The Voyage Home Read online

  The Voyage Home

  D. J. Holmes

  https://www.facebook.com/Author.D.J.Holmes

  [email protected]

  Comments welcome!

  Cover art by Ivo Brankovikj

  https://www.artstation.com/artist/ivobrankovikj

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales are entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © D. J. Holmes 2017

  In loving memory of our son Barnabas

  Away from the body but at home with the Lord.

  Prologue

  Earth, 2503 AD.

  “They’re here,” Captain Edwards projected into High Admiral Hanson’s mind.

  “On my way,” Hanson replied without opening his mouth.

  This is it, he thought, as he walked from his quarters to the bridge of HSF Defiance.

  “How many?” Hanson thought towards Edwards after stepping onto the bridge.

  “See for yourself,” Edwards thought back as he nodded towards the flagship’s main display screen.

  So many, Hanson thought in despair, careful to keep his thoughts to himself.

  “Have we received any new transmissions?” Hanson projected to Defiance’s bridge crew.

  “No,” one of the flagship’s officers replied.

  “Nothing has changed then,” Hanson projected to everyone on Defiance. Every one of them would remember the feeling of the last Collaboration. Almost everyone on Earth who was connected to the Planet Cognizance, including the delegations from humanity’s four colonized worlds, had been of one mind. They would refuse the demands of the Elders. “We will not give up our way of life, nor will we back down. Whatever happens now, let us face it together.”

  Though he wasn’t consciously aware of the thoughts of each of Defiance’s one thousand crewmembers, Hanson still sensed their mood. They were all as committed as he was.

  “What have the invaders been doing?” Hanson asked his bridge crew.

  “They haven’t moved into the system yet. They are sitting on the edge of the mass shadow,” replied Defiance’s sensor officer.

  “They’re waiting for an answer,” Captain Edwards guessed.

  “Yes,” Hanson thought back. “Though our presence should be answer enough.”

  “It should be,” Edwards thought back. “If they really are as advanced as they claim, then they can hardly miss our fleet.”

  Ten years ago, the first Elder ship had appeared in the Sol system. Up until that point, humanity had thought itself alone in the galaxy. Though only the nearest thousand star systems had been explored, the fact that no sign of intelligent life had been detected anywhere had given humanity a false sense of security.

  Without opening any form of communication, the Elder ship had approached Earth. The planetary government had scrambled what limited warships it had to confront the threatening ship. In the blink of an eye the Elder ship had obliterated all of them with some type of directed particle weapon. Then, after settling into orbit over Earth it had delivered its message.

  An alien from the ship had projected its image using COM technology similar to that used on Earth. It had informed humanity that it was a representative of a race calling themselves the Elders. It also claimed the Elders were the rulers and guardians of the galaxy. They had many thousands of species under their care. Earth, its colonies and the other alien species who inhabited this sector of space were all about to receive the privilege of joining the Elder Empire.

  The benefits it had said, were great; Earth would obtain access to all of the Elder’s Tier One technology, would be able to freely trade with all non-Elder worlds within the Elder Empire, its citizens would be able to freely travel to all other Tier One worlds and the Elders would commit to protecting Earth from all hostile threats. Most importantly, Earth would have the opportunity to advance to become a Tier Two and even Tier Three world. If that happened, the alien claimed humanity would have access to unimaginable technology and standards of living.

  The only caveats were that Earth must submit to the rule of an Elder Overseer who would be placed on Earth, and Earth must recognize the Elders’ ban on all neural, genetic and nano technologies. All three branches of scientific endeavor were forbidden on worlds within the Elder Empire.

  After getting over the initial shock of discovering they were not alone and that their future was under threat, humanity had set about debating what to do. The Planet Cognizance that allowed everyone on Earth with a neural implant to communicate with each other also allowed a planet wide Collaboration. In a Collaboration, every mind coalesced into one as the thoughts from billions of people came together. In the end, the decision had been almost unanimous. Humanity would not bow to anyone.

  Hanson hadn’t been surprised by the outcome. The same nano technology running through his body keeping him perfectly fit and healthy also ran through Defiance, just as it did almost all of humanity’s creations, holding them together. The neural implants that all but a few humans had, were first and foremost for communication. More importantly though, through the Planetary Cognizance they produced a sense of unity and purpose that humanity had never had before.

  The Elder ship had given humanity ten Earth years to remove all banned technologies from the Sol system and to prepare to receive an Elder fleet which would arrive to take possession of the system. Instead Earth, and her four colonies, had prepared for war. Never before had Earth needed to design and build designated warships to operate in space. The ships that confronted the first Elder ship had simply been freighters armed with small weapons in order to deter pirates.

  Now Hanson stood on the bridge of humanity’s largest warship. Defiance massed over half a million tons, was layered in nano carbon armor and carried hypervelocity missiles, laser cannons and mass drivers. Alongside her, more than a hundred smaller but still deadly warships stood in formation.

  “Move us forward,” Hanson thought.

  As Defiance and the fleet advanced towards the outer edge of the Sol system, Hanson moved over and sat in his command chair. Reaching up behind him, he pulled down his battle helmet. With a click, the helmet’s neural interface locked into his spinal column and his awareness of Defiance’s crew faded into the background. It was replaced by many new minds as Hanson’s thoughts were projected to the other Captains in his fleet. Once the familiar feeling of Captain Edward’s mind joined the neural network, Hanson began to give orders. With a few simple thoughts, he ordered his ships to swarm around Defiance. No one ship stayed in the same position for more than a couple of seconds. Hanson had designed the formation to protect his ships from mass driver rounds. It would also allow him to try a trick or two he had planned.

  “Do you think they will try to talk to us?” one of the fleet’s Captains asked.

  “We’ll see,” Hanson replied. “If they want to talk about leaving our system alone I’ll be happy to dialogue. But I don’t think that is going to happen.”

  At the fleet’s current velocity, it would take an hour to close to hypervelocity missile range. If the aliens hadn’t spoken by then, he fully intended to open fire. As long as they were in his system, he was going to treat them as a threat.

  “We’re getting a COM message from the Elder fleet,” one of Defiance’s officers informed him. “It’s text only.”

  Glancing down at a screen on his command chair, Hanson read it.

  You have made your decision, you will now become slaves instead of allies.

  When he looked back up at the main display screen, Hanson saw the alien fleet had begun to move. They wer
e on a direct intercept course for his fleet.

  “We have our response,” Hanson thought to his Captains. “Begin firing.”

  From the ships at the rear of the human fleet, mass driver rounds shot towards the alien fleet. With all the movement in the human fleet, the firing ships didn’t come into view of the alien ships for more than a couple of seconds. Hanson hoped that with all the sensor data his ships were giving off from their ever-changing formation, the aliens wouldn’t detect the mass driver rounds being fired.

  “Hypervelocity missiles,” Hanson thought once the aliens came into range.

  More than five hundred new contacts appeared as hypervelocity missiles were launched towards the aliens. They accelerated up to the speed of light, then, as a Dyson Bubble formed around the missiles, they continued to accelerate, rapidly closing in on the alien ships. Just before they reached their targets, massive heat blooms appeared all around the alien fleet.

  “Hits, multiple hits,” one of Defiance’s officers shouted across the neural link.

  Before getting excited, Hanson waited to see the outcome of his attack. He had timed it so the mass driver rounds would reach their targets just thirty seconds before the hypervelocity missiles. As he had hoped, the aliens had been too focused on his missiles to see the real threat.

  No ships were destroyed, Hanson realized as the sensors updated. Some of his mass driver rounds had clearly hit the alien ships, yet they were all still there. Let’s see how the missiles do, he said to himself, all too aware that if they failed, his options would be severely limited.

  “Several missiles are detonating way too early,” a sensor officer projected to Captain Edwards and Hanson.

  “What?” Edwards queried.

  Not waiting for a reply, Hanson accessed the sensor data directly. As he watched, more than twenty missiles detonated. Just before they detonated the missiles had suddenly undergone rapid deceleration. There was just one thing Hanson could think of that would cause that. The aliens were able to disrupt the Dyson Bubble’s around the missiles.

  “Send new orders to the missiles,” Hanson projected. “Tell them to drop their Dyson Bubbles and attack at sub light speed.”

  Without waiting for an explanation, his subordinates sent the new orders.

  More than two hundred missiles were destroyed in the seconds it took for the missiles to receive the COM message form Defiance. Having slowed, the missiles were now over a minute away from their targets. As they crossed the minute mark, some form of point defense fire reached out to take out the missiles. In return, the missiles jinked and ducked as they tried to evade the fire. Hanson watched, almost gobsmacked, as the hundreds of human missiles were reduced to just twenty.

  Nevertheless, he didn’t give up hope for those twenty reached their targets and exploded. “We got four,” one of Defiance’s sensor officers reported.

  “Just four?” Hanson queried as he struggled to contain his dismay.

  “Yes Admiral,” came the response. “Two alien ships have disappeared off our sensors, another two have stopped accelerating, there are no energy readings coming from them.”

  “How many did we hit?” he followed up.

  “Eight missiles got hits,” the officer replied. “The other seven ships are still accelerating towards us. There is no sign of any damage.”

  “What was different about that one?” Hanson asked.

  “It was hit by one of our mass driver rounds,” another officer projected. “It must have already been damaged.”

  “Target the ships we hit with mass driver rounds,” Hanson thought to his fleet Captains. “Prepare to fire another volley of missiles. Go to rapid fire with the mass drivers as well, maybe we will get lucky.”

  Now the aliens knew about the mass drivers it was unlikely they would be so easily hit by them. Being driven on by momentum alone, a mass driver round couldn’t track its target. It just had to hope the ship didn’t change course. That the alien ships were now making slight random course changes suggested they knew the deficiencies of their opponent’s weapons.

  “I’m detecting a small heat bloom coming from each of the alien ships,” a sensor officer reported before Hanson could give the order to fire.

  Hanson’s eyes began to move around to look at the sensor data. They never reached their destination. Instead, sub atomic particles accelerated to within a percentage of the speed of light struck his flagship. They ripped through its nano carbon armor and obliterated the bridge, killing Hansen instantly. A fraction of a second later, the beam of particles dissected Defiance’s main reactors and the entire ship exploded into one giant fireball. Though spectacular, the flames quickly dissipated in the void of space. In their place, all that was left of Defiance was an expanding ball of debris.

  All across the human fleet similar explosions tore into warships as beams reached out to snuff them out of existence. Not one human ship managed to fire another salvo of hypervelocity missiles.

  Five minutes later, twenty-nine alien ships, each massing less than a fifth of Defiance, accelerated through the debris that had been the once proud human fleet. They were now headed for Earth.

  *

  Hope V, Edge of the Sol system.

  “Get us out of here,” Simmons thought an hour later, then she cut herself off from the ship’s neural network.

  All her life she had been a scientist. She had devoted herself to discovering the mysteries of the universe, so she could help better humanity. The visual feed being displayed on Hope V’s main viewing screen sickened her. After destroying the defense fleet, the Elder invaders had set about destroying every orbital station around Earth. Some of the habitats had housed millions and millions of people. Others had collected solar energy or grown food stuffs essential to the inhabitants of Earth. There would be an energy crisis and famine all across Earth for months, perhaps even years to come. Yet it had only taken the Elders seconds to destroy it all, and it looked like they had no remorse.

  Not wanting the bridge crew of Hope V to see her face nor sense her emotions, Simmons stood and walked towards her personal quarters. Once there, she threw herself onto her bed and buried her head in her pillows. I’m just a scientist, how can I be responsible for humanity’s future?

  Alongside the efforts to build a defense fleet, Earth’s ruling council had set about preparing five Hope ships. Each ship carried humanity’s best and brightest. Simmons was now in charge of Hope V. She was tasked with setting up a small research base. There she was to study the Elders from afar. To learn their secrets and prepare for a day when humanity would be able to break free from their rule. It doesn’t matter how you got here, Simmons told herself. You are here now, you need to make the best of it.

  Getting back on her feet, she looked at herself in the mirror. Someday we will make you pay for this, she promised. The fierce look of determination on her face surprised her. With a thought, she reconnected to Hope V’s neural network. It was time for the rest of the team to sense her mood. The Elders will rue the day they came to Earth.

  Chapter 1

  Two thousand years later.

  Sarah sat on the floor in her bedroom playing with her favorite doll, Cali. It was her favorite because the doll looked just like her mother. With one hand she held Cali, while with the other she brushed Cali’s long hair, just as her mother brushed her hair every morning. A loud crack made Sarah jump and tears formed as she turned to see the door into her bedroom banging on its hinges. Her tears never came, for as she saw who was coming through the door a smile spread across her lips.

  “Mama,” she said.

  When Sarah saw the strange look on her mother’s face her tears almost began to flow again. She had never seen her mother look so scary. As her mother reached towards her daughter, Sarah’s smile returned. In one quick motion her mother picked her up and pulled her into a tight hug. She then held Sarah out in front of her. “I love you more than you will ever realize,” she said.

  “I love Mama,” Sarah replied
in as clear English she could muster.

  Sarah was confused as her words brought tears to her mother’s face rather than a smile.

  “And I love you too Sarah,” her mother replied through her tears. “You’re not going to understand this now, but someday maybe you will remember. Mama has to go away. You’re my special, special daughter and I love you so much but Mama has to go away. I love you Sarah,” her mother said again as she pulled Sarah into another tight hug.

  After what seemed like an eternity to Sarah her mother held her out in front of her again. Then she turned and handed Sarah to another woman who had come into the room with her. “Take her quick. They are already on their way here. Keep her safe, make sure she knows that I love her. That I am doing this for her.”