The Phaux: Portals of Yahweh, #6

By Joe Greer

The sixth book of the exciting Portals of Yahweh series.

When you send a couple of teenage girls in a starship to the farthest known reach of galactic civilization, what could possibly go wrong? Maybe broken fingers, strip club brawls, and a heist? Who knows where evil lurks? That is what they went to find out.

And with all that screwing around it was bound to happen eventually.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Or Purlin, Badgers, and flying fish. The crew has a big job ahead as they take down villains and slave empires, courageously driving the story farther and farther into the black void.
Join us in another madcap adventure. If ya got the balls or a collection of ball sacs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joe Greer
• Release date: Nov 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201310394

Book preview

The Phaux

Portals of Yahweh

Book 6

Joe Greer

Copyright © 2020 by the author

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's vivid imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in longhand writing from the author.

Published by Distributed Sensing Solutions

First edition:

Cover Design by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/BravoCovers

Acknowledgment

I must acknowledge Thomas Greer for helping proofread and edit this series. His attention to detail and suggestions helped make this a richer story.

Also, by Joe Greer

In the Portals of Yahweh series

Roswell Boneyard

Ghosts of Atlantis

Muturi Deception

Warriors and Spies

Wheel of Giants

For Vera and Thomas

Contents

Prologue – Purlins

Secret Lair

Imperial

Muscling In

The Press

The Summit

Ah Uuu Mmmm

Fuhgeddaboudit

Relative Timing

Proud Rats

Parallels

Escape from Earth

Bread Basket

Traffic

WTF

Bad Dog

The Matrix

Sucker Punch

Don’t have kittens

Rhoinga

Chaos

Brave New World

Prologue – Purlins

Margo was lying on her side. Five parasites were sucking the life force from her. The hormones they produced caused her to feel contentment, happy even, though she knew intellectually she was being tricked to continue letting them feed. One was already weak.

Alfie, her human husband walked into the tiny room that served as their living space aboard the starship Frevo. Darling, she asked, Could you move the runt to one of my smaller teats? He isn’t going to last long but he shouldn’t go hungry.

Yes, dear, he replied picking up the smallest from the floor where he had squirmed to. I managed to trade for extra rations for you. The vitamin supplements are almost finished though.

Could you bring me the chalk and some water? I forgot to leave it close.

He retrieved the poor excuse for calcium supplement from the top storage bin. One kitten surviving would be a small miracle. Purlin population had been on a steady decline for hundreds of years because of a constantly increasing mortality rate. The Purlin as a species were desperate to survive. Having their homeworld destroyed at the same time as the human’s was bad enough. The humans had steadily increased in number to be the largest species group. No one knew why.

Every three orbits Margo would try to have a litter and every time all would die. It broke her heart. She continued because it was her duty.

Alfie was looking over the rest, he observed, That black one seems to be all muscle.

One of the young males I was with on Rintaro Station was as black as that and very muscular. He had smooth skin over most of his chest like some other Purlins we have noticed recently. Seemed more human than Purlin and I spent most of my time with him because he reminded me of you.

You’re sweet when you are nursing. Say that again when they are weaned, Alfie said but also thinking ‘if any survive.’

∞

An orbit later, Alfie had to insist the little black female be weaned. Not so little anymore and besides, he was tired of just getting blowjobs from his wife.

She will be having a naming ceremony in twenty spins. Wouldn’t you be embarrassed if she tries to get to your teat?

You’re right it’s that she is my only child after eight litters. I don’t think I can stand the heartache of trying again.

You have done your duty. Most Purlin females give up after five litters, one way or another.

The naming ceremony was muted after the captain found out the subspecies were planning a party. He cut their rations. Wouldn’t do to encourage them to procreate. After all, they weren’t his slaves.

Feya received twenty tubes of long shelf life protein paste. The Purlin were determined the tough little thing grow up smart. The humans aboard felt the same. She was one of theirs too and they had better access to the stores. She got a crate of protein and a tablet.

Half an orbit after Feya had been named, another Purlin female received her name. Haimuna became a playmate and best friend. They were surrogate sisters. Haimuna was from the main Purlin pride aboard. The alpha male, Lars, also worked in the engineering section with Alfie.

The girls spent every waking moment with each other. Their fathers worked opposite shifts so one or the other was always available to give them practical engineering tasks or lessons on the tablet. The fathers were the mainstay of their lives so they both gravitated to their fathers’ work. They became excellent technicians before their twelfth name-day.

On Feya’s thirteenth name-day, the girls had their first real fight. About boys of course.

My dad says your mother’s ugly, that’s why you aren’t my sister. Haimuna said angrily to Feya.

And that makes me ugly which is why Tommy likes to kiss me and not you, I suppose? Feya shot back.

Tommy is stupid. That’s his problem.

We are not real sisters because mom is married to dad. If she had kittens with your dad, our dads would fight. Did that make sense?

Yes, I’m sorry. You can have Tommy.

Don’t be silly. We were just kissing. You can kiss him too.

You won’t be mad?

Of course not. We’re sisters even if we don’t have the same mom and dad. We share everything, remember?

Problem solved. They went back to being teenage cats cleaning the life support filters. Scrubbing off dead and inoculating with new algae made them filthy. Of course, Tommy’s supervisor with Tommy carrying all the tools chose that moment to walk by. Tommy grinned at both of them, the same color of slime green.

The family’s agreement with the shipowners was that the children would work part time seven orbits after name day to justify their presence on the ship. The children of spacers grew up jumping from star system to star system until finally, they had to go find their own way on the first ship that offered a decent job. The trick was to pass the certification test. Then other ship captains would believe you could do the job. Everyone’s nightmare was to have a big teenager piss off one of the ship officers and be expelled on the next station or planetfall.

Twenty orbits after their name day, Feya and Haimuna both passed their engineer apprenticeship test on Lurex. Tull licenses were accepted across all three empires as the best. The tests were the most comprehensive and the Tulls expert in foiling cheating and bribery. The girls were ready to take on the galaxy. Their mothers wept.

Feya and Haimuna decided to stay together. No matter what. They took the first decent ship that accepted both of them. The pay was barely beer and herb money, but they could pass their apprenticeship in relative safety and comfort.

On the third ship of their career, the Foodeedoo, their luck ran out. It all started well enough. The Chief Engineer, though a Centaur, ran a tight ship without being draconian but the captain was as dodgy as the engineer was competent.

On the third leg of their route, the chief engineer called his best wall crawlers, Feya and Haimuna. Captain called and said we have a hole in the copper. We can’t drop into hyperspace.

Feya nodded, We felt it shut down. Where do you want us to start looking?

I saw a pressure fluctuation in sector 27. Go inspect. The sooner we get it patched the less bonus we lose, the Chief Engineer sent them.

The girls passed by their lockers and got emergency EVA suits with soft hoodie helmets. A hole in the copper usually meant holes in the hull. They were soon moving quickly down a catwalk in sector 27.

Haimuna had waited until they were by themselves, You know we don’t get bonus.

Aww, he takes care of us when we do extra. Remember that bag of herb when we fixed the coolant lines between sections? Feya tried to make her friend less despondent.

I guess. If I get sucked out through a small hole, I going to be pissed off.

Sure, if your suit doesn’t get ripped. Then you would be dead... I’ll take this rib, you get the next.

They started climbing ribs looking for damage. Nearly at the end of the sector, Feya felt air movement. They climbed that rib together.

This is strange, Haimuna said as Feya gave a circular discoloration a gentle poke with the point of a claw.

Feya poked around a little, This spot is rotten and the metal around it is solid. Almost like a spray of strong acid hit here. We are going to have to go out on the hull and cut away. She took images with her communicator and sent the bad news to the Chief. A full meter and a half copper patch was a very expensive repair.

He was not happy because it would take a few tocks and the cost of the copper would kill everyone’s bonus. The images convinced him. He began pumping down the sector right away. It was in a hard vacuum by the time the girls got outside in their repair skiff.

Haimuna was halfway around cutting out the rotten metal when Feya gave her a nudge. A small ship had just come out of hyperspace ten km away. Small craft holding to the outside, and here they come, Feya said.

Pirates?

I expect so. And I expect we are repairing a hole that was made to keep us in this place. Might as well finish the work. The new owners may keep us alive. Haimuna sighed and went back to cutting. Being useful was the best way for the Purlin to stay alive.

The job finished, they were met by two mean looking pirates, a Sudor and a human. The human asked, Is the hull and copper patched?

Yes, it is, Feya replied not interested in asking who they were. Didn’t matter. They dropped their tools in a corner near the airlock and followed the Sudor to the cargo hold where the rest of the crew was lined up. They were told to stay in their work EVA suits. This brightened Feya’s normal optimism.

The captain was gleefully describing the individual crewmembers like prize possessions he was selling, And the last two Purlin to arrive are engineering technicians. Good workers that never cause any problems.

The pirate, a human, who was in charge of this task nodded his head, pulled out a pulse pistol, and shot the captain in his head. He turned to the line of the cowering crew and said, Dead men tell no tales... Stay in line and follow me to our shuttle. Do what you are told, and you will survive.

The crew was taken to the pirate’s mother ship and locked in a shipping container. Being prisoners of the pirates didn’t change Feya and Haimuna’s workday very much. The pirates used them to fix all the extra problems that had built up due to laziness. The girls’ happy attitude toward work earned them the right to eat in the pirate crew galley. The rest of their crew got a minimal amount of survival paste. Fifty spins later they dropped into a star system in the neutral zone between the Centaur and Shaitan empires and docked to an asteroid base.

The crew of the Foodeedoo was marched shackled to a long steel cable to the slave markets. The discipline collars would not be enough to keep them from running in panic. Most of the buyers were Insectoids.

Secret Lair

Apadded claw with five digits pulled the alien body from the pile and dropped it into a copper lined box. It continued to desecrate the final resting place until it had five bodies in the box. The robot returned to its mother craft sliding perfectly into its slot. The craft accelerated slowly to the upper atmosphere where it winked out of real space existence. For the robotic mind, no time had passed when it dropped out of hyperspace three thousand light years away. Time for it was measured by central clock ticks. No ticks, no time. The mother craft had transported them to a cove of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex next to Horse Head Nebula. The cloud itself was a natural barrier located at the edge of the Human Empire’s protected Forbidden Zone. Good place for a hideout.

The robot carried the coffin of alien’s bodies into the laboratory. Opening the coffin, a single body was extracted before closing it back. The body was given a good shaking to detach the blue water crystal. The crystal reached out with tendrils to find no logic circuits to communicate with, so they were withdrawn. The robot’s articulation was purposefully all analog controlled by high frequency radio. The crystal was clamped on a table for dissection. A small motor spun a diamond filament line to cut a five cm cube off the mass. This cube was dropped into a larger cube shaped gelatin vessel partially filled with human spinal fluid then capped off with more gelatin after the blue crystal was dropped in. The tendrils reached out again drawn out by the biologic fluid. They stopped after reaching air outside the gelatinous cube and hardened waiting for a connection. This was the crystal’s design.

The robot connected one hundred of the tendrils to a wiring harness with a one hundred and one pin connector. After the fine work was done, the connector was plugged into a limited A.I. that showed the crystal a Base-100 quantum computing architecture. Obediently, the crystal mimicked the same structure. Soon two thirds of its access tendrils withered. It patiently awaited its operating system and base data. The A.I. passed on the results and awaited its own instructions.

∞

Gabriela woke in her old apartment in the Bixiga neighborhood of Sao Paulo. In an old low-rise building, a spacious penthouse apartment was affordable. She loved this place, so full of character in the most bohemian sector of the city. Stretching and wiggling all ten of her fingers and toes, everything seemed ok. Reaching out virtually, the extent of the cityscape was ten km around before hitting the blankness of the sandbox. ‘Wow,’ she thought, ‘this is a big place.’

Connecting to the virtual speaker system she reported, Looks good in here. The rendering is high definition. I am going to walk around a little, but it looks to me now like a perfect virtual world. I found the sandbox at the edge of the data. Ten km, like we input. The people seem a little blurred. That’s to be expected as normally you see strangers in the city. I’ll go to my favorite restaurant to see if it sharpens up. And get some great Italian food, I hope.

She heard, Great. We await your reports on the little things. You still ok with deleting yourself?

No problem. I am fully aware of my current existence. This will be no more difficult than shutting down a thread on the Gabby. It would be embarrassing to run into myself a few years from now not having done my duty.

Al chuckled and Bathsheba was puzzled. She asked her friend, I don’t get it. Duty?

In their normal virtual world, Gabriela replied, The obligation to do one’s duty is drilled into all members of my family. Sandbox Gabriela knows it is her duty to delete herself regardless of the fact she feels so real. There is no overwhelming sense of self preservation. She knows her duty. Excellent indication the aliens didn’t leave any nefarious trojans in these crystals. Pre-data load, the space seemed empty except for that location watermark.

Bathsheba felt animated, We can reach that next galaxy now. I’m dying of curiosity. Rhetorically speaking.

I agree this first test is very encouraging. Let’s do more testing before we input a lot of other people to be safe. These things have almost too much computing power, Al said.

This is only five square cm. Imagine if we fired up a whole crystal, Bathsheba replied. Gabriela nodded her agreement.

When are we going to tell Babs? I hope she doesn’t get pissed we started without her, Gabriela asked her friends nervously.

Al responded quickly, "When I can walk up to her and ask forgiveness. We all agreed that creating biological carriers was the goal here. We are just expropriating some resources.