Trial by Ordeal

By Philip R Benge

At an Archaeological dig on the planet Helionia, Trajo Fortuna, an archaeologist reveals to the population that she has found proof that there had been a civilization similar to the current one but 50,000 years in its past; it was called the Heliot nation. This civilisation was destroyed while attempting to invade a peaceful alien race after the Heliot space fleet mysteriously disappeared within a space storm.
A ship sent by Ares Fortuna through a recently discovered wormhole in space in search of a new source for the minerals needed by Helionia to supply their ever growing requirements learns that survivors of this ancient fleet of pirates lost their final battle on Orion against its leading citizen, Tyler Burrows, just eleven years previously!
A plot is hatched to lure him to Helionia by kidnapping his family so that Ares Fortuna can put him on trial for mass murder and then execute him.
Tyler Burrows has to battle for his family’s life by travelling through a recently discovered portal, that was discovered by Trajo Fortuna, to search for his family. The portal transports Tyler Burrows to a distant moon, and so far no one who has ever travelled through the portal has ever returned. He must also rescue Marot Pallas; who was kidnapped and taken through the portal to prevent him from winning the upcoming election and becoming president of Helionia. Tyler Burrows must help him to win the election for the presidency or intergalactic war just might break out.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip R Benge
• Release date: Jan 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301074846

Philip R Benge

Like most of the world, I had to work hard to pay my mortgage and all the other bills, which meant that I only had the time and the energy to write some short stories. I finally found the time and the energy to write some full length Science Fiction stories.

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Trial by Ordeal

A Story By

Philip R Benge

Smashwords Edition

***************

Published by

Philip R Benge on Smashwords

Copyright Philip R Benge 2013

Cover Art Copyright Philip R Benge 2013

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Trial by Ordeal

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One: The Final Days of an Empire

Chapter Two: Conspiracy

Chapter Three: Alien Visitors

Chapter Four: Through the Portal

Chapter Five: Jurassic Park

Chapter Six: We are Declaring War on Tyler Burrows

Chapter Seven: Further into the Dark Domain

Chapter Eight: Back to Helionia

Chapter Nine: Tyler Burrows, Television Celebrity

Chapter Ten: The Planet of the Light

Other Books by the Author

Prologue

Magi had once been a young girl, and she had even enjoyed a love affair with the handsome Compton Pallas, but unfortunately, she had become pregnant. Compton Pallas and his family didn`t want a mere serving girl to be part of their ancient and noble family. Instead, he treated her contemptuously, by stealing the baby away from her moments after the birth, and then giving it away to an adoption agency. Then he forced her to go away to a far-off province in Helionia, where she lived for the next nineteen years. Magi had indeed nearly died there, with no one to turn to when times got bad, but her hate had kept her alive, and it was there that a powerful mystic had taken pity on her and taught her everything she knew about the spirit world. It was only later, when Magi became a powerful mystic in her own right, that she had returned to enact her vengeance upon the entire Pallas family. Now she was ready to complete her many acts of vengeance by killing the final member of the family.

Chapter One

The Final Days of an Empire

Day 50 Helionian Calendar

The noise of someone digging came from within a remote cave in the middle of the desert of Musgrave, a wild desolate land located three hundred miles away from the nearest sizable town. Inside the cave was a dust covered young woman, from her present appearance you would never guess that she was once voted the best-dressed woman on Helionia. This cold bright morning she was dressed in soiled jeans, a thermal vest, a shirt, a thick woolly jumper and a heavy fur coat. As usual, she also wore a woolly hat to complete her ensemble, and from which her red hair peeked out from under its edges. She had been interested in archaeology ever since she had found an old shard of pottery on a sandy beach; this had been while she had been holidaying with her family at her family’s beach home at Lato. She had been just five years of age back then, but she had since gone on to university, where she had graduated with honours. From there, she had gone on to work for the Archaeological Museum in the capital city of Helionia. At this particular moment in time, she was on a sabbatical, for she had wanted to follow up a hunch of her own, and this hunch had taken her to the remote Musgrave desert where she was working in this even remoter cave. She had hoped to find signs of the three-thousand-year-old civilisation of the Puma; instead, she was finding more and more frozen soil. In her hand was a small trowel with which she was carefully removing the layers of history, as she dug further and further down through the frozen permafrost layers, she was now kneeling in a four-foot-deep hole some eight-foot square. The cold from the frozen soil was getting deep into her bones; even though she knelt upon a thick kneeling mat that she had bought especially for this dig. Soon she would be part of this frozen world, she thought as a shiver went through her body. On this third day of the dig, she had been in this frozen pit since the sun cleared the far-off mountain ridge, now it was almost time to take a break and have some breakfast. Why she had persevered here, with so little to find, except the odd animal bone was even beyond her, but she was determined to stay until the end of the day and at that time she decided, she would admit defeat. She shivered again inside of her bulky layers of clothing, my god it is cold inside of the dam hole she thought, and immediately felt an icy cold draught that had somehow found its way down inside of her deep pit. She gritted her teeth, determined not to surrender. Her trowel scooped out some more of the frozen soil that she then mechanically deposited it into a nearby bucket and then moved the trowel back to the spot just in front of her knees. This time though as the trowel penetrated just millimetres into the frozen soil it hit something harder than the soil, another stone Trajo thought, I will soon have enough of them to build my own house. Still her training took over and putting down her trowel, she picked up her small hand brush and brushed away the soil. She looked hard at the half-hidden object, almost in disbelief; for it was part of a human skull. Trajo swallowed hard, to find signs of man at this depth made her whole body tingle with excitement. She quickly brushed more soil away and revealed what was indeed a human skull. She immediately called out to her two male companions; they were only now washing and dressing as the sun rose above the frozen landscape. Not waiting for them to join her she continued the work of uncovering the rest of the skeleton. Within thirty minutes the whole of the man`s skeleton had been uncovered.

Remick Macron, was once just the elderly friend of her uncle, now he was also Trajo`s friend, and he was the first to arrive at the cave.

Did I hear you calling earlier Trajo ….my god Trajo, you were right, the Puma civilisation did get this far north.

I don`t think so Remick, this body seems to be far older, we must get this skeleton back to the laboratory to get a Beta-carbon dating analysis of it, that will soon tell if I am correct about it.

Prion Colton, the other member of the team now arrived at the cave, he assumed from the excited conversation that he could hear coming from the cave, that Trajo must have finally found something worth photographing, this being very possible he had brought his camera. He was a much younger man than his male colleague was, and he was in charge of photographing and cataloguing every single step of the dig. On seeing the skeleton, he managed through his excitement to say ‘My God’, but he didn`t bother with any further words, instead he took dozens of photographs of Trajo`s find from every possible angle.

Trajo looked up at the two men, her red hair still peeping out from underneath her woolly hat, her grey sparkling eyes full of excitement and Prion wondered once again what this lovely woman saw in him.

Prion, like Trajo was still quite young; he was reasonably good looking with a muscular body and a lovely smile, or so Trajo had told him when he had held her close that day when they had first kissed. Prion was six feet tall and he towered over Trajo by at least eight inches but then she had always preferred tall men, men who could measure up to her father.

This is fantastic Trajo, if this doesn`t get you the curator`s job at the museum nothing will. Prion announced proudly. The present curator had had enough of working in the museum and wanted to spend his final days out in the field doing what he called real work. He would then retire to the country and spend his final days taking life easy with his wife.

Remick ran off out of the cave but returned moments later with a large rectangular metal tray, which he passed down to Trajo. Trajo then carefully put the bones of the skeleton into the tray, and with the assistance of Prion, who had dropped down into the hole; she passed it up to the waiting hands of Remick. Finally, it was sitting safely on the present-day floor level of the cave.

I will fly this back to the university, Trajo, and get the team to investigate it fully, I should be back tomorrow with the results. Remick promised.

Okay, Remick, if that doesn`t get their blood flowing then nothing will. In the meantime, we will clear out all of the soil remaining inside the cave, we will take it down to a level just below that in which the skeleton was on. Hopefully, we can find a little more for when you return. Trajo called out to the fast disappearing figure of Remick.

Trajo and Prion worked hard for the rest of the day clearing out the frozen soil from the cave, but they found nothing more, the cold of the hole no longer affecting her as she toiled on into the night until exhausted, they had fallen into their beds, too tired for anything but a goodnight kiss and then sleep. It wasn`t until the morning after that they found the metal plates with the archaic writing on them, writing burned on to plates made of a metal that was used in the making of starships. The words were burned into them by a powerful laser, and they stood out from the surface of the plate like powerful searchlights, or so it seemed to Trajo. One thing immediately struck the young woman; these words were to be read by the people of the future, but how far into the future? The technology to create metal like this was only now being reached, and the words could only have been cut so finely by the use of a laser. No, this wasn`t from the Puma civilisation, then what civilisation, and when was it left here for her to find?

Carefully lifting them out one by one, Prion looked across into Trajo`s eyes, he saw the excitement burning deep within the beautiful young woman so near to him.

My, but the gods are looking upon you with favour my darling. He whispered these words, for the confining hole within the cave had now taken on the majesty of a cathedral.

Trajo and Prion carried the plates lovingly to her large terrestrial shuttlecraft that her father, Ares Fortuna, had provided for her. Inside was the latest in computer technology; she also had at her fingertips a molecular sensor, a multilingual translator and a satellite communication console. She also had every single piece of Helionian history stored within the massive files of her computer. Trajo and Prion carefully cleaned off each of the metal plates and then she scanned them individually onto her powerful computer. When she had finished, she activated the translator to convert the archaic writing into modern Helionian. She found that what was on the plates was a letter, written by someone named Ares Divilio to the future people of his ancient world.

"My name is Ares Divilio, and I have lived for just twenty-two years. Now, unfortunately, I will soon leave this land to re-join my loving family. My family is already living safely with the gods of Heliot, for I am forced to bear the past and my sorrow all alone in this now frozen world. I was born to be the heir of the Heliot Empire, but unfortunately, this no longer exists. At the beginning of the summer, my father took his great armada of starships through the dark nebula to invade the star system where the Planet of the Light is to be found. The planet had been chosen as a suitable addition to our empire, as it was both wealthy and well populated. As he exited hyperspace, his armada was swallowed up by a space storm of massive proportions. It came out of nowhere and seconds later disappeared along with my father and his fleet. Whether it was an inter-dimensional storm or even one that travelled in time, we shall never know, for no sign of his armada was ever heard of again. Only one light cruiser, which was on the very edge of the storm managed to escape the wrath of the mighty storm. It was this ship alone that returned to Heliot to tell us of the fate of my father, our beloved Emperor.

It was just two weeks later that every planet in our empire was struck down by a plague that appeared from out of nowhere to decimate our people, and after only six months most of our population were dead or dying. Our scientists have determined that the virus that caused the plague was almost certainly manufactured in a laboratory, and as we have never dabbled in such terrible weapons, I can only assume that it came from another world. As my people struggled after the worst of the plague passed us by, the suns that powered all of the worlds in our once mighty federation suddenly dimmed. This additional disaster threw all of the planets into sudden ice ages that covered most of their surfaces, the thick glaciers killing off many of the remaining people of our once great empire. I have come to believe that both of these calamities came from the Planet of the Light, they were to ensure that the Heliot people never rose again to threaten their own small empire. I have decided to stay near to the palace where I grew up and had such a pleasant childhood, rather this than to try to escape this frozen wasteland to whatever safety may lay elsewhere. Too many terrible memories are locked deep inside my mind to allow me to continue living, remembering these terrible times.

The only remaining monument to the Heliot Empire is the dark domain; it is housed on a faraway planet and accessible only through the portal set within the living rock. The portal is set in the centre of our people`s birthplace, here on our once beautiful planet of Heliot. Neither time nor the elements will ever destroy it. I am dying now, as is the power cell that operates my laser that is burning this letter onto plates made of a metal discovered at the height of our power, a power that helped us to build our empire. If someone on this planet discovers these plates, when life is once again possible and the people of Heliot are once again masters of the stars, then I call to you through the depths of time, I call for Revenge, Revenge and finally Revenge."

The final metal plate gave the approximate position of the portal set within the living rocks, what was meant by this term they couldn`t think, but their next task would be to find the portal, and then they would find out what was meant by this odd term.

My god, Trajo, this is the find of the century, you will be the most famous archaeologist to have ever lived on Helionia. Prion said jubilantly, and then reaching his hand out to hers, just to hold it.

Just think of all the apologies and retractions they will all have to make to my father, now that he has been proved right, especially when we uncover the portal mentioned on the third of the plates. Those liberal bleeding hearts will see that he is right about everything, and he will be carried shoulder high by our people when he wins the election by a landslide.

Trajo loved her father more than anyone else in the world. Prion though was beginning to vie for that honour, the more she knew him. She would journey into hell and back to ensure that her father won the upcoming presidential election.

Prion took her gently in his arms and kissed Trajo long and hard until they were both breathless. From outside of the shuttle craft, they heard the engines of Remick`s own shuttle craft as it returned back from the capital city. Trajo and Prion smiled into one another`s eyes and then went outside in to the frozen wasteland to greet their returning friend, and to tell him of what else they had found, but as soon as his craft had landed, he rushed out to tell them his own fantastic news.

Those bones were fifty thousand years old Trajo, it is the first time that we have ever found evidence that our ancestors ever lived this far north, and at such a time in the past. Remick exclaimed.

Fifty thousand years Remick, yes that seems to tie in nicely. Trajo said mysteriously to Remick.

Ties in nicely to what Trajo? Remick asked eagerly. What else have you found?

Trajo walked slowly across to the older man.

Remick come into my shuttle craft, for I do have something else to show you, something that we found only this morning. Trajo fought to hide her excitement so that the find that Trajo and Prion had made would be more surprising to their friend.

Remick`s eyes became as large as saucers as he looked from the computer screen to the plates and back again.

My god, Trajo, this proves what your father has been saying all along, that there was a great civilisation here before our own, but that it was destroyed during the last of our planets great ice ages.

Ares Fortuna was delighted when he heard that his daughter had found evidence that proved his own theories, and he read and reread the transcripts of the letter that was written upon the metal plates. It also reinforced his desire to travel beyond the dark nebula, now though it was because he wanted to search for the Empire of the Planet of the Light. If it still existed, he would have the revenge that his people so deserved, and what the young emperor had demanded from beyond the grave. The publicity of such a find at a time like this would help the waverers decide whom to vote for, when Election Day finally arrived, and he had his own sweet daughter to thank for it. The scar on Fortuna`s face stood out as he smiled, he was thinking now of his coming victory over his younger political rival, for Fortuna was aged sixty and Marot Pallas was two years his junior. He got the scar while fighting during a party rally when he was still quite young, but his opponent had come off much worse. Fortuna stood six foot high with a mass of grey hair and dark brown eyes, he was heavily built and still very muscular, but then he had to be to be the leader of such a radical party. The two men running against each other for the post as president of Helionia looked very much like brothers, as some reporters had sometimes mentioned in their articles about the coming election, but they were worlds apart in thought or deed.

Day 80 Helionian Calendar

Thirty days after Trajo Fortuna had made her fantastic discovery, the starship Dagger, which was owned by Ares Fortuna, was on the far side of the galaxy on a voyage of discovery. It had travelled through a wormhole that had only recently been discovered. It exited the wormhole on the very edge of one of the spiral arms of the galaxy, some one hundred thousand light years away from Helionia. The crew of the Dagger had been instructed to investigate any of the planets that they found there to ascertain whether they could be brought into the growing Helionia Federation of planets, and also to locate any uninhabited planets that would be suitable for mining by the Helionian people.

The commander of the Dagger, Captain Titan, decided to travel deeper into the spiral arm, and towards a slightly larger grouping of nearby planetary systems. They spent the first week mapping out a number of uninhabited systems that looked more than suitable enough to provide all of Helionia`s mineral needs, and the starship was just about to return home when it finally encountered its first populated planet. It was the planet, Genesis; for fate had decided to stir things up a bit, it had also ordained a far from pleasant future for a certain peace-loving man named Tyler Burrows. The Dagger went into an orbit about the planet, while they scanned the town and also accessed the town`s computer network. This allowed their multilingual translator to download and translate information about the region and its people; some of this information was then downloaded into their android so that it was fluent in the English language.

Captain Titan sent his first officer down in the ship`s shuttle craft, along with the android and two crewmen from the science department. Their mission was to find out what more could be learnt about the planet, and the people on it. They landed in a large open space that led into the town square that had a number of two storey buildings on three sides of it. The first thing that caught the attention of the officer was a large bronze statue of a man standing before an antiquated space ship. The plaque said that the statue was of a man called Tyler Burrows, captain of the space cruiser Orion Defender, and the saviour of Genesis.

Striding across the square towards them was an official who demanded to know their business.

Greetings, friends, welcome to Genesis. What brings you to our planet? The self-important official demanded to know.

We are strangers to this part of the galaxy, from the planet Helionia, and we want to trade with any inhabited star systems, that and also to meet the many different people that live here so that we can form new alliances, new friendships. The Helionian said.

Well, our charter forbids us to trade with anyone except the Church of the Universe, unless of course you have anything that Earth cannot provide. The official said not mentioning the fact that Tyler Burrows had arranged many trading agreements between the local planets.

I didn`t know that, thank you for that information, tell me who is Tyler Burrows? The officer asked curiously pointing at the large statue.

You don`t know who Tyler Burrows is, then you really must be strangers, for I thought that there was no living person in the galaxy that hadn`t heard of him. Eight years ago, he helped us out against a mad computer that was hell bent on destroying us, since then he has been the number one person in this sector of space. In fact, Tyler Burrows is the guy who will kick your arse, if you are not an innocent trader, but in fact someone who wants to raid any of the local star systems.

I can assure you sir, that we are not here to raid your planet, or any of the other nearby planetary systems. Please tell me, if we wanted to meet Tyler Burrows where would we find him? The Helionian asked.

"He lives on the planet Orion, which is about half a day`s travel from the planet Persephone which in turn is about a day’s travel from here. He might be there, if he isn`t busy on either of the planets Persephone or New Earth, or even travelling to our planet to ensure