An Elegy for Fools: Book One of the Tilbaran Chronicles

By David Bench

When a scouting mission in an uncharted system discovers signs of a world all but abandoned, the Tilbaran High Council sends Tsark Maladan and the small crew of the starship Tikuri Orao a hundred light years from home to investigate. On a mission to help save their world, a search for answers leads to more puzzling questions, and Tsark begins to fear that some among his crew may have their own hidden agenda.
Tom Jacobsen is the unofficial leader of a small band of humans driven into the forested hills near Denver, Colorado—a now abandoned city they once called home. Their numbers dwindling almost daily; they must constantly fight or run to survive.
Somehow, these two unlikely groups must find a way to put aside their many differences and work together against a common foe.
The future of both worlds depends on it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781365366055

Book preview

Prologue

Who wishes to fight must first count the cost ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Wars are fought by those who feel they are right, but peace is often brokered by those who are left. — Erda’al Paschim, Tilbaran Physicist

War is hell. It’s conceivable that every sentient species in the galaxy has a similar notion in their collective psyche. Perhaps the only thing worse than fighting a war is losing one, a harsh reality the small planet of Tilbara was now facing.

In the brief but costly war with the Da’artanians over gas rights on the element-rich planet Mardara, Tilbara found its forces sorely outmatched. The small but nimble Da’artanian fighters had overwhelmed the Tilbaran fleet’s defenses in massive waves, crippling their three largest cruisers and several destroyers. They annihilated the large battle carriers, the Ti’irnok and the Light of Analar. This loss was incredibly costly; many Tilbaran fighters had nowhere to land and no way home. Designed for close combat and not inter-stellar flight, these small ships could not return to Tilbara independently. The remaining cruisers of the beleaguered fleet took on as many fighters as possible. Still, the fleet lost more than a hundred killed or captured pilots.

In the following period, whole Tilbaran cities fell to the unchecked Da’artanian forces. Unable to counter and with civilian and military casualties rising daily, the High Council saw no option but to accept the Da’artan terms of surrender.

Mardara, the only gas giant in the Altandrian system, was now off-limits. Terms of the treaty stated Da’artanians would provide the elements Tilbara needed, but the exorbitant cost would likely cripple the planet’s economy. Without another fuel source, Tilbara could not survive another decade.

****

Landrec Tama'al completed his third systems check in the past five hours. His small, one-person craft had experienced a problematic wormhole transition three days earlier when entering this system. The ship had briefly lost all power before his onboard AI, Mala, triggered a full system reset. This appeared to fix the issues he was experiencing—until now.

Landrec's mission had been to recon this system and take samples from the four massive gas planets in a wide orbit around its yellow star. Tilbara had sent numerous single-pilot ships to uncharted stars looking for helium-3, hydrogen, and other desperately needed fuel elements in these uninhabited systems. A lack of intelligent beings meant Tilbara could claim the resources outright without using diplomacy or negotiations. The recent Gas War had left the High Council wary of potential future conflict.

When he had begun his initial scans days earlier, Mala alerted him to a radio wave beacon she was receiving. The weak signal, merely a series of repeating pulses, originated from one of the rocky planets orbiting closer to the star. Landrec launched his probes to scan each gas planet and decided to send his four reserve probes to investigate the transmission source.

The information sent from these probes was intriguing. The atmosphere was thin but breathable by Tilbaran standards. Rotating on its axis, much of the planet's surface enjoyed moderate temperatures and a day/night cycle. Life forms were abundant on the land and in the massive oceans. It had once been home to a civilization similar to Tilbara’s a century earlier—the cities and towns were now destroyed or deserted and falling into ruin. Each of the probes surveyed a different area of the planet. The transmitted images showed some cities burned out, the remnants of walls left standing like rows of giant teeth. Others were relatively intact, with only an occasional collapsed roof or toppled structure. The fires and collapse in these cities seemed more localized — a symptom of abandonment rather than the devastation of war. Passing through the empty streets, the probes detected no life within the towns. Bleached bones of varying sizes lay scattered among the fallen buildings across the disintegrating landscape.

Landrec watched the video feed intently, looking for any signs of life. As each craft navigated deserted roadways and moved slowly toward taller buildings nearer the city’s center, all transmissions abruptly ceased. They did not respond to Landrec's signals, nor did their ID beacons appear on Mala's deep scans. It was as if, one by one, an unseen hand had snatched them up and obliterated them. With Mala’s input, Landrec analyzed the incomplete data feed, trying to make sense of it.  Suddenly his cabin alarm sounded, and the warning lights flashed. A wave of panic jarred him from his thoughts. 

It had been thirty hours—a full Tilbaran day—since losing contact with the drones, and he had run out of options. His small craft was incapable of atmospheric entry, nor would he take such a risk if he could, given the uncertainty of his situation. He scanned the latest readings on his viewscreen. The data looked correct and within normal operating parameters, but his cabin oxygen alarm wouldn't reset. He sensed something was wrong, but his inability to focus made it frustratingly difficult to understand the situation. The blinking orange WARNING button seemed to be begging him to do something. He racked his brain, trying to think of what he was missing. Everything appeared to work as it should, except for that insistent alarm.

Landrec's vision swam briefly, and he saw spots. When the feeling passed, he called out to his AI. Mala, please bring up the current reading on cabin pressure and oxygen level.

On screen now, Landrec dear, the ship's AI responded in a sultry female voice.

The familiarity in the way she used his given name, along with the tone in her voice, made Landrec uneasy. As a pilot in the Gas War, his fighter’s onboard AI had been all business. Calling out priority targets, assessing damage, and assisting with course correction were all done with military precision, brevity, and focus. Mala had begun the mission by referring to him as Lieutenant Tama'al. Her tone changed sometime after uploading the telemetry data from the scout probes.

Not trusting the readings, Landrec called out, Mala, perform a full emergency system check.

Certainly, darling, came the AI's response.

In his agitated state, it had taken Landrec a few moments to register what she had said. Darling? Had he actually heard that? 

All ship's functions are within normal operating parameters, Landrec dear. Mala's voice was lower and more sensual than he remembered. 

Either he or his AI was having something akin to a mental breakdown. His head throbbed, and that damned alarm kept nagging at him.

Resignedly, he added the information gathered by the lost probes to the mission packet along with the survey data of the four gas planets. Lieutenant Landrec Tama'al then reopened the wormhole for his return to the Tilbaran home world.

Part One - Arrival

As for courage and will — we cannot measure how much of each lies within us; we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry us through the trials which may lie ahead. ― Andre Norton

Fear and the Unknown – these are merely friends who exist to show us what we may become. ― Old Tilbaran Proverb

Chapter 1 – Day 1; 15-10 Ship’s Time

The Tikuri Orao slowly eased out of subspace, engines dropping into a low hum as the wormhole collapsed behind it. Ahead lay the blue-green world the ship had traveled a hundred light-years to reach; its lifeless, gray moon lay just visible beyond. A faint ring encircled the planet, hammered and broken bits of debris glittering in the sun’s light. The ruined and abandoned cities found by the probes of an ill-fated scouting mission were indiscernible from this distance. The scout ship had returned to Tilbaran space heavily damaged—its pilot dead, and the ship’s AI lost in madness. Technicians evaluating the damage determined a sub-program buried in the probe signals had altered the AI and caused it to behave erratically, ultimately killing the pilot before he could report his findings. Fortunately, the data packet remained intact. After purging the virus, they disseminated the information within the file—information troubling to some members of the Tilbaran High Council.

For this reason, they had agreed to send this ship and her small crew into the unknown star system to investigate the persistent pulsing transmissions that had caught the attention of the scout ship’s AI in the first place.

Commander Tsark Maladan ordered a quick scan of the surrounding space, not wanting any surprises. He wasn’t expecting company, but so far from their home world in an under-explored system, anything was possible.  He wasn’t about to lose his ship and crew in his first command. He touched a control panel to his left, opening a ship-wide comms channel. 

All hands, this is the commander, he said, his words echoing throughout the ship. We have reached our destination. Assemble in the galley for a mission briefing in ten. 

The panel quickly faded to black, and he caught sight of his reflection on its glossy surface. Too many hours without sleep had left his gray eyes tired and bloodshot. He ran a hand through his thick, short brown hair and yawned. He turned his head slightly to reveal a pale scar running from above his left eye to just below his cheekbone—a constant reminder that he would likely be dead if not for the skilled pilot sitting in the control seat to his right. 

Engines are at a full stop, Commander, Shent said as if on cue. The pilot's massive frame dwarfed his chair comically as if it was built for a child.

Good. Set her to station keeping with periodic scan intervals, then get down to the galley. I’m going to wake the mech. With that, he turned and headed into the corridor.

At 30 cycles, some considered Tsark Maladan too young for command, even a small ship like the Tikuri Orao. Too tall for flight school, he had volunteered for Combat Infantry when conflict with Da’artan seemed inevitable. Years of working the docks in Dorvaani had made him muscular and lean; the military’s extensive physical training had made him agile as well. With the loss of so many pilots in the early days of the war, the fleet waived the height restrictions and transferred many promising ground troops to the fighter corps. Tsark’s grasp of strategy and intuitive skill in a dogfight had proven him a highly effective pilot, and he rose quickly through the ranks of the Tilbaran Fleet. Several high-ranking fleet officers had taken notice of the decorated war hero. His reputation pushed his name to the top of this mission's candidate list. Deeper down, he knew some of his ‘supporters’ saw an opportunity to eliminate a potential troublemaker. He had been very vocal in advocating against the peace treaty with Da’artan, still feeling the pain of losing too many friends and his only brother in the war to control the Altandrian system. When the opportunity was presented, Tsark had leaped at the chance to do something useful rather than watch impotently as Tilbara signed away their status and possible future. In his eyes, that ink was the blood of the nearly four million Tilbarans lost. 

As he reached the bulkhead separating the main living space from the engineering section, he glanced at the sizable egg-like dome mounted to its center. Power cables and hoses flowed from ports ringing its outer surface to unknown destinations deeper within the ship. Cradled within the curved structure was a three-meter-tall mechanical figure. To conserve space, its silvery arms and legs were folded back on themselves unnaturally beneath an armored carapace the color of dried blood. A faint, reddish glow lit a single optical receptor in the center of its large, helmet-like head. Tsark entered the wake code, and internal lights in the surrounding panels flickered to life. An invisible seam opened in the pod, and the two halves slid away into the bulkhead. The mech’s cycloptic eye, now bright, cast the dim hallway in bloody red light. It slowly turned its head, turning a menacing gaze squarely on Tsark. With its long-jointed digits grasping the metal handles on either side of the pod, the machine quickly stepped out and rose to its full height. Glancing uneasily at the towering figure, Tsark muttered, I’m glad this thing is on our side. 

The mech remained in stasis for the interstellar part of the journey, a necessity given its size and the fact that it performed no shipboard duty during transit. Formally designated M3V-1248e, the unit represented a giant leap forward in Tilbaran technology. During the Gas War, many wounded soldiers and civilians alike could not be helped by medical means. Some volunteered to help further cyborg research. A living brain lay beneath the unit’s bulbous alloy head. Cushioned in a thick nutrient gel, it was carefully fused to the circuits and controls within the mechanical body. An onboard AI worked in tandem with the brain, suppressing its higher functions to prevent schizophrenic reactions. The biomechanical balance achieved outperformed autonomous robots and similar tech. M3 models were military-grade and built explicitly for potentially hostile environments. These units were impervious to radiation, heat, or biological contamination. The mech had no weapon system; the recent Da’artan treaty forbade their use in combat. Still, the unit could produce a short-lived energy shield large enough to protect itself and anyone else standing in a