properly.

After almost fifteen minute of waiting, the screen blanked out and was replaced by six giant glowing green numbers that begun to countdown to the activation of Armstrong drives. My headphone suddenly beeped and I heard the dry monotone voice of the computer announcing, “One minutes left to activation of Armstrong drives.”

Thought it might be more effective to display the countdown only on the screen, however it just presented an sense of rush or panic, it kind of made the pilot think it was an countdown to doomsday, so there were serious efforts to develop vocal interaction between the computer and pilots, thought they almost perfected it. It wasn’t quite good enough to be up to the rigorous standards that space requires so they just scraped the idea and sold it off to civilization productions like personal computers. However there was a few remains of the old program remaining in the space program, one was the monotone voice that the computers used to announce countdown or important information.

After what seemed only to be, a short period the computer announced once again, “thirty seconds remain to the activation of Armstrong drives.” I reached out to my copilot and griped his hand, we both smiled tightly as the computer droned on and on.

Suddenly the computer quit talking then it announced again in its dry monotone voice “Warning. Prepare yourself for activation of anti-aging fields to be activated. Warning. Prepare yourself for activation of anti-aging fields to be activated” I could feel the warm fizzy feeling that one get when they’re inside an anti-aging field, this reminded me of my first Armstrong jump, while I were servicing my duty aboard the USN Scorpio.

Suddenly the ship begun to rumble gently and I suddenly froze up in panic then I remembered that it was just the ship gaining up its infernal energy required to rip an hole in the very farablic of space and time, to slip though, into the higher dimension that we mere moral called Armstrong spaces. The burden of over thirty thousand souls was starting to weight heavily on my shoulder, I begun to wonder what if this jump went bad. But then I reminded myself that I wouldn’t even be around if the jump went bad, That was an very sobering thought.

Suddenly the computer announced again “Five second remaining.” The gentle rumble of the ship begun to increase, time seemed to slowdown for me, Four seconds remaining… Three… Two… Time’s up.

There was no explosion, no flash of light, no, nothing, just nothingness; the ship simplely disappeared without a trace. Five-kilometer long colony ship, billion of ton of mass, thirty thousand peoples… Five hundred light years was covered in a blink of the eye. Five hundred years into the future the ship hurled within a blink of the eye. It aged five hundred years in the blink of the eye. It was so distant of a target that no signal would reach Sol and her fellow colonies until 3590 at the earliest. The very first multiple hundred years jump that humankind had ever done, a small step for humankind, a giant leap for human.

The very final message that Sol would ever receive before the ship vanished was a soft strained cry that suddenly cutoff. This was the very last message that humankind would ever receive from the ship for they would descend into a long and bloody civil war between Sol and her colonies that would last for linearly centuries and end with the devastation of Terra.

stories list

Prolong: There you have it my third rewrite and i finaly got it finished in an way i am staifyed with, whatch u think of it massing around 1,500 i think too lazzy to check word count

chapter one: this is chapter one its massing about 3,478 words

Chapter One

May 19, 3195 in the Alpha Centauri System.

“Holy ****! That was too close!” One of my squadron mate screamed as he threw his interceptor into a dive just as a massive bolt from a frigate flew by. Suddenly the shield status panels begun to flash, I glanced rearward and saw my shield begun to glow brilliant red.

“Enemy at 12 o’ clock! Some one covers me!” I almost screamed as I jerked my joystick hard downward and went into an fast dive, the G-force begun to increase, one point nine… two… two point five, then suddenly the G-force went into the negative which would had yanked me out of my piloting seat if I didn’t have the G-force harasses all hooked up and attached.

‘Oh **** an frigate is right in front of me’ I thought, just as I pulled another hard dive, ‘oh crap I’m going to crash’ I thought. The fighter begun to rise above the frigate hull then it slowly begun to flat out and suddenly its quad engine made a subtle shift into bluish from its normal reddish flare as the engine went into overdrive. The fighter shot out flirting among massive gun towers that doted the landscape below it as it hurled along the massive frigate.

The com crackled “This is blue five, I’m on your boggy!” As I went into an evasion manver to avoid a deadly capital rated beam that shot out of one of the massive turret on the frigate. Suddenly one of the engine just exploded on the fighter who was close behind me, as the fighter hurled out of control and crashed into the boxy landscape, and exploded below us, blue five shouted “Yeahaw!” as he pulled an barrel roll.

“Thanks blue five! Let’s head back to our squadron and help them out!” I responded as I banked my interceptor to avoid yet another one of that deadly capital-grade particle beams. Then I begun to scan the sensor screen to see if I could find where my squadron was.

Suddenly the com cracked then cleared up “Attention to all interceptor squadrons, Defend your carrier! We’re under assault!” I looked upward and saw the carrier above us, even at nearly sixty kilometer distant, it still looked massive and impressive, however I could see the shields beginning to glow brilliant red. Suddenly the shield increased in brilliance tenfold then just collapsed, not all at once but in patches, section there and there just simplely faded out. Armor plates exploded off the carrier in an attempt to abosute and hopefully defect some mass drive projectile, plasma bombles and particle beams that the triad destroyers were fielding.

With no warning the multiple kilometer in diameter engine that the carrier fielded suddenly became so bright that you couldn’t look at them without darkening your cockpilot window, the carrier acceleration multiple tenfold and it surged forward.

I had successfully found my squadron mates and we were heading toward the carrier, only forty kilometer away and the situation was looking pretty grim, the destroyers had caught up with the carrier and was continuing to pound on the carriers. The shield just bucked and died totally leaving the carrier unprotected, armor plates were being blasted off, there were many deep craters where plasma bomblets impacted.

With no warning, my vision went pure white then it slowly faded away as the cockpilot window dimmed down and suddenly my front shield begun to glow pink from the sheer energy that was being hurled around. ‘Oh ****!’ I thought, the destroyers had utterly annihated the carrier with antimatter, because that was the only weapon that could do that much damage in an such short period of time.

Antimatter, now that’s a rare and very expensive weapon, they’re almost a million credit per pound, but their explosive power has yet to be matched by any weapon developed to date.

Almost like a ghost the carrier shot out of the expanding debits, I shocked to see that the carrier survived that blast, and then it dawned upon me that one of the destroyer was missing. Suddenly the other two destroyer who had been surprised by the explosion of their brother surged forward their gun blazing with renewed furry. While the secular battle was raging, I glanced down and checked my instrument and saw only mere ten kilometers were remaining, and already the carrier was beginning to fill my field of view.

“Okay, blue squadron and red squadron we are nearing the carrier, now when we reach two kilometer from its docking bay we will act as if we are docking with the carrier. Then we will veer out just before we dock and use the carrier’s armor, turrets, sensor towers, to our adverange and frit among them, heading to the engine area. Okay, when we reach the engine we will suddenly shot out from close to the carrier and scatter, so the destroyers will have hard time targeting us. Next thing is we will do the assault run code zero nine zero. Got it?” I announced to my squadron mates and I received confirmation from my squadron mates.

I checked the distance and it was now down to five kilometers, I checked and double-checked my main cannons, along with my plasma missiles, which were designed not for fighter-to-fighter combat but for fighters versus capital ship combat. I verified that they were both primed and ready to go, then I increased the forward shield by almost two hundred percent, it might not help much with all the capital-grade weapon that were being hurled around but it would at least provide some limited amount of protection from the anti-fighter cannons of the destroyers.

Now we were just three kilometer from the docking bay, the carrier filled the entire view, we still could see part of the destroyers in the background firing on the carrier’s heavily armored engine core. Suddenly with no warning one of the engine exhaust casting that appeared to not work, rotated then pointed toward one of the destroyer, then I was nearly blinded as an brilliant one kilometer in diameter particle beam shot out of the fake engine exhaust. The destroyer shield suddenly glowed brilliant red, and then it dimmed a bit then increased a bit as the destroyer was struggling to keep its shield up, its engine had utterly shutdown, all fire was shutdown even the lights cross the hulls flickered off as the shield was drawing more and more energy to hold off the onslaught.

The shield after five long minutes just finally ruptured and gave away, kilometer in diameter particle beam just burned though the destroyer like laser thought paper. After a few second the particle beam shutdown and all there was remaining was a scarred and damaged destroyer that looked normal expect for one thing, a kilometer wide hole right thought its gut. The reactor was gone it was utterly vaporized before it had a chance to overload and explode. Now all there was remaining was a skeleton of a destroyer.

The second destroyer after seeing the devastation of the particle beam sharply veered off and speeded forward trying to get out of the engine area, after a short while it managed to get over the top of the carrier and it begun to pound along the top of the carrier. Safely out of the field of fire of the hidden particle beam.

I was utterly stunned; I didn’t know that we fielded weapons that big! The largest one I’ve ever seen was on an battleship that was being repaired in the Alpha Centauri’s repair yards, it was just a mere two hundred meters. Suddenly I saw the looming hull of the carrier, and I screamed as I yanked the joystick backward and the fighter begun to pull out, slowly as it was fighting intera.

The remaining destroyer was the smaller of the three, it was designed for blockade busting, it had massive firepower at its disport, and fast engine however the price was heavy, it had much less armor. However, if the battle was short and furious it performed the best in, but in extended campaign however its shortcoming was very bad.

“Okay, we are almost just a mere five kilometer away from the destroyer, now prime your plasma missiles, then actuate target lock, fire on mark!” I said into the com as I shifted the target grid around until I got a signal meaning that the computer had acquitted a target. Shortly later, the grid flashed red and there was a solid tone of target lock. “Mark!” I almost screamed as the destroyer’s anti-fighter cannon begun to open fire, I rapidly pulled the trigger multiple time, and saw multiple plasma missile jet out front of me then their engine suddenly flared to life and they streaked forward, to be joined by over a hundred others.

Shortly later, the first batch arrived and impacted on the shield, to no effect, the shield just started to glow as the missiles were impacting and exploding. The second batch arrived shortly later and the shield begun to glow brilliant then almost like a spider web or a crackle on ice, the shield begun to crackle then suddenly section just started to fall. It was a domino affects once a few sector fell, the rest shortly followed.

The remaining missiles started to arrive in batches of fifteen. They blasted off armor plates, impacted and burrowed into the superstructure of the destroyer, exploded, armor plates were flying all over the place then suddenly an deep gorge appeared as a batch of missile impacted almost in a perfect line. Suddenly a fourth batch impacted and dig on down, blasting crew quarters, blasting out bunker heads, breaching the reactor core. Shortly later, the final batch arrived and one solo lucky missile plumaged into the now exposed reactor core and detonated.

The effect of the final missile was unpredicted, all over the destroyer, there were multiple minor explosion as systems overloaded, after each other’s. Then suddenly there was a huge brilliant line that spread cross the destroyer hull then it appearly the armor plates were just vaporized as the reactor core went critical, multiple flares exploded outward at half the speed of light. The amount of radiation that the destroyer was excessive of multiple gigaton hydrogen atom bombs going off.

After a few second of being tormented, the destroyer superstructure just finally gave away and the hull staged inward then the reactor exploded. Everywhere went bleached white, for the next few, second a new star was born, but there wasn’t enough energy to sustain it so it finally just died and went nova. The core of every major vessel was so extreme that it could actually create a new self-sustaining star, but they were too small to sustain their self for long.

The scenery around me went bleached white as the destroyer exploded, then suddenly with no warning they went pitch black, I screamed out at the pain of the radiation burning my flesh, destroying my eyes, melting away part of my hull. “I can’t see anything!” I howled in an inhuman howl of a man being burnt alive as my hand flung to cover my face. Blackness…


October 14, 3201 five light hours outside Sol.

Due to the massive injury that I suffered in the boulder skirmish, one of the largest one in the recent history, five years, I had parcpated in it and suffered massive injury to my eyes, face, and hands, the skin was almost completely bunt off, and a lots of the muscles, nerves, blood vessels were serious damage. Despise the advancement in medication of this age it’s still limited by the fact that we are organic being. Also by the fact that its limited by the speed that we naturally heals. Medic today don’t work magic with peoples, no, they just use very advanced techlogy to keep you alive, and deaden the pain while your body naturally heals, and also they help your body heal, fight off infection with drugs, and transpantents, and so on but its ancient science, just much more refined.

Every personal in the Space Defense Force of Alpha Centauri, SDFAC, was required to take an rigorous set of test to determine what position was the best for them, fighters, or being an crew member aboard corvettes, frigates, destroyers or so on. If the personal is injured they’re required to retake the test to determine if the injury changed something, like maybe for example an fighter pilot got injured in combat, and after he was healed up they found his reflex was slower so he wasn’t suitable to be an fighter pilot anymore. They assigned him to be a crewmember aboard a frigate. This man was I. For a while, I was furious at the system but I just resigned to my fate of being a crewmember aboard the frigate Blood Hawk. After I finally accepted that, I was permeably banned from piloting combat fighter I made it my goal to become a captain of a frigate or even better yet a destroyer.

I had a very hard challenge ahead of me I had to work harder, and compete with almost five thousand other crewmembers, all the way from the lowly ensign to the captain; I had to convict them that I deserve the rank of captain. Over the last couple years I rose rapidly in ranks, engaged in many of the major battles, boulder skirmish, and even the famous Dracomka boulder Skirmish, it would be known as the bloodiest skirmish known to date. In this skirmish was where I got my rank of captain, I was a crew aboard the bridge, when the captain was killed in combat, and despite the bridge, being serious damaged and myself being in near critical condition. I still forced myself to take control of the spare bride and I became a temporary captain for the duration of the battle. The fleet admiral was so impressed by my performance that they promoted me to the rank of captain of my very own frigate, the Blood Hawk.

One lowly frigate dared to fight the triad terror, which was the code name for the three largest blockade breaker destroyers that the Terra empire had fielded. I disabled two and destroyed the third nearly single handily, however the frigate Blood Hawk was serious damage in combat, yet I managed to bring near five thousand-crew members home safely.

Now that was two long years ago, right now I’m one of the many tens of thousand of frigates, thousands of destroyers, hundreds of carriers and thirty battle cruisers. Battle cruisers were the mightiest weapon of war that we could field; a lone battle cruiser could reduce a world like Terra to stag within hours. Each battle cruiser are over ten kilometers long, bristling with turrets, and smashing amount of antimatter warheads, they spare no expense in the construction of the battle cruisers, they were among some of the most advanced warship fielded to date.

However there was one battle cruiser that stood out, as matter of fact its actually a new class, the Omega Class, it was an new class of battle cruisers, that you might as well call super battle cruiser, because a single one could take on five battle cruiser single handily and defeat them all. It was the heaviest armored and the mightiest of all battle cruiser, it was the prize and pride of the colonies, every single colony contributed to the construction of the Omega class, from Alpha Centauri’s ship yards, to credits, to training, to blueprint, and so on even the smallest colony got to contribute to it. It was the prize and pride, known as Omega Ascendant. Its massive bulk dwarfs even the mightiest battle cruiser.

Right now every single ship that Alpha Centauri could spare was at the staging point five light hours outside Sol, in the last several hours, several other battle groups has joined us. One from Barndard’s Star, two from Kapteyn’s Star, two from wolf 359, one from Procyon and the smallest battle fleet was from Eta Cas which was some of the most distant colony. Kapteyn and wolf 359 along with Alpha Centauri were among some of the most powerful colonies and fielded the largest battle fleets, all three accounted for almost seventy five percent of the firepower.

“Captain! Another fleet just jumped in! Scanning now… Sir its from one of the furthers colonies, I’m surprised at the size of an fleet they were able to field, ten thousand frigates, three hundred destroyers, five carriers. Hmm…” One of the sensor operators called up. Before the sensor operator was able to continue his thought, the com system beeped loudly, there was a loud screech of static, and then it started to clear up. After a short bust of image, distortion the image finally stabilized into the Fleet Admiral of the Space Defense Force of Alpha Centauri, who was commanding from the Omega Ascendant.

The man looked like some one’s grandfather in uniform, he had almost uniform white hairs, then he had the tired, worn down look on his face from years of being an captain aboard one of the battle cruiser. He looked elderly and frage but however his eyes, they was still brilliant green with an small spark in them, this man still had an sharp mind despite being nearly one hundred and fifty years old.

The words he spoke was soft yet had force behind them, they were broadcasted fleet wide to every single warship in the region “Its time, Godspeed to us all!” The siege of Sol has begun. Everywhere you could look you would see at least one thousand ships ranging from the lowly frigates all the way up to the might battle cruisers, the engine on every single one of them flared to life and the ship sluggishly begun to move toward the distant yellowish sun. Despite being nine light hours away was brighter than any other stars in the sky, it was home of the Terra Empire.

I could see hundreds of thousand warship beginning to accelerate for the months long journey into Sol’s vast and deep gravity well. It will be one hell of a fight to reach the very heart of the vast Terra Empire, Earth…


December 24, 3201 The Saturn System

It was the eve of Christmas. I can not describe the beauty of Saturn, no I can try, but forever my word will always pale in the true beauty of Saturn, in comparison to Saturn, my word are just ugly, they don’t describe the graceful arc of the rings. The rings spark like millions of pure unflawed diamond, perfect in their singularity beauty, just floating around Saturn, I don’t know how to describe Saturn herself. There’s something in that pale yellowish orange gas giant that invoke an powerful feeling in me, I can’t describe it, it feels like… love… I remember my mother loving me, my father too… no! I can’t think about my mother nor father… no! How much I wish I were born in a peaceful period, not a time of strife, bloodshed, tears, hatred, tyrants, and war. I wish I was among some of the very first explorer, the very first brave men and women who discovered entire new worlds, the one who found the singular beauty of the Saturn system, the one who blazes the new trails to the stars… I wish I was the first men and women who stood on the moons of Saturn and watched her rise into an glorious new age. A golden age, of prosperity, trade, peace, and expansion, exploration of unknown space. To live an life of joy, happiness, peace, and love… To have loved one close to you, to have them always be with you, never to be separated.

No! I do not hate, no I just… No! no! It’s not the peoples that I loathe! No it’s the select few, the leaders, the corrupt tyrant who don’t give a damn about anything, don’t care about anyone, don’t have happiness, peace, joy, or love… only greed, only power, only wealth.

Seeing Saturn in her singular glory, I know that I am one of the few human being that is priveged to see Saturn in her pure, beautiful, singular glory! I will be more than happy to die to ensure that in the future my children’s, and grand children’s will live an life of peace, happiness, joy, love… an golden age, an age when the entire united human race call out to the star and announce we are here. we are united and we are proud and ready to defend our beliefs, our faith, regardless of religion, we are willing to die to defend our empire!