Escape from paradise, p.1
Escape from Paradise, page 1
THE SPACE-OPERA PHENOMENON IN POLAND!
It is the mid-twenty-fourth century. After colonizing a significant portion of the Orion Arm, humanity encounters an advanced Alien civilization, which—unwilling to make contact—starts a total war. There is more at stake here than just the conquest of territory. It’s a matter of survival for the human race.
On one of the hurriedly evacuated planets, Captain Darski wages his own private war to save as many people as possible. The colony in the Ulietta system hides a much bigger secret, though—one that could possibly alter the course of the war.
Book Two in The Fields of Long-Forgotten Battles series.
“The Nomad’s Mission is an exciting beginning to an epic saga of space exploration. Morrisey and his crew of daring, corrupt rogues will hold you breathless as they loot the wrecks of spaceships—until they find the one that could change everything in the galaxy.”
—Nancy Kress
“The Fields of Long-Forgotten Battles series by Robert J. Szmidt shows a truly remarkable imagination, and is told with charm and originality. I highly recommend it.”
—Mike Resnick
“A fast-paced tale of a piratical salvage crew who find more than they expected when they discover an ancient Alien artifact. An engaging story.”
—Jack Campbell
“Robert J. Szmidt writes on a vast canvas. His stories are ambitious space opera that will capture your imagination.”
—Kevin J. Anderson
“With the right tech, it’s easy to be a god. But as Robert J. Szmidt points out in this impressive novel, to be a god for the right reasons, sometimes you have to spend a few years in Hell, first.”
—David Weber
ESCAPE FROM PARADISE
THE FIELDS OF LONG-FORGOTTEN BATTLES
BOOK 2
ROBERT J. SZMIDT
Escape from Paradise
Copyright © 2016 Robert J. Szmidt
First Published by REBIS Publishing House 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share the ebook edition with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
WordFire Press has chosen to reissue selected out-of-print novels, in hopes of creating a new readership. Because these works were written in a different time, some attitudes and phrasing may seem outdated to a modern audience. After careful consideration, rather than revising the author’s work, we have chosen to preserve the original wording and intent.
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EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-338-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-337-4
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Cover design by Janet McDonald
Cover artwork images by Adobe Stock
Kevin J. Anderson, Art Director
Published by
WordFire Press, LLC
PO Box 1840
Monument CO 80132
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Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers
WordFire Press eBook Edition 2022
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WordFire Press Hardcover Edition 2022
Printed in the USA
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CONTENTS
Prologue
I. INVASION
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
II. DAY ONE
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
III. DAY Two
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
The Forge
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue One
Epilogue Two
Acknowledgments
About the Author
If You Liked …
Other WordFire Press Titles by Robert J. Szmidt
DEDICATION
I dedicate this work to the memory of
Forrest J Ackerman,
whom I’ve met and called my friend
and
Mike Resnick, whose stories I’ve devoured
and who mentored me when I created this series.
May the Force be with you both.
PROLOGUE
THE VALIS 11 SYSTEM, ZEBRA SECTOR
09/18/2354
“How many stars are there in our Galaxy?” Commodore Garyan Zachs asked out of the blue.
The six recruits went dumbstruck. When just moments ago their new commander had been telling them about the Recon Corps’ operations, and the upcoming missions, they’d been grinning like crazy. Now, you could virtually hear their jaws slamming shut.
“Four hundred and seventy-six billion,” answered Danthony Reyes after a moment’s hesitation. Sitting at the far-right end of the second row, this slim, short blond with an oblong face was the youngest conscript.
Zachs closed his slanting eyes with irritation. That was ABC of astronomy; everyone should know it, even a dimwit—not to mention a cadet of the Orbital Fleet Academy whose job was to reel off this sort of information in the dead of night after having been violently shaken awake. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a single cadet in the small briefing room. Commodore Zachs faced mere run-of-the-mill civilians, lured from the space boonies by the promise of adventure. Only six of them, although he repeatedly requested for nine new operators.
Back in the day … he thought.
Back in the day, only the chosen ones found their way to the Inner Rim lying beyond the Inner Territories. Only best of the best could operate unmanned probes, which were sent outside of the Known Universe.
Today, when deep recon no longer meant contact with the unknown, the discovery and cataloging of new planetary systems fell on the shoulders of dweebs such as these boys—and a girl, Commodore Zachs corrected himself internally, glancing toward a skinny (much too skinny for his liking) female born and raised in one of the outlying orbital stations—whom he now was conveying to Valis 11, the outermost outpost of the Federation. And no wonder; during three hundred and thirty-two years of exploration conducted in the Orion Arm, no trace of advanced alien civilization was ever found. Thus, so far, nothing suggested that somewhere out there, among the hundreds of billions of stars, Humankind would eventually find intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Commodore Zachs smiled thinly. It wasn’t quite true that the Universe was devoid of Aliens. He knew one—albeit unrepresentative—exception. The Xan 4 System with its two fighting races. The excitement he felt while watching the first messages from Beta was still vivid in his memory. Back then, he believed that he witnessed the birth of a new epoch; that he made history—not of the Corps, but of Humankind. Today, he felt only the bitterness of defeat, which wasn’t even sweetened by a well-deserved promotion to commodore.
After long and close observation, the Aliens turned out to be very primitive creatures, in his opinion unworthy of being called civilized. As for the Admiralty … Well, the Admiralty acted as usual in such cases. They put a lid of secrecy on everything so that nobody except the handful of scientists and soldiers who had been assigned to the Two Suns project could find out about the breakthrough, which wasn’t such a huge success as initially thought, although in the grand scheme of things the Corps benefited from it.
Manyfold budget increase, almost one hundred new probes and four extra deep recon bases in the Inner Rim simply had to accelerate the pace of exploration. And, in fact, within just six years, the Federation borders were shifted by a record-breaking eight hundred parsecs, albeit—despite the hard work of hundreds of crews and the exploration of more than twelve thousand further planetary systems—Xan 4 remained a glorious exception and, worse still, nothing indicated that this was going to change any time soon.
“Four hundred and seventy-six billion,” repeated Zachs, turning his attention toward the recruits again. “In the second half of the twentieth century, it was thought that the Milky Way comprised about a hundred billion stars, but then, as the technology developed, this number began to grow rapidly. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it was commonly assumed that there could be twice as many stars; fifty years later this number was doubled again. Today, we know with absolute certainty that at least four hundred and seventy-six billion stars circle the massive black holes forming the heart of our Galaxy.”
He paused for a moment to activate the holo. “For simplicity, let’s assume that there’s half a trillion.”
The lights in the briefing room dimmed, and a hypnotic lambent-light whirl appeared over the commodore’s head.
“Milky Way … If we spent only a second to investigate each system, we’d need almost sixteen thousand years to fully explore all its arms. If we had as much as an hour to do it, we’d reach the last star in fifty-seven million years. The blink of an eye, isn’t it?” he said jokingly, but the keyed-up recruits didn’t notice that their commander tried to break the tension.
Only now did he realize that it must be the first such a far expedition into space for most of these young people.
“Unfortunately, the truth is much more complicated than even the most accurate estimates. Although the Corps now has more than three hundred modern, long-range probes, each mission lasts not seconds, not hours, but days, sometimes weeks. At this rate—unless we change drastically the methods which for now include combing systems one after another, sector by sector—we won’t have colonized the place where the Orion Arm joins the Perseus Arm by the end of the millennium. Who will tell me why these star clusters are so important?”
Everyone raised their hands; after all, it was another no-brainer. This time Commodore Zachs chose the only girl of the bunch.
“Danaomi?”
“For whatever reason, wormholes connect stars within a particular arm of the Galaxy.”
“That’s right. The only known way to the neighboring Perseus Arm runs through this junction.”
“And what about subspace travel?” the girl asked hesitantly.
Zachs sighed. Another thing he wouldn’t have had to mention if he had been dealing with professionals.
“Subspace drive has three basic limitations. Firstly, technology: the most powerful reactors allow you to make jumps within the maximum range of one and a half parsecs. Secondly, time: spaceships of this type are much slower; wormholes make it possible to cover the distance of one light-year in less than fifteen minutes whereas with subspace travel we’re talking two standard days. Thirdly, precision: for reasons unknown, we aren’t able to predict the exact exit point. In addition, the farther we jump, the bigger surprise we’re in for. Therefore, we use subspace drive only in local traffic, between systems very close together. You wouldn’t want to find yourself a dozen billion clicks away from your destination, especially with a core overload. Or go straight into the scattered disk, not to mention the central star. And such incidents are reported several times a year.”
He nodded sadly, recalling the fate of FSS Magellan, one of the first victims of the new technology. After the maximum range jump, it left subspace almost on the border of the local star’s photosphere. The great research vessel evaporated in a split second, and High Command learned about its annihilation from the later analyses of the gravitational field.
“Let’s face it. Until we reach the cluster of stars in the junction area, we can’t even dream of traveling to other arms of the Galaxy—”
“Then why not take a chance and send a probe out there?” Zahartur Gavrylenko cut in. He was the only uniform among the six recruits: a police sergeant from a shabby mining colony, which name was practically unpronounceable. “This way we could get some answers without waiting for—”
Commodore Zachs raised his finger, thus cooling the recruit’s enthusiasm.
“Do you think, kiddo, that nobody else came up with this idea?”
Disoriented Gavrylenko went silent; the others exchanged uncertain glances, and then looked to Zachs. Seconds passed until the uneasy silence was broken by Danaomi Ritter.
“The Corps has already sent probes to the junction?” In her voice, Commodore Zachs detected astonishment and even a pinch of disbelief.
“Yes. We sent a probe to one of the junction’s globular clusters,” he confirmed.
The New Russian, having reacted the way he did, stood out from the rest.
Chances are, he won’t turn out to be a dumb tool in his superiors’ hands, Zachs thought. Maybe he’ll even show some initiative, just like the officers who I used to work with once.
“Forty-eight years ago—after a few decades of continuous failures on that front—the Corps Command finally convinced the Admiralty to take action. Hence, a super-long-range mission,” he added, settling more comfortably into the cocoon of his chair.
“The probe was sent to a globular cluster located in the heart of the junction. The logic of our line of reasoning led to a conclusion that it’s the only way from the Perseus Arm to the Galactic Center. If there is intelligent life in the Milky Way, then we’ll find its traces right over there. High Command designated a special team with sixteen best operators, including me.”
Zachs paused abruptly, as if he’d come to realize that the introductory lecture had gone awry; however, his hesitation didn’t last long.
What the hell, he thought. Maybe I’ll inspire them. Maybe they won’t skimp on performance.
“Back then, we mapped the unexplored regions of deep space in a bit different manner than we do now. There were no van Vogt meters, which enable us to measure space warps. For that reason, our probe—on reaching yet another system—sent drones to all newly discovered gravitational wells to see where they were leading. When the drones returned, we put the data on the holomap and moved on to the next destination.
“It took three years and eight months to find the way to the junction. We made three hundred and ninety-four jumps, of which two hundred and sixty-eight were ineffectual. Sometimes, we had to go back eight or even ten wormholes to get on the right track again. But in the end, we came out on top.” Commodore Zachs paused, then lowered his head.
“And what did you discover?” someone in the first row asked after a moment of awkward silence.
Zachs sighed heavily.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Neither along the way nor in the junction, even though we were combing the globular cluster for almost six months, exploring every wormhole that we found there. All we came across were dead planets circling the most ordinary stars. We saw nothing new; nothing we hadn’t seen before in the thousands of systems of the Orion Arm. Something snapped inside us.
“We must have realized, just then and there, that we wouldn’t find intelligent extraterrestrial life. When the mission came to an end, we left the probe in the junction, along with a plaque informing of our existence, and returned to routine flights closer to the Known Universe. Another thirty-eight years—”
