Star Map

By Fabienne Gschwind

When Captain Jay Shackleton of the cartography starship Abhysal finds himself and his crew thrown across the galaxy, he has no idea how they are going to get back home to earth. Although his five-member crew are gifted space travellers and scientists, the situation seems hopeless.
However, their luck seems to change when a seemingly friendly alien trade association, the Squeltrems, picks them up. In exchange for their technical knowledge, they'll be able to hitch a ride back to earth.
This seems to be a good deal, and the crew starts full of enthusiasm for the development of new subspace technologies together with their new Alien friends from the research department.
Until they realize that the peaceful Squeltrem Association is not so peaceful after all and that they are space pirates who like to plunder whole planets.
As if that is not bad enough, another species is in the process of hijacking planets to steal their resources…

Set in the 24th century, Fabienne Gschwind's "Star Map" is an epic science fiction adventure novel that will captivate readers and transport them to another world. For anyone who is a fan of classic sci-fi mixed with a cast of intriguing characters, science and comedy, this is the perfect read. Add it to your arsenal today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: epubli
• Release date: May 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9783754122501

Book preview

Star Map

What happened in the last 400 years

About space travel

The Cartography Starship

The Mission

The Crew

Life on the Abhysal

The Abhysal

Subspace Hazards

The Vortex

There is someone

The Squeltrem

What to do with Aliens

First Day at Work

The Prototype Buoys

Peculiarities of the Chrismaxes

The Deadline Approaches

Real Members

Religion

First Sunday

Space Pirates

Baltrak

New Friends

A New Home

The Emergency

Celebrations

Morchen's Problem

Ten Weeks

Lex and Morchen

Racking Until the Last Second

The Attack

The Answer

The Pillage

Even More Looting

Jay’s Promotion

Who Gets the Power?

Full Speed Ahead in the Abyss

Simon Grows Up

The Death

Jay’s Return

Vacation on the Planet

Galactic Walk

Captain of a Battle Cruiser

Where is Jay?

Holy Shit

Making Plans

Simon and Kiki

Milos Prototypship

First Epilogue

Four years later

On the Road

Archans and Tollans

The Destroyed Planet

Outhouse Alien

Outside the Galaxy

Encounter

Cat and Mouse Game

Kiki and Simon, Again

Excuse me?

The Lighthouse

Storage Room 13A-6Z

Scattered Radiation

The Squeltrems

Preparations and new weapons

Getting Defense Ready

Planet in Subspace

Short Break

Slaving Away Until the End

Beginning of the End

The Battle

Drone Collection Action

Gone

End

Last Epilogue

What happened in the last 400 years

The beginning of faster-than-light space travel is dated to the mid-21st century. It all started with burnt chocolate muffins:

It was in a small apartment shared by two junior physics professors. Marinella Fregara was a dark matter expert. Marie-Louise Häberli was a theorist and advocate of quantum string theory with its ten curved and bent dimensions.

On a Sunday morning in 2044, Marinella was in the kitchen filling muffin batter into a muffin baking tray while Marie-Louise had commandeered the kitchen table and was writing a grant proposal. Once the muffins were in the oven, the two professors began a scientific discussion about dark matter and curled dimensions. It wasn't until the acrid smell came from the oven that the ladies ended the discussion and hastily went on a muffin rescue mission. 

The burnt muffins were quickly retrieved from the oven, and Marie-Louise began gesturing excitedly, pointing to the burnt batter and reportedly saying, That's exactly what I'm trying to explain; dark matter is nothing more than coked-up dimensional space-time!

Thus, began the subspace research.

It took six months to calculate and publish the new theory, and another five years to provide experimental proof. This was immediately followed by the Nobel Prize. Yes, it was possible to open the access to a curved dimension.

Just like at the beginning of the 20th century, with the discovery of quantum physics, the new Häberlin-Ferrara dimension opens thousands of new possibilities. Subspace—as the curved dimension was colloquially known—not only enabled faster-than-light travel but also opened up new possibilities for energy generation and medicine. But more about that later.

For humanity, in the first ten years after the discovery of subspace, it was all just physicists playing around, with no real impact on life. But the first journey through subspace with a robot spaceship was still a sensation. Despite raging religious wars and the struggle for resources, a billion people watched this spectacle in real-time. It was much easier to open subspace gaps in space, so the experiment took place in geostationary orbit. And then the moment that profoundly changed the history of mankind: 

In the first subspace crevice, the robot ship discovered an alien spaceship!

The huge spaceship was pulled out of the subspace crevice and brought down to earth.

It was several kilometers long and made of an unknown praseodymium-gadolinium alloy. The ship was just an empty carcass, but the mounts for the huge cannons were still clearly visible.

Of course, the fake news screamers and the conspiracy theorists were present, claiming that this was all a conspiracy theory made up by some governments.

But anyone could make a pilgrimage to the ship and take a look.

The biggest skeptics fell silent within seconds. The spaceship was so inhuman that no doubt remained: it could only be extraterrestrial.

But how old was it?

The dating gave values between 10 and 40000 years. Extrapolations showed that it had enough weapons potential to turn the earth into mud. And the alloy was so dense that no human weapons could harm the ship. Not even a Tsar bomb would do more than paint damage.

A horror gripped humanity: yes, there were aliens, and if they meant evil, humans would be doomed!

Suddenly religions, skin colors, politics, and everything else did not play a role anymore. They were all just vulnerable people on a single planet.

Peace treaties were signed in record time and everyone moved together. Money and selfish posturing was unimportant. Trillions were spent.

Fifty years later, the world looked very different. Electricity was cheaper than ever before—it was even free. It was generated by two giant phalanxes moving around the Earth's orbit, drawing electricity directly from the Earth's magnetic field like giant dynamos. The electric current was conducted directly to Earth through subspace tunnels. Electricity was plentiful, and freshwater could also be easily distributed around the world through the subspace pipeline. Since all the electricity had to be used somehow, seawater was evaporated to produce fresh water. Energy wasting was a must to keep the circuits from overheating. 

But the biggest impact on each individual was not so much the newly burgeoning space travel and free electricity, but the brain scan. Based on subspace-science, this new technology made it possible for the first time to scan and understand the human brain at the neural level. 

At last, doctors could determine where depression and many other mental illnesses originated. Now it is possible to develop targeted therapies. Depression, schizophrenia, and many other illnesses were a thing of the past.

But like almost all technologies, there was a downside. The brain scanner was like the ultimate lie detector, and you could almost read minds and also detect all sorts of predispositions. Pedophiles or psychopaths were taken out of circulation before they could even commit a crime. All kinds of crimes were easily punished: ten minutes in the brain scan and you knew who had committed which crime or planned to do so. Terrorists and other rebels could be arrested while they were planning a crime. Likewise, it became a habit that important politicians had to undergo a brain scan in public, after all, one had to prove that one had a clear conscience and wanted only the best for the people.

The 22nd 23rd centuries were the most peaceful that mankind had ever experienced. Going for a brain scan was a regular duty, and it helped to guide young people to the right professions as well as to detect problems and diseases in time.

The error rate, that is, the probability that an innocent person was wrongly convicted, was extremely low. And the five to ten people per year who were wrongly convicted, had very hard time to prove that the scanner was wrong. In this sense, the brain scan was a highly valued method. Along the way, a fleet of spaceships was created to protect Earth from danger. But during the next 350 years, no aliens were seen. Only at the end of the 24th century, during the great attack, they appeared for a few hours…

About space travel

Space travel in subspace is a complicated matter. The human mind can't imagine a curved dimension, and you can't see, feel or hear it with any human sense. There were spaceships equipped with windows, you couldn't really see anything... really nothing, nothing at all. And if you stare out too long, you just get sick.

The subspace ships need a huge battery of sensors to display subspace. To make it somehow understandable for the human mind, the many ones and zeros were converted into a kind of sea chart. Subspace used terms from seafaring. There were currents, reefs, waves, tides, sandbanks, bays, and much more. In fact, subspace travel was more like sailing, because even 400 years after the discovery of subspace, ships had no active propulsion. The dive generator was used to get the ship into subspace, where it had to find currents and winds to get around. 

Three zones were distinguished in subspace: First, the surface water. Here space was only slightly curved and there were no currents or other hazards. But without propulsion, one stood still in this zone and no one was interested in being there. If a propulsion system were eventually developed, this zone would also have little interest, because here space was only slightly curved and you could not travel as fast as if you were deeper in subspace. Second, the lowest zone was called Abyss, just like in the sea. But also, here there was no wind, only with propulsion it would be interesting here: hundreds of light-years would be crossable within a few minutes. But even this zone remained closed to humans, and they had to be content with meso-subspace for the time being. The part of subspace where there were winds and currents that could be used, but which was also full of dangers...

So how does subspace travel work?

Essentially, what was needed first was a mapping ship. This ship mapped subspace with its extremely sensitive sensors. Then a nautical chart was created and a safe course to a safe location was calculated. The next few days or weeks were spent drifting to this safe location. With careful surfacing in normal space, the crew determined where they were now, and both charts were superimposed. 

Surfacing sounds very simple, but it was much more complicated than surfacing with a submarine. Many things had to be considered: not surfacing too close to a celestial body, otherwise, you could materialize directly inside it. But fortunately, you could see massive objects even from subspace. If wanting to arrive at a planet, the orbital mechanics had to be observed so that one arrived correctly in the orbit of a planet and the planet did not fly away from one. In that case, you could still use the sublight drives, but that was energy-consuming. And very important that you looked up when you surfaced and didn't crash into a quicksand bank from below, for example. So, subspace diving was a complicated discipline, and you had to have studied for years before you were put at the helm.

The subspace cartographers would then lay out some warning buoys or cairn and then set about mapping the next section. But after that, everything became easier; so-called road-building ships used the charts and determined where it was best to lay roads, that is, to equip the routes with radio buoys. The following ships did not need to calculate anything, they could simply follow the given routes. So, what cost a cartography crew years of work was later bridged within days or weeks.

Actually, cartography would be a perfect task for the advanced artificial intelligence that existed in the 24th century. But autonomous subspace ships had an above-average number of accidents and disappeared into subspace never to be seen again. Nobody really knew why this happened, and there were all kinds of hypotheses. But this did not help: So, there was nothing else to do than to send human crews on years-long journeys.

After fifty years of subspace travel, four planets could be colonized, and finally, Earth could be freed from extreme overpopulation. Gradually, other colonies followed. However, despite an intensive search, no other alien race willing to trade was discovered. The humans discovered what looked like ruins of civilization on an ice-covered planet, with an excessive amount of scrap metal in its orbit. But civilization had probably died out 20000 years ago. Another planet was also thought to have intelligence in the form of giant squids, but they didn't seem to have any technology. 

The only one they found was the Tollan. They had a thriving civilization, and their orbit was filled with high-tech satellites. It took twelve years to make contact, as the Tollans ignored all attempts at communication. Even explorers wandering the planet were ignored. Only after twelve years a breakthrough; the Tollans sent a message to the observation ship. Actually, it was software that learned the human language in a few seconds and translated the following message: We have seen you, but we are not interested in communicating with you.

So, the humans left the Tollans alone and returned with the only known piece of alien technology: this super-translation software that solved all language problems from then on.

That was in short words what happened in the last 400 years.

The Cartography Starship

Captain Jay Shakleton sat in his command chair on the bridge of the cartography starship Abhysal. Well, actually it wasn't a real bridge, just an office with lots of screens, and Jay wasn't officially a captain. The spaceship of the cartography company StarMap Ltd. had no military structure and Jay was only ship manager.

Jay was bored clicking through the latest cartography charts and looking at the screens to see what the others were doing.

The crew consisted of five people. Besides Jay, there was the ship's mechanic Almamira Malhotra, who took care of the subspace diving generators and the complicated sensor technology. Her nickname was Joe for short, and no one really knew why. Nicolai Sweroltzki was the engineer, janitor, MacGyver, all-rounder, he was a subspace veteran and his nickname was Nemo, named after the captain of the Nautilus from the novel by Jules Verne.

The subspace astrophysicist was Milo Aaron, and as an natural genius with a very seldom talent, he could intuitively grasp subspace. Milo was just Milo; he didn't care about nicknames. The last was AI expert Lexaly Park, she had a data implant and could communicate directly with Abhysal's artificial intelligence. Her nickname was Lex and the artificial intelligence was called Kiki.

The Abhysal was also populated by well over 100 other robots that took care of everything from maintaining the hydroponic gardens, servicing the fresh air systems, inspecting the hull, or even acting as sparring partners for Jay.

In fact, the ship could have flown completely automatically. The crew was only there to intervene in an emergency situation and check that Kiki was functioning properly. 

The Mission

Everyone had gotten used to the boredom. After all, it was no one's first mapping trip. The Abhysal was the best and most expensive subspace mapping ship ever built. It was said that it could still hear an alien fart three light-years away, so accurate were its sensors. This marvel of sensor technology has been built for the longest mission ever. The Abhysal broke the 45’000 light-years mark last week, and the crew was the farthest from Earth. 

Typically, mapping missions lasted 10 to 15 years, and the crew received a substantial pension so they could enjoy their retirement without ever having to work again.

There was no proper training to become a subspace cartographer; everyone was a lateral hire, from physicists, computer scientists, technicians, engineers, pilots, even cooks, hairdressers or opera singers could be found on the ships.

The training was simple: spend two years on a training mapping ship and then sign on for 10 to 15 years on a real mission. Brain scans showed whether candidates could handle the isolation and each followed psychological counseling. But those who survived the two-year training flight knew for themselves whether they were made for another ten years of isolation.

Essentially, this meant that Star Map was desperate for personnel.

For the Abhysal mission, it was even more difficult; no newcomers could be placed on such an expensive ship, only experienced cartographers. It so happened that each member of the Abhysal crew had a very special reason for signing on for at least 20 more years after an already completed first mission. That's how long the trip was planned to last. The Abhysal itself had enough power and spare parts to last half a century. Water and food were not a problem, and it depended on the mood of the crew how long the mission would last. In fact, they were now in their 14th year, and no one in this particular crew seemed interested in returning.

The Crew

So what kind of people were on board?

Aboard mapping ships, the past of crew members was unimportant, and no one would ever ask the other to reveal it unless he or she wanted to. But Jay's story was common knowledge.

His real name was Johann Jeremias Joshua Shakler. His parents had been well-meaning and had given him many biblical names. But even as a child, Jay knew exactly what he wanted to be, a member of the Hades Troop. The Hades Troop was a special military command since the 23rd century. There was no longer a normal army on Earth, but if there was to be an invasion or other attack on Earth, well-equipped and well-prepared soldiers were needed. And the Hades Troop was one such task force.

Jay was magically drawn to all things military, reading survival books like other kids reading comic books, and attending martial arts classes at an early age. At sixteen, he applied for the Hades entrance test, but before he could even take the fitness test, he was given a brain scan. The scan revealed that Jay was not at all fit to be a soldier. He allegedly had an inferiority complex and was thought to be reluctant to follow orders, preferring to command himself.

He was also rejected by the police. The muscular man, who looked and moved like a real professional soldier and spent half his life training martial arts to be part of a hit squad, didn't fit the job description of the modern police officer. 

But the professional psychologist Jay visited saved his career; she suggested he become a mountain rescuer. After all, there were enough tourists risking their necks in the mountain’s day in and day out. And in such a profession, you need strong and brave people. Jay first trained as a nurse and paramedic, and shortly thereafter flew his first helicopter mountain missions. After two years, he received an invitation to help on a subspace ambulance ship.

Subspace was also accessible to normal people, and adventurous people who couldn't get an adrenaline rush from normal sailing or mountaineering eventually joined subspace races. Of course, there were also countless luxury yachts and private spaceships. Rescue missions were the order of the day. Jay got to sit in the pilot's seat and steer the ambulance for 10 minutes. It was a moment that changed his life. Now he finally knew what he wanted: subspace pilot! He quit his job and continued his training. With the pilot goggles showing him the cartography map and the joystick in his hand, he felt like an adventurer. He seemed to have a natural talent for getting the ambulance ship into the perfect current and quickly targeting the casualty vessel.

At the age of 25, he was named Subspace Pilot of the Year. 

Two weeks after receiving the award, his life changed, as did the lives of many others. It was the year 2390 when an alien spacecraft suddenly emerged from subspace at about the same altitude as Mars. It sped past the moon's orbit and splashed into the ocean near the Philippines. Then it surfaced and activated its weapons, a kind of diffuse microwave radiation that boiled the brain matter.  The alien ship fired all its weapons, several thousand people died and many more survived with brain damage. After three hydrogen bombs, the attack was finally silenced.

Complete chaos reigned for days, and the mothballed space fleet was hastily brought out. However, for cost reasons, the pilots and officers of the fleet had never flown the combat spaceships but had only worked in a simulation environment.

It must be mentioned here that the simulation environments were as real as possible. The 3D exoskeletons the trainees inaccurately simulated all movements and touches, light brain stimulation contributed to the trainees almost believing it was real, but only almost.

In the meantime, two more alien spaceships had appeared on course for Earth.

Time was of the essence!

The fleet quickly sought the most experienced pilots to man their ships. So, Jay suddenly found himself as chief pilot aboard the flagship. He, who had never been considered for a military career. 

He was so happy that even a fight with an alien spaceship did not scare him. He was full of adrenaline and couldn't wait to fight and protect the Earth. The battle did not last long, because the alien ships suddenly accelerated and were in Earth orbit earlier than planned. The battle was a mess.

The aliens activated their weapons, and two destroyer crews died when their brains exploded. Jay's ship was partially hit and half died. Jay himself had suffered a brain hemorrhage, he clung to his chair and in his delusion, he was the captain and had to stop the alien ship. From his point of view, everything was clear, despite the pain, he crawled to the weapons officer's console and wanted to fire the missiles. But the ship refused; someone had hacked it. Then someone attacked him, but Jay was a martial arts expert. With two kicks, he brought the attacker to the ground and kept typing on the console until he could finally fire the missiles. On the screen, he saw the alien spaceship explode into a fireball. Then he passed out.

Only when he awoke from the artificial coma after six months did he learn what had really happened. The alien spaceships had immediately stopped their attack when another destroyer fired at them. Immediately, they dived into subspace and fled.

Jay's action took place only 30 minutes after the attack. On the ship's camera, a wavering Jay could be seen running through the bridge, ordering the other wounded to fire on the alien ship immediately. When no one responded, he manipulated the weapons console, but he aimed not at an alien ship, but at the Phalanx, which was generating power. The young weapons officer recognized this and tried to stop him. Jay broke her neck with a kick. He then managed to override the ship's safety mechanisms and fire the missiles. 

In doing so, he cut the power supply to Earth in half. 

Prices rose dramatically, there were shortages everywhere, until finally, the replacement fusion plants came online.

Johann Jeremias Shakler was cursed everywhere, only the fleet held back. In fact, a loophole in the software had ensured that Jay gained access in the first place. He wasn't charged with murder either; the weapons officer had suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and, according to pathologists, would have died a few minutes later anyway.

But the height of irony was when it was discovered that the alien weapons were not weapons, but a radio message. 

The message was something like this, We come in peace, we are peaceful explorers. We mean you no harm, we just want to empty our latrines and fill our water tanks.

So, Earth would have been just a cosmic toilet…

And so the Aliens got their nickname: Outhouse-Aliens!

Jonathan was cleared of all blame by the fleet. But that didn't help. He felt that all of humanity hated him. Changing his name didn't help either. Constant vituperative messages filled his phone, and his family turned away and moved away. He tried to kill himself, but not seriously enough. He didn't really want to die! And then he was offered the solution: he hired on at StarMap Ltd. There, a subspace pilot was always welcome, and he was offered the position of captain, or in this case, ship manager.

This was the opportunity to escape from humanity and its injustice.

When he returned after the first ten-year mission, he felt no need to settle anywhere and immediately signed up for the mission with the Abhysal.

For Milo, there was no particularly tragic story. Milo had a rare disease; in centuries past, it might have been mistakenly classified as savant syndrome. But with modern medicine and the brain scan, much more was now known: Milo's brain was aligned with subspace. He felt all vibrations and impulses. Unfortunately, even modern medicine had no solution at hand to heal him, but this was not necessary. Neither his parents nor the society found it necessary that people should follow a social scheme. He attended a special school, where he received special support. Everything was done so that Milo could live his talent and preferences and have a fullfied life. The most important thing for Milo was subspace. In addition to his ability to sense subspace, he also had a genius-like mathematical and physical talent, and before his twenty years Milo had become a world-renowned subspace expert. Special care robots helped him in his daily life, because he could not do it himself, he also had trouble getting involved with other people. Dealing with many people irritated him, made him angry and unfocused. He preferred to live alone, or within a family structure. Since he was magically attracted to subspace, it had been a natural decision to work at StarMap and dealing with a small crew that was almost like his family was also absolutely ideal for him. His terms of employment were simple: He had to follow the orders of the ship's manager unconditionally and navigate the spaceship with artificial intelligence as safely as possible through subspace. In return, he was allowed to use as much free time for his research as he wanted, and also to access all sensor data. Of course, he was also allowed to publish his discoveries. 

Back from his first ten-year mission, he brought back 1000 pages of groundbreaking subspace observations and also a new theory for calculating discontinuity in multidimensional form. He became a pop star among subspace physicists and toured the united planets with his family giving lectures and publishing his findings. Here he also discovered that he liked to share his knowledge. But unfortunately, his lectures were completely chaotic and far from organized. He wrote formulas on the old-fashioned chalkboard and often began to stutter so that no one understood him. Thus, his lectures were usually poorly attended, and the scientific community focused mainly on his written work. Milo could have easily imagined himself teaching and doing research at a university. But no one wanted to offer a chair to this disorganized genius. This made Milo very sad, and living with many people made him irritable and he could hardly concentrate. So, he asked StarMap if he could participate in a mission again. StarMap, of course, was very enthusiastic, because in two years the great Abhysal mission would begin. To keep him happy until then, he was given an office and a small apartment at StarMap headquarters and allowed to work through all the raw subspace data collected by the mapping ships.

Milo missed being in subspace himself and couldn't wait for the Abhysal mission to begin.

Lexaly was a special case; no one knew exactly why she had joined StarMap. In any case, she didn't seem to be adventurous, and a tragic disaster like Jay's could not be accounted for. She claimed only to want to make money and to love subspace. She was a computer scientist and had discovered AI programming while in college. AI programming was the most difficult thing there was, and programming only small parts required thousands