The Moons of Valder

By Paul Saunders

W261 was reared in an incubation tube by the Moon System of Valder’s ruthless dictator as a warrior to execute his bidding. However, W621’s inner yearning and belief that there was something better than a life as one his warriors discovered a completely different destiny.

Imagine if Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich had succeeded in fulfilling his vision of 1000 years of rule.

“The Moons of Valder” picks up what life might be like under after 1000 years of such a dictatorship.

The book may be described as ‘Gothic Sci-Fi’. It is has elements of “Pilgrim’s Progress”, “The Chronicles of Narnia” and “A Brave New World”. A number of people who know little about faith have found that using a fictional format can be helpful to understand the underlying principles without what can appear confusing jargon. This is such a work and the third book by the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664104938

Paul Saunders

The Author has been a dedicated Christian since 1968 and in some form of ministry since 1971. He felt called to be an in-depth Bible teacher and has been fulfilling that task all his life. Not only has he been a church leader and pastor but also managed a Soil Mechanics laboratory. He is also married with one child. His first publication was, “The Price of Promiscuity” and the second, “The Parables of Jesus”.

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Copyright © 2021 by Paul Saunders.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/22/2021

Xlibris

AU TFN: 1 800 844 927 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 0283 108 187 ([phone] from outside Australia)

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Contents

Chapter 1: The Escape

Chapter 2: The Sanctuary

Chapter 3: The Companion

Chapter 4: The Feared-One

Chapter 5: The Scar

Chapter 6: The Rescue

Chapter 7: Treasures of Moon Four

Chapter 8: The Recovery

Chapter 9: Unravelling the Mystery

Chapter 10: Resistance Grows

Chapter 11: A New Twist

Chapter 12: The Awakening

Chapter 13: The Confrontation

Chapter 14: The Grip Loosens

Chapter 15: A New Era Begins

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Chapter 1

The Escape

Pzzst! Pzzst! The blue light of an energy cannon streaked across the sky. Pwzat! Pwzat! The ray gun returned fire with a flash of pink light. A moon fighter was under attack from a pirate fighter. Pwzat! Pwzat! A second pirate fighter joined the first. A worker inside a farm bubble dome peered through the condensation on the inside of the dome but all that could be seen were pink and blue streaks of light across the sky.

A crisp stern voice snapped over the intercom, ‘W621! Get back to work.’

W621 was under extremely strict surveillance by the warrior overseers because of disciplinary problems. W621 was a little too questioning and occasionally failed to execute orders without question or hesitation.

The long brown muscled arms swung the pick into very hard, bone-dry, red-brown soil to form a narrow trench, down which a trickle of precious water flowed. Meanwhile, the dogfight between the moon and pirate fighters intensified.

Crash! The moon fighter, which had been flying at ground level, broke through the glass and metal wall and came to rest inside the bubble dome.

The cockpit of the moon fighter slowly raised and the pilot climbed out clutching his eyes and screaming in pain. ‘Ray gun blast to the eyes. I can’t see. I can’t see.’

The pilot was a very thin very short man. He ripped off his helmet and cast it to the ground. W621 bathed his eyes with the water trickling along the recently dug trench.

The whole dome was thrown into chaos. Broken pipes gushed water and severed electric cables crackled and sparked. Dome workers rushed to turn off taps and maintenance workers to switch off power. Security guards came and took the pilot away as warning lights flashed and sirens wailed.

The clean dry air of the outside desert quickly replaced the thick, misty, drug-laced vapour of the dome. W621 stood and looked at the moon fighter. Apart from a few dints, it appeared quite sound, in spite of his injuries, the pilot had managed a reasonable landing.

This dome was a campus of a military academy for trainee warriors where brainwashing and strict discipline were administered prior to graduation. W261 had completed six months of their final two years.

The fresh clean air and lack of guards left the rookie warrior time to think. Seeing the discarded helmet and the moon fighter with its engine running W621 grabbed the helmet, jumped into cockpit, flicked the switch to close the canopy, fired up the reverse thrusters, moved out of the dome and in a few moments the fighter was approaching escape velocity.

The genetically engineered warriors have extremely fast reflexes and exceptional eye hand co-ordination. They are approximately four and a third moon cubits tall and are approximately ten times stronger than drolls. (Drolls are from a class of people specially bred to perform factory and menial work.) The moon fighter had been designed for these warriors. The pirates who were renegade drolls, found the controls harder to manage. When the pirates who had caused the moon fighter to force land, came to attack it again could not match the flying skills of W621. This time they could not even fire on it because of the superior warrior skill.

The time of W621’s flight was a super convergence. Valder is an extremely large planet consisting of a thin rock-crust with a water vapour atmosphere. At each convergence, the combined gravitational pull of her orbiting moons causes Valder to erupt with gigantic volcanoes that spew vast amounts of dust and steam. The complex gravitational pull of the moons is sufficient to pull this erupting moist water crystal laden dust towards them. During the time of a super convergence the phenomena is increased. In space these form into thick dust-drifts. When these mingle with the atmosphere of any of Valder’s moons they seed any existing clouds and cause rain themselves. As can be expected the moons closest to Valder receive the most and the most distant the least. At every convergence, the whole moon system becomes choked with dust such dust-drifts, which causes the light emanating from the solar system’s distant white star sun to glow an eerie red.

W621 flew the moon fighter quickly into a vast, red dust-drift, not knowing, or even fully comprehending where the journey would lead. An overwhelming force gripped W621 to fly on and on, spurred by an exhilarating sense of freedom. During this flight, several groups of pirates tried to engage W621’s fighter into dogfights. W621 easily out-manoeuvred and out flew them until there was no sight of them or Moon Six. In the last attempted dogfight W621 had flown into an especially thick dust drift such that there was virtually no visibility. Suddenly the exhilaration of the escape and scrapes with the pirates was replaced with an awesome sense of emptiness.

Thoughts like, where am I? Where will I go? What will I eat? How much fuel is there? How long will the air last? rushed into W621’s mind. The intense warrior training pushed these fears back. A quick check of the instruments revealed that there were twenty-four hours of air, and a quarter of a tank of fuel, and a week’s supply of food and water. A check of the navigation instruments revealed the moon fighter was half way between Moon Six and Moon Eight.

Tsark, to maintain supreme power, did not teach much history, geography or politics. Moon Eight had once been covered with vast forests and oceans, which had left a legacy of extensive coal and oil deposits. These deposits were heavily exploited by Tsark to fuel his gigantic industrial and military empire.

W621 did not know much about convergences and in particular the super-convergences. The instruments indicated Moon Eight would be approximately twenty hours away. One of the greatest attributes of the genetically engineered warriors is stamina. They can endure heat, cold, high radiation exposure, and oxygen deprivation. W621 knowing the air supply was limited set the automatic pilot to fly to Moon Eight and withdrew into a self-induced comatosed state. Therefore, only four hours of air would be used.

Suddenly W621 was jolted out of the coma by the noise emitted by the fighter’s crash beeper. Moon Seven, which was not in the fighter’s navigation computer, was directly ahead. This moon had a completely different orbit to the system’s other eleven moons. It had a large elliptical orbit at a forty-five degree angle to the other moons whose orbits were on the same plane. It only crosses between Moons Six and Eight every super convergence. It had enormous polar ice-caps and the unfrozen part was mountainous with deep ravines cut by the rivers emanating from the melting ice. Tsark had never developed it because its elliptical orbit was not on the same plane as the other eleven moons, which made it much harder to reach. It also had an extremely strong and variable magnetic field so when vessels did approach it, their electronic systems became completely erratic thereby making landing virtually impossible.

W621 steered the moon fighter away from a collision course and checked all the instruments. There was only four hours of air left and fuel was nearly empty. A synthetic voice broke the silence of the cockpit.

‘Your vehicle has been re-programmed to land at the edge of the north ice sheet. When your landing light flashes, turn off your engines, a tractor beam will bring you into dock.’

The control stick moved in W621’s hands. Instinctively W621 pulled against it.

‘If you resist your vehicle will not be able to land,’ the voice spoke again. ‘Your air and fuel are low, show trust, you will come to no harm,’ it continued.

W621 released the grip on the stick and it continued to move on its own. Eerily the fighter continued on its flight. W621 felt lost and trapped. The escape did not seem so clever now. Never before had W621 been alone. To be going to an unknown moon and being given directions by a strange voice struck chilling fear into W621. However, there is too much steel in warriors for this feeling to last too long. The mood changed to curiosity.

The engines laboured to slow the fighter as it entered the moon’s atmosphere. Moon fighters could fly in all conditions from a thick steamy and dusty atmosphere to open space. However, the amount of fuel required to effect a re-entry meant that unless there was some fuel on the moon there would be no means of leaving.

W621 peered through the atmosphere distorted by the red glowing nose of the moon fighter. The gleaming white ice-cap pierced by jagged dark grey-blue rock loomed closer and closer. There was a dull thud and shudder as the retro-engine fired at full-thrust in order to slow to landing speed. As the moon’s surface could be clearly seen the fighter’s landing light began flashing then two huge doors opened in the ice and a shaft of strange yellow light illuminated the fighter like a search light.

The voice then said, ‘Turn off your engines.’

W621 felt that there was no point in disobeying, complied. There was a slight shudder and the fighter continued to descend. Down through the doors and gently alighted on to a well-constructed landing pad. The roof then began to close and the yellow light began to dim. W621 looked up to see that the bay doors were translucent white so they could not be seen from the air but the light passing through them bathed the landing area in a soft natural light.

W621 sat in the cockpit not knowing quite what to do next. The landing pad was at the bottom of a circular shaft, which had been laser cut to a smooth shiny surface in the moon’s dark blue-grey rock.

The voice broke the silence. ‘W621, welcome to Moon Seven’s sanctuary dome. You have been expected.’

* * *

1. Droll three and a half moon-cubits in height. (A moon cubit is 18" or approximately 450mm).

2. Moon fighters were normally flown by a specially bred race of warriors. However, a sudden upsurge in piracy meant that there was a shortage. This droll had been enlisted as a backup moon fighter pilot.

3. The ruler of Moon 5 called Tsark had genetically engineered the warriors over many generations. Tsark had fine-tuned genetic breeding in all forms. People could be kept in incubation tubes for seven convergences.

4. A convergence is a regular astrological event when five to eight of the planet Valder’s twelve moons line up. The time interval of this phenomenon is 360 days and is used by the colonists of this moon system as their base unit of time. When nine to eleven the moons orbiting the planet Valder align simultaneously the people of the moon system called it a super convergence. These occurred at approximately fifty convergence intervals. Every thousand convergences all twelve moons line up called a millennial convergence. A month in the Valder System is approximately the same as an Earth month only they are all exactly thirty days each and a day is the same at 24 Earth hours. The first Moon to be colonised was Moon Five where the time on this moon approximates that of Earth and Moon Five’s time system became the standard for the other moons in the system.

5. Incubation of warriors required several stages. Embryos were grown in a special nutrient jelly. During several stages of growth the genetically engineered warriors would then be progressively transferred to more and more complex tubes, they could be developed and educated. After being released from the tubes, the young warriors receive military education encompassing everything from hand to hand combat to eventually flying moon fighters. This stage took an additional fourteen convergences. These warriors only have contact with the breeding scientists, a commandant and their instruction computer. At twenty-one convergences, warriors are then sent to farm domes to strengthen them with hard labour, teach them to work as a team and mix with a wider range of people.

Chapter 2

The Sanctuary

Just in front of the fighter’s nose cone, a round door opened through which a bright white light shone.

The voice said invitingly, ‘Please enter.’

W621 opened the cockpit, climbed out of the fighter walked across the tarmac and headed toward the well-lit doorway. W621 immediately recognized the door had led into the control centre of a moon bulk carrier. However, the level of technology was much more complex than W621 had ever seen.

The voice spoke across the intercom, ‘Welcome W621, welcome! There is no one to meet you as those who set up this facility have all passed on. The last one died ten convergences ago, but they have left all this to you.’

The twenty-one convergence old warrior stood aghast at the surroundings.

‘No doubt,’ said the voice, ’you will be exhausted, hungry and apprehensive. ‘I am the computer programmed to run this facility and be ready for your arrival.’

‘This facility consists of six moon bulk carriers set in a circle connected by conduits. On the outside of each bulk carrier is a landing pad. Inside this ring of bulk carriers is the plant-dome somewhat similar to the dome-farm you just left. In each bulk carrier, there are ablution blocks with hot and cold running-water, tapped into the vast water supply of this moon. All rooms and facilities are clearly labelled and instructions on the use of equipment are set up at strategic places. The inner side door in each bulk carrier enters the plant-dome.’

‘The dome is filled with trees bearing fruit and nuts. It also has herbs and root plants. The leaves of many of these plants may also be eaten. Each plant is named and what parts of the plant are suitable for eating.’

‘You may eat of any of the designated parts of the plants except the central tree the leaves of which may only be eaten if you are sick or wounded and its fruit in times you are under great stress.’

W621 was completely overwhelmed with strong feelings of strangeness. Every time W621 entered another room or walked down a passage, there was an expectation to meet someone but W621 found the massive building complex deserted.

Warriors are trained to endure almost any circumstance. Aloneness is not a problem to them especially as they spent several convergences in a breeding capsule, being fed intravenously, educated electronically and exercised by vibrating fluid.

The voice spoke again, ‘You will be very tired and hungry. Go into the plant-dome, eat and rest in the admiral’s quarters in station one. Tomorrow we will talk some more.’

W621 went into the plant-dome and picked some fruit and ate it and could not help exclaiming, ‘I have never tasted anything so delicious.’

‘The sanctuary dome founders scoured the whole moon system for the best and most nutritious foods. They spent many convergences developing the best growing conditions. Elsewhere these plants are rare and hard to grow but here they flourish. Tsark only selected plants having high yields and that grow quickly. They lack proper nutrition and eventually they burn out the soil. Tsark has to add chemicals to the soil to keep the crops yielding. The food is highly processed and those eating it become overweight and undernourished.’

After eating, W621 went to the admiral’s quarters, bathed and slept.

W621 awoke to a gentle shaft of light coming through a porthole, arose, stretched, dressed, and stood a little disoriented.

‘Good morning, W621,’ said the computer, ’exercise, wash and eat for there is much for you to learn.’

When this had been completed W621 stood in the assembly area of bulk carrier one. There was a large viewing screen with several comfortable chairs arranged in a semicircle around it.

‘You will be wondering who you are and why you were brought here. This is a very long story but I will give you an overview. Sit down and try to relax,’ said the computer.

The screen came to life and before W621 was a man somewhat like a newsreader. He was very old and was dressed in a plain black uniform. The recording began.

‘I am Adwint, the last historian who was at the sanctuary dome. This is a brief summary of what you need to know. I trust the facility is in good working order and the computer programme is working satisfactorily. During this brief history, pictures will be displayed wherever possible to augment the story.

I will start from a time nine hundred convergences ago when there was a series of poorly aligned convergences. The resulting gravitational pull of the moons on Valder was weak, consequently the steam and dust coming from a well-aligned convergence was minimal. The result of this was severe drought especially on the outer moons.

It was a time when the moon system was split into two kingdoms. The inner kingdom consisted of moons one to six and the outer, moons eight to twelve. Moon seven, had not been colonized and it had never been part of either kingdom. The inner kingdom was ruled by one called regent king or queen and the outer called monarch king or queen.

Before this drought, the inner and outer kingdoms had been feuding. The reasons for this are long and complex.

This drought brought the Regent and Monarch together. The food shortage became so acute a deputation of scientists was appointed to investigate the food potential of Moon Three, the green moon. This moon has a thick, misty, unhealthy atmosphere, which supports vast quantities of vegetation. The scientists returned with a wide variety of fruit, nuts, leaves and seeds deemed satisfactory for consumption.

The Regent and Monarch had a meeting at which they agreed to pool their resources so food could be collected on Moon Three and distributed. At this meeting, the only daughter of the outer kingdom’s Monarch and the eldest son inner kingdom’s Regent met, fell in love, married. A daughter was born to them and they called her Valdina. At birth she was designated as sole heir of a unified kingdom after the death of the Regent and Monarch.

The mission to the Green Moon Three succeeded in collecting and distributing sufficient food to keep the population of the system alive. The next convergence was very strong and there was plenty of rain on all moons, food supplies were soon replenished and the crises appeared to be over. However, the Regent, the King and their families were all struck down with a terrible disease. Not long after this, all the others also fell seriously ill. The cause was traced to a microbe that had managed to allude the strict food hygiene procedures. It had been lodged deep inside a nut brought from the green moon, which all had eaten. A research team was set up to find a cure. The head of this team was the most brilliant scientist in the system whose name was Zalock.

Zalock and his team, through arduous research, were able to find a drug to cure the disease and thereby saved a huge number of those infected. It was people in large cities that were the hardest hit especially those on Moon Five, which was the most populated and urbanized.

Unfortunately it took some time to realize the disease caused sterility. The crisis facing the system was the bulk of the population could not reproduce. Zalock’s team found a way of extracting gametes from those less effected and growing embryos in the laboratory and placing them in the womb. A huge gamete bank was established so the population could be maintained. The Monarch, the Regent and their children were so badly infected, no fertile gametes could be found. Only their granddaughter Valdina’s eggs could be recovered and stored.

In the fullness of time the Monarch and the Regent died. Valdina was anointed and crowned as the sole ruler. Before she came to power the Regent and Monarch remained at uneasy peace and the rivalries between the two centres of power were kept to a minimum. To keep both sides happy, Valdina ruled from the palace on Moon Five for half a convergence and from the palace on Moon Twelve for the other half.

Zalock’s scientific research station was set up on Moon Four. It was chosen for the following reasons; it was the smallest of the moons, it was extremely rocky and its dry atmosphere was ideal for carrying out genetic experiments and preserving genetic material. A massive row occurred between the two courts as to which seed should be chosen to fertilize Queen Valdina’s eggs, because there was no other person who had both regent and monarch blood. The issue began to open the differences between the kingdoms so Vandina’s eggs remained frozen on Moon Four.

Queen Valdina grew old with no heir to take her place. On her deathbed she appointed Zalock as the caretaker with the grand title, ‘The System Acting Regent King’, until seed could be raised to rule in her stead as Zalock had grown immensely powerful during this time. He had also gained the total respect of the inner and outer kingdoms and was regarded as the system’s saviour. He was also immensely powerful as head of the artificial population breeding, research and development.

Zalock relished his new role. He greatly expanded the genetic research station on Moon Four and established a new huge comprehensive research facility on Moon Ten because it was rich in minerals. The Moon Four scientists continued with genetic engineering research on people and expanded it to plants and animals to boost food production. On Moon Ten the scientists concentrated on manufacturing and weapons research.

There were also several research facilities on Moon Twelve the Monarch had set up, these had continued independently of Zalock’s work. The Monarch had attracted many of the best scientists long before the unity of the kingdoms. These scientists were suspicious of the ways of the inner kingdom and had achieved a much higher level of technology, which had been the bulwark against an inner kingdom conquest. They had never eaten the food from the green moon, so they had escaped the scourge of the plague.

At this point, it is important to partly explain the reason for the original split in the kingdoms. The moons of the outer kingdom were much richer in energy and minerals than the inner kingdom but they had a chronic shortage of water and consequently food. They managed to survive during wet seasons but had to trade their minerals and energy at low prices during droughts. This meant people of the outer kingdom had to work harder and be extremely frugal with their resources.

Over centuries of convergences, the inner moon sector became richer and those on the outer moons more technically advanced. The trigger point for the split came when, during a very severe drought in the inner moon’s Regent demanded higher prices for food. At the end of this drought, the outer sector was virtually destitute. The people of the outer sector exceedingly resented their Regent for using their plight to satisfy his greed but there was little they could do.

A turning point came when several large ice comets collided with one another while hurtling towards Valder; the outer moons were showered with their precious cargo of ice. Their meagre icecaps grew considerably; so the moons of the outer system were capable of generating sufficient food surplus to survive except during most severe droughts. Trade between the systems virtually ceased and the two sectors had little to do with each other. Slowly the outer sector became more fragmented. Cities went fugal and isolated areas became tribal.

The Regent realising the position, took Moon Six by force and prepared to take Moon Eight. A strong tribal chief realized they were in trouble, gathered sufficient forces to resist the invasion of Moon Eight and recaptured Moon Six. For this act, he was crowned Monarch. A weapons race ensued but the Regent re-took Moon Six but never attacked the outer system again. The outer kingdom focused on developing their technology while the inner kingdom concerned itself with growing rich and contented.

Zalock knowing he had been appointed caretaker ruler over both sectors made a bold move. He had himself crowned as The System Acting Regent King. He shortened it to the abbreviation, TSARK. This move proved very popular with all but those on Moons Eleven and Twelve. They refused to bow their knee to him and declared they would only serve one who sprang from the royal seed. There were several hundred people in isolated areas who had not eaten the diseased nut and could breed independently of Zalock. These people became highly regarded. Those who were sterile refused to be helped by Zalock but instead put all their resources into ensuring fertile people could rear very large families. The hatred of Tsark became so great many fiercely independent cities and tribes formed a