Retribution : An Asian Alternate-History Science Fiction Saga: First Contact, #4

By Azlan Tahir, Adely Ariffin, Akmal Izzat and Dave Liew

The story from the alternate future continues ….

 

A new and mysterious "Traders" faction that has been watching from the shadows all this while, makes itself known to the Tigris. With their ulterior motives yet revealed, the Tigris crew must learn of their role in a changing landscape of existing and new alliances within the solar system.

 

As Mars continues to evolve, challenges for "a new Mars" emerge, potentially drawing in the involvement of the UNE, and the involvement of the team of Malayan Rangers already deployed on the ground.

 

As Specialist Lalitha edges closer to revealing the inner workings of the mysterious Sentinel, questions of further discoveries and puzzles begin to emerge - especially regarding its purpose.

 

As the integrity and resolve of factions are challenged as they evolve, new players enter the mix, with the resurfacing of long-forgotten stories of old - creating new challenging situations with different conditions. New crises are brewing under the surface, as different paths begin to converge - potentially taking humanity's path toward a different endpoint.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Azlan Tahir
• Release date: Nov 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215629024

Book preview

UNITY MACROVERSE

First Contact Series: BOOK 4

RETRIBUTION

An Asian Alternate-History Science Fiction Saga

Azlan Tahir

Copyright © 2022 by AZLAN TAHIR

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

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

Published by: Andaman Consortium Sdn. Bhd.

52200 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Acknowledgments

We are a community of Malaysian Story tellers and Marooned forms the beginning of the First Contact Saga. The First Contact Saga is a part of the UNITY Macroverse story which takes the reader into an alternate universe story canvas.

Thanks to all the overwhelming support from members of the community that had faith in all our forays into making the UNITY Stories come to life.

Thank you to my community partner Adely Ariffin who himself wrote and contributed greatly to the Story line.

The main core of our community is Akmal Izzat, Dave Liew, Nur Ruhizan, Saifol Shamlan, Paul Low, Anderson Ee, Adam John, and many-many others.

My family, who has given me enormous support, encouragement, and patience is Casie and Adam.

My sister Linda and brothers Auzir and Imran.

Finally my buddies from the Samad Old Boys group.

Special Mention to this Special group of people who gave inspiration for this Saga and the canvas :

Adli from the Autism Café Project, Sara from The Learning Connection Center, and Peggy from Bridging Hope.

Foreword: Retribution

Retribution forms the fourth book in the First Contact Series.

Other books in the ‘FIRST CONTACT’ saga:

MAROONED: Book 1

JOURNEY’S END: Book 2

FOG OF WAR: Book 3

Both are available as Paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

If you want to know more you can visit us at: https://unitymacroverse.com/

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Table of Contents

Recent Past - Homecoming

1: The Present: Tigris Arrives

2: Lunar

3: UNE Medical Center

4: Martian Rangers?

5: Lunar Switch

6: Rangers Arrive

7: Pre-Negotiation

8: Independent Traders Consortium

9: Tank

10: Lunar Team Departs

11: Negotiators Arrive

12: Summoned

13: Europa

14: Converging Endpoint

Endnotes

Recent Past - Homecoming

The Great Hall

CERES – The Collective Home-Designate

Climate control team sleeping again? Rikking barks to the tech crew that was busy making minor adjustments with worker drones providing the much-needed brute strength. Life in these new settlements especially one as large as CERES was challenging when coupled with the fact that they had to do it ‘hidden’ from the view of their two previous ‘friends’, the United Nations of Earth (UNE) and the Martian Corporation (MAC). The ‘mini exodus as some commentators from their ‘friends’ had called it was anything but ‘mini’, granted it was not as large as the previous Martian Exodus, but large enough and quite damaging to the UNE ‘brain drain’.

The UNE had underestimated the number of their population leaving thus creating large gaps in required resources in all their services. Several services were paralyzed by these gaps and the creation of units of AI tech had been created to temporarily fill in the function within the services that were badly hit by the departures. The exodus began to wreak havoc even at the UNE bureaucratic services, seasoned leaders left, disgusted with the policies rolled out by the Global body to engineer social growth under the guise of protecting the citizenry. This constant monitoring and surveillance of their citizen’s behavior had been opposed violently within the UNE.

Many who were in the decision-making echelon were also alarmed at the increasing militarization of the UNE command structure. All these factors drove a few of them to create an underground movement shielded from those monitoring and surveillance activities, of which they had intimate knowledge. Creating an infrastructure to avoid detection was never an issue. Thus, the movement gained momentum and gradually the numbers increased, and plans were put forward for a gradual embarkation program to locations that had already been determined for settlement.

First, it was Vesta, which served more as a staging area, and then eventually to their permanent settlement in CERES. The pathfinders, former members of the UNE Corp of Engineers began work on habitation zones with whatever supplies were warehoused during the build-up before the ‘mini-exoduses. The most senior leader responsible for this was Rikking. His stress levels were visible today, he knew that the Conference Hall had to be ready for an important meeting of Council Advisors.

It was the conference that would proclaim the creation of the "Collective System’ of settlements and citizenry. A majority of the delegation had arrived, save for the final group, which was THE most important member of the entire Council. The hall was designed to reflect the marvelous and ornate hall of the UNE General Assembly in Shanghai on Earth, but with updated technical specifications. The challenge was the creation of a gravity-challenged conference hall in space.

Rikking, a senior member of the Council of Advisors of the Collective was formerly a UNE undersecretary for Technology and was a mentor to many of the current serving bureaucrats in Shanghai. A tough but fair technocrat, he was always of the opinion that technology tempered with human imperfections is what drives innovative technological solutions. Today, however, his very demanding requirements were being stretched. The large hall with the illuminators circling the flushed ceiling recess running across the top half of the halls was not completely lit. The temperature and humidity of the hall were not even within minimal operating parameters in what would normally be acceptable.

The mag[1] floors were not properly laid out and many loose blocks of plasteel[2] were floating around the hall.

Engineer!! Are we on schedule? All this doesn’t look like it will be ready anytime soon! I have the first delegation arriving in 72 hours CST (CERES Standard Time). You had better double your effort as the delegation arriving may not be as forgiving as I am The Senior Project Engineer bows his head and swivels to continue issuing orders to his extremely busy and visibly stressed work crew.

You are aware that we gave you the environmental parameters from Specialist Kiara, quite a while back. I am still not ‘feeling’ the parameters of these new settings Rikki sighs as he recalls the tropical environment of his ‘previous’ life on Mother earth all those years ago. He had spent the remaining Earth-time in the bustling Seri Petaling Hab[3] zone in the Klang Valley Megapolis.

His residential unit was close to the Endah Hyperloop station which he would utilize to commute to Shanghai a short two-and-a-half-hour commute. Most of the time he would be home as the enclave was well known within the Malayan Megapolis as a food paradise and an ‘old-school’ rigidly held practice of food preparation for centuries-old recipes meticulously preserved.

The spread of this ‘enclave’ and its popularity globally created an expansive settlement that soon enveloped the surrounding Hab zones like the Overseas Union Garden and the Canal Zone of Old Klang Road. Historians are always in disagreement over the origin of the ‘road’ tag to the name as the whole area was well documented to be linked to the growth of activities tied to the Canal.

The Engineering team continued with their work but was noticeably busier. The mag floor installation was near completion and Rikking could now walk the entire hall with ease. The mag layers at the other periphery locations should be active soon through a single permanent charge and then this will be similar to any other gravity-bound location on Earth.

The marvel of technology, courtesy of the UNE. Rikking continues his slow walk that eventually led him to the exit of the Hall. He stops to have a final look and mutters under his breath

I think this will be done and completed ahead of schedule, no point in telling them they’ve done a good job he smiles and looks down at his pad and punches additional commands to other teams preparing the Hall.

This is good progress, but I must give them credit for making it this far on finite resources, Azrin has done a good job in sequestering all those supplies before he made the ‘jump’ he thinks to himself as he leaves.

I think Jasema Teh[4] is what I need now.

The Arrival

CERES control, CSS RahimKajai 8 approaching landing bay vector, ship’s control release to you, on your mark the Captain of the Collective’s RahimKajai 8 could be mistaken for one of those large UNE transport liners but with massive modifications.

CSS RahimKajai 8, we have you on vector heading. Prepare for release. Landing bay assigned, see you at the arrival hall. The Collective Star Ship (CSS) begins its approach by firing its thrusters to slow its speed down to enable the Station’s tugs and AI to identify and match its velocity. The massive bulk of the Liner that was designed to ferry three passengers was retrofitted to also stow cargo and a much smaller complement of passengers. The crew of the Liner was experienced and used to handling more robust ships traversing the system.

Moving the liner without undue attention, especially with these very important passengers was challenging. The Captain of RahimKajai 8 was specially chosen to command this Liner as he had previously been an experienced UNE Fleet Captain who was commanding large and sophisticated Fleet Cruisers. The flight plan he designed was meant to avoid busy shipping lanes from the Canton sector and allowed him to rendezvous with the smaller craft ferrying these important passengers. That leg of the journey was uneventful. He was thoroughly prepared and thus the journey continued onwards without incident. The arrival at CERES was a welcome relief for the crew as they had been on tether hooks to navigate the Liner ‘quietly’.

The Captain showing signs of relief leaves the bridge and heads into the guest quarters to inform his important passengers of the impending arrival. He was never comfortable engaging his guests, they unnerved him. It was as though they knew what his thoughts were even without him saying it. He approached the large quarters but stood close to the entrance as there were many in the area and he was conscious that they were all looking at him except for the seated figure. He began with his often rehearsed line to other previous important passengers but added in a line or two for ‘effect’ as he would call it.

Madam, we will be landing shortly. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for giving us the honor of transporting you and your team here. We hope you had a comfortable journey; the Vesta run can sometimes wreak havoc on some of our navigation systems.

A figure sits quietly facing the viewport of one of the Liner’s lavish quarters. The other figures that were part of the entourage rushed up to the seated figure and could be seen whispering to the figure. The Captain could never understand the need for a headscarf, but there must be a reason and function for them, he reckoned. He was just a simple Liner Captain and not very knowledgeable on the machinations of the Collective, but he knew as with others that this is a far greater place to be than those UNE-run settlements straddling Earth and beyond. Best not to know, they’ll know what to do is the common-themed line replicated by so many other members of the growing collective.

A young female attendant scurries to the Captain with her headscarf flowing back as if there were a breeze in this environmentally controlled ship, the engineered material was designed to be extremely light as a second skin and would react even in the most minute movement of air, even a tiny breath would move it.

Captain, Madam appreciates your gesture and thanks you for a pleasant journey. She, however, would like to bring to your attention of a slight deviation of the heading of this ship, Madam believes the rotational co-efficient of the asteroidal bodies was not captured by the Station AI. Madam suggests that you correct the heading in the next twenty minutes she nods and quietly backs away from the Captain and heads back to her Madam.

Twenty minutes? Yes, yes, of course, we’ll get on it right away the Captain was flabbergasted but knew better than to second guess the ‘advice’ given to him. He had heard stories about their capability and was extremely relieved that the Collective had them and their abilities to look after the well-being of all members of the Collective. The Captain rushed out of the quarters and barks his command to the nav station to correct the deviation.

The Young attendant bowed quietly as she approached the Madam, with the intent of receiving additional instruction that she knows was coming.

Prepare the sensors and drone to sweep the area. The Young attendant, Chloe King the most gifted amongst the coterie of followers of the ‘Madam’ was always by the ‘Madam’s’ side, strong, athletic, highly intelligent, and very emphatic to those around her. She was the one serving as the ‘Executor" of the Madam’s needs and instructions.

Yes Madam, the drones have been activated and are sweeping the forward areas even as we speak. There were no audible sounds between the two, but they knew what the other wanted. Audible-formed ‘words’ were not a necessity even during major discussions between the two.

During the formative years of UNESCO[5] and the eventual setting up of the Education Hub in East Lansing all those years ago, the Science Corp through numerous studies and Technological breakthroughs in the field of the Human mind had begun working on a plan to create this Cadre of very ‘talented’ individuals. This was done through a rigorous selection process that involved genetic mapping and progeny modifications through a mixture of matching parental pairs in procreation and technological intervention, completed through AI routines.

This was a highly confidential program of which only a very small group of UNE higher echelons were aware. This program was designed to refine potential candidates to be admitted into the initial Cadre. The candidates were selected at a young age, often without the knowledge of their parents. Surveillance and monitoring were often done remotely and in an unobtrusive manner utilizing seeker drones or listening devices. The UNE were well advanced in the area of ‘snooping’, particularly of their citizens.

The selected cadres were eventually placed into the program after their ‘Evaluation’ which occurs at a young age and is a compulsory requirement for all UNE citizens. The disagreement amongst the branches of the services within the UNE came to a head as there was wrangling occurring on who should receive their Special cadres into their respective Service. This went on for years until the deadlock was broken with the creation