The Queen of Heavens

By Kevin Rommel

The Queen of Heavens got another chance at life when the planet thought to be uninhabitable is found to be just the opposite. Located where the border of the three empires that are at war meet, she was the only ship for a job that needed secrecy. Her mission is to try and make contact with the inhabitants that live on the planet.

On a world where secrecy has kept it hidden two of the three empires had been trying to claim it for their own for over ten thousand years. Influencing the people that lived there they made it possible for one group to seemingly have great advances while the others were stagnant. Never quite succeeding since one empire would eventually help other side in a fight for control of the planet and in doing so myths of alien influence spread among the people that called it home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524531959

Kevin Rommel

Born in the Pacific Northwest a year before man set foot on the moon, he grew up watching the tail end of the Vietnam War on television and experienced the end of the Cold War. He came up with short stories to help him take his mind off the problems the world had at the time. Of those stories, only a few people have ever read them, and those that did always suggested he publish them.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 1

Shining in the heavens they are bright, circular and numbering in the billions. Sure in each one there are a few differences that have been found, and many more that haven’t, but they are still just a radiation spewing, photon chucking, giant masses of plasma. They sometimes have fits resulting in flares that are flung out from their surfaces, but usually they just sit there shining away. Some have planets of various sizes and composition, which tend to generate the most chances for life, but usually they too just sit there orbiting the star.

If they could record the events that they witness over their long life spans if sure they would. To them the different life forms that have lived on the planets that orbit them, or that have traveled to visit from other stars, are but a brief point of note in their long lives. Bearing witness to the events that unfold around them few have been worth note. But of those that have the one that sticks out the most is the one where the star actually had a role in the events and not just a spectator.

There is some speculation that alien empires or factions currently exist and that they vie for control over the planets that could support life in their areas of domain. The distances apart from one potential life bearing planet to the next is often great requiring many months if not years for them to be reached. Kingdoms, that take centuries to form on planets, might take several millenniums due to the time it takes to traverse these vast distances of space. When they do become empires though they are often fragile and sometimes the effect of a natural event can be mistaken for an enemy’s attack especially when the great distances from one friendly place to the next is taken into account.

One of those moments where a natural event happens did so to one of the many stars that make up the galaxy. But this was not a normal fit not like the ones they all usually have periodically throughout their lives. The denizens that inhabited the life supporting planets of this system failed to receive the warning that a fit was starting even though they had the means to do so. The flare that had erupted from the star had a definite difference to it from its onset. Instead of shooting up into an arc and then returning to the surface of the star, as they usually did, it kept going out into space. Unlike the others that occasionally shoot out this one had a good size amount of mass to it. In its apparent path out from the star sat two habitable planets with one that was supporting the most life. They weren’t quite in alignment with each other but they were close.

The rarity of two planets, being capable of supporting life, in the same system did not go unnoticed by the rest of the galaxy that had surrounded them. The neighboring races had only just now started in the effort to colonize them peacefully. As a place to possibly put aside their differences and their hostilities to one another they were seen as ideal. Over the millenniums a war had raged in the neighboring systems. Slowly over time they had formed themselves into three opposing empires that now laid claim to the system.

The centuries of bloodshed, and the weariness that came from the war, had led to the founding of this colony by the the three empires. This was to be a place for a better tomorrow. In order to facilitate the process of peace between the three empires a ban was enacted. No armed starships were allowed closer to the colony than the planet with the ice rings unless they were intended for defense of the system and its inhabitants. Only law enforcement personnel would be authorized to have weapons in the colony itself in effort to reduce the hostilities caused by the war.

At first the colonists hated it there, fearing that they would become a target for terrorists from those that opposed their empires from within. The security forces each empire had placed there had helped in warding off such attacks, though they were meant to keep an eye on each other instead. Slowly though over time a general consensus formed in the colony with the idea of not going back to the warmongering ways. It started among those tired of hearing about nothing but war in their lives and the death that it brought with it. The fear of a terrorist attack was replaced shortly with the fear that the ships bringing in supplies to them couldn’t keep up with the growing demand from those that chose to live there. The colonists, even though their respective empires still hated each other, slowly achieved a unity of cooperation and fondness for the uniqueness of each other.

As the years went by they became less dependent on their empires for supporting them and more on themselves for what it took to live there. They even had progressed to shipping out more than taking in recently. Their cooperation had also led to a joint program of research and development for peaceful purposes in the colony. A series of satellites was then installed to monitor the system and therefore allow the ships that were used to monitor it to be removed making them more independent..

Not everyone was capable of being happy with the way things were though. Like all civilizations there are those who enjoy the thrill of breaking the rules in a quest for personal satisfaction and recognition. Some such instances are only minor annoyances and they are easily brushed aside and forgotten when they do occur. Occasionally though major problems will arise and when they do it is mostly from a source that is native to the region that it happens in. In a society that is meant for peace it was bound to happen, peace is never without a price unfortunately. The results that unfolded from the act of terror were not the intended ones, unfortunately though they were the ones that occurred.

Like most juveniles, lashing out at authority can be expected and in some eyes the right of passage. How they act out is entirely dependent on their home life and the influence of their friends that surround them though. They tend to form themselves into small close knit groups at first and they usually cause minor problems. Left unchecked these minor annoyances that they cause without repercussions only emboldens them to do more. Sooner or later they will pose a real problem when they attack a target that does matter to everyone in the effort to gain the attention that they crave. The small group of kids that did act out in the colony had chosen their target. Tired of hearing how great the sensor array that surrounded the system in a net of safety would be, once it was online, they acted. With the lack of security checks needed for the native people of the system to tour the central command station it was easy for them to strike at it. For the kids it was their greatest achievement yet, but for the rest of the colony it was probably the worst.

With the activation of the array complete a dedication ceremony of grand proportions had begun. No longer would so many armed starships be needed for protection it was felt. The ceremony served as a goodbye to all but one ship from each empire for protection. The disabling of the array by the kids couldn’t have come a worse time. The large flare that had erupted from the surface of the star, and turned into a huge coronal mass ejection, was detected by the array just as the kids yanked at any exposed wires in the control room on the station during the tour. As they acted out their planned attack the alarm, that had just started to go off warning about the eruption, stopped just as fast from the sabotage they had just performed.

Running from the crew, and the officers giving the tour, the kids left the control room as fast as they could in separate directions. Being smaller in size than their pursuers helped in evading the inevitable capture they knew would eventually come. For a few hours they avoided capture on the station. Without the innate knowledge of the station that the crew had though, one by one they were caught and brought in to the commanders office.

You guys are in big trouble. What you all did was not good. he said in a fairly angry tone looking at each one in the eyes and waiting for the realization of what they had done to sink in.

His wait was short lived though when the alarm went off just as the repairs were done in the control room. The view screen immediately showed what the problem was that they now faced. After a few hours of travel the flare was now at the first stop on its trip away from the sun. Heat sensors on the station climbed to their max before burning out from the temperature that had increased beyond their ability to handle. It was to late to raise the station’s shields now for protection the that would have helped them as the flare started to impact it. The hull of the station began to glow from the heat where the flare touched it in its passing. Antennas and smaller extremities on the station became melted heaps or were vaporized altogether as the flare passed over them.

It was over just as fast as it had started. The station’s hull melted some but not enough to destroy it from having been designed with a warlike mentality, by the architects at the time, of conception had helped in that respect. The force of the flare unfortunately did push the station out of its solar orbit though. The partially melted hull of the station now posed a problem for the crew and the people on tour. The station’s engines, that it used to maintain its orbit around the sun, had been partially sealed off from use by the flare when the hull melted around them. The damage was clearly displayed on the view screen for them all to see as they panned through the still working areas in the control center. All the systems that had controlled the stations orbit were either damaged or had been destroyed by the flare. The communication system was now inoperable due to the lack of an antenna with in which to do so. The escape pods were now one with the station, when the hull melted them together, thanks to the heat of the flare as it passed over them. Even the shuttle bay was no longer usable due to the melting of it’s doors, which allowed a vacuum to take over the bay and deny access to the only other way to leave the doomed station.

The station was now no longer able to warn the colony of the impending doom, and unable to fix the damages in time to give them warning or help itself, drifted away in space on a course controlled only by gravity from star and the planets that orbited it along with the objects that it ran into. Eventually the sun would take the lead in pulling the station and seal its fate. For those inside though the flare had already chosen how they would die. The life support systems worked fine up until their power source died. The stress, caused by the short circuits made when the hull melted, forced the power plant on the station to shutdown. After a few days or so the carbon dioxide would become too great and the station’s occupants would pass out and die from the lack of oxygen.

Celebrations were in full swing when the flare arrived at the third planet to join it in the festivities. The joy filled atmosphere grew when the sky lit up as the flare approached. The starships in orbit around the planet had never even noticed the flare until it struck. Having sent most of their crews down to the planet for the ceremonies, and a much needed shore leave, only skeletons crew had been left behind to man them. Systems meant to protect the warships had been off when the flare began to tear into them.

A dazzling display of light was created by the flare’s assault on the planet when it struck the stratosphere. The colonists old enough to drink cheered in drunken stupor not quite understanding what was going on, but thinking it was all just a show planned in the celebrations. Those, with whom were either not old enough to drink or had to work, gazed around with eyes that seemed to open wider as they tried to understand what was going on as the flare reacted with the upper atmosphere.

The flare, due to its size, had more than just heat at its disposal to cause damage with. Every electrical system or device not heavily shielded against the electromagnetic pulse created by it, when it struck the atmosphere, died from being short circuited. Planetary defense systems malfunctioned as the sections of it, that were shielded against a pulse like the one that was currently effecting the systems, made physical contact with those that weren’t.

Fortunately most of the fail safes worked on the missiles meant for planetary defense. A few of them though went through their launch cycles only to blow up inside when the doors of the silos failed to open at the end it. A few did manage to launch properly and they took to the heavens bound for any target they could find since they had no targeting data from ground control. One had its engine cut out before it was able to reach escape velocity and it plummeted back down once the gravity of the planet overcame the inertia from the missile’s rocket.

On the side facing the sun confusion started to set in as most people there tried comprehend what had just happened. Some were suffering from temporary blindness due to the brightness from the flare. Others grew scared when they realized the power had been shut off. The rest, which were the ones who had been drinking a lot before the flare, just started back to drinking not even caring about what had just happened.

On the dark-side of the planet it was a different story. Only the stars provided light after the flare left. Angry shouts could be heard as people cried out for the lights to be turned back on along with the entertainment to continue. Even though they did not feel the brunt of the flare the fact that they had interlinked their systems on the planet together caused them to feel the blackout as well. Power plants became overwhelmed forcing them to shut down when the connections to the places they were supplying were severed by the flare.

Few of the ships that were hit by the flare survived most due to their lack of readiness for such a problem. Some of them were melted in to balls of metal and pushed out of orbit from the flare. The ones lucky enough to be shielded by the ones that were melted did what they could to evade them as they fell out of the sky. The skeleton crews had their hands full trying to stay alive. Panic and miss-communication led to the demise of several of the