The Distant Suns

By James A. Hall III

While Captain Maxwell Peters leads a typical scouting and charting mission, a rash of murders and sabotage forces him to search his own crew to find the traitor. He is determined to find out who committed these murders, while meanwhile a saboteur has crippled the ship, and the murderer is now stalking his the next victim.

Now a desperate plan is prepared that will draw the murderer out into the open once and for all, or doom them all to drift in space until they run out of supplies. Captain Peter's tension-filled and suspense-filled investigation builds to a can't-stop-now, page-turning, action-filled climax.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James A. Hall III
• Release date: Dec 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458056955

James A. Hall III

James A. Hall III holds an AA in Liberal Arts from Central Florida College, and a BA in English in Creative Writing (and a minor in Theater) from the University of South Florida. He has earned his MA in Library and Information Sciences (MLIS), and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies. He desires to work for a Museum of Natural History or a Planetarium, or a Library. He is also the founder of two clubs at the university, and was active in others. He is the author and publisher of The Distant Suns and The Yesterday with No Tomorrow (at Smashwords, affiliates, and Amazon). He also intends to publish The Flare Lance, and the epic series Atlantis 2 (nine books are currently planned; 8 are finished, a ninth is in the works. The series will likely expand.) In addition to these novels he also plans to publish personal collection of his poetry, and short stories. He also blogs about his writings. He is currently editing the first book of Atlantis 2, which will be a Smashwords and associate exclusive. (Amazon will not carry this book unless Smashword make them an associate.)

Book preview

The Distant Suns

James A. Hall III

Copyright 2010 James A. Hall III

The Distant Suns

James A. Hall III

Published by James A. Hall III at Smashwords.com.

Discover other titles by James A. Hall III at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesAHall3.

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Dedication:

This book is respectfully dedicated to:

The Greek satirist Lucian who wrote about an imaginary voyage to the moon; the early 17th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler who wrote Somnium (translated as Sleep), which might be called a scientific satire of a journey to the moon; the French writer and philosopher Voltaire, who wrote Micromégas (1752), which told of the travels of inhabitants of Sirius and Saturn; the 1865 French author Jules Verne who depicted space travel in his popular novel From the Earth to the Moon; the British writer H. G. Wells, who wrote The War of the Worlds in 1898 and The First Men in the Moon in 1901; and all the other science fiction writers who have taken the first, and likely the most risky steps into space.

The people responsible for making the world tremble, when they launched Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2 (and Laika, first live being in space, a dog), and Explorer 1, and the satellites that followed. Whether– in their heart of hearts– they intended for the world to tremble or not, we may never know, but regardless of their intentions their end results were a most important step of finally piercing the veil of gravity-enforced imprisonment, and for reaching further, and going higher then prehistoric man could ever have gone, even in the depth of his dreams.

The men behind Luna 2, Luna 3, Ranger 7, Luna 9, Surveyor 1, Surveyor 3, the five Lunar Orbiters, Luna 17, Lunokhod 1, Luna 21, Lunokhod 2, and all the other brave explorers, who inquired of our closest neighbors with mixed results.

To some people infinitely braver then myself: Yuri A. Gagarin (first human in space); Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space); Alan B. Shepard, Jr. (first American in space); John H. Glenn, Jr. (first American to orbit the Earth); Edward H. White II (first American to walk in space); and with special mention to Edwin Buzz Aldrin, Jr., Neil A. Armstrong, and just as important command module pilot Michael Collins, and indeed to all the people who made their mark above the Earth, and in the annals of it’s history.

To all the people who supported the above people

To all the scientists, who made all of this possible, and finally

To dedicated writers, authors or not, published or not, wherever they may be. If publication is your dream, the only one who can prevent it is you. This book is proof of that.

Additional Dedication: To the producers, and the cast and crew of the movie Alien for the original inspiration of this book.

Table of Contents:

Who's Who

CHAPTER 1: Business as Usual

CHAPTER 2: The Way Home

CHAPTER 3: Disaster!

CHAPTER 4: Lower Decks

CHAPTER 5: Suspicions

CHAPTER 6: Four through Seven

CHAPTER 7: Fear

CHAPTER 8: The Grand Plan

CHAPTER 9: If you build a Better Mousetrap...

EPILOGUE

Who’s Who: (Rank Name: Address / Position)

Senior Officers:

Captain Maxwell Peters: Captain, Maxwell, or Captain Peters / Captain (Commanding Officer, CO) of the ship.

Commander Lindsey Adams: Lindsey / First Officer (Second in Command, XO) of the ship.

Lieutenant Grey Kazellis: Grey / Security Officer.

Lieutenant Kalie Manning: Kalie, Miss Manning / Pilot.

Lieutenant Commander Jason de’Angelo: Jason / Chief Tactical Officer.

Lieutenant Louis Cain: Louis / Procurement Officer, Scrounger.

Lieutenant Wendy Riesler: Wendy / Space Scout [Chief scout when exploring a spatial phenomenon, also useful in underwater or underground (three-dimensional) scouting.]

Lieutenant Kevin Enneth: Kenneth / Planet Scout [chief scout when exploring planets, or ship, or space station or other two dimensional terrain, and where natural survival for extended periods may be needed.]

Lieutenant Nicholas Anam: Doctor / Doctor [Sees to all Medical Needs.]

Lieutenant Kevin Summers: Kevin / Engineering Staff Officer [Assembles reports, and serves as information conduit between engineering and command. Also oversees crew repairmen (in addition with the crew overseer), and assists the chief engineer.]

Lieutenant Commander Dennis Parker: Dennis, Parker / Chief Engineer.

Junior Officers:

Ensign Silver: Silver / Engineer’s Assistant (Canine)

Ensign QuickWater: QuickWater / Scout’s Assistant [Assists either scout in underwater explorations (Dolphin)]

(Acting) Ensign Ki-NEe: Ki-NEe / Cultural Attaché, Crew Observer

Enlisted Personnel:

Note: Crewmen do have a rank system, but it is internal and does not normally affect crewmen on a ship.

Crewmen Quinn: Quinn / Quartermaster, Crew Overseer, Porter, Security

Crewman Amos: Amos / Security, Medical Assistant, Payload Assistant (Which on this ship is mostly keeping the storerooms tidy.)

Crewman Smith: Smith / Probe Repair Specialist

Crewman Nick: Nick / Navigation Specialist

Crewman Navis: Navis / Navigation Specialist

Crewman White: White / Navigation Specialist

Crewman Myers: Myers / Navigation Specialist

Crewman Jackson: Jackson / Payload Assistant, Probe Telemetry Monitoring

Crewman Nogowski: Nogowski / Probe Telemetry Monitoring, Communications, Power Systems Assistant

Crewman Walters: Walters / Power Systems Specialist

Crewman Frank: Frank / General Technician, Water Systems Assistant

CHAPTER 1: Business as Usual

Well?

Well, what? I told you two hours, so will you please give me the time? Oh, never mind, it... ... is... ... done. The scanner is back on-line sir. It should operate fine now.

Thank you. The impatient man hit a few keys on the board at the front of the sensor pod, a room barely measuring six feet in diameter crammed with enough electronics that there was only enough room for two people, nestled away on deck five.

After a few seconds, a screen showed a planet, blue and green, not unlike our own beloved Earth, even though it was tens of thousands of light-years away. Another device flickered on showing a three-dimensional image of the same planet, replete with the side of the planet bathed in light and in darkness and even a miniature DistantSuns in orbit. Another screen labeled energy emissions showed the silhouette of the planet, with only a few minor lights, mostly of a green or pale blue color indicating no civilization to speak of; the life form indicator was blank; the gravity mass detector, detected an average gravity for a planet of about this size, with only a slight variation; and the Wave Signal Phenomena Detector, was showing no radio signals, laser emissions, radar signals, or any other type of communications or information detecting waves on the planet.

The man who completed the repairs said, Perfectly average. Planet fifty in the book.

The impatient man, one Maxwell Peters, smiled and looked at the person beside him, an older man named Kevin Summers.

Kevin continued, Does that mean what I think it does?

The captain did not answer him, but rather hit another button on the controls, which caused an attention sound on the PA. He then spoke, with a hint of a British accent, All hands, attention. We have cataloged fifty planets, and our mission is complete. After a short respite, I think it is high time to head home. Comments?

It was a large ship, without a very large crew, but whether you were on the bridge, in the power room, engineering area, or science bays you could hear some happy whoops coming from every being. The captain closed out the channel, and lounged back into his chair, and let his thoughts drift, thinking about his past.

Anyone brought up on Earth, like most humans, followed the human path. So did most people brought up on Earthling colonies. They would go through school, enroll in an advanced education school (a college, or university, or technical training academy), or take a diversity class after graduation, and then get an apprenticeship, and a job in a selected field. They could also enlist in the space service at any point in there.

The captain went to school. He went to a technical school, and learned the art of weapon repair. For hand weapons these were usually EM pulse weapons, but some of the advanced military ships used multi-lasers, which fire a EM pulse, the focused it through a phase cylinder, replacing some of the photons, with x-ray particles, gamma ray particles, and so forth. However some impoverished ship’s small arms were standard firearms. Ship mounted weapons were normally lasers, or rocket engine missiles. He had to know how to fix all of these.

His apprenticeship was under a pilot, so he learned piloting, and he

Reviews for The Distant Suns

[weelinda · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow that was a rush and enjoyed ever minute of it I my self am not emotional but this book had me in tears in a good way so if you are an emotional person you will love this moving and lovable story it was the best so thank you Patricia for this wonderful story and the characters you felt you where there with them if you know what I mean so with that all said keep smiling and happy reading to you all with love from wee me.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx