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    Roaches In The Attic 1: First Contact
    Roaches In The Attic 1: First Contact
    Roaches In The Attic 1: First Contact
    Ebook646 pages8 hours

    Roaches In The Attic 1: First Contact

    By Raymond Towers

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    About this ebook

    The natural inclination of Man is to war with other Men. This is our destiny, to grasp the stars and to bring our weapons of destruction with us. But what really is Man, and more importantly, why is Man? The great voyage begins here as Man encounters other Men, equally clever and as warlike as He is. This time, war will be waged for the conquest of the entire universe. Rating: HIGH controversy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaymond Towers
    Release dateAug 16, 2012
    ISBN9781476162300
    Roaches In The Attic 1: First Contact
    Author

    Raymond Towers

    Raymond Towers is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction that strays away from the mainstream, plus a little in the way of true paranormal and other genres. He has written and independently published over forty titles, most of them full-length novels and collections, with several more on the way. The author has been a lifelong resident of warm and sunny southern California, a location that pops up frequently in his writing. At the moment, the author is looking for ways to reach new readers all over the world, in addition to pursuing his great love of writing and taking it to the next level.

    Read more from Raymond Towers

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      Book preview

      Roaches In The Attic 1 - Raymond Towers

      About the cover: The cover image is titled Soldier With Rifle Aiming. It was uploaded by Photonika Agency, and can be found at Dreamstime.

      About this title: The natural inclination of Man is to war with other Men. This is our destiny, to grasp the stars and to bring our weapons of destruction with us. But what really is Man, and more importantly, why is Man? The great voyage begins here as Man encounters other Men, equally clever and as warlike as He is. This time, war will be waged for the conquest of the entire universe. Rating: HIGH controversy.

      #####

      Other e-books by Raymond Towers:

      A Terrible Thing To Waste

      Before The Seven 1 – Don Diego Meets Lucky Luis

      Demonic Murmurs Collection

      Dobrynia’s Path 1 – Dark Harbinger

      Dobrynia’s Path 2 - Ragnarok

      Roaches In The Attic 0 – Non-Retrieval

      The Black Cellar

      The Throwback

      The Two Sides Of Humburg

      Two Bedroom Cottage

      Variant Worlds 1 Collection

      Varriano 1 – The Case Of The Missing Q-Drives

      Roaches In The Attic 1

      First Contact

      Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All of the characters in this e-book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      This e-book contains a HIGH amount of controversial subject matter.

      #####

      Table Of Contents

      The Wisdom Of Renquist

      Before - Book 1

      The Origin Of The Pulse System

      Lundren’s Initial Lecture

      Lundgren’s Press Release

      Rocket Scientist Found Dead

      Second Rocket Scientist Found Dead

      The Project Changes Hands

      First Contact

      Present Day

      Roaches

      Milton’s Lecture

      Part 1

      Part 2

      About The Spitfire Rifle

      The Fall Of Valhalla

      Part 3

      Part 4

      Part 5

      Part 6

      Battle At Bootscrape

      Part 7

      Part 8

      Part 9

      Part 10

      Part 11

      Part 12

      Part 13

      Part 14

      Bug Planet

      Part 15

      Part 16

      Part 17

      Part 18

      Part 19

      Part 20

      Redemption

      Part 21

      Part 22

      Part 23

      Part 24

      Part 25

      Part 26

      The Wisdom Of Renquist

      After - Book 1

      About The Author

      Author Website

      #####

      Roaches In The Attic 1

      First Contact

      The Wisdom Of Renquist

      Before - Book 1

      To the linear man, every story has a predictable formula. There is a precise point of origin, the flow of its narrative, a tempering of the character through adversity, a resolution, and a conclusion with finality. The linear man sees the story as complete and unchangeable.

      To the infinite man, the story has no end. The story is the same, singular, but it is seen through the eyes of the cosmos. It takes many different forms, as many as there are forms to perceive it. The story can be individual, or it can be universal, but regardless of the viewpoint, the story is still the same. The story is infinite; it has already been told an infinite number of times, yet it is still being told now, and it will be told again an infinite number of times.

      Were I to try and contain the infinite story and to attempt to define it, I would say that the infinite story is the story of how God became All, and for our purposes most significantly, of how God became Men, as part of an eternal longing for experience in all of God’s incarnations.

      This particular story does not start off as mine, but as it progresses, it will become mine. Perhaps, as you are reading along, it will become your story as well.

      (A quote from James Percival Renquist, once a lowly Senior Drill Instructor at Marine Division Recruit Station - San Diego, but now known as the Immortal Man.)

      #####

      The Origin Of The Pulse System

      Lundgren’s Initial Lecture

      "And thereupon, that best of cars became still more dazzling with its splendor and was incapable of being looked at by created beings, as the midday sun surrounded by a thousand rays…" (From the Mahabharata, the epic poem of India, written in Sanskrit between 900 and 400 Before the Common Era.)

      Date: Thursday, September 25, 2042

      Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

      (From the presentation given by Professor Shawn Lundgren, during the space travel symposium at MIT, or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)

      Ladies and gentlemen, I have a bold prediction to make to you today. I predict that within twenty years, we will have achieved that grand dream known as space flight. Humankind will be able to go out and dance among the stars, to gaze upon the heavens from the surface of an alien world. Perhaps we shall even come across beings as sentient, or even more so, than ourselves. I predict that there are many wondrous things in store for humanity’s future.

      However, to be able to reach this glorious future, we must first look away from the popular media’s concept of space flight. This is an image of great freights of metal slowly drifting through space, until some magical thrust engine engages and propels the vessel light years away in a matter of seconds. This is not the way it will happen, in my humble estimation. The very dynamics of such a system argue against it.

      Instead, we must look deep, deep into the veiled past of our world, and unlock the secrets that have been left there for us to find. The Mahabharata from India tell us of gods and rulers who flew through the skies in vehicles known as Vimana. In some cases the singular of this word translates loosely as airborne chariot, or celestial carriage. The Tibetan Dzyan tells us of kings who escaped their enemies in air vehicles, to later arrive in the enigmatic lands of fire and metal. The Ramayana details a battle on the moon, between one Vimana and a starship from the fabled continent of Atlantis. The Chaldean Sifr’ala, the Babylonian Hakaltha, and the Akkadian Epic of Ishtar and Izdubar also mention flying vehicles. Then we have this other bizarre account. Over two thousand years ago, Alexander the Great invaded India. According to the historians who traveled with him, among the opposition he encountered were flying shields that dove at his army and terrified his cavalry. It all sounds like science fiction or mythology, doesn’t it?

      But then we come to the Samarangana Sutradhara from India, which goes into great detail regarding these celestial chariots taking off and landing, as well as discussing the benefits and pitfalls of each type. Four different types of vehicles are presented, the Rukma, the Sundara, the Tripura and the Sakuna. Not only does this ancient text give instructions on how to build these aircraft, but it also describes how to power them. The University of Chandrigarh also claims to have translated documents that describe how to build a craft. The main difference here is that this craft is not bound by our planet’s atmosphere. It is an interstellar craft. It is said to have worked on centrifugal force and was able to send a detachment of men out to any planet.

      The Vaimanika Shastra tells us about the mercury vortex engine, which is the precursor to the ion engines still used in some of today’s rockets. It describes placing four mercury containers into a vehicle’s structure, rotating them, and super-heating them to a point where a whirlwind is set into motion. It is this whirlwind which allows the vehicle to travel great distances. We also come to the Vaimanika Sastra, which goes one step further. This text describes steering, how to switch the drive from one source of energy to another, and how to design the parts so that they will not overheat or break. Eight chapters of this text have detailed diagrams. These chapters mention thirty-one essential parts, and the sixteen metals used in their construction. Of these sixteen metals, only three are known today. The composition of the rest does not translate into the English language and is presently not known.

      (A sly smirk appears on the professor’s face.)

      What if I were to tell you that I already have a miniature working model of a Vimana at my research center. What if I said that I am on the verge of discovering the properties of at least one, but perhaps even of several of these unknown metals? Imagine what could be done, if these metals could be reproduced at our convenience.

      (A small stir spreads across the crowd.)

      "King Yudhishthira, riding on his car, ascended quickly, causing the entire sky to blaze with his effulgence." (Mahabharata)

      Let us move forward to the twentieth century, and more specifically, to the nineteen-thirties. This was a time when Adolf Hitler sent droves of military personnel all over the globe to seek out the secrets of the ancient world. They went to the North Pole, to the South Pole, to Ethiopia, to India, to Tibet, all over the place, really. In their quest to conquer the entire planet these men brought whatever occult knowledge they could find back to the Fuhrer in Germany. Is it merely a coincidence that the Nazis soon after developed the pulse-jet engine for their rockets?

      We come to a very interesting project, which the Nazis were working on in the Wenceslaus mine near the Czech border. It is known as the Nazi Bell. This was a device that was cylindrical, or vaguely bell-shaped, purportedly ten feet high, and twelve to fifteen feet in diameter. Its shape is remarkably similar to one of the Vimana diagrams mentioned earlier. A major component in this device’s engine was none other than… mercury. Red Mercury, in this case. It is interesting to note that among the more sensational claims, the Nazis were said to have achieved anti-gravity, time travel, and the creation of wormholes. The end of World War Two prevented Nazi scientists from finishing their research into this project. Or did it?

      Once the war was over, many of these German scientists were secretly brought into this country, where they continued their research with virtually limitless funds. These men escaped prosecution for their crimes against humanity. Whether or not an individual agrees with this immoral course of action is not particularly important to us in this day and age. What is relevant is that under the tutelage of these scientists, our space program and military might began to blossom. It allowed our country to lift its head and shoulders above the countries of the rest of the world. Sophisticated and wondrous technologies were invented, but the idea of space travel was set on top of a high bookshelf and left to gather dust.

      Until now, that is.

      In the early twenty-first century, a few scientists working on an unrelated project noticed that under certain conditions, mercury rose to the top of a sealed and controlled chamber. The mercury was described as splashing against the top. However, further experimentation gave these scientists the impression that the mercury was not splashing, but levitating. I have successfully reproduced this effect in my laboratory. The mercury is in fact rising and levitating in place for the duration of the experiment.

      What remains to be done is for me to acquire a bit of funding. I intend to create a goodly amount of Red Mercury, and to build my own full-sized version of a Nazi Bell. I will not be creating an anti-gravity flying saucer, however, as recent documents that have been released through the Freedom Of Information Act have revealed that our government has been using this type of technology, and suppressing it from the public, for almost eighty years now. I don’t think they’re planning on sharing the full details of this technology with the rest of us anytime soon.

      (Some chuckles are heard from the audience.)

      Ladies and gentlemen, instead of replicating what has already been done, I will be aiming for the stars. The ancient Vedas claim this is possible; to make a craft move from here to there in an instant of time. The Nazi Bell is said to have possibly created a wormhole as well. The next step is to find the connection between the two.

      It is already possible to place four gyroscopes full of spinning mercury on a bell or saucer-shaped craft, and to set these into a rapid rotation to counter gravity. There is no argument here, this is already being done, and has been done under our very noses for the last eighty years.

      What I will be attempting to do is to create a powerful magnetic field around a suitably sized craft. This field will be capable of compressing all the empty space out of its and its occupant’s or its cargo’s atoms, and to be able to magnetically push this extremely tiny ball of compressed matter through a tiny, yet very traversable wormhole.

      Even the idea of an artificial wormhole, or portal, isn’t without historical precedent. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Puerto de Hayu Marca, in southern Peru. The name translates as the Gate of the Gods. According to Inca legend, the gods were able to travel to Earth through a great stone doorway there by the use of a golden key. I do not possess such a golden key yet, but I will.

      The most difficult problem, in my estimation, will be setting up a coordinate system to make sure things arrive exactly where I want them to. There are several coordinate systems I’ve been considering for plotting out a wormhole, such as Schwarzschild’s version, and a second method by Kruskal-Szekerer, for example. Without the funding, all I’m really doing is writing numbers on a chalkboard, or entering formulas on a computer screen. Perhaps I’ll have to devise an entirely new method of coordinates, either on my own, or with the help of colleagues, but how does one go about mapping the entire universe?

      It sounds impossible, but if the ancients imply that they were able to use such a system, it’s only a matter of rediscovering it, correct?

      Very soon, I believe, the universe will finally lie within our grasp, and the stars will rest upon our fingertips.

      Thank you for your time and attention.

      (After a quick wave, Professor Lundgren steps away from the mike. The applause is lukewarm, as many believe the professor has simply fallen off his rocker.)

      "Having spoken thus, Maharaja Nirga made a complete circle around Lord Krishna and touched his crown to the Lord’s feet. Granted permission to depart, King Nirga then boarded a wonderful celestial car as all the people looked on."

      "While Dhruva Maharaja was passing through space, he saw, in succession, all the planets of the solar system, and on the path he saw all the demigods in their Vimanas showering flowers upon him like rain." (Both quotes from the Bhagavata Purana.)

      #####

      Lundgren’s Press Release

      Date: Wednesday, March 23, 2044

      Location: Undisclosed

      It has come to my attention that certain unknown parties do not want my research to continue. Various forms of harassment have been used against my colleagues and myself. I believe our work phones and our home phones have been tapped electronically, and I can only imagine that our mobile phones have been compromised as well. We constantly suspect that we are being followed. Our research center was recently burglarized, as well as the home of Susan Drake, who is our metallurgical engineer, and also my own home. Everything related to our studies was taken, from our computer files to our schematics to the metal samples we’ve been conducting our experiments on. As a final testament to discourage us from continuing, my working model was brutally destroyed and left for me to find in my laboratory. My family fears for my safety. My wife has moved out. She is living elsewhere. I believe that the research I am working on is too important to humanity for me to simply stop. Thus, I am making much of the technical information public through the United Nations. I cannot imagine that those people who are tormenting my project are from foreign countries. I am assuming them to be domestic.

      Here is what is known: Gravity bends light. We’ve known this for nearly one hundred years. During a solar eclipse, the sun’s gravity bends the light from the nearest stars, making it appear as if they have moved. Mathematically speaking, light and space / time are inseparable. If one bends, then so must the other, and if it can be bent, it can also be compressed. This means that travel at or above the speed of light is possible if a strong enough gravity field were created.

      According to my calculations, and verified by computer simulations, the ancient Vimanas created a vortex where much of their gravitational field became neutralized. Thus they were able to move about at great speeds and for great distances. This is how classified American ‘flying saucers’ travel about today.

      Here is how they are powered: A circular accelerator ring is filled with mercury-based plasma. The plasma is pressurized at two hundred and fifty thousand atmospheres and at a temperature of one hundred and fifty degrees Kelvin. Accelerating the plasma to fifty thousand revolutions per minute will create super-conducive plasma that will disrupt Earth’s gravity field and render the mass around the ring, in this case the flying saucer, relatively weightless. Our estimates are that perhaps ninety percent of the vehicle’s weight can be neutralized. Maneuvering is unlimited in regard to the physical integrity of the vehicle, but it is limited by the ability of the crew to withstand the intense G forces involved. The flying saucer is capable of reaching nearly Mach Nine. It may surpass even this velocity if it ascends high enough into the atmosphere where gravity is weaker, at say over one hundred and twenty thousand feet.

      This is what happens when the plasma is spun in a toroidal ring configuration: The charged plasma particles move in a synchronized helical motion within the ring, much like a corkscrew. The particles become a current that sets up a unique magnetic field around the ring. We were able to reproduce this same pattern mechanically, by mounting several gyroscopes uniformly around the ring, and by spinning both the gyroscopes and the ring at high speeds. The difficulty lay in containing the rotating systems with electromagnetic forces. After this was accomplished we were able to reach relativistic speeds, and this produced usable gravitational effects. The metal alloys Susan was working on were capable of absorbing incredible amounts of heat, and thus would not melt under these extreme temperatures.

      We were very close to duplicating the motion and speeds of the classified American ‘flying saucer.’ We would have quite easily achieved this if it had been the direction our research team was heading in. As I have stated in the past, this has been done before, and there is no real point in doing it over again.

      What my research team and I have done is this: First, we were able to compress matter to subatomic levels and decompress it back to normal levels for periods of between fifteen and ninety-five nanoseconds. This includes both inorganic and organic matter. Second, we were able to open subatomic wormholes into known or even unknown dimensions, and to synchronize these openings to occur at the same time the matter was being condensed.

      Here is where we are running into difficulty. We believe that the construction of our space transport device can withstand the pressures of being pushed through the subatomic wormhole. Our transport can be safely returned to its normal shape and size on the other side, along with its occupants and cargo. We can push the ultra-condensed matter through the hole, but at this point we are unable to get it back. This is not a major problem if we’re simply moving an orange to the opposite end of our laboratory. I was already doing that with my miniature prototype. In contrast, knowing how to get our transport back is crucial for transporting matter between one city and another, or between one planetary sphere and the next.

      A second difficulty is that this mercury-based plasma, otherwise known as Red Mercury, is notoriously troublesome and expensive to produce. One hundred transport devices, for example, each equipped with their own gyroscopic power plant, would be too cost prohibitive for all but the richest nations. Even then it would be severely taxing on their resources. Offhand, the only nation I can name capable of such an endeavor, without crippling itself, is Russia. This is because so much of that country’s budget already goes to its military.

      We’ve not given up however. My team may have come up with a novel solution: The transport’s power supply will remain at a fixed location, while the transport itself will be mobile. A sufficient amount of Red Mercury can go a very long way if the gravitational force of an entire planet can be harnessed and augmented to set the gyroscopes and accelerator ring in motion.

      Regarding the power supply, this solution is comparable to the electric company stringing out invisible power lines to a residential neighborhood, or as the Tesla model allows, through the planet’s ionosphere. The power generator will activate and generate raw power. This power can be sent directly to the transport device in highly concentrated bursts, or pulses, or the transport device will simply draw this energy to itself, or a combination of both methods can be employed.

      Regarding the placing of the transport device on other planets, well, that difficulty has nearly been solved. Quantum physics argues that reality is subjective, that is, that reality is much like a hologram. This fits in well with the fact that light, and therefore time and space, can be bent if sufficient gravitational force is placed upon it. If we factor in that subatomic particles will only act a certain way when they are being observed, we can formulate where we want our transport to go, and it will go there. All we need is the precise mathematical route to a specific location.

      This will be a game of trial and error at first, but several factors are already working in our favor. Our transport device will be virtually indestructible, Susan’s advanced metalworking and radiation shielding can see to that. It will not matter where the transport device appears, as it or the cargo resting within it cannot be easily damaged. As long as we have gravitational forces that our power generators can use, on Earth or on any other planet that we may visit, we will have a means to replenish the transport device with energy. If we happen upon an inhospitable planet, it may be a simple matter of reversing the procedure to get the transport device back, such as a fisherman reeling his lure back in. We’ll know exactly where the transport device is, because we’re the ones who sent it out there. We can open a new wormhole at precisely that same location, but instead of compressing matter and pushing it one way, we’ll be compressing matter and pulling it the other way.

      To reiterate, the only obstacles we still have to overcome are the plotting formula and a source of stable and generous funding to allow us to create more Red Mercury.

      I feel foolish stating this, but one of my colleagues insisted. I am not, I repeat, I am not planning on committing suicide in the near future.

      S. Lundgren

      PhD of Astrophysics

      MIT

      #####

      Rocket Scientist Found Dead

      Date: Tuesday, April 5, 2044

      Location: Wellington, Cambridge, Massachusetts

      Professor Shawn Lundgren, PhD of Astrophysics, was found dead in his Wellington home this week, and as the result of self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun, according to the Middlesex County coroner. Lundgren, 46, was in charge of a group of dedicated scientists and engineers who were working on a highly classified project that involved quantum theory and technologies, and which were loosely labeled as the Pulse Theory Project.

      A coroner’s spokeswoman said that Lundgren was found dead on Monday morning, by a family member who had not heard from him in several days. Lundgren’s body was found in his home, and the cause of death is reported as seven self-inflicted wounds from a nail gun fired into his torso and head. It is unclear whether the suicide was caused by depression or stress, as Lundgren’s wife abruptly left his house only a few weeks earlier.

      #####

      Second Rocket Scientist Found Dead

      Date: Wednesday, April 13, 2044

      Location: Near the Norumbega Reservoir, Massachusetts

      Susan Drake, a senior engineering specialist at MIT, was found dead at the side of a highway that leads to the Norumbega Reservoir in Massachusetts, according to the Cambridge Police Department. She was 43.

      She may have jumped a four-foot fence at the side of a road before falling down a fifty to sixty foot embankment and into a construction area, Cambridge Police Detective Troy Edwards said yesterday. He said the death appeared to be a suicide.

      Drake was reported missing on April 9, and a group of family and friends had been searching for her. Edwards said Drake was having problems at work, without elaborating.

      Drake was in good standing at MIT, said Tiffany Jennings, a spokeswoman for the university. She declined to comment on Edward’s statement about Drake’s work issues.

      #####

      The Project Changes Hands

      Following the deaths of two of their most prominent members, and fearing for their own safety, the MIT research team quietly relinquished what remained of their studies and test results to the United States Department of Defense. The DOD passed the material on to a competent research team assigned to Nellis Air Force Base, the infamous Area 51, which had long been a facility where the stealth and cloaking of aircraft had been studied. The endeavor was renamed from the Pulse Theory Project to simply the Pulse Project. There is speculation that the research materials stolen from the MIT staff by strange coincidence ended up in the hands of the Nellis team. The methods employed to acquire this stolen material were never disclosed to them, and the team members were prudent enough not to make inquiries.

      For the next eleven years, clandestine testing took place. The transport device had originally been structured into a triangular bell-shaped form, with thrusters on three points that were spaced sufficiently away from the rest of the craft so as not to be influenced by the changing magnetic field. The idea was that the device would be weaponized in some way, but the DOD research team ran into the same problems that Hitler’s scientists did back in World War Two.

      Afterward, the original research continued when those same Nazi scientists were secretly brought into the United States during Operation Paperclip. It was learned that it would be impractical to attach any sort of conventional weaponry to such an expensive machine. Also, any detonation devices would either be affected by being too close to the fluctuating magnetic field, or too close to the thrusters. It was only when the modern research team hit a wall that they were presented with documentation that yes, this very same wall had been hit a century ago, back in the 1950s and 1960s.

      Reluctantly, the DOD allowed their research team to pursue non-lethal avenues for the Pulse Project. The shape of the craft was modified from triangular into rectangular. While the craft did work, there was a limitation as to how large it could be built while at the same time keeping the accelerator ring at a comparatively economical size. The armed forces of the United States, the DOD argued, did not need a tiny and enormously expensive craft to transport only twelve or so occupants, or a similar volume of cargo, when they could do the same thing with the equipment they already had. They were ready to pull the plug on the entire project.

      The Pulse team needed something to wow the string-pullers at the Pentagon, and this is exactly what they did. They asked NASA to position its satellites into keeping a close watch on a certain portion of the moon, in this case the Plato Crater, at a specific time and date. Lo and behold, the ultra-bright flash from the intense and sudden gravity shift of the arriving transport was both observed and recorded. Inside the transport, four intrepid scientists and engineers gleefully took pictures and digital recordings of the lunar landscape through the five-inch thick, reinforced plastic windows of the transport. All while wearing nothing more than the flowery and cheerful casual attire of visiting tourists. The instrumentation mounted both without and within the transport revealed that no cosmic radiation or other unpleasantness breached the vessel, and it kept the atmosphere within the vessel stable as well.

      Through the retrieving device, loosely labeled the Pulse Generator, the craft was brought back to Earth. No sooner had it arrived, and the generator had taken the couple of hours needed to fully replenish, than the team was ready for an encore. This time, ten excited people boarded. The destination was the escarpment, akin to a pedestal, of the volcano Olympus Mons on Mars. Again, NASA had been forewarned as to where to aim their eyes, and they were able to capture the landing and departure as they had with the moon visit.

      Regardless of this breathtaking venture, the Department of Defense could see no practical use for space travel. After all, it wasn’t going to help them win any wars, was it? When the news of this new technology was quietly passed on to a small group of powerful Republican Senators, however, things changed drastically. Thoughts of exploiting the resources of the heavens began dancing in the politicians’ heads, and of turning the United States and England away from the slippery slope of decline they had been on for the last few decades. Imperialism, they schemed, would once again be the order of the day.

      But while these Republican lawmakers were ready to reap the benefits from their pillage of the stars, they were certainly not ready to pay for it. The DOD had already passed the buck in their direction. Their only other existing alternative was NASA, which by then was massively under-funded and analogous to an outdated and nearly broken telescope. A new and entirely separate governmental entity was established, and its name would become Space Corps. To the detriment of the US military and the numerous other programs already burdened by dwindling funding, much needed money was diverted away from them and toward this bold new venture.

      High-flying drones capable of gauging a planet’s natural resources, both on the surface and a short distance into it, were put together from existing technologies. These were dubbed Explorer Drones. A company, the Unilink Corporation, was quickly founded to mass-produce the transport devices, although mass production was severely limited at first due to the scarcity of Red Mercury and resulted in only four working transports. These Unilink shuttles were sent to the furthest reaches of the Sol System, to Pluto and Charon, where the astronomers and astrophysicists that traveled there were able to observe and select suitable planets for further study.

      In the mid-2050s, enough pictures and information had been leaked, or pried out of allegedly secure computers by hackers, that the United States government was forced to make an official statement. The Senators who had instigated the project could not reveal its true purpose, which was to strip natural resources away from other planets and bring them back to Earth. Instead they came up with a ruse to cover their intentions. They were looking for planets suitable for the habitation of humanity, they suddenly began to claim, for the purposes of relieving overcrowding on Earth. A severe backlash followed, with several factions for and against the idea of space travel soon dividing the country, and shortly thereafter, the entire world.

      The United Nations asked if this new technology would be available to everyone, as it bore a striking similarity to the work of the deceased Professor Shawn Lundgren from MIT. The United States politely, but firmly, said no. It was too dangerous a technology to fall into unfriendly hands. This statement worsened relations between the US and other countries, who resented the exclusivity of what was now being called the Pulse System.

      In order to appease some of these detractors, in fall of 2055 the US government through Space Corps announced the Colonial Lottery System. If a suitable planet were to be discovered, a lottery would take place and a new colony would be founded on it. A test would be developed to gauge whether or not a person would be able to cope with living away from Earth. This test later evolved into the SPAT (Space Aptitude Test). Groups would be limited to one hundred individuals or less, and they would be closely monitored to assure they would be safe.

      Naturally, any sect or faction that felt oppressed in their own country applied to the lottery, and under the guise of aiding humanity, Space Corps began to explore the universe. The first planet deemed to be habitable was Tau Ceti e. The greedy Senators rushed the first colony into existence there in the summer of 2056, so they could move past it and get on with their true agenda. A small portion of the planet, the only portion that was habitable, was awarded to a group of Mormon extremists from Montana. It was doomed to failure when only a few short months later, the colonists were afflicted by a new and one hundred percent fatal parasite that apparently came to them from one of the hotter regions of the planet. They were all dead before the Earth year 2056 ended.

      Confidence in Space Corps quickly vanished, but the Republican Senators, now dubbed the Gang of Five by the media, were unyielding and persistent. They persuaded the researchers to keep looking for worthy planets, and their collective attention was turned toward the Gliese 581 star system.

      Planets e and b were too close to that system’s red dwarf star. They were not inhabitable due to their lack of atmosphere and their star’s constant bombardment of radiation, among which were endless waves and lethal dosages of x-rays. Planet f had to be discounted because it was too far out and subject to frequent ELE (Extinction Level Event) strikes from a nearby comet belt that was ten times as massive as the one in the Sol System. Planets c, g and d were looked at the closest, as they were found to be at the inner, center, and outer edge of the planetary habitability or ‘Goldilocks’ zone, respectively. Due to a dense atmosphere and a runaway greenhouse effect, planet c had been too hot at 600 degrees Celsius, or 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit, but the next two planets in that sequence, g and d, were not.

      Planet g had a similar atmosphere as c. It was tidally locked, as were all the planets between it and its sun. This meant that only one side of g ever faced the sun, while its opposite side was in eternal night. Normally, this causes blazing temperatures on the illuminated side, and glacial cold on the opposite end. However, the dense atmosphere shifted much of the heat all around the planet and cooled much of the surface to merely below freezing, save for a few lucky locations where the temperatures averaged between 40 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit. This planet had very limited and seemingly harmless flora and fauna. In the habitable zones it had pure water, and was thus named a perfect site for a future colony that didn’t mind a world with no days and nights, no true sky or changing seasons, and that leaned toward the very cold, and sometimes freezing side.

      Lastly, planet d lay on the outer edge of the habitable zone. Even though this world once had vast oceans, its tidal heating was too cold to maintain plate tectonics. As a direct result, it had become an ice planet where no true atmosphere existed. Core samples had been taken, and these showed that planet d had once been much further out, as there were traces of frequent asteroid and comet strikes buried beneath its icy skin. Enough iron and titanium traces, among other precious metals, were found during the initial survey that it was decided the planet would make a lucrative mining site. One of the members of the Planetary Exploration Team, also called the Ex-Team, had joked that the planet should be called Aquatica because it was once covered entirely in water. The name stuck, albeit in a slightly shortened manner: Kuatica.

      Back on Earth, the Gang of Five agreed with funding a further and more comprehensive exploration of Kuatica. By that time the stock in Earth’s precious metals was rapidly becoming depleted, and what little remained was growing enormously expensive. These politicians used their influence to award the slightly habitable world of planet g to one of the few groups willing to colonize in such an inhospitably cold environment. The group was from Norway, and they espoused beliefs that had been prevalent in their region well before the advent of Christianity. These were true, modern-day Norse people, Vikings. Upon their selection in the Colonial Lottery the eighty-plus members of this group renamed planet g as Valhalla. They were shipped out in April of 2057.

      Spurred on by their seeming success, the Ex-Team was directed to survey the Gliese 667 system. There was not only one star in this solar system, but three. A and B were fairly close together, while the closest C got to them was 230 AU, or two hundred and thirty times the distance between Sol and the Earth. Still, the three stars were eternally bonded by gravity.

      C was the only star with any exoplanets in orbit around it. Planet Cb was too hot, and perhaps the overly warm and tropical planet Cc would have been passed up as well, except it was discovered that its dense atmosphere boasted of great amounts of some very valuable material in its mountains and on its oceans. The planet was later named Melantha. The mining colony of Bootscrape was established there in June of 2057, only a short distance between the ocean and the closest of these resource-rich mountains.

      Planets Cf and Ce were more tempered in climate and habitable, and both were entered into the Colonial Lottery. It was widely rumored that some closed-door chicanery took place during the selection process, as the purported winner of the lottery was the United States-based Church Of The Holy Redemption. No less than eleven hundred fairly affluent and Anglo members of this congregation made their way to planet Cf in August of 2057. Soon thereafter these colonists named the planet Redemption.

      The lottery for planet Ce stalled out when another dilemma presented itself. It was rumored that workers were attempting to smuggle the highly valuable and also highly radioactive, as in nuclear, materials from the planet Melantha. Instead of using approved Earth-Side companies for the dredging and mining of these valuable and dangerous materials, Space Corps was compelled into extensively screening all personnel and contracting them individually, from the supervisors and foremen on down to the laborers. In addition, a small detachment of United States Army personnel was transported, or Pulsed, out to Bootscrape Colony with the intent of providing much needed security.

      By this time, the United States Army wanted to shed its negative reputation, and it renamed itself the United States Infantry, or USI for short. The small group of soldiers sent to Bootscrape were officially and voluntarily discharged, and entered into a new branch of infantry under Space Corps. Their new outfit was called Infantry Division Space, and either went by the initials of IDS, or SID. (It should be mentioned here that the Marine Corps also shed its original, antiquated name, and was now going by the designation of Marine Division.) At this time, the pilots for the new Unilink Transport shuttles adopted blue mechanic-style one-piece uniforms and started calling themselves Spacemen, analogous to the Air Force pilots calling themselves Airmen. The Spacemen were employed directly by Space Corps.

      The need for a larger security force soon became apparent. This prompted the American Congress to ask which of the US military branches were ready to take the lead in the rapidly expanding new frontier that was space. Infantry Division and Marine Division were in a heated and competitive race, but eventually Marine Division pulled ahead because it implemented the SPAT test into their recruiting efforts first. Their recruits proved more intelligent and more adaptable to extraterrestrial conditions than their rival. As a reward, Marine Division was presented with the nearly forgotten planet Ce, to be used as an official recruit training center.

      Lieutenant General Daniel Decuir and Colonel Wesley Scott were officially discharged from Marine Division Earth, while being given credit for time served. Together, they founded a sister military branch named Marine Division Space, as opposed to the original Marine Division, which now became Marine Division Earth. The two branches were differentiated in their initials as MDE and MDS. As it happened, while many of those under their care were known as Space Marines, first and foremost they considered themselves Marines, and would sometimes refer to themselves by the previous initials of MAD, which stood for Marine Division.

      Upon visiting planet Ce for the first time, Lieutenant General Decuir, assuming the temporary title of MDS Commandant, proclaimed the world a paradise, and this became the planet’s official name. Plans were quickly laid out to establish a Marine Division Recruit Station on Paradise, provided that enough eager recruits could be found for Basic Training.

      And so the scene is set. Star System Gliese 581 harbors the Norse colony on Valhalla and a proposed mining operation at Kuatica. Star System Gliese 667 contains the mining town of Bootscrape on Melantha, the Christian colony on Redemption, and a foundling MDRS establishment on Paradise. For the last couple of years, everything has more or less been going about smoothly, and it is at this juncture that we come to the present day.

      #####

      First Contact

      Present Day

      Date: Tuesday, January 20, 2060

      Location: Marine Division Recruit Station (MDRS), San Diego, California, Earth

      Renquist remembered being in Hell.

      It was a vague and shadowy Hell, but nevertheless, it was Hell. People were screaming there, dozens upon dozens of them. They were all trapped in medieval torture devices like iron maidens and chairs with armrests and seats lined with spikes. Screws were mounted into braces all over the devices, on the head, shoulders, back, and legs. These screws were large and wooden and with handles big enough for a man’s fingers to turn. Demons were all around the tormented people. These were faceless demons wearing black cloaks, which gleefully turned those screws a little at a time until they tore into yielding meat, or cracked through bone. The demons relished in the screams of those they persecuted, and they salivated at the sight of their victims’ blood.

      They didn’t act like normal men, these black demons. They chattered incoherently, almost nervously, like feverish vampires. When they moved, they skittered about frantically, as if they had somewhere to get to immediately, but in the end they only walked around in circles.

      Renquist recognized his nightmare as a lucid dream, when he found himself in one of those tight coffins with nails lining the front and back. A demon in a black cloak held the door, teasing him as it swayed the door and caused the dry hinges to squeal in anticipation.

      Renquist could not get out. He was bound too tightly, but he wasn’t afraid. Instead, he was furious at his captivity. Go ahead and do it! What are you waiting for?

      As if resentful that it hadn’t brought out the panic in Renquist, the demon hissed angrily and slammed the door shut on him.

      There was no pain, Renquist observed. There was only darkness, darkness and waiting. An eternity of waiting.

      It took Renquist a few moments to realize that he lay on his bed, with spotless white bed sheets and a single, coarse olive green blanket, because it never got that cold in San Diego. His bed had a simple headboard of black iron bars. The strong man preferred not to have any luxury in his surroundings, as this served for his penance in light of what he did for a living. He was a senior drill instructor at MDRS San Diego, where he helped trained young men to become soldiers, fighting Marines. Too many of those men, he felt, went on to graduate and later die while serving their country.

      It wasn’t anywhere near daylight, Renquist realized, as he took in the heavy shadows of his bedroom. A quick glance at his digital alarm clock informed him that it was ten minutes past oh-three-hundred hours. He was currently between recruit platoons, which meant he could wake up anytime he pleased, but his rigorous discipline kept him to an obligatory wake-up time of oh-seven-hundred.

      Renquist happened to glance toward the foot of his bed, where he saw one of the demons from his nightmare, standing there and swaying slightly. He was still lucid dreaming, he decided, until the demon started to lean toward him and gibber in its hideous way.

      This time, Renquist felt a wave of fear sweep over him, from his feet up to his head. It was strong enough to jolt him into jumping from the bed and onto the floor. As he landed, he shifted into a crouch. Although he was still near panic, he was running on his instincts now, on his honed battle reflexes. His body tensed itself for war.

      The demon, however, was gone now.

      Goddamn it, how’d you get out of my head? Renquist screamed into the darkness where the demon had been.

      Those very same demons had been haunting him for his entire life, and now, inexplicably, they were starting to appear in his waking state as well.

      I’m going to have to schedule an appointment with the Corpsmen. Renquist grumbled, as he shook the last of the cobwebs out of his head. No way he was going to get any more sleep that night. He straightened up. I will not be taking any fucking meds, either. Screw that. Let’s see the Corpsman take his own goddamned meds. Let’s see how he likes it. Bastard. He considered this for a short moment, before smirking. Or bitch.

      Renquist reoriented himself inside of his little studio apartment, reaching out to flip on the ceiling light. There was the bed, pushed close against the corner, but not too close. That was done because bugs repulsed him. He hated it when they crawled up the side of the bed and onto the sheets on top of him, had hated it ever since he was little. The rest of his room consisted of, clockwise from where he stood, an upholstered chair, a small dresser with a bookshelf stereo on its top, a closet that ran the length of one wall, a fridge, a desk, and beside the one door, a second upholstered chair. No stove, no fancy furniture, and especially no woman, because he no longer cared for that kind of aggravation.

      By other people’s standards it wasn’t much, but he didn’t care. After the divorce, this was all he really needed. Heck, he didn’t even need a car because he was only a couple of blocks north of MDRS. The early morning jog served to invigorate him. He was… content.

      Renquist frowned. Who was he kidding? He’d given up on dating because he was too much like a policeman, a tough cop who would hang out with his tough cop buddies and alienate everyone else around him. This was mostly due to the stress of the job he did. Not many women could stand being around a man like him, a man who was meticulous in his ways. A strong man who spent his professional day barking at young men, and at the occasional young woman, for even the most miniscule of infractions. As a result, Marine Division was the only thing he had left, and to Renquist that meant everything.

      Half a dozen steps, and he stood before the sink and the wide mirror propped up against the wall behind it. He flipped up a second switch, illuminating the light bar over the mirror. For a long moment, he simply stared at his own reflection.

      Renquist didn’t like the way his face was aging. He had soft creases along his forehead and at the outside edges of his eyes. He also had deeply edged lines where his cheeks met his upper lip, where his mustache sometimes went. Unless he was training new Marines, of course, and then he was always clean-shaven. He supposed most people did not like their emerging wrinkles.

      His body, however, was well toned and sculpted from non-stop rigorous exercise in diverse forms; running, swimming, weight training and sparring in various fighting disciplines. He was a fucking rock, and even if he didn’t have muscles bulging at his sleeves and pants it still took one gifted son of a bitch to take him down.

      He’d done well enough in the Marines, Renquist thought. He’d enlisted at eighteen, served for two years in Mexico and Central America during the horrific wars against the drug cartels, and bounced around for another two years. Finally he found his niche in ’47 when he first tried his hand at being a drill instructor. He loved the job and had been there ever since, and this even after one unjustified accusation that had nearly cost him his career and stalled him out as far as his rank went. Seventeen years in uniform, the last thirteen as a DI, and he only had three more years before he could call it quits. He would be all of thirty-eight years old upon retirement, still

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