The Anzu: The Green Planet

By Mary S. Sheppard

After the wormhole catapulted the Anzu 15,000 light years across a spiral arm of the Milky Way – the mission of the Anzu remains the exploration of space. The engines are being improved and that should cut the time back home from over four years to something more tolerable. The crew of 148 remains confident and finding another logical race can only help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary S. Sheppard
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370624546

Mary S. Sheppard

In my new series Samantha Keene, energy analyst extraordinaire, lead a pretty much run of the mill existence. There is always work, family and more work, but when she takes a vacation to the U.K. she is suddenly plunged into a different world, one filled with spies, intrigue, and romance and so the limited series starts.

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The Anzu: The Green Planet

Mary S. Sheppard

Copyright © 2016 Mary S. Sheppard

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you enjoy this book please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Photos licensed through Depositphotos and Adobe stock photos

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Dangerous Life

Chapter 2: More than Animals

Chapter 3: The Grenai

Chapter 4: The Grenai are still Onboard

Chapter 5: Proposal

Chapter 6: Ways to be Born

Chapter 7: New Friends

Chapter 8: The New Engines

Chapter 9: The Missing Crew

Chapter 10: Bye Bye

Chapter 11: Trickery

Chapter 12: Not the Best Plan

Chapter 13: Another Proposal

Chapter 14: Progress

Chapter 15: The Wedding

About the Author

Other Titles by Mary S. Sheppard

The Mission and the Aliens

The Zandu Mission Statement:

A multi-species crew will participate in the exploration of space. This includes but is not limited to planets, moons, galaxies, and space anomalies.

The spaceships: The Zandus built all the spaceships and four are configured for human crews. The ship is divided into seven Sectors: Engineering (ENG), Command, Control, and Navigation (CCN), Security (SEC), Technical (TEC), Medical (MED), Food Services (Foodies) and Science (SCI). The Food Services Sector is where the food is created but food is dispensed through converters in many places on the ship, including the bar and the lounges. There is also the area where the crew rests and that is referred to as their quarters. Just recently the crew has started to use the acronyms for each of the sections.

The Anzu has ten engines, eight are used for propulsion and two are used for life support systems (although they can provide some propulsion). The engines can attain 3 parsecs per day (9.7 light years) at full throttle, but modifications are underway to increase this speed to 5 parsec per day.

The crew: Beside humans, there are four species currently on board the ships, the Zandus, the Lolas, the Thebes and the Shapers. All are intelligent, biped, two- armed species that breathe some mixture of air (to be adjusted individually), and can live and work with other species in close proximity. There are 148 crewmembers.

Zandus - from planet Zolog: usually between 1.2 and 1.5 meters (4 to 5 feet) in height, their bodies are mix of organic material and energy. They are roundish in shape, and their skin is a luminescent white. They have two arms and can attach mechanical implements on the ends of those arms depending on task. The Zandus are male or female.

Nutrition: mineral shakes once per day

Examples: Chief, the captain, Dr. Nurture, Tetchy, NavOne, SecOne

Lolas - from planet Dracon: Larger than most humans, their reptilian skin can be green, blue, or purple (the color does not necessarily mean male or female). They have two large webbed feet, three eyes, two arms and two hands with five digits on each hand. As a species they work hard and usually play even harder. Lolas can be female or male.

Nutrition: eat a wide variety of foods, served cold

Examples: X, Z, CC, TT, DD

Shapers - from planet Forom: Adults range between 1.5 and 1.9 meters. In their natural state they have two eyes, two arms, and two hands with four digits each. They can change the way they look, but there are limitations on how much they can. So an additional arm or eye could be formed, but it would not work like the others. On the ship they usually show themselves as a mix of Lola and human. Their species has females and males.

Nutrition: energy pellets twice per day.

Examples: Jamous (aka Jamez), Denabulus (aka Denab), Tomous, Tentalous, Dr. Stanous

Thesbes - from planet Thesbeen: This is an all female species and is usually taller than 1.7 meters (5 foot 8). Their slender bodies have 2 arms and 2 hands with four digits each. Their faces have delicate features, two large round eyes, which come in various colors, and mostly have long wavy hair. They can read the auras of many species, including humans and Lolas, and determine truth from untruth. They need to sleep more than other species on board, preferring ten to twelve hours. All Thesbes are usually the experts in the field they work in. There are seven Thesbes on board the Anzu.

Nutrition: berries and seeds five times per day.

Examples: Hazel, Tania, Kaci

The RTC, or Right to Change, is a group of insurgents that don’t want the species to mix. They believe that the ‘higher’ species are getting ‘polluted’ by interacting with the less developed species.

When the Anzu went through the wormhole, they were transported 4601 parsecs or 15,000 light years away from their sector in the Milky Way Galaxy. This story starts at 4545 parsecs from home.

Chapter 1: Dangerous life

Come with me, said Chief urgently.

Sir? Alec followed him out of ENG. Chief was moving quickly. Where are we going?

The captain has called an emergency meeting. One of the groups that went to the planet has not returned and we have not heard anything from them.

Two groups had gone down to the surface of the green planet earlier that day. They were sent to scout the area to establish a temporary base. Once a base was established, the engines that supplied life support could be shut down and the last two engines would be upgraded.

Kaci had been in one of the groups to the surface, but she had returned hours ago. In fact, they had had a meeting with the captain on her return and that was when the captain had mentioned that the others were due back soon.

Denab was in charge of that group, said Chief as they hustled along the hall, There were three others with him, including Tania.

Oh, said Alec. He had been kind of infatuated with