Fate of the Galaxy

By Victor DeGrande

The galaxy teetered on the brink of civil war; the fate of mankind hanging in the balance. This is a story of men of action, who battle to decide the future of civilization. Follow the exploits of Captain Armstrong, and an outcast who fought to control a world, an empire, and then the galaxy itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor DeGrande
• Release date: Nov 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463725283

Victor DeGrande

The author lives in San Leandro, California. He has an MBA in Financial Management, and then became an air traffic controller. While climbing the corporate ladder in finance, he heard the government was hiring controllers. And before he knew it, he arrived at the Federal Aviation Administration Academy in Oklahoma City. He suspected he had taken a wrong turn somewhere, because the instructors kept talking about airplanes. Oops! But this job sounded a lot more exciting than accounting, so he gave it a shot. Twenty years later, he retired and embarked on a life of mischief and irresponsibility.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: AFTER THE CATACLYSM

Tambora was in the news again. Tambora. The only world in the galaxy where the customary greeting among friends was a body slam. According to the latest report, a military commander had overthrown the government and seized power. Captain Armstrong shrugged. Tambora had gone almost a year without a civil war; it was overdue for a revolution. The Tamborans may not have invented the concept of civil war, but they seemed to have an endless capacity for it.

He glanced at the security report on his console display, then watched the holographic images floating above it. The Tamboran government complex was a smoking ruin, but the report indicated only 140 known casualties. Armstrong shook his head; for Tambora that was a bloodless coup. He suspected 140 thousand dead would be closer to the truth.

Suddenly the battlecruiser Vortmax shuddered as its auxiliary thrusters fired, followed by the familiar sensation of being turned inside out as the ship emerged from hyperspace. A wave of nausea swept over Armstrong as they entered normal space. Moments later, they were adrift. Once again, the main engine had failed.

He punched the COM link at his side. Engineering, what’s going on? I’ve got a meeting with the Altrenan government in three hours, and it looks like Isaac Newton’s flying the ship again. How long will the hyperdrive be down?

The response was a burst of static through which he barely recognized Lieutenant Gentry’s voice, Captain, re-starting the hyperdrive is a manual operation, and we’re shorthanded down here. Only two crewmen are rated to perform that procedure, and neither one is on duty.

John Armstrong swore under his breath. His stomach had settled, but now he was about ready to cough up his pancreas. Listening to Gentry, you’d think he needed a couple of guys with shovels to heave anti-matter into the reactor core. All he had to do was throw the switches manually, but the lieutenant’s encyclopedic knowledge of engineering did not include such mundane details as persuading the main engine to start. They gave Armstrong a ship with an anti-matter engine designed by the finest minds in the Commonwealth, but they didn’t give him enough people to keep the damn thing running. And of the two qualified technicians on board, one was sick, and the other was in the brig.

Who’s this Newton? His second-in-command growled. He’s not on my duty roster.

Armstrong turned to face him. Commander, does your duty roster explain why one of my technicians is in the brig?

Sam Steele was almost as wide as he was tall, barely fitting in his command chair. His head was shaped like a bullet, and he had a personality to match. He was no beauty, and his shaven skull didn’t make him any prettier. Steele claimed that shaving his head made the punches slide off, but a scar that ran the length of his cheek was evidence of at least one that hadn’t. Cap’n, he was charged with assaulting another crewman. Part of the gang activity on the lower decks.

I see, Armstrong observed through clenched teeth. Gang activity on a capital ship. One way or another, he was going to restore discipline on this ship. Some of his younger officers wouldn’t even visit the lower decks without a security detachment. He activated the COM link for Sick Bay, and was greeted by another burst of static. This ship doesn’t need technicians, he snarled. It needs an exorcist! Can anyone get through to Sick Bay?

The ensign to his left shook his head. Armstrong wondered aloud if the communications system had been designed by engineers who weren’t good enough to work on the engines. Commander Steele slammed a huge fist on his console, but even that didn’t help. The problem’s gotta be on their end.

As a last resort, Armstrong called the quarters of his Chief Medical Officer, Randall Wolfe. Doctor, I need some information.

Again the response was audio only. "Good afternoon, Captain. But you really ought to try Sick Bay. I worked the evening shift, and I’m off duty."

Armstrong winced. Bad enough the enlisted men were unfit to serve; this man had to be the laziest Chief Medical Officer in the fleet. Yet another officer willing to delegate his authority, as well as his work. I can’t get through to Sick Bay, and I need to know if one of my crewmen can work.

Captain, I’m not at liberty to discuss these matters. The personnel records are in Sick Bay. I can’t possibly-

Randy, he growled, I don’t have time for this. There are only two technicians on this ship who are qualified to restart the main engine. One of them was sick today, and the other one’s in the brig. Now can you tell me how someone gets sick on board a ship in deep space?

Oh, you mean Technician Fletcher. Yes, she’s been sick off and on for the past month. But that’s not uncommon for a pregnant women.

Silence. A pregnant pause ensued as the concept of a pregnant crewman sank in. Eventually the ever tactful Commander Steele volunteered his opinion. Women technicians. A damn fool idea if ever there was one.

Armstrong barely heard him. She’s pregnant? On my ship?? he roared, his voice reverberating throughout the bridge. How could this happen?

The ensign kept his own counsel, although he did have a suspicious fit of coughing. Wisely, the young man turned his back to the captain. The two security guards stationed on either side of the turbolift stared straight ahead, stone-faced.

At last the doctor explained, Actually she was pregnant when we left space dock. Three months now.

Oh, thank...thank whatever deity we’re supposed to worship this week, for small favors. But they must have known about this before they gave her a medical clearance. Why did they let her on board in the first place?

Captain, you know how hard it is to find specialists in the technical areas these days. And they wouldn’t have let us out of spacedock with only one qualified technician. They expected us to be able to train replacements before this became a problem.

Uh huh. Did you ever think to question assigning a pregnant woman to a ship? Or even having a pregnant woman in the service?

Captain, with all due respect...I didn’t live to reach this age by sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong.

Armstrong shut the COM link, and turned to Steele. His second-in-command was busy making grumbling noises about the usefulness, or lack thereof of women in the military or anywhere else. As Armstrong saw it, he could spend the next few hours waiting for the brilliant Lieutenant Gentry to interpret schematic diagrams of the hyperdrive, or he could try to coax that crewman in the brig to do the job. Fortunately he knew just the man to do the coaxing.

Commander, would you roust that technician from the brig? And while you’re at it, explain to him that if he doesn’t get that engine back on line, he’s going to walk back to the homeworld.

The savage grin across the commander’s craggy face meant that whatever that crewman had done to land himself in the brig would soon be the least of his problems. My pleasure, Cap’n. I’m gonna bring it to his attention right now. The burly officer had a fiendish gleam in his eye as he headed for the turbolift, stomping across the bridge like a recalcitrant five-year-old. Armstrong imagined the deck plates creaking. The cramped bridge was barely large enough for the three officers, and that man couldn’t walk across an empty room without bumping into something.

Half an hour later, the Vortmax was in orbit over the planet Altrena, and Commander Steele was in high spirits. He was a hands-on officer, and there was nothing he liked more than getting his hands on an insubordinate crewman. All Armstrong cared about was having the hyperdrive on line again. He really didn’t need to know exactly how Steele had used his formidable powers of persuasion. Besides, after the diplomatic mission on Altrena, he could count on the commander to share all the gory details over a few liters of Tamboran ale.

One thousand years ago there had been no diplomatic missions. The invention of the anti-matter engine had made interstellar travel possible, and sent the first astronauts from Earth to the stars.

Faster-than-light travel enabled them to cross the known galaxy in a matter of days. But the ancient explorers from Earth never found any little green men; no intelligent life had been waiting to greet them. This spiral arm of the galaxy had yielded barely nine hundred terrestrial worlds, and some of them were not exactly garden spots.

Armstrong was both a military man and an explorer; even as a young boy, he couldn’t fly high enough or fast enough. He signed on for adventure in deep space, and often wished he had been the first man to leave Earth for an uncharted galaxy. Instead he was placed in command of a ship where the intercom rarely worked, the main engine worked whenever it felt like it, and half of his crew didn’t work at all. But his job was to follow orders, so he and Steele boarded the captain’s personal cruiser, and prepared to depart for the planet.

Cap’n, how did you get stuck with a diplomatic assignment anyway? Does someone in the High Command have it in for you?

You mean besides the Minister of War?

Steele whistled. Him again? You think that’s it?

I’m sure of it. I can see his fine hand behind this. But as long as we’re here, you can pick up that new officer we’ve been assigned. He’s supposed to be a pilot.

Third planet from the star Altair, each visit to Altrena was a homecoming for Captain Armstrong. As they descended toward the main spaceport, the capital city of Glrm lay before him, bustling with traffic, both on the ground and in the sky. Times had changed. His earliest memories of Altrena were a world with endless deserts and ruined towns. As a boy he saw the world rebuilt, the deserts blooming as cities grew taller than before.

Cap’n, they ever thank your dad for rebuilding this world? Steele asked.

Not officially, no. But then they didn’t blame him for bombing it, either. Seems like a fair trade.

Armstrong sat in silence. It had been a dark chapter in both galactic history and family history, all made possible by the Cataclysm, which had nearly destroyed life throughout the galaxy.

Four hundred years earlier, a science vessel observing a binary star system near the galactic core reported that a massive star had expanded to swallow its companion white dwarf. A flash of blue light, and the resulting hypernova explosion spread electromagnetic pulse radiation throughout the galaxy. The dedicated scientists aboard the ship transmitted their data to the very end; they duly recorded the Cataclysm for posterity, even as their ship was incinerated.

But they were the lucky ones; they died quickly. The three uninhabited worlds in that binary star system were completely destroyed, but the true nature of the disaster was far worse. Anti-matter engines could not function in a galaxy flooded with radiation. Without the propulsion system that made interstellar travel possible, each planet was isolated from the rest of the galaxy.

Planets capable of supporting life were so rare that every available world had been colonized. Some were suited for agriculture, others held valuable resources for mining, but all contributed something to build the galactic civilization. One government, one set of laws, one currency throughout the galaxy. Historians considered it the Golden Age of mankind; given the current state of affairs, Armstrong had to agree.

But the dependence on interstellar trade was the fatal flaw of Galactic civilization. Cut off from the rest of the galaxy, the mining planets starved, and the agricultural worlds saw their economies collapse. Four hundred years passed before the background radiation subsided enough for the first daredevils to risk hyperspatial travel again. The galaxy was still littered with hot spots or regions in which the residual radiation levels were still too high for ships to navigate.

The early pioneers called them dead spots as those who entered them were often stranded and ended up dead. This was a common occurrence out near the Galactic Rim, where the radiation took longer to dissipate. Many who explored the Rim never returned, and even now the expression exploring the rim meant taking your life in your hands, usually for no good reason.

A few worlds, like Baugus and Altrena, had been self-sufficient enough to survive the Cataclysm in good order. But the rest of the galaxy had descended into a Dark Age.

The reconstruction of the galaxy had not been a pretty sight. The government of Baugus saw its manifest destiny to restore civilization to its past glory. The Baugusians established the Commonwealth of Planets, and built a fleet of warships to explore a potentially hostile galaxy. They provided technology and economic aid to their neighbors, and one by one, brought them back into the fold. But Altrena had other ideas. Four centuries is a long time for people to develop their own customs and culture. Unlike their starving neighbors, the Altrenans were self-sufficient, and valued their independence from the rest of the galaxy.

But the policy of the Baugusian Commonwealth was expansionism, and would not tolerate the isolation of a wealthy potential rival. Baugus formally demanded that Altrena open its society to the rest of the galaxy. Its diplomatic efforts were backed by a task force of battlecruisers, the Vortmax and its seventeen sister ships, any one of which could lay waste to an entire planet. The Altrenan government, although unarmed and defenseless, refused. The result was referred to in the history hooks as the Altrenan Conflict. But war was never officially declared. The Baugusian fleet just started shooting.

Fortunately for all concerned, Armstrong’s father had been the admiral in command of the invasion fleet. Recognizing the importance of Altrena to the Commonwealth, he kept his ground troops in hand, and tried to minimize civilian casualties. The bombardment of Altrena was limited first to industrial centers, and then to agricultural areas. Its infrastructure destroyed, and facing global starvation after a week of bombardment, Altrena surrendered unconditionally.

For his good work, Admiral Armstrong was promoted, and installed as the military governor of Altrena. He would spend the next twenty years trying to undo that one week of work, as he set about the task of rebuilding a world. The captain had been two years old at the time. He grew up as the son of the military governor, leaving at age eighteen for the Baugusian War Academy.

Armstrong’s emotions were mixed as his personal cruiser sped through the capital city ten meters above the ground, following the roadway below. Tall buildings flashed by on both sides, the air filled with cars as they flew through the industrial city. To a provincial it would be an unnerving sight, but laser probes and radar sensors monitored the surrounding traffic, and issued anti-collision alerts. Magnetometers beneath the cars kept them aligned with the road, while the onboard computer constantly updated its position from the orbital satellite network. The map display showed them closing in on the Altrenan government headquarters.

Say what you want about them, but Altrena has come all the way back.

OK, so they know how to build cars, Steele admitted.

Armstrong sighed. Steele was a lost cause. You go find our new ensign, he said, while I play diplomat.

Secretary Tzyln welcomed Armstrong into his cavernous office. He had that scrawny, almost malnourished look so common on this low-gravity world. The miniature statues of every imaginable deity lining the shelves of three walls showed that the Altrenans were taking no chances. For the past thirty years, they made it a point not to offend anyone, and recognized every god they could find. But the sculptures were there only for the sake of art. As their fleet of aircars made clear, the sky belonged to man, not god. They only worshipped at the altars of physics and engineering.

After a few pleasantries, Tzyln got down to business. Captain, we’ve heard that there is some anti-Altrenan sentiment in your government. Let me reassure you that the past is behind us, and we are your staunchest allies. However, we will have to impose trade restrictions.

Armstrong’s eyes narrowed. His briefing had mentioned this possibility, and the prices in the spaceport complex shops had confirmed that something was up. What kind of restrictions?

Beginning next week, I’m afraid that we will no longer accept Baugusian currency. Official accounts will have to be settled with precious metals. Iridium, platinum, palladium. Even gold if necessary. We will furnish you with the appropriate exchange rates.