T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion Read online

  Ghosts of Orion

  Doug L. Hoffman

  Copyright © 2014 by Doug L. Hoffman

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN 978-0-9884588-8-8

  Published by

  The Resilient Earth Press

  http://resilientearthpress.com

  Books By Doug L. Hoffman

  The T'aafhal Legacy Series

  Ghosts of Orion

  The Queen's Daemon

  The T'aafhal Inheritance Trilogy

  Parker's Folly

  Peggy Sue

  M'tak Ka'fek

  Non-fiction (with Allen Simmons)

  The Resilient Earth

  The Energy Gap

  Preface

  This is the first book in a new series set in the same Universe as my earlier trilogy about Earthlings finding their place in the galaxy, the T'aafhal Inheritance. I'm calling this and forthcoming tales the T'aafhal Legacy series and it is an open ended proposition. I have been storing up a number of adventures involving the crew and characters from the first three Peggy Sue novels—some ideas I have had from the beginning, while others are prompted by questions and suggestions from readers. There is no overall story arc as there was in the trilogy, and the books may not be published in strict chronological order.

  This novel, the Ghosts of Orion, follows the further adventures of the crew of the Peggy Sue, this time without the leadership of Jack and Ludmilla. Instead, Billy Ray and Bobby are in the lead, along with their significant others, Beth and Mizuki, respectively. There are other characters from the previous stories as well as some new ones. As always, there will be strange new worlds to explore and even stranger aliens to meet.

  As always, I thank my early readers for their many corrections and suggestions: Rik Faith, Stuart White, Bobby Johnson, David Metheny, Clayton Ward, and Jesse Perkins. Mistakes that slip through are all my fault, certainly not theirs. If you like this book please tell your friends. If you really like it consider writing a review online at Amazon.com.

  Regards,

  Doug L. Hoffman

  Conway, Arkansas

  July 4, 2014

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Two Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Gliese 667Cc

  The Senior Academician fumbled with the recorder connections. Anxiety made the familiar task frustratingly difficult. With a sigh she looked out the arched side window at the tranquil scene beyond. Puffy white clouds, blushing red at their edges, floated in a cerulean sky. Below, trees adorned in light green leaves brushed fields of red flowers with graceful ground-sweeping branches. Scattered among this verdant display were the flowing white stucco shapes of the city's houses and buildings.

  Her city was located well inland, a center of commerce for the large farming region in the heartland of the planet's largest continent. Home to perhaps 150,000 souls, it was not a large city, yet big enough to warrant its own branch of the state University. Years ago she had accepted a position here, to live and raise her daughter in a more natural environment.

  It was not like the major cities along the coasts, where graceful spires reached for the sky and people teamed among them in their millions. The glitz and glamor of big city life beckoned to many, but not to her. This lovely little city ran at a slower pace. It was a paradise where one could escape the hustle and bustle of big city life. A paradise soon to be lost.

  Returning her attention to the device in front of her, the Senior Academician finished attaching the leads to the recorder. She often came to the Hall of Memories to make archive copies of her thoughts—much more frequently than average citizens were wont to. In fact, the large hall was empty; she was the only person making a deposit into the city's collective memory this day. But then she was, above all things, an historian. It was her obligation to record events for the edification of future generations.

  A soft green light glowed on the console, telling her that the recording process had begun. Closing her eyes, she thought back over the events of recent days. Four days ago, it was a day like any other. The red sun rose, accompanied by its two companions, a sliver of the inner planet just visible in the morning light. Several bright streaks marked the passage of meteors out over the middle sea.

  Normally, meteors marked the death of the objects that caused them, the objects themselves evaporating into nothingness during their fiery transits. But the objects that morning survived to reach the surface of the sea, completing their transformation from meteoroid to meteor to meteorite. Given the heat generated passing through the planet's atmosphere, it seemed improbable that anything living could survive the journey. Yet something did survive.

  Whether that something was actually alive was a matter of debate among the more scientifically oriented academics the historian knew. Not that the debate had much time to develop. A day after the impacts it was noticed that fishing boats and pleasure craft were failing to return to port. The reason for this soon became apparent when something emerged from the coastal waters and began moving inland.

  Her colleagues were still unsure just what the invader was: Was it a single organism or several? Was it intelligent or not? Was it plant or animal? Was it even alive at all? Their ignorance was not alleviated as the foul pestilence spread inland consuming everything before it. Scientists sent to analyze the infestation did not last long enough to report back, let alone learn enough about the threat to suggest countermeasures.

  From remote cameras, the pestilence itself appeared to be a simple black substance with root-like runners spreading out before it. It advanced like a black tide, pouring over everything in its path. On encountering anything organic, runners shot out of the main mass, racing ahead faster than a person could run. Black tendrils of death that enveloped every living thing—people, plants and animals all were consumed.

  The runners quickly wrapped the people they overtook in black cocoons, while exuding some form of acid that rapidly dissolved the hapless victims. Were they being digested to feed the spread of the expanding mass? No one knew for sure. At the trailing edge of the swath of death, the black material soaked into the ground without a trace. All that was left was a barren wasteland where nothing living survived.

  The infestation raced inland, destroying cities and towns, farmland and forest. Flying creatures vanished from the air above and aquatic creatures from the waters of sea, lake and river—even diatoms and plankton. Nothing was spared.

  Trying to maintain her composure, the Senior Academician thought about these matters, hoping to leave a clear record of her civilization's final days. She had dutifully entered recordings of the destruction of her world into the archives and now it was almost upon her city. Though this was only a minor city, and a minor branch of the University, she had a scholar's pride in her work. If anyone survives, if people come in the future, they will find that
she performed her duties properly.

  The door to the hall flew open. Standing there in the light was a single young girl—the Senior Academician's daughter.

  “Mother!” the girl called, “the black death has invaded the city, everything is dying!”

  Glancing sideways out the window, the Senior Academician saw the graceful trees being torn down by whipping black sinews and the bright flowered fields turn to putrescence. How can something so vile exist? She looked back at her daughter, her only child.

  “I know, daughter.”

  “But what are we to do?”

  “I'm sorry, my precious, there is nothing that we can do but be brave. The pain will last but a moment.”

  “Mammaaa...”

  The girl's final cry became a short strangled scream as black filaments whipped around her body. A hissing, sizzling sound arose as the dark threads sank into her living flesh. Within seconds, all that was left was a crumpled black mound, slowly sinking back into the mat of alien corruption spreading across the floor.

  The Senior Academician forced herself to not look away. She was an historian; those who might come in the future deserved an accurate record of the end. The storage array was inorganic, made of metal and glass and doped semiconductors, a vast repository of memories recorded by generations past, all stored as holograms, interference patterns in blocks of impervious crystal.

  Once recorded, the information held within needed no energy supply to sustain it. Scholars like herself and everyday people had been storing their life memories in the Hall of Memories for more than a hundred generations. Hopefully it would be impervious to the ravaging alien pestilence that reached for her.

  So this is how our world ends, she thought, not bravely shouting defiance at our foe, but each one alone crying for help where there is none.

  As she had promised her daughter, the searing pain lasted only a moment.

  Part One

  An Anomaly Without Parallel

  in the History of the World

  Chapter 1

  Gliese 667C, Six Months Ago

  Under the baleful glare of a small red star the fabric of 3-space rippled and shimmered. Accompanied by a burst of gamma rays and a spray of fundamental particles, a survey drone emerged from alter-space. Around it lay a system rich in rocky planets—three of them within the star's calculated habitable zone. Two other major planets and the usual collection sub-planetary flotsam rounded out the family album, but it was the three super-earths that interested those who sent the probe.

  They were a young race who only recently survived their traumatic debut as a spacefaring species. Having fought off those who would have driven them to extinction, H. sapiens was actively looking for new planets to inhabit, new worlds to call home. This system, cataloged as Gliese 667C, was known to humans prior to the discovery of alter-space transit, back when traveling to the stars remained the stuff of fiction. Now, having cleared the surrounding 10 parsecs of known hostile species, the surviving natives of the planet called Earth were starting a diaspora on which their future survival could well depend.

  The robot probe quickly found its own location within the system: a quarter of an AU from the star and slightly above the planetary orbital plane. There was a large rocky planet very close to the star, with an orbital period of only seven days. That one would not be friendly to Earth life.

  A bit farther out, however, were three rocky planets with orbits of 28, 39, and 62 days. They all massed more than humanity's home, the innermost one being the heaviest at 4.5 times Earth. That world had managed to hold on to its atmosphere and was warm enough to support life. Quickly running a remote spectroscopic analysis of the planet's atmosphere showed that it was composed primarily of nitrogen with a significant amount of oxygen. It also showed traces of water vapor—H2O—the single most important substance for terrestrial life.

  The probe switched on its gravitonic drive and laid in an intercept course for the planet designated Gliese 667Cc. It would take closer readings, but preliminary indications were that it had found what it sought—a planet that could be colonized by Earthlings.

  Jesse's Bar, Farside Base, Present Day

  Jesse's bar was the most exclusive drinking hole in the solar system. Not the swankest, or the most expensive. There were no gatekeepers at the entrance passing judgment on who could enter and who should be turned away. It was a more self selecting process—those who didn't belong felt uncomfortable and soon moved on. This was because Jesse's bar was a Navy bar, filled with veterans from the Fleet.

  Those veterans were mostly officers, though senior NCOs sometimes gathered to drink the potent tropical concoctions served up by the bar's eponymous owner. Foremost among the proffered libations was the Fantasy, a mixture of tropical fruit juices, strong Island style rum and “secret” herbs and spices. The first Fantasy was often described as creating a sense of warm contentment, the second euphoria, the third mind erasure. There have been those who consumed more than three Fantasies at a single setting. It is rumored that they are confined for their own safety at a special psychiatric facility on one of the outer moons of Saturn.

  It's not that imbibers aren't cautioned about over consumption—Jesse and the bar's watch lizard, Freddy, are careful to warn those sailing into dangerously drunken waters. Sadly, some customers, having spent too much time pondering the dark void between the stars, come seeking oblivion. Not everyone is meant to travel the inky vacuum that is space, or the even more mind-bending nothingness of alter-space. Others, however, thrive on it.

  At a far table, under one of the big palm trees, was a gathering of four such travelers of the void. Three of the four were dressed in the black jumpsuits of naval officers—one captain and two commanders. Among them, they had held the post of captain aboard a dozen starships. The fourth was dressed in the dark maroon of the government science section, an astrophysicist of some note and an adventurer in her own right.

  At other tables and from seats at the bar, other customers cast surreptitious glances at the four. Not because they were high ranking naval officers, but because they were former members of the original crew of the Peggy Sue and known friends of Captain Jack Sutton and Colonel Ludmilla Tropsha. The Peggy Sue was Earth's first starship and as much a legend as its Captain and his lady. Jack and Ludmilla were pretty much credited with saving Earth and all its lifeforms from extinction at the hands—or equivalent appendages—of the Dark Lords' minions.

  After the battle for Earth, the couple stuck around only long enough to make sure things were running on a mostly even keel. Then they departed in the M'tak Ka'fek, the four million year old T'aafhal battle cruiser that had accepted Jack as its captain for life. One rumor was that they left to look for the T'aafhal home worlds. Others say they went to hunt the Dark Lords themselves on their rogue planets, drifting in the cold darkness between the stars. Jack and Ludmilla and their small crew of close friends didn't say where they were going, or when they might return. That was over two years ago.

  As former associates and friends of the departed saviors of mankind, Capt. William Raymond Vincent, Cdr. Elizabeth Melaku, Cdr. Robert Danner, and Dr. Mizuki Ogawa were the objects of much unwanted attention. They were treated with a mixture of awe and resentment that they all found annoying at best. Most troubling, because of their special status, they found themselves courted by political factions within the Navy's growing ranks. As the waiter departed after serving their first round of drinks, the senior officer, Billy Ray, spoke.

  “You sure you two kids are old enough to drink those Fantasies?” The facetious question was directed at Bobby Danner and Mizuki Ogawa, Bobby's significant other.

  “Just because you and Beth are a half a foot taller than we are doesn't make us children,” Bobby replied. “Besides, we've all fought enough aliens to qualify for a bar pass.”

  “These drinks are very strong,” said Mizuki after taking a sip of the cloudy, apple cider like liquid in the glass in front of her.

  “Don't
consume them too fast, Mizuki,” Beth warned, “or you will end up with a very short evening and a date with the porcelain throne.”

  “That's true, you have to just sip at a Fantasy,” Bobby confirmed. “Jesse should rename them Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters.”

  “That would be appropriate, pardner. I think ol' Douglas Adams would have approved if he had ever tasted one. How did he describe the effect of his favorite fictional cocktail?”

  “'Rather like having your brains smashed out with a slice of lemon, wrapped around a large gold brick'," Bobby answered his friend, pausing to take a sip of his own drink.

  “He never did write down a recipe,” said Beth, taking a sip of her Hendrick's martini. “Pity, really.”

  Beth had grown up on the outskirts of London, though her roots were in Ethiopia. She and Billy Ray were a stunning couple, both near two meters in height and fashion model attractive. Standing next to them Mizuki and Bobby did look like adolescents, though they were contemporaries of the taller couple.

  “So how are things going with you two?” Billy Ray asked, “And where are the children?”

  This caused Mizuki to look at Billy Ray with a puzzled expression on her face while Bobby suppressed a grin. Beth elbowed her man in the ribs.

  “He means the butterflies, Mizuki-chan,” Bobby told his love. Several years ago, while on a mission with Capt. Jack, Mizuki was part of a boarding party that had to fight its way across a gigantic alien space station in search of antimatter to refuel their ship. During that action, a semi-sentient flock of alien butterflies became enamored with the katana wielding astrophysicist. They had been with her ever since, following her everywhere she allowed.

  “Oh, you were making a joke,” Mizuki said with a smile. “We left them at home in our quarters. The last time we brought them with us Freddy the bar lizard tried to eat one of the flock.”