The Pathe : A Space Train Miners Story: Space Train Miners, #2

By Kyle Thomas

In book 1, Space Train Miners, humans live productive lives in peaceful mining operations on planets in a distant solar system. They encounter an unknown and violent adversary in surprise attacks that disrupt their operations. In book 2, the story continues when the Pathe are introduced as the alien aggressors. The story parallels the events of the first book, but from the perspective of the Pathe. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kyle Thomas
• Release date: Dec 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215686768

Kyle Thomas

About The Author Kyle Thomas Kyle Thomas spent 40 years as a software engineer. During much of that time he enjoyed reading science fiction books and watching science fiction movies. Books by authors like Isaac Asimov, Ben Bova, John Scalzi, and Andy Weir mount his bookcase. And he loves the classic movies including ET, Star Wars, Star Trek, Avatar and many others. Also, he is an avid reader of Analog magazine. Now that he is retired, he thought he would create one. Space Train Miners is his first short story.

Book preview

The Pathe

Senior Commander Grigoryan Sargsyan sits in the command center admiring the strength of his armada as they settle outside the binary star system, Gemini’s Guardians. He has been the master and commander of the Pathe capital ship, Might of the Emperor, for two years. His armada consists of another capital ship, The Emperor's Revenge, and five escort vessels. They are one of several advanced reconnaissance fleets sent to the Orion Belt to evaluate the humans’ potential as friend or foe.

The emperor has decided that humans are too dangerous to trust with advanced technologies such as those the Pathe have. They are warlike, and divided by religious differences which prevent them from achieving the greatness the Pathe has achieved. They increase their population at a fast rate, and they cannot meet the demand of this population with their world’s natural resources. Many of these resources have been depleted or destroyed by their careless, profit-seeking corporations. And so, they desperately colonize planets further and further from their solar system to replenish the resources they have wasted.

His capital ship, Might of the Emperor, is one of the smaller, sleeker battle ships of the Pathe space force. It is 2 kilometers in length, 200 meters wide, and 300 meters high at its highest point, which is the command center. Bristling with gun turrets and communications arrays, these ships carry hundreds of personnel. His ships use the latest Pathe wormhole technology to navigate from one star system to another. However, once inside a system, they resort to more conventional means of propulsion, fusion reactors, to move within the system.

The capital ships have six hangers, each of which has automated elevators fore and aft. These elevators bring men and supplies to and from the hangers. Two hangers have twenty attack vessels for offensive and defensive operations. Four hangers have troop transports for landing operations. These hangers detach from the ship when needed for planet assaults.

He takes the elevator to his state room and confers with Commander Hagop Petros of The Emperor's Revenge via their embedded neural network. He does not want the crew to hear what they have to say.

Petros begins, Grigor. Now that we have arrived at the edge of this system, tell me, why do we bother with such a small operation as this?

Sargsyan replies, Because I have the emperor's ear, and you do not. Our agents on that dirty planet the aliens call Earth have identified all the humans’ off-world space stations, colonies and mining operations. Our reconnaissance fleets must disrupt these operations and prevent them from notifying the humans of our presence.

Petros asks, Won’t the humans detect the absence of contact from these stations?

Sargsyan replies, These backward people have no quantum capabilities. They have no advanced, high-speed communications to their bases on Earth. It will take weeks for their messages to reach a relay at the nearest space station. By the time Earth receives notice, our battle fleet will be outside their system.

Sargsyan continues, "This system has two human mining operations. We will call these operations HMO1 and HMO2. Here is what we know about them. They call mining operation, HMO1, Greenhouse. HMO1 has 32 ships in orbit around the planet, divided into two trains. One train has 21 interconnected ships and rotates to generate their primitive artificial gravity. These are the barracks. The other train orbits the planet and serves as a cargo train. The mining operation on the planet has ships on the ground, but we do not know how many. The planet is rich in natural resources.