ELVIANS
A Silver Ships Novel
S. H. JUCHA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by S. H. Jucha
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by Hannon Books, Inc.
www.scottjucha.com
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-2-7 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-7344707-3-4 (softcover)
First Edition: October 2020
Cover Design: Damon Za
Acknowledgments
Elvians is the twenty-second novel in the interwoven series of The Silver Ships and Pyreans, which tell the stories of Earth colonists and the spread of humankind throughout a galaxy filled with alien races.
I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, David Melvin, Ron Critchfield, Pat Bailey, Tiffany Crutchfield, and Gerry Hartman, I offer my sincere thanks for their support.
Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.
Glossary
A glossary is located at the end of the book.
CONTENTS
1: Stealthy Survey
2: Seedlings
3: Enticement
4: Intrusion
5: Deloy
6: Core and Arches
7: Interventions
8: Unavailable
9: Core’s Reps
10: What Happened?
11: Citizens
12: Vyztram
13: Z’s Search
14: Conversations
15: Interrupted Meeting
16: Life Givers
17: Waiting, Waiting
18: Reset
19: Reinforcements
20: Compromise
21: Time to Decide
22: Adjustments
23: Opportunity
24: Two Waves
25: Thirteen Drones
26: Who’s in Charge?
27: Reconstruction
28: Projects
29: Visitors’ Surprises
30: Greetings, Vyztram
31: Amazing World
32: Various Sentients
33: We Need One
34: Sentient Females
35: Transit Tripper
36: Transfers
37: Courtesies
38: Goodbye; Greetings
39: Agreement
Glossary
My Books
The Author
1: Stealthy Survey
<Our location represents the farthest extent of the excavator positions,> Genoa sent. She was the lead SADE of an Omnian scout ship, which surveyed the Ollassa system’s far belt.
For the scouts, this was a return to the system of the flora symbionts, the Ollassa. During the first visit, Killian, Bethley, and Trium aboard the scout ship Vivian’s Mirror were interdicted by Ollassa warships, which necessitated an intervention by Alex’s fleet. The SADEs had named the system Vinium before they understood the local race’s term for themselves.
<We’re marking the extent of the mining sites in the other direction,> Beryl added, who was the lead in a second scout.
Then Linn, a third lead SADE reported, <We’ve examined the moons of the nearby outermost ice planet. No mining operations are detected inward.>
<The invaders’ efforts to collect resources cover a one-degree swath of the outer rim,> Julien shared with his audience aboard the city-ship Freedom.
<Genoa, Beryl, any evidence of Ollassa ships near the mining sites?> Alex Racine, the Omnian fleet’s co-leader asked.
The SADEs’ pauses were atypical, and it didn’t bode well for the news. <With regret, Alex,> Beryl sent. <We’ve identified debris around the mining asteroids. The duplication of similar pieces indicates the Ollassa employed their warships to disrupt the invaders’ activities.>
<Are Ollassa ships present in the rim now?> Cordelia asked. She was the captain of the city-ship and a rear admiral, who held responsibility for fighting the Freedom and protecting the freighter fleet that accompanied the warships.
<Negative,> Beryl and Genoa responded.
<Any damage to the mining operations?> Fleet Admiral Tatia Tachenko inquired.
<We’ve observed none,> Genoa sent.
<We concur,> Beryl added. <The vehicles involved in the mining and processing of ores and frozen gases are unfamiliar to us. However, it’s our consensus that the machines wouldn’t be the sources of the weaponry that destroyed the Ollassa ships.>
<These entities aren’t just miners. They’re murderous invaders ... no better than the Colony,> Renée de Guirnon, the fleet’s co-leader, sent vehemently. The peaceful Ollassa held a special place in her heart.
<Renée,> Alex sent gently and privately to his partner.
Renée blew out a harsh breath. <Understood,> she replied. This wasn’t the time to inject her anger into the discussion.
Cordelia supplied images to the city-ship’s holo-vid. The scouts had captured telemetry of the vehicles involved in the mining and processing operations.
<Ingenious,> Z commented. He was a SADE and Renée’s protector. <There appears to be common components in the vehicles’ structures.>
Cordelia, who was the fleet’s premier imagery artist, used Z’s observation to break up the gigantic machines that crawled across the asteroids’ surfaces.
<How intuitive of you, dear one,> Miranda purred. She was Z’s partner, and she, like the others, had watched Cordelia dissociate the machines and find multiple common elements.
<Vehicles designed around core components that are capable of being swapped out,> Franz Cohen, the fleet’s fighter rear admiral, commented. <Mickey Brandon is missing out.>
<At the rate we keep discovering new engineering techniques within this galaxy, Mickey will have enough projects to last a SADE’s lifetime,> Alex commented. <However, right now, I need Mickey and his engineering teams to solve the mystery of the alliance’s Q-gates.>
<Beryl, hold your present position,> Julien sent. Then he connected to Beryl’s controller and directed the telemetry input. <Alex, observe,> he sent.
The holo-vid displayed the passing marks of a monstrous machine. Julien adjusted the input, and the tracks led to an intricate structure, which had been scooping frozen gases, processing them, and offloading compressed blocks of purified material. However, it was no longer moving.
<A certain level of sophistication is driving the machines,> Z commented. <The tracks aren’t laid in a mechanical pattern. The machines are sensing the uptake of compounds and navigating toward richer deposits.>
<That means there’s a supply list,> Vice Admiral Reiko Shimada suggested. <Entities have to be directing the machines to produce the required quantities of material needed to maintain the invading ship.>
<Or one entity,> Cordelia interjected.
Thoughts of Artifice shot through the minds of those on the bridge.
<If true, what is the relationship between the entity and the biologicals aboard?> Julien asked.
The bridge audience watched a new conveyance unit role out from a pile of spares. Using a combination of wheels and treads, the spare drove around to the front of the disabled machine. Then the upper section of the machine rolled forward to combine with the spare. Then it traveled onward,
continuing to mine and process resources.
Another machine hurried to the disabled section and began diagnosing the problem by attaching sensor lines to connections available on the side of the unit.
<Efficient,> Z commented. <The design and repair techniques provide minimum downtime.>
<Any weaponry identified on this collection of machines?> Tatia asked, seeking confirmation of the SADEs’ earlier assumption. <Negative,> was what she heard from Julien, who’d handled the SADEs’ opinions.
Tatia found the lack of information frustrating. Something had destroyed Ollassa warships before any damage could be done to the mining sites.
<We have to be dealing with fighters,> Tatia surmised. <They’ve got to be swift and powerful if they can take out warships. Another thing, I find it odd that they don’t provide cover for the machines by taking up stations near the mining sites. That means they’re kept aboard that huge ship until they’re needed.>
Alex replaced the holo-vid imagery with that of the invaders’ ship. Unlike the system probe, which hadn’t been able to supply information on the monstrous ship’s size, the scouts provided detailed telemetry.
Humans’ implants absorbed what the SADEs already knew. The huge ship possessed a central element four times the diameter of the Freedom. In addition, while a city-ship was ovoid, the invaders’ ship was a globe, of sorts. It wasn’t a solid sphere. Rather, there was a solid mass that comprised the center. A long buttress extended from the globe to provide a mount for multiple engines. Then enormous loops sprouted from the top of the globe and met at its bottom. Along the loops’ lengths, thin connectors linked the loops with the central mass. Tiny pinpoints of light shone along the loops, indicating residences.
<Every cabin owner deserves a wonderful view of space,> Renée commented sarcastically.
Alex began pacing, and the audience made room for him. <The mining and processing are extensive. As Renée intimated, the loops indicate residents who expect to be aboard ship for an extended length of time, if not forever.>
<A population that doesn’t expect to find a home world or doesn’t care to locate one,> Julien offered.
<And this race came prepared to defend their resource collection,> Tatia added. <They knew they would encounter sentient species who would fight to defend their systems.>
<They’re individuals who are comfortable in their superiority,> Cordelia said. <If the fighters exist, they repelled the Ollassa and returned to the ship. That’s an assumption on the invaders’ part that any event can be handled.>
<A race like this wouldn’t use pilots in the fighters,> Franz reasoned.
<Drones,> Reiko agreed. <They wouldn’t risk their precious citizens.>
<Do we establish contact?> Julien asked.
<Inbound traffic,> Tatia warned, and she shifted the display.
Several small transports had exited the bottom of the invaders’ ship and laid on courses for various excavation sites.
<This should be interesting,> Z commented in anticipation.
The audience waited and watched as the transports neared various areas of the belt.
Cordelia selected telemetry from Genoa’s ship that gave humans a good view of an asteroid that had accumulated blocks of frozen gases. Each block was a one-meter cube.
A transport came to a halt overtop the stack of cubes at a distance of about one hundred meters.
A compact machine raced out from the reserves. At the site of the frozen blocks, it unfolded until it resembled a crane, with its length bent in two. Then it gripped the uppermost block, made a slight adjustment to its position, and extended the crane arm with a snap.
There were a few moments of the audience’s stunned silence, while the crane machine neatly and accurately delivered every block to the transport. When the operation was complete, the crane returned to its compact shape and hurried back to the pile of reserve equipment. Then the transport sailed on to the next asteroid.
Alex had halted his pacing to stare at the holo-vid’s display of the transport’s collection of resources. A cold feeling swept up his spine. In his years, there hadn’t been a contact like this. A technologically superior race was collecting resources from a foreign system, effectively repelling resistance, and going about its business. While the hubris was galling, the potential for a calamitous encounter was more than significant.
<The answer to your question, Julien, is no,> Alex sent quietly. <Before we contact that ship, we’ve work to do with the Ollassa. Genoa, Beryl, and Linn, proceed inward. Contact any outward bound Ollassa ships and indicate to them that they’re to return to their World of Light.>
The slow response indicated to Alex that the phrase indicate to them was too vague for the SADEs. It was understandable, considering the Ollassa communicated via ultrasonic frequencies that emanated from their blooms. Ship-to-ship communications for the Ollassa involved comm systems that could pick up, transmit, and broadcast the waves from the blooms.
<Use your imaginations,> Alex sent, knowing that was another phrase that the SADEs would have to interpret.
The bridge audience could hear an imitation of a human snicker. Its pitch perfect tones indicated a SADE was the source, and the comm ID identified it as emanating from Killian, the lead SADE of the fourth scout.
<Not to worry, Dassata,> Killian sent. <I’ve the answer for us.>
<Now, that, dear Killian, is imagination,> Miranda enthused.
Killian had taken Julien’s records from the Freedom. They were data files containing the SADEs’ first-contact experiences with the Ollassa. Julien had used a portable holo-vid to facilitate conversations. The holo-vid could emanate the ultrasonic frequencies that an Ollassa’s bloom could perceive. Miranda and Z had assisted in compiling the language translation.
Now, Killian proposed using that same database to originate messages to the Ollassa ships. The SADEs would feed their communications to the sensors on the scouts’ shells, which would broadcast in frequencies the Ollassa could recognize.
Alex’s deep chuckle resonated in the chests of the other humans, and Killian’s emotional algorithms rose in hierarchy.
<Killian, your mission remains the same,> Alex sent. <Facilitate contact with whoever is in charge of the Ollassa command center, if it remains Mesa Control. Your team will coordinate communications between the Ollassa and us.>
<Understood, Dassata,> Killian sent. <Have holo-vids; will communicate.>
<Killian, we’ll need a complete telemetry scan of Ollassa ships and platforms surrounding the home worlds before you land,> Tatia sent.
<Understood, Admiral,> Killian replied.
<All scouts,> Cordelia sent. <The invaders’ ship is stationed slightly above the ecliptic. Therefore, I want you to remain below the ecliptic, while you proceed inward.>
Cordelia received affirmatives. Then the scouts dropped off the conference call.
Alex frowned at Killian’s odd quip, but he noticed Renée smiling to herself. It pleased him to see that Killian had managed to divert her anger.
<What did you understand about Killian’s last remark that I didn’t?> Alex sent privately.
Renée reached out and slid a hand into Alex’s. It was an apology for her earlier outburst. Then she sent, <While Cordelia was at Sol and researching the final two Earther colony ships and their target worlds, she ran across a huge trove of Earther vids that were trapped on older data mediums. While she perused the recordings for data on the ships, she transferred numerous vids to our library. The scouts downloaded selections of the new material before they launched.>
Alex received a link. A quick perusal of the data file revealed a black-and-white vid of a man adorned in an ancient costume. He was dressed entirely in black, which included his wide-brimmed hat. A belt with a holster held a weapon. Alex stored the link to view the file later.
Turning to the inti
mate group, Cordelia shifted to voice and said, “I assume that the fleet holds its present station.”
“Absolutely,” Alex replied.
The manner in which Alex responded to Cordelia made the other humans nervous.
“What’s wrong?” Renée asked gently. It was the question that everyone wanted to ask Alex.
“It’s the combination of sophistication, obviously AI-origination, firepower, and indifference to confiscating systems’ resources that makes this race extremely dangerous,” Alex replied. “We’ve got to be careful in our approach to them. One misstep might result in a battle that sees our forces destroyed.”
Franz let out a long, soft whistle. “We faced the huge swath of Artifice’s drone fighters at the system near the wall, and they nearly overwhelmed us,” he said. He had memories of his fighter’s remains tethered and hauled aboard a Trident. He’d ordered the chief to be careful about recovering the sister, who had been Miriamelle, in his craft.
“I wonder how many fighters could reside aboard that ship,” Reiko mused.
It wasn’t a question, but that didn’t mean the SADEs didn’t begin calculating the interior space of the ship’s central volume in an effort to provide an answer.
“What’s the plan?” Tatia asked.
That was the question that Alex knew was coming. He regarded Tatia and slowly shook his head. “Don’t have an answer, at this moment,” he said. “My first concern is to ensure that the Ollassa don’t send any more warships against this enemy. It’s obvious that the home forces are outmatched. After that, we need to devise a means to learn about these adversaries without exposing our forces.”
“Every race has weaknesses,” Julien announced. “In time, they’ll be revealed.”
“Of that, I’ve no doubt,” Alex replied. “We have to ask ourselves how much time we have before the race in that ship believes we’re an impediment to their resource collection and chooses to do something about it.”
“Something to keep in mind, Alex,” Franz said, “is that the invaders’ fighters crossed the dark to interdict the Ollassa ships, engaged in battle, and then returned across hundreds of thousands of kilometers of space. Our travelers can’t engage those fighters unless we lure them system inward like we did Artifice’s drones.”