Blood Sabers

By MF Burbaugh

Jake Spoonbill, once a NASA pilot, later King and savior of a planet called Camelot, has once again been called back to life through a rather bizarre set of circumstances. Joining him is his army of sword-wielding wives, including his first love, Aawasa, and the woman called the Bronze Goddess. He must once more battle against evil forces in the universe. This time he must first take over control of the corrupt government of the famed EMM (Earth, Moon, and Mars coalition) to provide the support needed for a war against the headhunting Blood Sabers who have but one mission, exterminate all humans when and where found to cleanse the universe of the plague called man, for their goddess. With his army Jake comes head to head with the murderous Sabers on their home worlds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IFWG Publishing International
• Release date: Nov 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781925148091

Book preview

mystery.

Prologue

Legends as ofttimes recounted, deal with characters called gods, or ghosts or humans.

The gods are various. There is the Supreme Father, Creator of the entire universe who made six Firsts. One each day, and rested on the seventh day. Three males and three females. They were to populate the universe to strict guidelines, which they did not follow. They created souls, good and bad, and male and female, but to their image, the Father allowed those souls to recycle until they felt they were complete when they would go unto him. Some souls were trapped and others destroyed or ‘shredded’. He also had the Firsts play grand music he might listen to during his toils. His basic approach was hands off. Only through trials and tribulations could the souls develop to fulfillment, so he seldom interfered, though he felt their pain and suffering as any parent might. He took over soul creation and it is thought made whole solar systems complete with life and young souls. It is believed his new mate, the God Mother, tends to interfere a bit more than he did, which he allows.

~~~

The cast of universal soldiers:

Jake Spoonbill, NASA pilot turned King and Savior of the dying tribe. Forever tormented with wanting but one wife, Aawasa, yet she continually adds more. He also knows he alone is the soul chased by Linda, the Bronze Goddess. He and Linda may, or may not, be the parents of the God Mother. The Twin Swords of Power continually play a cruel joke on him. He has to but kiss a girl and she will willingly allow and desire that he give her a child and his wives allow it, even encourage it at times, which torments him even more. He is given the title of leader of his little army, though he has little control over what they do. He never knows if he is in a fantasy heaven or devil-spawned hell.

Rodel, originally the name of a NASA ship called Ro-Del, which stood for Robot Delinquent. A micro-programmed AI unit made from a ‘ghost’ essence captured in a biochip, but turns out has other features including humor and love.

Aawasa, first wife. True commander of Jake’s army of wives, a very pale blue skinned, black eyed, beautiful Amazon warrior. Creature of care, understanding, and love. Deadly with any bow. Red Demon with a blade. Guiding force of all those in her charge. Seer of souls and gift of future sight.

Katawasa, second wife. Blue skinned, black eyed with a slight blue ring, beautiful Amazon warrior. Creature of fun yet deadly with a bow. Blue Demon with a blade. Loves a good fight almost as much as good sex, but always tormented by the deaths of so many. When she goes death lust someone is going to die.

Queastra, third wife. Black skinned, golden haired, green-eyed aboriginal beauty. Gift of godlike reflexes. Deadly with a bow. White demon with a blade. Tormented by childhood tortures she can’t really remember. Warped sense of humor. Gave her life to try to relieve the suffering of another.

Linda, fourth and fifth wife. Bronze Goddess or sometimes trapped as a beautiful human. A creature created by a godlike entity to be his sexual pleasure slave. Golden/white hair, bronze skin, breasts that always bounce in perfect unison. Hips designed to match. Her body was to make even gods drool with anticipated delights. She refused her Creator and suffered eternal torments while chasing but one soul she loved. No other. Potty mouthed and vindictive at times, yet with a warped humor. She battled her Creator and his jealous wife to try to win her freedom. She also became the vessel of that which the Father of the universe wanted, none could make, and he dared not ask for, a mate. Her Twin Swords of Power are deadly creations with magical powers. Some not wanted, others always gone when needed most.

Major supporting characters:

Latwasa, a blue skinned Amazon warrior with an extraordinary gift for forge skill. Believed to be the cycled soul of Brigid of Kildara, a legendary female sword-smith and only successful maker of the Power weapons used by the gods, and occasionally given to mortals. Her Samurai 10,15, and 20 fold sets are legends unto themselves for their beauty and deadly, almost unbreakable blades.

The Chief, a Blue Skinned Amazon, chief of tribe. Unknown age. Originally doomed by the Creators’ wife to watch her tribe slowly die despite all she tried to save it.

The General, a living, breathing Conan with blue skin. As close to being the real leader of all the Amazons as one can get, yet willingly sits in the shadows of others, sometimes just to torment them.

Up, Up, and Away

New Earth Colony Command Center, a small shack stuffed with com gear and computers. One hundred and sixty years after the hulk of Jake’s old NASA Explorer ship arrived back on Earth.

Captain, your only mission is to find the rare elements on that list and get back here ASAP. Are we clear?

I always thought General Paddock was perfectly clear. His big bushy silver eyebrows seemed so out of place plastered above his beady little brown eyes, burning holes through you, while his big square chin stuck out there daring you to take a poke at it. I knew if I ever did, my fist would just bounce off. But what do I know? I’m just the XO.

Perfectly, my wife of two whole weeks replied.

Charlotte, the small anti-ship missiles don’t do a damn thing against them, been tried. Keep the long range scanner manned 24/7 and at the first sign, run. We have already lost six ships—bring this one back! I’d met his type on Earth. Pompous, arrogant, and uncaring, unless it was his butt was on the line.

What if we can’t get away? our engineering officer, Sylvia Collins, asked. One of the few still alive. She always made my heart flutter when I saw her. Her radiant black hair, her perfect body, her deep black pools for eyes…

"Then, just like the others, you will die. Until someone can secure those elements and make that damn missile they designed, we have no chance at all. You saw them. The bastards killed the crew of Explorer One and all the rest; don’t let them do it to you. You’re number seven; they say it is a lucky number. Make it a lucky number! If not, we have one more shot, then this entire colony dies." Emotion from him? Oh, his butt is on the line too. Scared me a second.

As they discussed details I stood reflecting on our situation. We came to this planet a few years ago, our Eden. Leaving Earth and all its troubles behind. All seemed perfect, then we ran across them. An unknown alien race coming to us from an unknown sector of our galaxy, or perhaps even another one. We sent our ship to greet them. As our whole planet watched, the large space-suited aliens took out a saw and cut off the crew’s heads, one at a time, all six of them.

Our President was running for re-election and Paddock talked him into going to meet the aliens, a great political victory over his opponents. Well, now there was just Paddock until the new elections. I know we all still have nightmares from those damn screams. Except maybe him.

General Paddock had charge of ground control that day. He was appointed to his position by the President and wasn’t really a general. He was an ex-Earth Spacer captain that took the title General when appointed to the Space Exploration and Defense post of our newly forming government. We had no military, no defense, no nothing really. The general personally sent the order to Explorer One’s computer, and as our world watched, it accelerated, rammed into, and then exploded in, the huge ship belonging to the aliens, destroying them. We now call them Head Hunters.

I was pulled back to reality as my wife, as competent a pilot and commander as you could want, told the general, I’m not into those sciences, but why can’t we just use the Heavy Hydrogen, umm, tritium we use in our F/F reactors?

Ask our damn physicists, Charlotte. They both want those elements on that list. Maybe it is the lack of special equipment. We didn’t leave Earth thinking we’d need to battle aliens almost immediately after we set up housekeeping. Now, any real questions? If not, get those items and get back here. That is an order!

I almost laughed out loud as she saluted with one middle finger to her eyebrow when he spun away.

Our little explorers were just that. In the more than 250 years since their inception, NASA had done absolutely nothing to make them safer than was needed to get us from point a to point b and, if lucky, back again. They did expand them from a one-man ship to a crew of six.

NASA policy stated no planet was hostile, profiling was forbidden, profit was the name of the game, and that meant we were pretty well unarmed. In the earliest days of exploration some ships had made it back, other humans had been found, and NASA was quietly stuffing its own pockets with wealth while people were out of work.

It all changed when the now legendary gutted ship was supposed to have been recovered, and the book with its magic formula was found inside. Finally Earth could dump hordes of people into space, relieving the stress of an overburdened industrial system trying to provide the requirements for life to the billions and billions of people we called humanity.

Bill and Mary can explain the heavy metals to us. I suspect we will have long periods of boredom to fill, I said to Charlotte. I wanted to get to space.

The general came back and handed Mary a sheet of plastic with several star-charts on it. Earl says these look promising from the data we collected on the way here. Check them first. He said to Charlotte, All the location data is in the computer already. Make no reference to where we are, just in case.

Earl Brentworth was our only true astrogator; he had a secondary major in geology. He also was not going with us. Bill was our computer tech and our primary self-taught geologist. He was five foot eleven and a half, two and a half inches shorter than me. Brown hair, a couple years older, shifty eyes. Something turned me off about him, never could point to what during the training sessions on Earth. He had the only real spacesuit we would take along called an EVA.

He and Mary were an item; she was a blond, five eight, well built with pretty hazel eyes, but it was her breasts that attracted the men like flies. Many said they were implants, but I think they were one hundred percent Mary. It just fit her overall physique. She did have the sweetest personality too. She was a chemist and had dabbled in geology. She ran the spectral analyzers and gas and mineral separators. We all were cross-trained in many fields, usually just enough to get you into trouble.

Four hours later the makeshift launch pad had one of our two huge refillable booster tanks strapped to our little explorer ship. Or should I say our ship was strapped to it? It was twice our size.

"Launch Control, Explorer Seven is ready for liftoff," Charlotte said.

Roger Seven, take all commands from me. It was General Paddock—figures.

I could just see out the right side window. For some reason eleven stories up didn’t sound too far, until you realize you sat on top of a roman candle waiting to be lit and looked at the huge two part tank full of liquid hydrogen and oxygen just waiting to recombine in their explosive mix.

During pre-launch Charlotte had the main checklist. I did all the panel and switch checks. I had to chuckle as we started the long preflight check sequences and relayed them to ground control. We married just to get this mission. Hubby and wife. She asked me one day at the bar if I wanted a shot at crewing Seven and next day we were on our honeymoon. Maybe love would stop by someday, maybe not, but we got the mission, so who cares? Marriage had long ago been legislated into a meaningless ceremony that served the sole purpose of deciding who received your stuff when you kicked the bucket.

Charlotte was a dirty redhead, brown eyes, tall as they go, almost five eleven, well built, and three years older than me. She shot her last husband when she caught him cheating. That was a few months ago. I heard Paddock say they might charge her someday, but right now they needed a commander.

All my checks were a vocal response to physical tests of systems or verification to switch positions as she read the list. If anything on her side went wrong, like the F/F didn’t start, computers failed, or almost anything prior to firing the second stage, we could coast back to the planet. Once it fired we were committed.

I really had only one job during boost. All I did was sit with my glove resting on the cover of the big red button. If something went wrong during launch I pushed it. Rumor said all it did was fold your seats in half so you could kiss your ass goodbye.

Pre-flight checks complete and nominal, she reported.

 All systems are go for launch, Paddock relayed to his one assistant that lit this candle.

"Explorer Seven, ignition in ten…five, four, ignition start, two, one, ignition confirmed," he said.

The shaking started, everything vibrated as tons of liquid shot out our ass and belched into flames that turned the whole area to an inferno. As an eternity ticked by Charlotte confirmed the telemetry Paddock was relaying.

+5 and 1800.

Roger, she replied against the weight of buildings crushing against us.

+10 and 8 angles.

Roger.

I listened to them as the times and altitudes ticked by.

+145 and 62 angles. Confirm first stage fallback? he asked.

The rear video feed confirmed the huge booster was falling away.

I slowly removed my glove from the death button.

Confirmed, booster separation. All systems optimal, Charlotte told him. Engaging F/F in three, two, one, engaged. Sequencing…sequencing …sequencing…confirmed sequence engaged, all green. The dread Fission/Fusion reactor had started normally.

Roger, second stage at your command, see you when you get back.

We wouldn’t talk again until our return. All communications and local transmissions had been shut down in a hope of preventing the HH, or Head Hunters, from finding our helpless planet.

As the Fission/Fusion reactor came active and the energy to mass converters were brought on line, we fired our second stage and we were now totally on our own as it fell away.

The routines of space get boring quickly. Day after day slipped by as we chose routes, did fly-by analyses of about everything we ran into and found little of what we needed. We spiraled our search map, ever moving outwards. All systems functioned normally. Our crew was more than adequate for this mission. On duty, you ran scans, wrote reports, and looked busy. Off duty, Charlotte and I had our little privacy cubical with its curtains and we did what space couples do for fun and exercise.

Gilbert and Sylvia were our final couple. Sylvia and I had been hooked up twice before; she broke it off both times without reason. I still loved her, and it hurt, but such is life. She hooked to Gilbert for the same reason I did Charlotte, a shot at this mission. What many believed was our one last hurrah. She was also a competent pilot, analytical engineer, and had dabbled in astrogation and space communications. She had graduated with me on Earth. I was fourth, she was third. We were both just turning twenty-three.

Gilbert was the shrink, doctor, and physical trainer; he also filled in as navigator and robot repair. Until we started hooking couples into crews there were a lot of problems, now you were picked only if you appeared to be a stable couple. Love was not required, and was actually frowned on. Except possibly Mary and Bill. I don’t think love was a problem.

We had finally started finding a few of the rare trace elements in a small meteorite swarm, things were starting to look up as Bill suited and retrieved various rocks identified by Mary.

At three months into our mission we got the alert we dreaded—the race for life was on. Head Hunters had been spotted at the fringe of our range, but we were unlucky bastards, we’d slowed down to get the elemental readings. They got a trajectory lock. I vaguely remember the wife screaming, Balls to the wall! Some ancient expression, but my trying to bend the throttles past their stops was quite present-time.

I don’t honestly remember much of the following two weeks; I doubt any of us slept. It was slam this way, slam that, go up, go down, spiral, ‘yeah, they missed,’ or ‘yeah, missed again.’ We all knew we’d never get to say, ‘aw shit, they hit us.’ For two weeks we wiggled and wormed and jumped through space folds as these two huge alien ships followed, doggedly tracking us. We the fox, they the hounds with our scent, slowly running us to ground.

Fire the generators! she said. That meant it was the end, the F/F was shutting down and the two chemical generators measured emergency power in hours. Gil, head to those asteroids, I dare the bastards to follow! We had jumped through a fold that had a large series of asteroids circling what seemed to be a dead star; maybe…maybe we could lose them.

Little doubt what would happen now. At almost a quarter light speed and no fuel to continue to accelerate, and minimum maneuverability, we were zeroed in on the huge asteroid belt. Charlotte looked sad and very tired. Sorry people, we tried hard. Just wasn’t to be. I promise we won’t be awake if they try to saw our heads off. Say your goodbyes and prepare for Death Sleep.

I kissed her on the cheek and crawled into the suit. I cinched down as tight as I could on all the safety straps as I sat in the XO’s chair one last time. We knew this was our last ride. I smelled the gas, I remember—

~~~

After expending its last ergs of energy in emergency retro the little ship slammed to a stop against a large asteroid. Its atmosphere voided to space. Its six human inhabitants floated inside, slowly bouncing from wall to wall. Their bodies limp and unresponsive. The ship was just as unresponsive.

Alien Thoughts

He stood in Command on the First Battle Cruiser. They had chased the little ship for two full weeks. The second Cruiser had fired many times at it. His had fired more than once; neither had succeeded in getting close. As he predicted, they were out of fuel and coasting.

The little ship plunged headlong into the asteroid belt, never reducing speed. The commander watched while his ships did emergency braking. That little ship hit an asteroid, it started careening wildly, its atmosphere voiding into space. Then it hit another, smashing almost in half and was lost to view in the huge field of rocks. He couldn’t understand why they had not simply given up. They would have died quickly and almost painlessly. Now, even if still alive, they had no hope, only a slow death in the middle of an asteroid belt. His ships would look for them; search the belt as best they could. They needed all the information they could find, but he knew they went deep just by their momentum. He dared not risk either of his ships; even in careful maneuvers they could only penetrate the belt the shortest of distances. If they could find the little ship they would either send a small recovery team to tether it and pull it out, or blast it to pieces, just to be sure. Even if they didn’t find it, he was fairly certain he could claim the kill. After all, records show other commanders were given the kill credit when they were rammed by the little ships they chased. They all died, he was still alive.

Since the start of this war only one of these little ships had stopped and surrendered. It’s occupants, it was said, jabbered nonstop, but nothing of sense could be made of it. Each of their little heads were removed quickly, almost no blood lost, and they were assured almost no pain. The Goddess had smiled upon them. Careful studies of the limited data from the pod showed they had been transmitting the whole event. Why or where was never determined, only the small message pod was received at the home world. What is known is not a single little ship had ever stopped willingly again. His orders were clear—eradicate all humans upon contact; the Goddess demanded we purify the universe.

His experts analyzed the videos. The other ship had recovered bits of debris that had flown out the other side of the field; large image blowups showed clearly the rending of the first impact and the venting of air into space. The second impact showed the massive damage done that would insure it never flew again. They would go home, he had his kill.

The two ships turned away from the belt and they increased their speed and slowly became invisible to all the asteroids of the belt who couldn’t see, or hear, or feel them, and had nothing that cared even if they could.

We Should Not Be Alive

Open to space, the ship had a little red light that blinked once every 50 seconds. Each cycle it sent a little wave of energy that charged out until it hit something. Part of the little wave would turn around and race back. It was not light, it was not some fancy high-speed radar. It was not detected by the enemy, not seen, nor heard. If it had been, it would have been thought to be nothing but space noise. The little waves went out and back every 50 seconds until they didn’t come back anymore. The little red blinking light changed slightly, just a little brighter. The waves went out and nothing came back that was moving. A computer following its code eventually found more code, more routines. A small green light lit on a panel inside; outside a small gear whirred, a small iris opened and closed and panned and zoomed, peering into the void. Gradually more little lights came on, a blink here, a steady one there. Most were red; a few were green or yellow.

Service vents closed. A little air was brought back into the ship, so little it couldn’t be seen or felt. Two small robots were outside. They came to life and crawled from their little storage lockers. Once the little camera eye turned on, they moved over the ship. Following programing, using the on board links to the main computer, they started finding tears and rends. They welded and patched and repaired. When the little ship was as airtight as they could make it, the air inside increased in volume and pressure. Heaters turned on. All this time the little camera never stopped searching, the little red light never stopped blinking its 50-second blinks. Space, in the vicinity of the ship anyway, continued to be void of anything that might care.

Of the six bodies slowly banging around inside, the computer knew that five were still tethered to the ship, four still had the little spark called life, and the ship continued following its programs which brought one of them out of their drug induced coma. The untethered one was simply dead. The ship felt no remorse, no compassion; it merely followed the terabytes of code. Flowing from line to line, if/then, and/or, the route always changed, always following new highways, new sub routines, new program jumps.

~~~

 I slowly clawed my way to awareness, fighting that red haze that told me my mind was trying to work. The mind throbbed to the rhythm of the heart. It hurt! I started to see something other than red as grays and whites and blacks appeared. I could hear as the colors slowly deepened, focused, and took on shapes. I heard the little lights blinking between the booms of my heart. As the shapes took solid form they quit making noise. The head no longer kept up with the heart, the pounding subsided. The pink haze got lighter and lighter. The noise turned into recognition of speech.

…hear this. XO, please acknowledge when you hear this. XO please acknowledge when you hear this. Over and over and over. It told me something other than I was alive, but I couldn’t grab it as it went by. I knew it was called recognition and I knew I had to catch it. The next time it came by I jumped and caught it. My body heaved and jerked as it gulped more than the few molecules of oxygen it had been getting. My mind cleared, my arms could move if I wished them to. I finally found I had a voice. Acknowledged, it said. I heard it.

Head pounding, I slowly looked around. It was painful. I was floating. I saw others; they floated as well.

A voice kept insisting on interrupting my thought processes. XO, remain in suit, acknowledge. XO remain in suit, acknowledge—

Acknowledged, I said. I remembered a little: I was XO, I was talking to a computer, we had been running from something…HH, and we had tried to run from them. I couldn’t remember who HH were but I knew it would come to me. I had been put to sleep.

XO, you are in command, acknowledge. XO you are in command—

Acknowledged! I said. Shut the hell up and let me think!

HH, we were at war with HH, but we didn’t know who they were. From the video we knew they wore big suits, were big. We knew they had big eyes, we saw red eyes. That was all we knew about the Head Hunters other than they liked to cut off heads, our heads. We also didn’t know why we were at war.

Point by point the fog lifted. I remember the planet was down to two of the original eight ships and if I was in command, then this one wasn’t going to be in good shape.

We had been strapped in tight. I remember the captain saying we couldn’t get away and we were heading to the belt, but we were out of options and we knew it. The captain made the decision; the computer merely followed best-case programming. We went to what we called ‘dead sleep’. None had returned from it in this war, until now.

 We knew four of the six previous ships had gone to dead sleep and the computer did as it was told. If it could, it turned on the attackers, rammed the enemy and blew itself up, the crew with it. There were no escape pods, no transporters, nowhere to go, you died with the ship, period.

I became fully aware I had come back from the dead.

 Crew status? I asked.

Three still in induced sleep, vitals good, two presumed dead, it said.

Since I was the one the computer called up, my wife Charlotte was one of the presumed dead.

I pushed off the wall slowly and found the captain, her suit’s umbilical cord was ripped off—the air voided to space and she died.

I found the second victim, no L.E.D. lit on his suit either. Cause unknown, but Gilbert was dead.

All the crew chair harness restraint systems had broken, some of the chairs had bent, one ripped from the floor.

I moved all the suited figures and using magnetic anchors, I secured each to the walls. Three alive and two dead.

Ship status? I asked.

Systems on or off line? it asked.

List off line systems.

Attitude jets 1, 2, 3, and 7; primary water system; backup air scrubber; and so it went, A to Z. It was a long list.

Can we move? I asked.

Attitude jets usable to change position slightly before depletion. Main engines are off line, engineer required to determine status, it said.

Engineer status? I asked. Sylvia Collins was one of our best. Well, she was almost our last too.

Normal, no known injuries detected.

Revive her then, I ordered. Air, water, food?

Air 43 days without scrubbers, water 13 days, food 5 months based on a crew of four, which I assume is correct.

I couldn’t keep them in status long. It originally had been designed to reduce mental and physical damage caused when the ship was forced to use extreme maneuvers for extended periods like running through asteroid swarms. The human body withstood far more stress when totally relaxed, even with internal body parts slamming into each other. There had been many internal injuries with extreme cases, but to live was usually preferred to piling into a rock at quarter light speed.

As I waited for Sylvia to come back from the dead I went over the ship’s recorders for anything useful on the HH. The two ships that caught us were different. I saw the original video where that ship had one large hump on the back—these had two. They had added an engine. Other than that I saw nothing about those two that were different from other encounters I knew of, except that we got away.

We of New Earth left the real Earth after the great music was heard and almost 160 years to the day after the old NASA ship had entered our solar system and was intercepted. It had belonged to one of the earliest pioneers of T/S Fold jumpers. I remember in the Academy we studied its history. Most people believed it was a fabrication of NASA. The book found inside told of Gods and Goddesses, love and hate. Death and Birth, and a planet called Camelot. Politicians and religious zealots alike said it was just the ramblings of a lost and dying pilot. NASA said different and it was required reading at the Academy.

The ship was totally gutted. The #5 computer was missing and someone had patched and rebuilt a wave-rider motor. They are a complicated Monopole jet style engine capable of high speeds as long as it continued to receive mass for thrust. That came from the reactor and the energy to mass converters aboard ship. The ship was controlled by a single computer, the oldest model known to exist. The ship was mounted to parts of what NASA thought were at one time huge liquid/chem rockets that had simply been welded to it. Most had been knocked off from many T/S fold jumps. How long it took to reach Earth was unknown.

 Regardless of what anyone believed, a few facts were known: the music mentioned in the book matched our history of the great song heard from space on Earth. Also the last four pages of the book was a math formula. It was tested, it was studied, it was verified. We could finally take big ships to the stars through T/S folds. I remember the last lines and signatures at the end, all done by hand…it said:

To Earth, I send you my regards from Camelot, I offer a gift from Linda—we call her the Bronze Goddess. She and Latwasa and Rodel figured it out and said it works. Welcome to the stars!

Signed: King Jake Spoonbill, First Queen Aawasa, Second Queen Katawasa, Fourth Queen Linda.

President of the UNF: Chief

 Science Advisor: Latwasa

I remember a few others were listed on the end.

Jake Spoonbill was known to be the original pilot, as recorded by NASA. That signature was validated as his.

So we built our huge ships called Great Carriers, or GCs, we packed 6000 people inside with enough stores to ensure any colony established would survive and, planet conditions permitting, thrive. We went to the stars in droves. My group was in the third great wave. 100 GC ships went on the first, 320 the second and we were, at the time, the last with almost 450, yet we knew thousands more were being built. All went in whatever direction they wished, for as far as they wished, limited only by the stores aboard and patience of the people in it. Ours went far—we jumped over fifty times. We were off the galactic plane a bit and found a wonderful little planetary system with eight planets and ours had two small moons. We called it New Earth. I suspect there were probably a hundred of them named that in our universe now. Dang, only four years ago when we landed? Seemed so long ago now.

When we had decided to try our eleventh promising system inspection, it took over two months for the little scout to return, but we already knew all we needed to know from its telemetry before it got back. The fourth planet was about Earth size with similar gravity and air composition. It had four distinct continents. Vast oceans, woods and fields teaming with life. No intelligent life found, but remnants indicated it did have once. Slightly elevated radiation and a few low level ‘hot’ spots indicated a possibility of a nuclear war thousands of years past. It was our Eden. We had to be sure. Landing the Great Carrier was a permanent thing. Once down it would never lift again. We now called that planet home.

I heard Sylvia. She was awake and responding. What happened? I thought we were supposed to be dead? Ram them or something?

The captain and Gilbert are dead, Mary and Bill are still in stasis for now.

Shit!

Yes, yes. I think that fits the situation. I smiled at her.

Damn him to hell for dying on me, she said.

Sylvia was considered a wild one—if you had what she likes, she gave you her body, but never her heart. No one who knew her ever thought she even had a heart. I also did not know of anyone who would not jump at the chance if they were not committed. She was a real looker. She also would not have anything to do with anyone either married or committed. Her little piece of honor, as she called it.

Sylvia’s long jet-black hair, her perfect nose, her thin and inviting lips, and those lashes. So long, so beautiful on her black pools called eyes.

I suppose that means if we survive longer than a couple days we become an item once again? she asked.

I suppose, unless you want Bill, I said.

No, he is committed to Mary. I don’t screw around with another woman’s property, you know that!

I know. I smiled.

She punched me in the arm.

Well, what have we got? she asked, coming back to reality.

I gave her the rundown. Computer says we are pretty well screwed. Main Grav Riders off line, a few attitude jets work, however there is almost no gas left. We’re resting against a big asteroid and are bent and smashed. Oh, and we are short on water.

Hum, okay. Computer you there? She switched directions so I let her chat with the comp and listened. The F/F reactor was listed as still operational if we could get some rare elemental mass for it—it was depleted from two weeks at max speed and maneuvering. We call it burning for hell and it uses every erg of energy it can find. Even the reactor can’t make enough to sustain itself and still work the energy to mass converters, yet we dared not slow the slightest as they matched us day after day. We were on the backup life-support system. A separate power source good for a few days, but limited to what we can do with it.

We were caught running slow while exploring for the rare Earth elements on the list and necessary for our continued existence as more than a medieval society. We also needed to build missiles to combat the HH.

We had no T/S Folds near us after they came through the last one, hot on our trail. The captain had decided we’d try to run to this asteroid belt, then along the belt edge, maybe lose them among the outer rings. Didn’t happen of course. We were a rabbit, they the hounds. We could run and dodge with the best, but eventually we’d gotten tired and the hounds ran us to ground for the kill. The last words the captain said before we went under was, May God have mercy on us.

Every human on the planet had watched our first contact with a non-human species by our New Earth president, Mr. Harwade, and his scientific team. Only eighteen months ago? Seems so long. An exploration team hit a short jump and had seen the ship. It made our six thousand man Giant Carrier look like a dwarf, and it was alien in design. They jumped back and reported their findings. Recordings were studied, and it was decided they would try to contact it. By that time the ship was at the fringes of our system so the President was told his re-election was in the bag if he was able to be the first human to talk to aliens. The equipment was set up and it ensured they were broadcasting back to us at light speed through a tight laser for the monumental occasion. They approached the alien ship and hailed it on all the frequencies it could.

The unknown ship slowed and sent several large space suited aliens to the little ship. All were welcomed in, the hatch was closed, and the humans removed their helmets in welcome. The cameras caught it all.

The aliens took out a large saw knife and one at a time slowly cut off the crew’s heads, the blood curdling screams rang throughout the colony. All six were beheaded. The cameras caught it live, people got sick all over the planet. The screams still echo in all our minds, and those big red eyes kept peering out of the helmets of the aliens to keep us awake at night.

Such were my thoughts as I waited. Well, dear departed wife, rest in peace, you kept your head, I thought aloud.

Morbid, Sylvia said.

Status on the engines? I asked, as I shook it off.

I don’t know for sure. I have the robots heading there now, but it will still be awhile, she said. Can we get out of these space suits? I got an itch I can’t scratch.

Computer, hull status? I asked.

All external leaks repaired and tested to two atmospheres pressure. Integrity considered minimal, it said.

Okay, but if anything happens get it back on ASAP, I told her.

She popped off the helmet and opened the front of the pressure suit. It was held with three separate layers of Velcro with a soft spongy plastic seal between each set, providing an airtight, but reasonably quick on/off process. She stripped to her flight suit, unzipped the top, ripped off her bra, and started scratching under her breasts. Damn issue bras! I could see red marks under each one.

She finally stopped and looked at me. What? Like you haven’t seen them a million times? she asked.

The red marks, I think you may be allergic to them, I said.

No, really? You think? She let it ride. She let the bra float and zipped up the flight suit.

I took my pressure suit off and secured it with a magnet to the hull. She finally did the same.

Robots are almost there, she said, as she went back to scanning her panels. I always felt our robots were great for what they do. Just too slow. They were compact and efficient beasts of burden. Various quick connect tools attached to arms. If they were hooked into ship power they had a plasma cutter and wire feed welder built in. What made them slow was the small treads used to move. These were carefully designed with super thin interlocking pieces of polymer plastics with metals added. It received a small electrical charge across the polymers creating a magnetic field. The hull was coated with a metallic composite that allowed the magnet a secure grip. To finish the design the treads had self-contained motors and were attached to the frame of the robot by a modified swing arm and gimbals system that allowed the tread to always remain flat to the hull, even up on the tight nose section.

Along the exterior of the hull were anchor points. The robots had servo controlled systems like a ‘D’ ring on the cable end. Clipping a thin cable to an anchor point, it played out as they moved. When it needed to un-hook, a simple servo would open the anchor ring and the robot could rewind the cable and reattach it to a new anchor. This prevented the loss of the robot if it, or the hull, ran out of power, or, if the