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Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: Sortmind Press
ISBN-10: 1771154659
Type: Fiction
Pages: 284
Copyright: December 2020
ISBN-13: 9781771154659
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Supreme Commander Jack Commer pushes for expanded exploration far beyond Sol when a star thirty-four light-years away abruptly vanishes, leaving the infrared signature of a Dyson sphere 967 miles wide, built in one week by a race that kills suns to create spectacular quasar artworks.
After the 2075 restoration of a benign telepathic Grid to Alpha Centauri, Supreme Commander Jack Commer returns home beset by bad news: his son’s housekeeper K’ufunb just suicided in a spaceship via a failed Warp Transfer, Mars is panicked by the renewal of the Grid, ship’s engineer Draka Sortie is resigning to marry Martian Empress Mandy, and Navigator Will Connors announces he’s retiring. To top it, the star Iota Persei, 34.36 light-years distant, has disappeared, and the USS Jupiter is destroyed there after encountering a Dyson sphere 967 million miles wide.
Jack readies the untested Typhoon V for Iota Persei, assigning physician/engineer Laurie Lachrer to the ship and asking a reluctant Will, traumatized by old combat duties, to stay on. But Draka Sortie is transported to the Typhoon V en route to Iota Persei, and begins to remember he’s a member of a race called the Wounded, and the Negation Master for Iota Persei. The Typhoon V is destroyed and the crew is taken to the Iota Persei Dyson sphere, where the Wounded boast that they go from star to star, shrouding them and stealing all their energy.
Excerpt
“Hey, Jack, this is Lee,” came over the intercom.
Jack slammed his fist on his armrest. “Dammit, senator, are you quitting too?”
“Huh? What’s going on, Jack? I just got this message from Marsport.”
Jack shook his head. “You don’t know that Draka and Will both just quit the USSF? Just like that?”
“No, wow, I had no idea! I’ll have a talk with ’em if you want. But really, this is more important.”
“What’s more important, dammit?”
“Look, I just got a call from Ranna.”
Joe swiveled at the mention of his wife’s name. “So why’s she calling you?”
“And how is she calling you?” Then Jack remembered Borman’s new Senator Comm equipped with superspace radio. Although events a few weeks ago had forced Jack to shatter Borman’s specialized comm, Borman had asked Joe to bring a new one when the Typhoon III came to pick up the IV crew.
“It came on the official business circuit. Ranna said the Time Committee was in emergency session, and she had to get right back to it. Said she was sorry she didn’t have time to chat with you, Joe.”
“Politics,” Jack muttered. “I thought the damn Time Committee was wrapping things up now.” Joe’s wife Ranna was the Chronology Coordinator on the Time Committee and was number two in the organization behind Dar, but now that Dar had retired, who knew how the Committee would fare? But with the end of all Heuristic Time Transitions on May 29th, which finally closed the 2013-2075 time disturbances created by the Alpha Centaurians, wouldn’t the Committee just be studying the whole phenomenon from a historical perspective?
“Well, the thing is, Jack, the Time Committee got involved because there’s really no other explanation that anyone can see.”
“For what?”
“Well, this star just disappeared. Well, not exactly disappeared, but--”
“What star?”
“Iota Persei. It just suddenly disappeared. They don’t know exactly when, because it’s not like we’re monitoring the damn thing every second. It was there a few days ago as far as they can piece it together, then a few hours ago an astronomer noticed it was gone.”
“Gone? How can that be?” Jack pulled out his comm to refresh his memory. They were all supposed to know all the stars within fifty light-years of Earth, but it was a long list and it was difficult to keep them straight. He scanned the first couple lines:
Iota Persei. Yellow-orange main sequence dwarf star. 1.3 mass of Sol. Distance from Sol: 34.36 light-years. Age: approximately 8.1 billion years.
“We can’t do any fine observations with our sensors while we’re in Star Drive,” Joe pointed out, “but as soon as we’re out we’ll run some.”
“That’s fine. Lee, did you say the thing disappeared? Not a supernova?”
“That’s the thing Jack, it just winked out! As far as visible light, that is. They started measuring the infrared, and Jack, they say it’s totally consistent with a Dyson sphere!”
Jack’s mind raced. A giant shell around a star, capturing all its energy, except for that infrared leak. “That’s not possible! It’d take thousands of years to build one, and the engineering problems, the orbital mechanics, would rule that out.”
“Jack, all Ranna’s saying is that our measurements point to a Dyson sphere.”
“It can’t be!”
“Unless it is,” Joe put in. “Who are we to say it can’t be done just because we can’t understand the orbital mechanics? All they need is smart enough computers.”
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