Spaceship Caesar: A Galaxy Wanderer Novel

By Brian Carisi

by Brian Carisi

 

 

The size of this book corresponds to 238 paperback pages.

 

 

A spaceship with extraterrestrial technology and an assembled crew on a cosmic odyssey through the infinity of space... Humans, androids, and extraterrestrians have to struggle together to withstand the nameless dangers between the stars and inherit the heritage of an ancient cosmic civilization.

 

 

 

Brian Carisi (Alfred Bekker) is a well-known author of fantasy novels, science fiction, crime novels and youth books. In addition to his great book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton reloaded, Commissioner X, John Sinclair and Jessica Bannister. He also published under the names Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden, Sidney Gardner, Jonas Herlin, Adrian Leschek, John Devlin, Brian Carisi, Robert Gruber and Janet Farell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Jan 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215029886

Book preview

Spaceship Caesar: A Galaxy Wanderer Novel

––––––––

by Brian Carisi

––––––––

The size of this book corresponds to 238 paperback pages.

––––––––

A spaceship with extraterrestrial technology and an assembled crew on a cosmic odyssey through the infinity of space... Humans, androids, and extraterrestrians have to struggle together to withstand the nameless dangers between the stars and inherit the heritage of an ancient cosmic civilization.

––––––––

Brian Carisi (Alfred Bekker) is a well-known author of fantasy novels, science fiction, crime novels and youth books. In addition to his great book successes, he has written numerous novels for suspense series such as Ren Dhark, Jerry Cotton, Cotton reloaded, Commissioner X, John Sinclair and Jessica Bannister. He also published under the names Neal Chadwick, Henry Rohmer, Conny Walden, Sidney Gardner, Jonas Herlin, Adrian Leschek, John Devlin, Brian Carisi, Robert Gruber and Janet Farell. 

copyright

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Ein CassiopeiaPress Buch: CASSIOPEIAPRESS, UKSAK E-Books, Alfred Bekker, Alfred Bekker präsentiert, Casssiopeia-XXX-press, Alfredbooks, Uksak Sonder-Edition, Cassiopeiapress Extra Edition, Cassiopeiapress/AlfredBooks und BEKKERpublishing sind Imprints von

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© dieser Ausgabe 2023 by AlfredBekker/CassiopeiaPress, Lengerich/Westfalen

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Alles rund um Belletristik!

prologue

Do you think you can get in there? Bradford asked. It was overwhelming for him, the greatest moment of his life, no in all of human history! In clumsy space suits he had stood in front of the object together with Josephine and Marcus.

An object that could only be of alien origin.

A spaceship.

I can get in anywhere, he heard Marcus' voice over the helmet radio. Marcus was one of the two androids who accompanied Bradford on the mission. And they had a few decisive advantages. The greater tolerance to radiation was only one of them.

Josephine, the second Android in the team, reported: This should be the entrance of the object.

You can't see, Bradford said.

But the measurements are unambiguous. That's alien technology, but it shouldn't be a problem to get access.

That thing's half buried under rubble, Marcus said. But if you were to shovel it free, it would have the shape of a...

Raptors, Bradford murmured as he was given the data projected onto his helmet display in the form of a three-dimensional representation.

A dead eagle, Josephine said. Then everything got messy, got confused.

Bradford woke up sweating. His pulse was irregular. The dream disintegrated and slipped away until only a vague feeling remained of what it was all about. It had been a memory. The spaceship, this cosmic bird of prey, had by no means been dead. It had been a while since they had discovered that, Bradford recalled. Sometimes Bradford couldn't believe it really happened. Everything in the memory seemed so insane.

*

The ship was alive and crowded. It was full of alien sleepers. But Bradford and his companions hadn't suspected that.

Bradford also had no idea how easy it would be to get in touch with mind control and trigger a start.

CAESAR - that's what he had already secretly called the ship when he realized that it was indeed an alien spacecraft. CAESAR - the name of a conqueror. And with this ship, you could conquer the stars.

I should have named it after a kidnapper, it went through his head later. Because that was exactly what the ship had proven to be. As a kidnapper.

The unwanted start, the wormhole that had opened and then ...

A journey through space-time. Centuries in the future, infinitely many light years away from the starting point. And with a mixed crew of sleepers and stranded aliens aboard.

Among them are the old gentlemen of the ship.

The Noroofen.

There were really more pleasant circumstances for a cosmic odyssey, Bradford found.

But in the meantime he had realized that it was pointless to complain about it.

One had to accept this like bad weather or the next gamma-ray eruption of a neutron star.

Chapter 1: On board the CAESAR - so much later ...

A spaceship on the edge of infinity, so far away from any planet inhabited by humans that you can hardly imagine it. A ship that has not been constructed by humans, which sometimes causes difficulties. A spaceship we found on Mars. Under red dust and Marsgeröll.

Bradford took a deep breath.

The stream of thoughts sometimes made itself independent.

Thoughts of a past that sometimes seemed completely unreal to him.

Like from another life.

Another universe.

Separated by space and time from everything you knew.

Sometimes Bradford wondered if he would have boarded the ship he had called CAESAR if he had known what it would mean to him. For him and the two androids who had accompanied him on the expedition.

Above all, he wondered if he would have entered it if it had been clear to him that the actual masters of the ship were still on board.

And slept.

And that they would wake up and fly away with him into infinity.

That he would have to fight for dominion on the ship if he wanted to keep the chance to return.

Now they were a mixed crew on a spaceship in nothingness. Fate had brought them together. Coincidence. The probability algorithm of the universe.

Whatever.

Anyway, in a way, they were all dependent on each other. As different as they may have been and as confused as the paths they may have been on board.

I'm the commander, it went through Bradford's head.

A military rank that had meaning when he led a mission on Mars.

Out here, it didn't mean anything anymore.

Nothing.

And yet, now that Bradford had brought the ship's systems under his control and the ship's AI considered him to be a legitimate commander based on whatever algorithmic calculations he made, he actually was again.

The commander.

No, he corrected himself. Commander by grace of the ship's AI.

In the end, it always went beyond a rule of the machine over any creature.

Always.

*

Commander John Bradford was one with the ship.

Alien technology made it possible.

The ship ...

His fine sensors had become his eyes and ears. To his extension of his own body.

You have control of the CAESAR back! signaled ALGO-DATA, the ship's AI.

CAESAR - that's what he once called the alien ship. After a conqueror. And it was supposed to conquer. A conqueror of the stars it should become for mankind. Things sometimes go a little differently, Bradford thought.

What about Arat-Nof? Bradford asked. In contrast to his other stream of thoughts, this was a thought that ALGO-DATA's telepathic sensors took into account. The AI was very good at distinguishing which thoughts were directed at it or even relevant to it.

Or for the operation of the ship.

The perfection of ALGO-DATA sometimes frightened Bradford.

Arat-Nof has left his sarcophagus, was ALGO-DATA's answer.

Bradford was a little confused. Didn't he want to lead us to the coordinates of the hidden catzoid system?

ALGO-DATA confirmed this.

That's what he did, AI explained. The position data has been entered. They are available at any time, regardless of who takes control of CAESAR.

Bradford wondered why Arat-Nof had actually left his tax sarcophagus. Shortly before, this androgynous-looking, completely hairless humanoid, whom the CAESAR crew had picked up on the way, still seemed to be very important to determine the course. He was able to dissolve his physical form and transform into pure energy. In this form, he was also able to infiltrate external technical systems and easily adopt them.

After his ship, with which he had travelled from Andromeda to the Milky Way, was damaged, he was now on board John Bradford's ship.

A castaway, so to speak.

Meanwhile, Bradford and the others on board knew that he belonged to a people called 'Bhalakids' who managed a cosmic network of so-called Xaradim stations that would allow a journey from galaxy to galaxy.

ALGO-DATA seemed to guess what was going through Bradford's mind.

Arat-Nof said he wanted to take a regeneration time quantum, the AI explained.

What's that? Bradford wanted to know.

ALGO-DATA's answer was sobering: I' m sorry. So far there is almost no information available about the bhalakid culture in my data stores.

I understand, Bradford transmitted.

I assume that your last transmission of thoughts is a message with a hidden meaning! believed the AI.

Why would you think that? John Bradford replied almost amusedly.

Because the content of your message cannot correspond to the facts, the CAESAR on-board computer explained. It is impossible for you to understand why Arat-Nof left his sarcophagus to take a so-called regeneration time quantum, because you lack all the information relevant to the assessment of this fact - just like me.

Who's gonna be so subtle? Bradford replied.

ALGO-DATA did not go into this further.

Instead, the AI said, " You might be interested to know that Arat-Nof asked for a way to tap small amounts of energy to keep his energetic status stable.

Bradford had no objection to that.

Another stone was on his heart. I thought we agreed that your loyalty was exclusively to the commander of CAESAR, he noted.

ALGO-DATA confirms this. That's right.

Then I don't understand why you could just follow HIS orders and be taken out of my control as he steered the CAESAR into the middle of the central galactic black hole!

This question has been on Bradford's mind for quite some time.

ALGO-DATA's answer was amazingly simple.

I didn't have a chance to resist! the AI confessed.

What does that mean?, asked Bradford's thought.

ALGO DATAS' answer was: "It is exactly as I have transmitted it to you. I haven't had a chance to resist.

*

John Bradford lay in one of the sarcophagus-like pilot seats originally intended for the seven high Noroofen. But the days when John Bradford had had to argue with the Noroofen leaders over the rule of CAESAR were long gone. ALGO-DATA, the ubiquitous ship AI, had long recognized him as commander, so he was the absolute master of the ship.

The reason for this remained a mystery to Bradford.

In any case, the Noroofen also had to accept this. For better or for worse. Bradford did believe that they were looking for a way to turn the tide again. But that was speculation. As long as ALGO-DATA was on Bradford's side, he could be sure to stay in command.

CAESAR was currently moving forward with the help of the black energy present everywhere in space. The resources available for this purpose were almost immeasurable compared to human ideas.

What a strange odyssey you've had! He had it in his head. The strangest and most fantastic journey a person has ever undertaken ... literally through space and time. From the earth of the 21st century he had been torn with the CAESAR by the space-time anomaly of a wormhole into that epoch, in which one feared humans and their empire of the humanity everywhere and regarded them as conquering-addicted scourge of the galaxy. From there, his path - more or less as a prisoner of the Noro furnaces - had led him into the Great Magellanic Cloud, where they had encountered the old enemies of the Noro furnaces, the Hegriv, and where he had finally managed to recapture the CAESAR.

No, that wasn't a real conquest, Bradford thought. It's more of an AI act of mercy. Perhaps for her own survival, because the goals and operations of the Noroofen had become too risky for her.

But that was just speculation.

ALGO-DATA did not enlighten anyone about the basics of decisions.

A servant mechanism that chose its Lord Himself.

*

Now the spacecraft was not far from the galactic center.

Riugerob, a catzoid and rider on CEASAR, with the strange ability to make himself forgotten, was supposed to find his last rest on his legendary homeworld Katzana, whose position he had left on a kind of star map in the CAESAR.

Bradford had wanted to render this service to the catzoid.

A service to a friend.

Because that had become the catzoid during his time at CAESAR.

During an attack in which the crew had been involved during their journey, the cat-like one had died.

That's what happened.

The universe was a crowded place. All the naselang tried to invade the ship with some foreign life forms. Prey hunters, conquerors, looters. Many of these aliens had hardly a worse conscience than the crews of human prospector ships, which were in search of asteroids and transneptunic objects in the Kuiper belt, from which they could snatch helium 3 or platinum.

Bradford didn't like to think back. Sometimes he wondered if he could have prevented the death of the catzoid. But that was nonsense. His mind knew that. His feeling sometimes unreasonably said something different.

The universe was full of creatures. Not everyone was friendly. And some had a pronounced aversion to the catlike.

That's the way it was.

And objectively, it had never been at Bradford's discretion to change that.

No way.

Now Riugerob had returned - to where his confused odyssey through the universe had once begun.

That's how it is sometimes, John Bradford thought. Sometimes at the end the path goes back to the starting point.

One question stood unanswered in Bradford's mind.

Will that apply to me one day?

In this respect, he did not dare to make a forecast.

There was only one thing he could be relatively sure of.

His way, if he should ever lead back to earth, would certainly not be straightforward and preordained.

Perhaps a path too long to be mastered within a human life, Bradford went through his head. Even if you consider that time is something relative ... But we humans are given so damn little of it!

John Bradford perceived the surrounding space with the pseudo-senses of CAESAR: the suns, which were very close to each other in this galactic region. Gigantic accumulations of matter that kept fusion fires of unimaginable intensity going. The lights of the individual stars were often indistinguishable and formed huge beacons.

But there was also this zone of emptiness, measuring a good eighteen light-years, in which apparently there was nothing.

But exactly there was the position of the catzoid homeworld, which Riugerob had indicated.

The Planet of the Catlike.

Katzana.

A land team of the CAESAR crew had already been there with a capsule to give Riugerob the last rest. The perfect camouflage disintegrated as soon as you entered the system.

Afterwards Bradford and his crew  had led their  way behind the event horizon of the galactic Black Hole. To where the Bhalakid species operated their mysterious Xaradim stations. In a place that wasn't really a place.

A place beyond the imagination, equipped with a station that, together with countless other so-called Xaradim stations, formed a kind of cosmic network that the Bhalakids had once built.

Bradford would never forget that.

And he didn't really feel like repeating it if he could avoid it.

And the odds were not that bad.

After all, Bradford was now in control of the ship. Ultimately only by grace of the ship's AI, but that was better than nothing. And it seemed to be impossible for the Bhalakide Arat-Nof to once again seize control of the ship.

The black hole ...

The thought alone still made Bradford shiver.

Shortly after Bhalakide Arat-Nof had boarded, he had suddenly taken control of CAESAR and let it advance into this land of nightmares, from which there was no return under normal circumstances ...

Scary.

With this one word, Bradford would have summed up his memory of these events.

Scary.

And there really weren't many things Bradford was afraid of.

On the contrary.

The possibilities of the