A War of Meteors

By Stephen C Norton

When an interstellar test flight fails, Jodi finds herself returned to an Earth she doesn’t know, a hundred years in the past. The AICs never landed here, but six Queen rocks of the Swarm are on the outer edge of the system, and heading Earthward. Jodi’s fought the Swarm before and won, but then she had several million other AIC Domers helping her. This time around she’s alone. One woman against the Swarm.
The world below is totally unprepared for what’s coming. With only 600 days till planetfall, Jodi must take the fight out to the Swarm in deep space. Only one problem. This version of the Swarm has weapons and capabilities she’s never encountered before. Capabilities she’s struggling to counter. Struggling and failing, and she soon finds she’s losing the fight. If Jodi can’t stop them in space, the Swarm will land on Earth, and the extinction of the human race will follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen C Norton
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781927343838

Stephen C Norton

Stephen started his career as a marine biologist, later switched to managing computer support and development teams, and is now a full time author and artist. He lives on the West Coast of Canada with his wife and one crazy cat. He has sixteen books currently available in both paperback and e-book formats, including four novels, two guides on Soapstone Carving, one on Stained Glass Art, and multiple guides to various self-publishing topics. While currently working on a forth novel he has at least five other books planned for the next few years. An artist for most of his life, he's worked in many mediums, from oil painting to blown glass. For the last 20 years he's focused on carving soapstone sculptures and writing.He can be reached via his web site at www.stephencnorton.comTo purchase any of his books please go to his author pages atwww.amazon.com/author/stephencnorton on Amazon and www.smashwords.com/profile/view/northwind on Smashwords. His books are also available on Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and other resellers.

Book preview

Houston, We Have a Problem

Jodi awoke that morning with a distinct feeling of relief. They were due to re-enter Sol System in ten hours. Finally. She stared at her face in the mirror. The auburn hair of her youth had faded into a rather dull silvery gray. Her eyes, once a bright emerald green, vivacious and full of life and fire, were banked now and faded. The fire was gone. Had been gone now for seven years, ever since Hamilton died. People kept telling her that life went on, but when you’d spent over a hundred and twenty years with someone, it was very hard, in fact damned near impossible, to go on without them. She sighed, finished brushing her hair and went into the kitchen to make breakfast. She was definitely feeling her age.

The trip to Alpha Centauri and back had been a long time to spend alone. Or as alone as she could get with a fairly talkative artificial intelligence component in her head. Fourteen long months. Six months each way, looking out the view screens into nothing more than the faintly disconcerting otherness that was all that was visible while the Takamora star drive was operating. Fourteen long months of slightly morbid self-contemplation, interspersed with conversations with the AIC living in her mind and reliving old memories of better and happier times.

She'd realized about halfway through the trip out that she had volunteered to be the star ship’s test pilot in the full expectation that something would fail or go wrong. Although volunteered was being polite. She’d spent months harassing Elizabeth Takamora, the ship’s inventor, demanding she be given the position. Now she knew what she’d been half hoping for. An accident. A failure of the star drive. Something which would result in her death, preferably in a gigantic explosion. It wouldn't have been a bad way to go, she thought. Hell of an epitaph.

Here lies Jodi Walsh, scattered somewhere among the stars. Possibly across a very great deal of space between the stars. Died while testing mankind's first interstellar faster than light star drive. It would definitely have pissed off Elizabeth though, to have her beloved star drive fail during its first major test. But, it hadn't failed. Much to Jodi's rather morbid chagrin, it had worked flawlessly.

They'd used Jodi's own plasma engines, much improved on her original designs, to boost the ship out past the Kuiper Belt on the fringes of the Solar System. Once clear of all the debris of the Belt, engaging the star drive had proven to be extremely anticlimactic. The astro-navigation system had been preset to point the ship at where Alpha Centauri would be in six months time. All Jodi was required to do was flip the switches, give a final verbal confirming authentication and presto, the ship dropped into star drive space. Takamora space. Just don't spend too long looking out the window. The roiling gray clouds, shot through with flashes of multicolored light, were extremely unsettling to look upon. You'd see a dazzling flash, see the oddly colored lightning, and sit and wait for the peal of thunder that never came. The swirling gray clouds seemed ominous somehow, yet at the same time deeply mesmerizing. You found yourself staring numbly into the foggy gray space, while simultaneously trying to tear your eyes away from the sight. Hours could drift by before you knew it. By the end of the second day out she’d cancelled all the external views and had the monitor screens display a variety of mountain, lake and desert scenes instead. That way she could almost convince herself she was living in a cabin off in the hinterlands somewhere. As there was absolutely no sense of motion, and no vibrations of any kind from the drive, it was almost convincing.

But, ten hours from now, (You’ve been wool-gathering again Jodi, it’s only nine and a half now, interjected Voice with a chuckle), she'd be back in Sol system. Once she returned the ship to Cerberus Station, Elizabeth's research and construction site, where it orbited around Pluto, she'd be free. She was already planning on getting into her Whisperjet, SB1, and heading for the west coast of Vancouver Island, where she maintained a real, honest-to-goodness log cabin on Brooks Peninsula. Three hundred and fifty acres of wild coastal wilderness, all to herself. A cozy eighteen hundred square foot cabin, built to the highest ecological standards; a zero carbon footprint, zero earth impact cabin. Surrounded by the conifers of a dense temperate rain forest, rocks, cliffs and trickling streams, all leading down to long, empty, sandy beaches which were continually pounded by the Pacific Ocean. With a clear run across the Pacific all the way from Japan, the wind had time to build some truly magnificent and beautiful waves and surf on ‘her’ beaches. How Hamilton had loved it, the two of them walking those beaches together during the winter storms. Watching the gigantic breakers come rolling in. It had been their very own personal piece of paradise. A little bit of Eden on the western-most coast of Canada.

She put those thoughts firmly out of her mind. Hamilton was long gone, no point in dwelling on the fact. She finished her breakfast and began to walk her inspection tour. It had developed very early on in the trip. Once a day, walking the two kilometer long starship. Checking systems, displays, counters. Visiting the engine room and studying the totally incomprehensible mechanisms which formed the Takamora star drive. Rather pointlessly really, as any discrepancy would register with Voice within picoseconds, and he'd pass it on to her long before any physical alarm would have had a chance to sound. Still, the walking and the visual checking served to pass the time. Several hours later, inspection tour completed for another day, she decided she'd work on her memoirs some more. Though who would really care about them she didn't know. With Hamilton gone it didn’t matter anyway, just another way to pass the time.

Lunch came and went. As did dinner. And then, finally, the long awaited break-out into real space.

The windows cleared of images of mountain streams, to be replaced with a dark star scape. Sol was still just an invisible pinprick in the black, too far away from the Kuiper Belt and Pluto to be distinguishable by the naked eye. Still, Voice put a little virtual circle of light around it in her eye so she could see it.

Okay Voice. We're home. Send a call out to Elizabeth at Cerberus station. Let them know we're back. Bring the plasma drives online and let's head on in. I'm sure everyone on the station is dying to get their hands on the ship and the flight logs. Prep SB1 for flight. I want to leave as soon as possible.

Already done, Jodi, Voice replied. I’ve just sent the message to Elizabeth. We should receive a response from Cerberus in about forty minutes. Plasma drives have engaged, and we should be decelerating into Cerberus Station in another fourteen hours or so. SB1 is ready to fly at any time. Has been for the last six months, as you well know.

Great. Wake me when we get there.

Six hours later Voice woke her with the news.

Jodi, I think we have a problem. Voice hesitated. How do you report such impossible news? Cerberus Station isn't answering, and according to our telescopes it isn’t even there. There’s nothing there at all. I've also searched for the AIC mothership complex. It should be in orbit around Eris, along with the shipyards for building the new AIC motherships. There's nothing there either. No sign that anything was ever there. And the radio signals we are currently receiving from Earth don't make any mention of anything we're familiar with. In the last six hours there's been no mention of anything to do with space. Nothing about Mars Base, Ceres Base, the asteroid mines, nor any of the lunar colonies. Nothing at all. He paused, then continued.

"You know how you kind of hoped Elizabeth's drive would screw up and you would get to go out in a blaze of glory? Well, it looks like you got the first half of your hope.

Something with the drive has screwed up very badly indeed. It may resemble it in many ways, but this is not our solar system."

Exploring Neverland

They orbited Pluto for two weeks. Voice spent his time reviewing all the navigational data from the starship, trying to figure out what had happened to them. Jodi spent her time listening to the radio and TV broadcasts emanating from the inner system. They set up a dozen or so observation systems and telescopes, double checking that they really were where they thought they should be. The facts were undeniable. They were in the Solar System, orbiting Pluto. Jupiter was there, with its Great Red Spot swirling exactly where it was supposed to be. Saturn had all its rings. The planets closer in to the Sun were the ones they expected to be there. The broadcast signals came from Earth, in all the languages Jodi recognized.

You know there have always been theories and stories of parallel universes, Voice commented one evening. Each one separated from the others by the smallest fold in dimensional space, each unique due to a slight change in some event, something in history which could have gone one way or the other. One theory suggests that for every possibility occurring, another unique universe is created. The closer the event is to current time, the more similar the two universes would be. Differing events in ancient or even paleological times would produce dramatically divergent universes.

So you’re saying this universe is different from ours because something happened in our continuum which didn’t happen here? Jodi responded.

Or the reverse could be true. Something did happen here which didn’t in our world. But I very much doubt that we’ll ever know what or when that event was.

At the end of the second week, tired of listening to news broadcasts which meant very little to her, Jodi gave up and ordered the ship sun-ward.

They parked the starship on the dark side of the moon. It was a huge craft, a little over two kilometers long. A rather bulbous looking cylinder, blunt nosed, with five long raised strips protruding slightly from the sides, evenly spaced around the ships circumference. Jodi’s best friend Catherine, in one of her usual flights of fancy, had compared it rather disparagingly to a contracted sea cucumber with the muscle strips on the outside. A Takamora FTL starship, designed with spacious, some said luxurious, living quarters for a crew of around a thousand. The massive size was mostly dictated by the requirements of the star drive and its associated shield systems, which comprised just over a third of the volume of the vessel. The remainder of the space was dedicated to life support systems, a myriad of science stations and a huge hangar space, capable of holding twenty Whisperjets for use as landing and exploration craft. It also had space for as many as ten Super Galaxy class cargo planes for resource mining and extended interplanetary explorations. It had launched with only a single Whisperjet on board, Jodi’s personal craft, SB1, but Jodi had set the nanite builders to work while in flight, so now she had a fleet of some twenty-one craft at her disposal. Jodi had figured that she might as well make use of the travel time to complete the outfitting of the starship, so it would be ready to go once she completed the solo test flight. She’d also tried to learn more about the theory and technology behind the star drive, but after a while the dense and extremely esoteric multi-dimensional mathematics required had bored her to tears.

Elizabeth Takamora had once tried to explain the evolution of her star drive technology to Jodi.

Let's begin with a history lesson, she started. "In 1935 Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen produced a paper positing the existence of wormholes. Actually it was a rediscovery of the concept, as it had originally been proposed independently by both Ludwig Flamm and Carl Schwarzschild in 1916. It was a mathematical model which described the boundary conditions around a black hole. At that time crossing the boundary of a black hole was considered to be a one-way exit from our universe.

In the following century a host of other mathematicians developed additional theories around the concept. All the variations became known generally as Einstein-Rosen Bridges. They almost all included the concept of a warp in space with two openings, one where you were, and the other at your desired destination. A high energy tunnel through space. Traversing a wormhole would theoretically allow you to travel light-years in distance in very short periods of time. The main problem with all of these theories was that they relied on negative vacuum energy, and often negative mass as well. Negative energy and negative mass are very interesting theoretic mathematical concepts but at that time had absolutely no basis in reality. Thus they all remained merely interesting mathematical solutions to Einstein's field equations, with no meaning in the real world.

In 1994, a Mexican theoretical physicist and mathematician named Miguel Alcubierre came up with an equation which defined FTL travel without violating Einstein's field equations or any physical laws. It too involved creating a negative mass via an energy density field lower than that of a vacuum, negative energy. As a result, like Einstein-Rosen Bridges, it too had been nothing more than a rather interesting mathematical theory. The amount of energy required had been beyond anything humankind had access to and no-one had any idea of how one went about creating either negative energy or negative mass.

Then the AICs and the Domes appeared on Earth, along with their zero point vacuum energy generators and absorbers. When humans discovered that zero point systems could dump energy into the vacuum, as well as pulling it out of the vacuum, the concept of negative energy suddenly became tantalizingly real. And so the search for a faster-than-light ‘FTL’ star drive began."

By that time Jodi's eyes had started to glaze over, and Elizabeth took pity on her.

"OK. Enough historical background. Let me give you a working example.

Take a sheet of paper, a standard page of eight and a half by eleven stuff. Put a dot at each end of the page. The distance between the two dots is eleven inches. Now pretend that one of those dots is Earth, and the other is Alpha Centauri, which makes the distance between them about four and a half light years. Meaning if you could somehow travel at the speed of light, it would still take you four and a half years to get from here to there.

Now, fold the paper in half, end for end. The two dots are now touching. According to the theories, that is what an Einstein-Rosen Bridge should do. Now, instead of four and a half light years, you only need to traverse the thickness of the paper to get from one dot to the other. Got it?"

Got it, Jodi replied, inordinately pleased with herself for understanding a grade school explanation. Jodi’s specialty was plasma physics, and the extreme mathematics supporting Einstein-Rosen Bridges had never caught her fancy.

Good. Well, it's actually nothing like that at all, but as an analogy it's not really too far away from reality. At least, no further than any other analogy I can think of that would be understandable to a layperson. And all we have to do is figure out how to use the zero point systems to generate negative energy and then convert that to negative mass so we can create a Bridge.

And you'll have all of that done by when? Jodi asked.

Oh, Elizabeth smiled, obviously deeply enthralled by the whole idea, Come back and see me in about twenty years. I might have an answer for you by then.

It had actually taken her, and her team, and all their AIC's combined, nearly fifty years to produce a reliable, working prototype. One that didn’t self-destruct in exceedingly spectacular ways, as had the first hundred odd prototypes. At which point Jodi had badgered Elizabeth into letting her pilot the first test flight alone.

She’d just spent six months traveling four point three seven light years out to Alpha Centauri. Followed by a couple of months surveying the star system, confirming there were planets orbiting the sun, including several in the Goldilocks zones, none of which were habitable, which had long been known from telescopes in Earth orbit since the 2050s. Exploring the complex system of three stars in close proximity, Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B and Proxima Centauri, had made for an interesting two months. Then, preliminary survey completed, she’d spent another six months traveling back home, to the Solar System and Earth. At any other time she’d have been eager to discuss her findings with the astronomical teams who’d been awaiting her data.

Instead, she was here, sitting in her starship on the dark side of the moon, circling an Earth that appeared to have never encountered AIC's, or Domes, and had certainly never even heard of a Takamora star drive.

Finding an Anomaly

Professor Nolan, do you have a moment. Jason hesitantly poked his head around the office door belonging to his doctorate supervisor. A grad student in Astronomy, Jason Bradshaw had been monopolizing the University’s telescope for the past few months, taking image after image of the night sky. I seem to have an issue on my image captures that I'd like you to take a look at.

What? You mean to tell me you've discovered a new asteroid already?

Er, no, not exactly. Now that he was here he was beginning to wonder if he should have just ignored his anomalous images. He really didn’t want to appear the fool in front of the chair of his Ph.D. advisory panel. Still, he was here now, might as well move forward. At least I'm not really sure. I noticed that a star behind Pluto disappeared.

Disappeared? You mean it's completely gone? Nolan asked with gentle sarcasm.

No, sir. It reappeared on the next image. But that's not really the issue. As you know, I’ve been searching for any moving bright spot on sequential images, which would indicate an asteroid or something equivalent. However, instead of bright spots, I noticed that some of the background stars were occasionally being progressively occluded.

When did this happen? Nolan was well known at the University for not suffering fools lightly, nor for being particularly diplomatic about it when someone did something he considered stupid. And that covered a lot of ground and a lot of students. Right now he looked rather interested, which Jason thought was a good sign and so he relaxed slightly.

Well, I just noticed it yesterday, because I’ve been letting the computer do most of the comparative scanning. The computer didn’t report it because it was only looking for moving lights, not missing stars.

Yes, Nolan muttered, peering over his half-glasses at Jason’s anxious face. The automated systems can be a bit moronic, especially if you don’t get the programming right. Nice to see you weren’t relying on them completely.

Yes sir. Jason wasn’t quite sure if that had been a veiled rebuke or a minor commendation. It was hard to tell with Nolan. I spent last night going back over all the images I've been collecting for the past month. About three weeks ago something appeared in orbit around Pluto which began regularly blocking out some of the stars behind the planet. You can actually track the movement because the background stars disappear and reappear in a regular pattern. Whatever it was sat in a stable orbit around Pluto for a full two weeks, and I have a good series of images showing the movement.

Well, that's pretty damn unique. His interest piqued, Nolan was becoming much more interested. What's its albedo?

That's part of the problem Professor, it doesn't have one.

What? Impossible. Everything has an albedo of some degree. The you idiot wasn’t quite verbalized, but it was definitely there.

Yes sir, that’s what I thought. But this thing doesn’t. It appears to be completely black. Totally non-reflective. But that's not the most interesting thing. Five days ago it left Pluto's orbit and it appears to be moving inwards, towards the sun. It's very hard to tell precisely where it is at any given moment because it's just a dark spot and you can only track it when it blocks the stars behind it. But based on the last five days worth of tracking data it seems to be heading towards Earth.

Any idea of the size? If it’s heading towards Earth we may want to give the Asteroid Watch people a heads up.

Using the time it takes to pass across each star, I'm guessing it's somewhere in the range of one to three kilometers in size. I have no idea of the shape of it, though. But if my tracking data is correct, it seems to be accelerating towards us at a steady one gravity. Jason held his breath. This was the sticking point in his great new discovery.

Accelerating towards us, hey?

The Professor’s look of intrigued interest immediately changed to one of skepticism. Nothing naturally occurring in deep space accelerated, and certainly not at one Earth gravity. He was beginning to think Jason might be pulling a joke on him, though that would be quite unusual for Jason. He'd always been a nice quiet, studious grad student, more focused on his studies than anything else. Almost obsessive about astronomy in fact, which could also sometimes be a problem. Certainly not a student prone to practical jokes, especially jokes which might endanger his Ph.D. Oh, what he’d give for the perfect student, properly studious while being otherwise normal. In all his years of teaching he’d never come across such an animal. He sighed.

A rock one to three kilometers in size, with an albedo of zero and accelerating towards Earth at one gravity. I find that just a little hard to accept, Jason. Maybe you and I should take another look at your entire image series and see where you’ve made a mistake. Something is obviously out of kilter. I’m willing to bet your computer program has developed a hiccup somewhere.

I was hoping you would say that, Professor. I have the entire image sequence right here, he held up a USB plug, so I can display them on your desktop if you'd like.

No, just wait a moment. Nolan checked his calendar. I see that the astronomy theatre is empty right now and will be for the next couple of hours. It's got the ability to show multiple images, so we can put up ten images at a time and visually scan them all in sequence. I much prefer to do things the old way, relying on our eyes rather than some damn moronic computer program. The computers get things wrong at least half the time anyway. Let’s head down there and you can walk me through what you've got.

More Bad News

Well, that was damned disconcerting. Jodi growled as she maneuvered the Whisperjet back into the main hangar. They'd just completed a long spiraling circumnavigation of the planet below them, looking for any sign of familiar landmarks.

No sign of Domes anywhere on the planet. No chatter on the DomeNet. The Internet down there is wide open and if I didn't know better I'd swear it was the Earth I knew when I was twenty-five. Before the AICs ever appeared.

Yes, it’s very puzzling. Voice commented. "I'm also reviewing the results we’ve been getting from the telescopes and sensors we set up on our way in from Pluto. Not only is the Cerberus Station definitely missing, but I can confirm that the AIC mothership construction facility which should be in orbit around Eris is also definitely missing. Ganymede station is not there, nor are any of the asteroid mining stations you set up early in your career, nor are any of those subsequently established in the past fifty years. All of those rocks are absolutely pristine. There's no sign of any mining extraction facilities and absolutely no sign that extraction has ever taken place. The shipyards associated with the mines are not there. The lunar colonies also appear to be nonexistent. The only sign that I can find of mankind on the Moon are the old Apollo and Surveyor landings and the Soviet, Japanese and Chinese unmanned lunar probes.

We collected a great deal of information on our reconnaissance run, including television, radio, Internet, plus some surreptitious extractions from government and educational systems. All of which I'm still scanning as we speak. However, I've already found two items that I find gravely concerning. The first is that the date timestamps being broadcast across the Internet on the planet below all show this as being 2021."

What? Jodi yelped incredulously. How can that be possible? We left Cerberus in 2139!

Do you remember when Ms. Takamora tried to explain to you how her star drive actually worked? All that esoteric math she threw at you. Voice queried.

You were there, you idiot. Jodi retorted sarcastically. Yes, of course I remember. I followed the first few sentences and then lost her as soon as she started babbling about fifteen dimensional math, Schwartzchild metrics, Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates and Lorentzian manifolds. Talk to me about plasma physics and I can run rings around you. Talk to me about chaotic black hole quantum physics that can simultaneously be yes, no, maybe or all of the above, along with Einstein-Rosen Bridges that are simultaneously real and unreal and you lose me pretty damn fast.

And yet I find it fascinating then that you could actually remember all those terms you just recited, Voice replied with a chuckle. You obviously absorbed and understood a great deal more than you own up to. However, I think I can safely say that the most important item which relates to our current situation is that the Einstein-Rosen Bridge mathematics does indeed include at least fifteen dimensions and actually quite a few more. Many of those are space related, positing physical dimensions beyond our own three. However quite a few of those mathematical variables are time related, extending well beyond our normal single dimension of time. Almost all of those variables include the possibility of being either positive or negative. Then there are a number of other variables relating to n-dimensional space, in other words, other dimensions. Controlling, manipulating and coordinating all those variables is what makes the star drive take up so much space in the ship. And all those variables must be continually adjusted and balanced during the entire time that the ship spends within the Einstein-Rosen Bridge during transit. Which is why the ship has a truly massive and exceedingly sophisticated computer system running it.

Oh no. Jodi groaned in dismay, realizing just where Voice’s logic was leading. You're telling me that the damn computer was fiddling with all those variables for the entire six months that we were in transit?

Twelve actually. Six months heading out and six months returning. Given my preliminary analysis of all the ships engine and system logs, combined with the data we've collected in the short time we've been here, I have a theory that we have slipped both sideways, into another dimensional continuum, and backwards, into an earlier time.

So you're saying we're not just in the past, but we're in somebody else’s past in a totally different dimension? Jodi exclaimed in outrage. Are you out of your tiny little mind?

At which point she tripped on the top step of the aircraft stairs as she left the Whisperjet, and only just managed to grab the stair rail in time to stop herself from doing a nosedive onto the hangar floor eight steps below.

Ouch. Damn. That really wrenched my shoulders, but good. She arched her back, rolling her shoulders to ease the muscle strain. I'm getting old and senile. she growled. Can't even walk down stairs any more, even in lunar gravity. And you’re not helping the senility at all, coming up with harebrained ideas like that. You're saying the star drive transposed a few numbers in transit and we're a few dimensions over to the right and a hundred years before we actually left Sol system?

"I'm still reviewing the Takamora equations and all the computer logs from our trip, but I think it was probably only a single variable and just a few numbers out at the fiftieth decimal point. Such a small error to cause such immense changes.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't look like you can control time and dimensional space independently. In fact I just found a video of one of Ms. Takamora’s lectures where she stated that as a known fact, almost word for word. Every single variable appears to have some impact on both space and time, simultaneously. Some have minor effects, some have major impacts."

That's good though, isn't it? Jodi responded, eagerly grasping at a perceived straw. If you found the error, can't we just reverse it or correct it or whatever? Drop back into the Takamora drive, tweak the variable in the opposite direction and simply go home?

"It's not quite that simple I'm afraid. I think I've identified what might have been the cause of the problem." Voice carefully stressed both the I think and might have part of his statement. "However I'm a long way from actually being able to state exactly what is required to correct the issue. I'm going to have to go through all of Ms. Takamora's research notes and discussion papers. In fact, I’ll need to