The Cosmic Runners: Science Fiction

By Brian Carisi

by Brian Carisi




A spaceship with extraterrestrial technology and a motley crew on a cosmic odyssey through the infinity of space... Humans, androids and extraterrestrials must band together if they are to withstand the nameless dangers between the stars and inherit the legacy of an ancient cosmic civilization.

The distant spaceship CAESAR II/ALGO-DATA is stuck in a shackle field of black suns. There is no way out and also no living being in the numerous ships which lie here as wrecks. But then an alien race comes through the protective shield of the spaceship without difficulty and proves to be extremely peaceful. But can the Rimdeners be trusted?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alfredbooks
• Release date: May 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9783745230918

Book preview

The Cosmic Runners: Science Fiction

by Brian Carisi

A spaceship with extraterrestrial technology and a motley crew on a cosmic odyssey through the infinity of space... Humans, androids and extraterrestrials must band together if they are to withstand the nameless dangers between the stars and inherit the legacy of an ancient cosmic civilization.

The distant spaceship CAESAR II/ALGO-DATA is stuck in a shackle field of black suns. There is no way out and also no living being in the numerous ships which lie here as wrecks. But then an alien race comes through the protective shield of the spaceship without difficulty and proves to be extremely peaceful. But can the Rimdeners be trusted?

Copyright

A CassiopeiaPress Book: CASSIOPEIAPRESS, UKSAK E-Books, ALFREDBOOKS and BEKKERpublishing are imprints of Alfred Bekker

© by Author / Cover A.PANADERO

© of this issue 2023 by AlfredBekker/CassiopeiaPress, Lengerich/Westphalia i

BRIAN CARISI is a pseudonym of ALFRED BEKKER

The invented persons have nothing to do with actual living persons. Similarities in names are coincidental and not intended.

All rights reserved.

www.AlfredBekker.de

[e-mail]

1

Countless spaceships trapped between nine black suns whose gravitational forces held the meteorite-impact scarred wrecks in place.

And the CAESAR was one of those stranded objects.

Incapable of any movement, it remained in space.

Fixed by forces, which could hardly be of a natural origin, just like the black suns, which could only be further developments of so-called white dwarfs. Theoretically conceivable. The catch was only that the universe would have had to be at least 45 billion years older, than one had assumed so far, in order to produce such objects.

The assumption that this Sonnenhof was an artificial facility was therefore obvious.

The image on the large panoramic screen of the CAESAR/ALGO-DATA, made of one piece of protomatter, always showed the same bleak sight of the stranded spaceships. They were of most different construction. Some of them already had such strong outer decay marks that they had probably been trapped here for centuries or even millennia.

But the sight that presented itself inside ALGO-DATA - or the CAESAR, as the bird-of-prey ship was called by its human passengers - was no less bleak.

Everywhere lay the motionless bodies of the Noroofian crew. They looked as if they were frozen.

Dead.

Josephine and Marcus were convinced of this, even if they were not able to say it with ultimate certainty. After all, their knowledge of the noroofian metabolism was very limited.

The entire Noroofian crew had fallen into this frozen state after the mysterious scanning of the ship. Only Josephine, Marcus, Otlej and Naea had not been affected. Oziroona and Ozobeq, on the other hand, had been transported away by spider-like robots.

Intruders have entered the ship! the AI reported, not for the first time.

Josephine's gaze turned toward John Bradford, who was unavailable to her at the moment. He was lying in one of the sarcophagus-like pilot seats of the CAESAR. It was reasonable to assume that the ship was showing him everything he needed to know.

What kind of intruders are we talking about? asked Josephine.

Standard defense is initiated.

How did the intruders penetrate the protective shields?

The AI did not give an answer to this.

Likewise, ALGO-DATA did not seem to want to elaborate on what defensive measures it had taken in detail.

Josephine turned to Marcus, whose amorphous body of nanoparticles had taken on the usual pseudo-humanoid shape. The surface of this body gave the impression of being populated by teeming armies of the tiniest insects, which flitted over it in more or less chaotic stream movements.

I had already thought in the void zone around the Virojades system that we were in a hopeless situation, but right now I think we're in a lot more water ...

Marcus tilted his head slightly.

A gesture that almost seemed like a nod.

A stone's throw separates us from the Large Magellanic Cloud, he noted. And then this.

Josephine approached the row of pilot seats that had once been designated for the so-called seven shepherds.

With two of them they had started the journey to the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Ozobeq and Oziroona.

Maybe this crisis has its good side, Josephine muses.

Marcus moved slightly.

How am I supposed to understand that?

It could be that we regain control of the ship.

Marcus emitted a sound remotely reminiscent of a hoarse laugh.

I just wonder what good this rule could do us under the circumstances! he groaned afterwards.

Josephine even had to secretly agree with him.

But everything in her refused to just sit back and take the depressing situation for granted.

There had to be a way!

Any!

Maybe John Bradford had even found him already ...

Marcus approached one of the consoles. The nanoparticles of his right hand flowed apart, forming a link between him and the console.

A few moments later, Marcus pulled his arm back again.

He turned his faceless head in Josephine's direction.

ALGO-DATA refuses to provide any information about the intruders. Information would be available only to the commander.

Let's hope ALGO-DATA recognizes John Bradford as such again.

I wonder if this alarm was actually triggered by intruders.

The tattoos over Josephine's eyes lifted.

What do you mean?

There was no sign of any penetration of our protective shields.

What are you getting at, Marcus?

To the fact that the intruder may have already been on board. I'm talking about the monster that Volinov mentioned ... Riugerob!

The knowledge of Riugerob's existence had returned to Marcus' memory the moment he had been confronted with Wolinov's description of this phantom.

A cat-like warrior with spikes protruding from his leathery back skin. He was the friend of Riugerob, who had stood by Marcus in the Mars station.

How could I have FORGOTTEN him, it went through Marcus' head.

The phantom Riugerob was probably responsible for John Bradford's father Nathan disappearing from his stasis block. John had been able to persuade Ozobeq to let ALGO-DATA launch a large-scale search operation.

So far without success.

Marcus had also started searching, but he too found no clues to the whereabouts of the feline Katzanen and the kidnapped Nathan Bradford.

You think ALGO-DATA's search was successful? concluded Josephine.

Yes, Marcus replied tonelessly.

The truth was that he feared a success of ALGO-DATA.

After all, the ship's AI was likely to kill Riugerob as soon as it detected him. The chance to get ahead of ALGO-DATA was probably very small from the beginning, Marcus thought.

2

It was like his first flights on the CAESAR II, which the Noroofen called ALGO-DATA. He was one with the ship. The sensors were virtually extensions of his own sensory organs.

The question was to what extent he was also given command authority over ALGO-DATA again.

But it was certain that the conditions for this were more favorable than they had been during the entire trip to the GMW. Finally, the Noroofen had definitely been eliminated. Ozobeq and Oziroona, too.

John Bradford saw pictures. Pictures of two spider-like robots that carried the bodies of Oziroona and Ozobeq.

What happens to them, Bradford's thoughts asked.

The ship's artificial intelligence responded to him with a short,