Bree

By Randolph Howell

Star Trek, Star Wars, Galaxia. These heroic tales took us far and away to those centuries ahead.

Now see what crises are yet to shape humanity beyond those beginnings. A single isolated pocket of humanity on Bree has its own modest destiny but challenges uncounted centuries of war and rumors of war. Galaxy empires fighting and destroying any opposition to conquest.

One planet. Isolated. Self-sufficient. Peaceful. Bree becomes the center of resistance against the multi-galactic conqueror of all time. Life versus total destruction.

Which will win?

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889602514

Book preview

Bree

Randolph Howell

Copyright © 2023 Randolph Howell

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88960-242-2 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88960-251-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chronology

Summary Outline

Chapter 1

The Season of Bree

Chapter 2

No Time for Quest

Chapter 3

Contact

Chapter 4

Stolen

Chapter 5

Absolute Power

Chapter 6

The Aliens

Chapter 7

Final Power

Chapter 8

Hostage

Chapter 9

The Box

Chapter 10

Galactic Inclusion—Awake the Sleeping Giant

Chapter 11

Intruder Alert

Chapter 12

Dream Stuff

Chapter 13

Extinction

Epilogue

About the Author

Chronology

AD 2044: First lunar base is established.

AD 2105–2290: Fourteen solar bases are firmly established: Luna Colony I, II, and III; Asteroids Union; Venus I; Mars I; Jupiter I, II, III, and IV; Saturn I, II, and III; and Pluto I. All are self-ruled.

AD 2290–2394: Hundred Years War. Solar bases fight among themselves.

AD 2388: United Nations Alliance Treaty (UNAT) is established on planet Earth. It is the first real world government.

AD 2394: Asteroids Union develops new SubLightPropulsion drive (SLP). UNAT steals new drive.

AD 2394–2468: UNAT slowly conquers solar bases using SLP, all except Asteroids Union.

AD 2470: Asteroids Union's Ceres is blown apart. Whole population is destroyed.

AD 2477: UNAT launches first manned mission outside solar system.

AD 2504: First inhabitable planet is colonized in Alpha Centaurae. The Great Outward Reach has begun.

AD 2504–3900: The Great Outward Reach has populated two thousand planets in the Local Cluster. All UNAT colonies.

AD 3871: UNAT Headquarters and Starbase are relocated from Earth to Vamille.

AD 3901: Part of the old Asteroids Union had escaped UNAT's destruction and has colonized two hundred planets under its new government, the Ceres Stellar League (CSL).

AD 3915: CSL discovers UNAT.

AD 3926: UNAT discovers CSL. CSL drives back UNAT's attacks decisively.

AD 3926: Roggue Preferr seizes control of CSL during military crisis. CSL begins counter attacks.

AD 3941: UNAT's No Time/Space Drive is completed after forty years of research.

AD 3941: Solar Calendar dated AD 3941, month 5, day 2. Story begins.

Summary Outline

Chapter 1: The Season of Bree

The planet Bree lies near the Milky Way Hub. It is an isolated planet with perfect climate, extremely stable geological forces. It is the home of a race of beings similar to the human race, with some important differences. Breeans live for over three thousand years per each lifetime. They are exceptionally intelligent and logical. They possess a mental faculty unique to them called Mental Thought Continuity, giving them the ability to read each other's minds and to communicate directly. It has another benefit as a source of purifying energy to their perfect society.

Bree has been isolated from all other life-forms in the galaxy. By choice. They have had no contact with any other life-forms for over two hundred thousand years of their history. In that isolation, they have perfected their culture.

The one planet is populated by twenty billion people. There are seven thousand boroughs. The people are farmers, traders, and simple tradesmen, again by choice for they shun complicating technologies.

Tarna Sturn cultivates a vineyard producing grape jams, juices, and wines, which she trades at the market for her necessities.

She is thinking about the last Jubilee nearly fifty years ago. The Jubilee is a festive ceremony occurring at fifty-year intervals attended by the whole population simultaneously. It is the power of the Jubilee which keeps the people sane and happy, content in their perfections. The ceremony is the time of purifying and strengthening using the energies of their Mental Thought Continuity. They are emptied of all thoughts that are negative and filled with all those things which are positive.

The coming Jubilee will announce Tarna to the people as an adult, having lived her first one hundred years. She looks forward to the purifying experience. She is counting the weeks before the Jubilee Day.

Chapter 2: No Time for Quest

Commander Presst Houston of the Outer Search and Containment Force (OSCF) of the largest federation in the human experience, the United Nations Alliance Treaty (UNAT), is testing the newly developed No Time/Space Drive, the first of its kind. He is on the maiden voyage trying out the drive powered by tapping the energies of a star. The drive allows the ship to move along the matter plane without any cost of time. On his first flight, the drive proves impressive. He reaches the near hub from UNAT's Headquarters on Vamille in the Alpha Centaurae cluster. He does random stop-and-scan procedures, looking for alien life-forms. He encounters Bree, which scans aboard ship, document that it's inhabited by near human forms of a low technology. They make plans for a planet fall to make contact with the aliens.

Chapter 3: Contact

The UNAT starship Quest sends down a shuttle captained by Commander Presst Houston to Bree's surface. They make contact with Tarna Sturn. Their arrival appears ignored by the population. In reality, the people of Bree maintain a mild interest since they feel secure in their own world. The Breeans communicate with each other through MTC, which is kept from the UNAT landing party.

Commander Houston and his crew meet with Tarna's uncle, Pramod Sturn, an official of Bree's government. Houston is convinced of Bree's simple but honest people. Bree is convinced of UNAT's continued presence in their affairs. Bree agrees to UNAT's request that they be allowed to leave ambassadors behind on Bree to begin beneficial exchanges between the two races.

UNAT's examination of Tarna, her home, her city, and her people convince Houston that they have discovered a truly peaceful people worthy of protection and preservation. He knows that his own government will likely not take the same attitude as his. Likely, UNAT will just take over the unsuspecting society and add them to their Federation.

Pramod Sturn allows the full seven hundred member Elite Council to be present through MTC at his meeting with Commander Houston. The Council concurs with Pramod that UNAT is an intrusive force which will not go away.

Tarna Sturn decides that she is attracted to Commander Houston. She has strong feelings for the unlikely alien.

Commander Houston feels strong protective instincts for all of the things that add up to the thing called Bree. But he knows he has little to say to UNAT about their intentions for these helpless people. His three ambassadors are left behind on Bree. He says farewell to Tarna and to Bree. He leaves for Headquarters.

Chapter 4: Stolen

The Ceres Stellar League is the only surviving group left from UNAT's unprecedented destruction of the Asteroids Union nearly 1,500 years before. They had migrated undetected by UNAT to the Alpha Centaurae cluster. Slowly, UNAT had migrated, too, in what came to be called the Great Outward Reach, filling the planets between Earth and the Pathos Quadrant. UNAT has just recently discovered CSL's existence. War resembling a system of raids between the two powers begins.

UNAT has just developed their new NTS Drive with one ship completed but a full armada on the drawing boards. CSL, through their efficient spy named Sumner Johns, successfully steals complete plans for the drive.

Sumner Johns returns to CSL's capital planet, Springer, with the stolen plans. He bargains a planet of his own for the plans. CSL's Commander Supreme Roggue Preferr agrees to Sumner John's price. The documents are delivered. CSL completes their own drive ship and plan their own armada to be completed ahead of UNAT's fleet. The Stardrive race is on.

CSL Commander Supreme Roggue Preferr agrees to Sumner John's price of a planet for his efforts. Bode discloses to Preferr of UNAT's discovery of Bree, a very likable population. Preferr commits CSL's first NTS Drive flight to the distant Delphus Quadrant to steal Bree away from UNAT's grip.

Chapter 5: Absolute Power

UNAT starship Quest returns to Vamille Starbase II. Commander Presst Houston attends a meeting of the military cabinet, chaired by the number one most powerful military leader inside UNAT's monstrous bureaucracy, Admiral Mere Houston, Commander Presst Houston's grandfather. In the meeting, Presst is convinced of UNAT's callousness to anything new or potentially threatening to their grand schemes. Bree is to be dissected for study. Presst feels the loss that will occur with the destruction of Bree's innocence.

Over a lavish dinner at the London Club on Vamille, Admiral Mere Houston and Commander Presst Houston discuss Bree's future. Mere is not sympathetic to Presst's feelings. Mere is more excited about the new colony they have found and the unlimited impact the new drive will have on UNAT's colonization program. The galaxy would be theirs for the taking.

UNAT cabinet members are concerned by Presst and his landing party's strange protectiveness over Bree. Psych Department, however, gives the landing party a clean slate. Nothing noticeable shows up in their psychological evaluations. Presst is reassigned to Argonne.

On Bree's surface, three months have passed quietly. The three scientists left in Bree's care complete their painstaking research; their work is finally completed. They design the best program to assimilate Bree into UNAT. They now await the returning ship.

Chapter 6: The Aliens

It is a matter of days before Quest is due back at Bree. Pramod Sturn meets with UNAT's representative at Ramoborough on Bree, requesting from Dr. Thommas Brash that UNAT withdraw from Bree to allow Bree to return to its isolation. Brash refuses, explaining that with the new NTS Drive, there will no longer be any isolation anywhere in the galaxy. That part of history is gone, dead and gone. For Bree's own safety, admission into UNAT is demanded.

Pramod makes direct mental contact with Brash's mind. Brash is overwhelmed with the power and energy of the people. He is suddenly overcome with a calmness of tranquility and purpose. He knows with a conviction born out of pure certainty that Bree knew sooner or later that some race would come out and find them. They had prepared for this day. Bree is not the captured. They are the captor. They are not the puppet but the puppet master.

Brash's two associates are likewise exposed to Bree's reality. The three are in agreement to join forces with the peaceful Bree. They meet with Pramod to open up their computer data on UNAT for Bree's defense. They are now a part of Bree.

Chapter 7: Final Power

In an emergency meeting of the seven hundred members of Bree's Elite World Council of Boroughouses, the first of its kind in almost one hundred thousand years, Bree discusses its present situation. Thanks to UNAT and its NTS Drive, Bree's self-made isolation period has come to an end. They have mastered the skill of decision-making that incorporates their logic, their MTC, their genius, their superior reasoning faculty, and their always present desire to do only what is best for Bree, into the ability to analyze more bits of data than UNAT's giant mechanical brain trust. They can actually follow their decision's impact down the tunnels of the future to its far-reaching conclusions.

They review their vivid history, their past crises, and their benefits from facing those crises. One such benefit was their sterilizer which not only kept the population levels stable but also provided a tool which increased their life spans.

As before, Bree determines they will turn this crisis into a far lasting benefit for their race.

Chapter 8: Hostage

Sumner Johns collects additional data concerning Bree. He hires saboteurs who cause destruction at UNAT's NTS Drive assembly plants on Vamille, setting their production schedule back three weeks. He sends coded message to Roggue Preferr on CSL's Springer.

Roggue Preferr receives message from Sumner Johns. Delighted. Preferr's military commander, Horace Kraxton, and his crew, after proper briefing, launch CSL's first NTS Drive starship Duty.

Commander Kraxton experiments with drive. Very impressed. Covers twenty-five thousand light-years in a matter of hours. He sets coordinates for Bree.

Duty appears just outside of Bree's solar system. They slowly approach the planet at SLP speed. They monitor for radio signals from the surface. They hear none. They plan landing party.

Kraxton and party land on surface at Ramoborough. They make contact with Tarna Sturn. Kraxton takes Lamar, Bree's ambassador, and his associate Cynta, and the three UNAT scientists aboard Duty as hostages, giving the people of Bree forty-eight hours to agree to recognize CSL as their guardian.

Kraxton returns aboard shuttle to starship Duty with his five hostages. The planet below has forty-six hours left.

Chapter 9: The Box

Commander Presst Houston returns to Vamille from Argonne after three months. He is weary but victorious. He is given a military promotion to full commander. His Lt. Commander Denton is promoted as well to commander. Houston meets with his grandfather. They discuss Bree and sabotage. Presst is given a ten-day leave.

Commander Denton is reassigned as commander of Quest. His mission is to return to Bree and implement UNAT's colonization program for Bree.

On the way to Bree, Denton is overcome with a vision of greatness for man, the evolution into the galactic man. He knows that Bree's understanding of longevity is a part of the equation. Happily, he is on his way there now. As he enters Bree space, Kraxton's ship vanishes.

Once in Bree orbit, Denton is unable to raise his three men by radio. He shuttles down with a guard detail and two cultural experts. They find the quarters unoccupied. Tarna helps him in a massive planet-wide search which ends up with zero. The three men have apparently vanished from the planet.

To gain control of Bree for UNAT and for his own plans, Denton declares martial law. Bree is a captive slave.

Chapter 10: Galactic Inclusion—Awake the Sleeping Giant

Aboard CSL Duty, the ship activates the NTS Drive at Quest's first appearance. It is now in deep space. Kraxton is waiting for Quest to drop its guard. Duty would then strike hard.

Kraxton's two Breean hostages attempt to make contact with their planet Bree so far away. They use only their native MTC. Contact, clear and strong, is made with Pramod. It is then that the Breeans reach into Denton's mind on his way to Bree to awaken his sleeping dreams for man. They then break contact with him.

Using the powers of their MTC channeled through the full Elite Council, the two Breeans in space, for the first time in a quarter of a million years, awaken in Kraxton his dream for the greatness of man. With the skill of their race, their native intellect, and their desire for peace, the Breeans win over Kraxton and his crew.

Chapter 11: Intruder Alert

Denton is finishing up the construction of the permanent garrison on Bree. He spends time with Tarna, who proves herself to be an able ally. He meets no opposition from the Breeans, only helpful suggestions. He asks Tarna why the people are so cooperative. Her answer? Bree and UNAT are going in the same direction.

Tarna invites Denton to local engagement festival. He agrees. He is accompanied by his lieutenant, two cultural scientists, and two guards. They are soothed by the music. After the ceremony, Pramod joins Denton at his table for the feast. Pramod asks Denton offhandedly about the Galactic Man concept. Denton is startled. It is his very own dream.

Pramod asks Denton to be sure the dream is a part of Denton, the real thing. Denton searches, answers yes.

Pramod lets Denton feel a small touch of the Mass of Bree's people and their one singularity of truth: Denton's dream is Bree's dream. He is shocked.

Pramod opens Denton to more: Bree's MTC.

Denton is won over. He is a part of Bree. He hears the music differently now.

Denton's garrison is completed. He is due back at Vamille. He promises to return as soon as possible to Bree, his Bree.

Denton returns to Vamille. He meets with Admiral Houston. Nothing seems the same to either him or his crew. He fears that he may lose Quest and his only way back to Bree. With fear, he secretly gathers crew and steals Quest. His theft is reported, and Commander Houston makes ready to follow him.

As Denton enters Bree orbit, he receives a radio message from the surface. It is Kraxton, UNAT's one-time enemy, now Bree's lifelong ally. He invites Denton to the surface to join in the planning. There is no more CSL or UNAT, only Bree. Yes, he would be down.

Chapter 12: Dream Stuff

The preparations on Bree are completed. The two starships and their crews have all that they needed. They head out to CSL's remote manufacturing center on Oriton. Once they arrive, they get busy manufacturing twenty-three hundred radiation bombs to drop into the suns of all of mankind's populated star systems. The bombs will sterilize all mankind. They begin their tasks.

Commander Houston arrives at Bree with a twelve ship armada, all new NTS Drive ships. He can't locate Quest. He doesn't know about CSL's NTS Drives yet. He shuttles down to the surface with two hundred men, armed. They can't find the one hundred men who were left behind with Denton to man the garrison. He questions the Breeans, including Tarna. He gets no answers.

He is invited to attend the noonday Jubilee celebration. He and his two hundred men attend in person at Ramoborough. He has his twelve ships strategically placed in orbit around Bree. As the Jubilee occurs, he and all his men on the ground and in space are in the path of the purifying matrix of the Jubilee's MTC. They are all unified together.

Presst Houston, Denton, and Kraxton, and all three thousand of their men and all fourteen ships are at Oriton. The radiation bombs are completed. The bombs are loaded aboard the NTS Drive starships and are exploded, one in each of the target suns. It is time for them to go home after forty days in space.

Chapter 13: Extinction

Admiral Mere Houston of UNAT discusses in a cabinet meeting the progress of the war against CSL. The raids have been halted. They make plans for a full-scale attack, the beginning of the final war. Included in the meeting's agenda is the topic of accelerated sterility noted in a growing number of UNAT's population.

The war is slowed down while UNAT confirms the data: there is total sterility of the human race. They had also confirmed it in CSL space. The two governments halt the war and jointly work on saving mankind from extinction.

With the missing fourteen starships and crews from both governments and with the confirmation that Bree is experiencing a boom in pregnancies at the same time that mankind is discovered to be sterile, the two governments head to Bree with the largest armada of warships ever assembled in one place. Bree is on trial. It looks as though the human race is to perish. But so will Bree.

With their full unbridled powers, Bree turns the trial into a mass conversion to the glories of the Galactic Man. Bree explains that Bree had been but a shapeless larva in comparison to their newly discovered form. They had lived too long in their shrouded garden. They would now awaken and fill the heavens and subdue them. Man has helped them shed their old self for the new.

Man would not die as it looked. But they would fulfill their role and be beside Bree as the galactic man.

Epilogue

Presst Houston, after months of helping with Bree's plans to move mankind physically out of the contaminated portion of the galaxy and into the new stars yet unspoiled by the history of mankind, returns to Bree to meet Tarna. She has waited for him. He understands that Bree forced man to grow, to leave behind his unhappy past, and to reach for his fulfillment. He is given the choice: he could stay behind in his old ways, under the sterilizing suns, and pass away from the galaxy, or he could leave for a better tomorrow where Bree would be there to guide him. The sterilizing rays are temporary but not their side effect of increasing man's life span to match that of the far-seeing Breeans.

Together, Tarna and Presst look above the clouds.

Chapter 1

The Season of Bree

The very existence of life demands from each of us the burden of doing what is right at all times. This heavy load could crush any one person. Give thanks, therefore, to our MTC. For its flowing power lightens the task of always doing right and fulfills each one of us with joy.

—Postulate Grande of Happostborough at his seventieth Jubilee

The glowing disk rose above the