Cybernetic Tyrant and Deep Space Visitor: Mark Noble Space Adventure, #5

By Tony Harmsworth

Two books in one volume

Cybernetic Tyrant

Mark and the team have returned from deep space and discover that NASA seems to be run by robots. They are met by one in Earth orbit which refuses to allow them to communicate with Houston and also has locked the visiting scientists from Herade in the passenger compartment. It assumes the aliens are animals and stops all communication between the two species.

 

Finally, Mark, Anna, Bill, Chan and Mary are shipped back to Earth, but the reception they receive is totally unexpected and frightening. What has happened to their friends and colleagues while they've been away?

 

Deep Space Visitor - a second adventure in the same volume.

After celebrations to welcome the Heradians, Mark's team are discussing how much help they need to occupy their original world in the Trappist-1 system. Development work on the spolding drive has meant that an expedition is also being planned to the pristine Earth the team had accidentally stumbled upon on the first main Trappist-1 expedition.

 

Just when they begin discussing the plan, Anna walks into the office and announces more information on a vague signal being received from deep in the solar system between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.

 

What is it, and why does it lead to a spolding expedition to Nu Lupi, almost fifty lightyears from Earth?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Harmsworth
• Release date: Apr 4, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223985792

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Cybernetic Tyrant and Deep Space Visitor

Mark Noble Space Adventure 5

Tony Harmsworth

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Details can be found at the end of Cybernetic Tyrant and Deep Space Visitor

Cybernetic Tyrant and Deep Space Visitor

CAST

Part One

1 Story so Far (contains spoilers for previous books in the series)

2 Painful Lessons

3 On The Run

4 A Very Strange Welcome

5 Reunion

6 Dangerous Mission

7 Assault

8 Kidnap

9 Planting New Seeds

Part Two

10 Celebration

11 Destinations and Origins

12 Speculation

13 New World

14 HR5568-B

15 Nu Lupi-D

16 Nu Lupi-B

17 Airport

18 Northward Bound

19 Tomb Robbers

20 Breaking and Entering

21 Trial by Heat

22 Mission Autopsy

23 Home

24 Grissom

25 Pursuit

26 The Haunting

27 Alien Interference

28 Boarding the DSV

29 Shopkeeper

30 University

31 Eternal Preservation?

32 Pristine Pastures

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CAST

Carter, Mary – a forty-year-old woman of Pakistani extraction. Mary is a brilliant astrophysicist who was deputy commander of Moonbase. When enhanced, she went on to invent spolding which was used in each of the stories since Trappist-1.

A black and white drawing of a person's face Description automatically generated Cherry, Adam – military strategist – a tall, skinny, Caucasian individual with a beak of a nose and horn-rimmed spectacles, thinning, greying, untidy hair.

Elya, Stroya – Stroya is a Heradian, an alien from the Trappist-1 system. She has become part of Mark’s team and is now a Pathfinder and Rimor pilot.

Huang, Chan – Ming and Dragonstar pilot, thirty-four, Oriental.

MacIntosh, John (Tosh) – Tosh was infected during Moonscape. He was senior Moonbase doctor with a background as a surgeon and in general practice. Swarthy, about fifty, argumentative, but extremely intelligent and innovative.

Noble, Linda née Fuller – Caucasian, golden blonde hair – fashion model figure – escaped with Mark Noble at the end of Moonscape – now married to him. They have a son called Jason (4). Linda is one of NASA’s top pilots of Rimors, Orions, Dragonstars, Spirits and Pathfinder.

Noble, Mark – Caucasian, tall, mid-thirties, medium build with dark wavy hair – senior geologist and, temporarily, Moonbase commander during Moonstruck – escaped with Linda Fuller at the end of Moonscape – married to her. They have a four-year-old child called Jason. This novel series is Mark’s story.

Stanbury, Anna – Caucasian, short white platinum blonde with huge blue eyes. Had been at Moonbase prior to the Moonscape adventure and had also had a short period as commander – senior Orion and Dragonstar pilot.

Wang, Chi – experienced astronaut and Ming, Rimor, Spirit, Pathfinder and Dragonstar pilot – senior Chinese astronaut. She has a ‘thing’ going with Tosh.

Weston, Neil – Head of NASA administration.

Williams, Roy – the first infected astronaut during Moonscape – geologist – best friend and colleague of Mark Noble – Caucasian and well built.

Wright, Bill – Crew Dragon pilot – heavily-built, British ex-commando, Afro-Caribbean black man designated military advisor to Mark Noble.

Part One

Cybernetic Tyrant

1 Story so Far (contains spoilers for previous books in the series)

Note for non-British readers – Tony writes using UK English spelling, punctuation and grammar, plus some US English words where appropriate as there are various nationalities within these stories. Metric and British imperial measurements will be used in the stories.

Although not essential, it is strongly recommended that you read the previous four books as certain threads in each of the stories are linked. Thank you.

Tony Harmsworth, 21st December 2021

In Moonscape, the first book in the series, Mark Noble, John MacIntosh (Tosh) and Mary Carter are introduced to us.

While working on the surface of the moon, a tiny hibernating creature is found which infects one of the Moonbase crew. It is thought to be a parasite and there is concern that it is trying to infect all the astronauts and will then find its way to Earth.

Mark and his partner, Linda, flee in a Dragonstar, only to discover that one of the parasites has escaped from the secure container they had taken with them. On their way back to Earth, it infects Mark, and Linda attempts to burn up the Orion capsule on re-entry to prevent the parasite reaching the population of Earth. However, she was just too late as the capsule had already begun its automated atmospheric entry and could no longer be guided manually to destruction.

On Earth, scientists discover that the parasite was, by a stroke of pure luck, killed as the Orion passed through the Van Allen radiation belts which surround Earth, protecting the world from the sun’s radiation.

The dead parasite is surgically removed from Mark’s head and is found to bear a remarkable similarity to the hippocampus, a small organ found in pairs at the top of the spine in all vertebrates.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

In Moonstruck, the second book, an international team headed by Mark, now with a titanium plate in his skull, returns to the moon to recapture Moonbase from the six infected humans. Bill Wright, Chi Wang and Anna Stanbury, three more of Mark’s current team, are introduced to us in this book.

During the expedition, they discover that the creatures are not parasites after all, but are actually symbiotes related to the hippocampus which, it now seems, arrived on Earth and enhanced all vertebrates in prehistory.

These later, fresh symbiotes, however, add immensely to the intellect and intelligence of their enhanced humans.

The military on Earth become paranoid that the entities will arrive from the moon and take over Earth, but on the moon, Mark and his closest advisors, Bill and Anna, try out the symbiosis and soon become convinced that they have to stop the military’s plan to wipe out the aliens.

By subterfuge, the enhanced humans manage to fool the military and NASA into believing the entities have been destroyed, but, in fact, when they return to Earth, they are all already enhanced and carrying more entities to pass on to key people.

The entities are able to reproduce every two days and within a few months, many of the human population have their own symbiote.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

In the third book, Trappist-1, Mary Carter, enhanced by her entity, manages to invent the spolding drive (a space-folding mechanism that permits travel as if faster than light, by utilising the dark matter universe).

NASA work with Boeing, SpaceX and others to build the first spolding ship, Spirit, and its two shuttles, Rimors, which will be used to land on and lift off from other planets.

Diagram, engineering drawing Description automatically generated Mark, Anna, Bill, Chi, Mary and Tosh set off on a test flight to Mars, which seems to be a total success if one near-disastrous, aborted take-off is ignored.

The second expedition is to the red dwarf star, Trappist-1, which has seven interesting planets, including three which are potentially habitable.

On Haven, the first planet to be explored, Mark, Bill, Tosh and Chi land and carry out experiments. They discover that the planet has a very invasive plant that grows near the lakes, seas and oceans. The seas are home to vicious animals, the size of elephant seals, which prove extremely dangerous.

On the day they plan to leave, pollen is emitted from the plant. All but Chi have their visors down, and some of the pollen is breathed in by the Chinese pilot. It kills her within minutes, despite her entity trying to stop its invasion of her lungs and digestive system. She drowns in her own blood in Tosh’s arms. This is not only a great blow to the rest of the crew, but Tosh and Chi had recently become a couple. Tosh is devastated.

There is much anxiety about how to return to orbit and to get from the shuttle into the main craft without bringing the plant with them. Eventually, they manage to do so, abandoning the shuttle and having to go through horrendous disinfection routines to get back inside the starship safely.

While the ground crew had been on Haven, Anna and Mary had been observing planet F and had found an orbiting craft circling Haven. They believed it had come from planet F which might have a spacefaring civilisation.

The starship, Spirit, travelled to planet F and the crew found that there was, indeed, a sophisticated civilisation, but their efforts to make radio contact were unsuccessful. The planet had many satellites, but all were ancient and running out of power. It was as if the people had given up space exploration.

It was decided to send down a rover-probe which was directed to a coastal city. It landed in a park within the city boundaries but could see no life at all. Eventually, they realised the piles of rags lying around the streets were the remains of people who had died in the distant past. Even their bones crumbled when touched. Something had wiped out the inhabitants of planet F, which they renamed Quietus.

They went on to discover the same plant that originated on Haven. It seemed that a space mission, taken in antiquity by the people of Quietus, went to Haven and might have accidentally brought back the plant, without realising how deadly its pollen could be. It established itself on Quietus and wiped out the entire population when it released waves after waves of pollen clouds.

Planet G was considered uninhabitable owing to its icy surface, so the crew decided to visit the only other habitable planet, the small planet D, to see if there was any colony of the people of Quietus still living there in exile, but, from orbit, they found no sign of any intelligent life.

Somewhat depressed, the remaining five of the Spirit crew decided to head back to Earth where they would need to be thoroughly disinfected before landing.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

In the fourth book, The Spolding Conundrum, the crew discover that the Earth they have returned to is not the Earth they left. There is no sign of human habitation. The distance between this Earth and moon is checked and it is identical to the distance of the original planet and moon. This means the ship has not travelled through time to some point in the past or future. The only explanation is that they have travelled into a parallel universe.

Astrophysicist, Mary Carter, working with chief pilot Anna Stanbury, and both of their entities, theorise that when the spolding drive was used, it not only took them through space but also into alternative realities. Each time they jumped, they had turned left into the dark universe and also left to return to normal space. They should have turned the opposite way – left in and right out.

Distance, mass and other factors are calculated and Spirit returns to Trappist-1, leaving the pristine Earth behind. If they follow the same procedures, backtracking each journey, they should return home, but before they do, they discover radio broadcasts from Trappist-1G. Were some of the inhabitants of Quietus still alive on the frozen outer planet?

Tosh and Mary began communicating with the aliens, a colony which had escaped their home planet when the invasive weed had been accidentally brought back from their neighbouring world.

The Heradians were in a desperate situation. Marooned on the ice world for hundreds of years, the health of their species was deteriorating and, more recently, devastating accidental fires struck some of their underground hydroponic farms. Now, with a shortage of essential minerals and vitamins, they were dying out. Contact by the humans appeared to be miraculous, offering a chance to save their entire civilisation.

The only way to provide help was for Spirit to reverse its original journeys, return to the real Earth and begin to plan a rescue for the Heradians.

When the corrected jump is made back to Earth, all appears to be well, but there are still changes. The Earth is not quite the same, but the best news was that Chi was alive and well. She’d been replaced by astronaut Penny Heston in that Earth’s Spirit mission, so had not travelled to Trappist-1 and had not been killed by the weed.

The Spirit returned to Trappist-1 and a tank full of vitamins and vegetables was delivered to the Herade colony, but it was not the same colony. Communication had to be started all over again. This colony was in our universe, but the colony the team had originally contacted was in an alternative universe. That colony was still dying from a vitamin-deficient diet.

An even greater shock was their discovery that a second Spirit was in the Trappist-1 system. On board were a second Anna and a second Mary. The rest of their crew, Mark, Tosh, Bill and Penny were all lying dead on Keradrol (the Heradians name for Haven), killed by the weed’s pollen.

Both Spirits returned to Arctur, the ice world, and Mark, with Chi, descended and met with their leaders. Two of the aliens, Stroya and Gurd, returned to orbit with them and the two Spirits returned to Earth, to come up with a plan to re-establish the Heradians on Herade and also to rescue the other colony in the related universe.

At the end of the story, a genetically engineered weedkiller was destroying the weed on Herade and thirty-two alien scientists were being ferried to Earth to work on the plan to relocate the Heradians on Arctur, back to their home world.

Tosh, in the second Spirit, had left to find and help the second colony in the parallel universe.

When Mark’s ship, Pathfinder returns to Earth, the welcome is rather unexpected. The last few paragraphs of The Spolding Conundrum are repeated below.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

The protocol was odd this time. Neil hadn’t contacted me and I was beginning to think NASA was fobbing us off with other contacts. No one had responded to my report about Bella [another world we had visited in the 91-Aquarii system in The Spolding Conundrum], and the days were now drifting by.

Eventually, a SpaceX Crew Dragon approached us.

‘Please undock one of your Rimors so that I can come aboard,’ said the pilot.

‘Will do,’ I said. ‘To whom am I speaking?’

‘Seventeen-twelve,’ the pilot said.

‘What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘NASA droid number one seven one two,’ came the reply.

‘Chan, can you move the Rimor?’ I said, deciding we could sort out the mystery of why a droid was greeting us later.

She acknowledged and within about fifteen minutes it was floating just off our starboard bow and the visiting Crew Dragon docked with us.

The airlock opened allowing not a person, not even a person-shaped robot, but a half-metre diameter silver-grey orb to float into the Spirit. Its side bore the logo of Cybrett, the world’s largest tech conglomerate and 1712 in red numerals.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

The orb moved straight into the bridge, produced a telescopic arm that connected to one of the consoles and, momentarily, we lost power.

‘Computer,’ Mary said, ‘what caused the power loss?’

‘I don’t recognise you,’ said the computer.

‘Orb. What is going on?’ I asked.

‘This ship is under my control. Standby for instructions,’ said the orb.

‘What the hell do you mean, under your control? What are you?’ I said.

I pushed myself forward, entering the bridge from the communal area and tried to pull the orb off the console.

I was hit with a massive electric jolt and tumbled back through the ship, shaking and jerking with the shock. Bill caught me and tumbled with me until we came to a halt near the reactor door.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Bill.

Every limb and appendage tingled with the effects of the shock. I couldn’t speak but managed to nod that I was not incapacitated.

‘Attention, please,’ said the orb, ‘we are now in control of this ship. You will be held here for quarantine before being transferred to the surface.’

Mary said, ‘What’s happening? Let me contact NASA.’ She reached for one of the microphones and was thrown back with another bolt of electricity.

Chan flew over to her. Mary had struck her head on the doorway and was floating unconscious.

‘This is diabolical,’ said Bill. ‘What the hell are you?’

‘I am not here to answer your questions. You will behave, and we will protect you,’ said the orb. ‘It will be better