When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony
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Authors: Chris Kennedy
When the Gods Aren’t Gods
Book Two of The Theogony
By
Chris Kennedy
PUBLISHED BY: Chris Kennedy
Copyright
©
2014 Chris Kennedy
All Rights Reserved
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Chris Kennedy at:
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License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only
and 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 purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
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I would like to thank Linda, Jennie and Jimmy, who took the time to critically read this work and make it better. I would also like to thank my mother, without whose steadfast belief in me, I would not be where I am today. Thank you. This book is dedicated to my wife and children, who sacrificed their time with me so that I could write it.
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Cover art by Genesis Graphic Design
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Author’s Notes
Note: When more than one race refers to a planet or star in Janissaries, the same name is used by both races in order to prevent confusion. Also on the topic of planet naming, the normal convention for planets is to take the name of the parent star and add a lower case letter (i.e., Tau Ceti ‘b’). The first planet discovered in a system is usually given the designation ‘b’ and later planets are given subsequent letters as they are found. In order to prevent confusion in Janissaries, the closest planet to the star in a star system is given the letter ‘a’, with the rest of the planets given subsequent letters in order of their proximity to the star.
Note: The ‘Dark Side’ of the Moon. There is no ‘dark side’ of the moon. Like many bodies in our Solar System and among the stars, the moon is ‘tidally locked,’ where the moon makes one revolution about its axis at the same rate that it makes one revolution around the Earth. Because of this, the same side of the moon is always facing the Earth as it orbits around it. Even though we never see the other side of the moon from Earth (we have seen it through various probes and explorer craft), the ‘dark side’ gets as much sunlight as the side we can see. At a length of just over 27 days, the moon’s day is just a lot longer than ours.
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The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
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TSS
Vella Gulf
, Naval Space Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA, June 26, 2019
Calvin
was beat. Closing the door to his stateroom, he fell heavily onto his bunk without taking off his flight suit. Stiffening, he rolled back over and looked toward one of the empty corners of his small cabin. Sighing, he interlaced his fingers behind his head and asked, “How long do you intend to watch me?”
Arges
dropped his shield and came into view. “It is interesting that you can do that,” he said. “Did you know I was here or were you just guessing?”
“I
’ve always had the ability to tell when someone close by was watching me,” said Calvin.
“Interesting,” answered
Arges. “You are the closest to Awareness.”
“What do
es that mean?” asked Calvin.
“
Before Atlantis fell,” replied Arges, “all humans were able to talk telepathically with each other.”
“Wait,” said Calvin. “W
hat do you mean, ‘before Atlantis fell’?”
“
I don’t want to talk about it,” said Arges, “but suffice it to say, the things that you believe in, the things that you ‘know’ to be the truth, are often not the truth. In fact, many of the things that humans attribute to mythology, old wives’ tales, and to science fiction and fantasy, are in reality things that happened long ago and, although not completely forgotten, have been so distorted by oral tradition as to not retain most of their original truth.”
This didn’t help
explain things. If anything, it only confused Calvin further. “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”
“
I am not a warrior,” said Arges, “and Atlantis’ fall was traumatic to me. It is literally too painful to talk about.”
“Wait, you were there?
” asked Calvin. “How old are you?”
“We are each somewhat over
5,000 of your years old, give or take a few centuries. We long ago figured out how to preserve our bodies, extending our lives nearly indefinitely. And, as you have long suspected, we are telepaths...just like you.”
* * * * *
Calvin flew slowly over the
sprawling base on the back side of the moon. It had grown considerably since his last visit. “Really?” he asked his weapon systems officer (WSO), Captain Imagawa ‘Samurai’ Sadayo. “They’re really going to call it Moon Base Alpha?”
“
Hai!
” the Japanese man replied. “The nations couldn’t agree on a name, and that was what everyone up here was already calling it. You should come up here more often.”
“Well, there’s no doubt that I need to get out more,” said Calvin. “Between all of the media events and the governmental meetings, I definitely need to take some time off.”
Since they had returned from their first mission to space, Calvin’s life had been a blur. A little over a year prior, three aliens had appeared to Lieutenant Commander Shawn Hobbs, or ‘Calvin’ as he was known in his F-18 squadron. Calling themselves the Psiclopes, they said they had a ship and needed to go home, but didn’t have anyone to man it. The President of the United States, Bill Jacobs, had offered the United States’ help and had brought 10 allied nations in on the secret. The Terran forces, under the command of Captain James Deutch, had flown the spaceship on a three month mission to the stars. Calvin, the hero of the Sino-American War of 2018, had led a special forces platoon that had captured a piece of alien technology on the mission. He had also led a squadron of space fighters that had destroyed an alien battlecruiser.
His exploits had made him a hero to most of the Earth, and he was the focal point
of the effort to form a new, unified planetary government. He had spent the last few months shuttling between national capitals, giving speeches and signing autographs. None of that was anything he’d ever thought he’d do as a naval aviator, or anything he’d ever prepared for. Getting back to flying again was a blessing.
Calvin looked at
the mass of buildings clustered on the otherwise barren moonscape and chuckled. “That’s really too cool a name. I’m surprised that ‘The Powers That Be’ allowed it.”
Captain Imagawa laughed. “I don’t think they had much choice,” he explained. “As soon as the first building was completed, Bullseye hung up a sign proclaiming it to be Moon Base Alpha. It just kind of stuck after that.”
“That sounds like something he would do,” Calvin replied. The executive officer of his squadron, Major Robert ‘Bullseye’ Pierce, appreciated a good joke. “Did you know that there was a video game named Moon Base Alpha?”
“No,” replied the WSO. “Did it come out recently?”
“It came out about 10 years ago as a simulation for what an astronaut’s life might be like on the moon,” answered Calvin as he swung the shuttle back around toward the landing strip. “NASA developed it and gave it away on for free on the Steam gaming network. It was a pretty good game, although kind of short. You get what you pay for, I guess.”
“Was it anything like this?” he asked as Calvin brought the shuttle in for a landing next to the giant hangar building.
“No, it wasn’t,” Calvin replied, setting the shuttle down softly. “I don’t think the engineers at NASA ever thought to add in the part where aliens come and give us a technology boost.”
The two men fastened their helmets, checked each other and exited the shuttle. “
Wow!
” Calvin commed after getting his first look at ground level. As part of their ‘upgrade’ to humanity, the Psiclopes had given the Terrans implants that allowed them to communicate via an internal radio link. “
They’ve accomplished a lot in the six months since we got back.
”
“
Yeah, once they got enough suits for everyone, this place became very active,
” the WSO replied. “
And yet, no matter how fast we build, there is always more that needs to be done.
”
As they approached the hangar airlock, Calvin noticed something written on the side of the wall.
Never to see the home planet
The Mother labored
Surrounded by her worshipers
Her offspring, salvation
Would it be enough?
Calvin paused to read the poem. “
Yours, I take it?
” he asked.
“
Hai,
” Samurai replied. Calvin turned where the Japanese man could see his face and raised an eyebrow. Samurai laughed. “
You’ll see inside,
” he promised.
They passed through the airlock into the hangar, which was a square building nearly 3,000 feet long, 300 feet high and pressurized inside. Along one wall sat the prize of the TSS
Vella Gulf’s
first cruise—a Class 2 replicator. It was a hive of activity as people fed it materials and worked knobs, switches and dials. A work of advanced technology, it could take raw materials and turn them into any finished product that it had the blueprint for, up to the size of a shuttle or space fighter. Looking at the replicator, Calvin now understood the poem. He certainly hoped their efforts would be enough.
“Hey, there!” Calvin called to a familiar face as he took off his helmet. “Fancy meeting you in a place like this.”
Andrew Brown turned. “Lieutenant Commander Hobbs!” he called out in recognition. “It’s good to see you again,” he said, coming over to join the men.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” said Calvin, looking around. “How’s it coming?”
“Good,” said Brown. Formerly the plant manager for Boeing’s Airplane Programs Manufacturing Site in Renton, Washington, Brown had a lot of experience managing massive aircraft production facilities. His last hanger had over 4.3 million square feet of manufacturing space. “We’ve just about finished our third shuttle. We’re going to make one more of them, and then we’ll start on the new fighters for you.”
The conversation paused for a second as one of
the new lunar dump trucks deposited its cargo of materials into the input side of the replicator. When the commotion had subsided, Brown smiled at Calvin. “I understand that I have you to thank for my promotion,” he said.
“All I did was mention to a few people that I had been impressed with the facility that you ran in Washington State,” Calvin replied.
“And the fact that he had exercised excellent discretion when you first met him,” added Imagawa, who had been with Calvin when they had flown the government leaders up to what would be the site of Moon Base Alpha. “As I remember it, you also told them that if Mr. Brown wasn’t made the facility manager, you were going to stick a laser up their collective asses and set it off.”
“Did I say that?” asked Calvin, feigning innocence
. He looked at the former aircraft plant manager. “I don’t remember doing that, and, even if I did, I can’t imagine a better person for this position than you.”
“Well,” said Mr. Brown, “for my part, I can’t imagine knowing that this facility existed and not being a part of it, so I thank you
. Whatever you did. It’s a challenge, certainly, but it’s a worthwhile one, knowing that what I’m doing could make a difference in the defense of our planet.”
That was a sobering thought. “Like I said, I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have in charge here,” replied Calvin. “Keep pumping out the
ships; we’re going to need them.”
“Do you know when you’re going to go back out again?” the plant manager asked.
“We just found out,” answered Calvin. The manager waited expectantly. “I’m sorry,” Calvin said, “but I can’t tell you yet. It’s classified.” The manager’s face fell.
“It sure would be helpful if we had a full load out of fighters in seven months, though,” said Imagawa to Calvin.
“You’re right, Sadayo,” Calvin agreed, “it
would
be very helpful if we had seven more fighters in seven months. I’d be pretty happy if we did.”
The two military men paused to watch the thoughtful look that came over Mr. Brown’s face as he considered. “Hmmm...” he said
. “That’s going to be tough.” He opened up a binder he was carrying and looked at a diagram that was on a clipboard inside it. After a few seconds, he started drawing arrows and scratching things out. “We’ve got to get more shuttles finished so that we can continue to bring people and materials up here. That remains the bottleneck, so we’ve got to get those finished...We also have to do a couple of production runs on space suits...and more lunar diggers...and mines, the defense council is
screaming
for more space mines...and we
have
to get the new replicator finished for Epsilon Eridani before you go...hmmm.” He pulled a calculator out of a pocket and started punching in numbers. “We could probably shift some of the smaller stuff to the replicator on the
Vella Gulf
,” he decided. “I could probably get a few open cycles on it...and push that shuttle to after the seventh fighter...” He put the calculator away and shut the binder. “It’s possible, but it’s going to require some major revisions to the work plan.” He smiled at the two men. “We’ll get it done, Calvin. You’ll have them.”
Calvin smiled. It was the first time that the man had ever called him by his callsign. “Thanks,” he said. “I hope we won’t need them, but it would be much better to have them than not.”
“You got it!” Mr. Brown said. “OK, I’ve gotta go make some people’s lives difficult. Good seeing you.” He walked off like a man on a mission. “Hey, get that truck moving! You, there! Pick up that molecular adaptor before someone steps on it! Is this your first time on the moon? Stop staring and get back to work. We’ve got a schedule to keep!
Be careful!
Do you know how much that costs?
”
Calvin smiled at Imagawa. “I knew he was the right man for the job.” They watched a couple of minutes longer as the nose of the next shuttle began poking out of the replicator. As the shuttle was ‘born,’ he could easily see why Samurai had referred to
the replicator as ‘Mother.” It was amazing that they had almost completed their third shuttle. The amount of material it took to make a shuttle was staggering, especially considering the fact that all of the materials had to be brought to the moon in the three shuttles that they currently had available. They really needed the other shuttle that they had left at Epsilon Eridani, but he was sure that one was being put to good use there.
The shuttles that they had were being worked nearly 24 hours a day. He wasn’t sure what the mean time between
failures was for an advanced technology shuttle, but he knew they had to be approaching it pretty quickly. They were rushing the required maintenance, which was never a good thing. Hopefully, having this next one would allow them a little more time to catch up on some of the maintenance they needed to do on the ones they already had.
A group of five people
was standing at the end of the replicator pointing at something inside it. About 10 feet of the shuttle was now showing, and there were a variety of trucks and anti-gravity sleds that were marshalling near the end of the replicator. Even though things weighed less on the moon, they still had the same mass and inertia. A shuttle measuring 200 feet in length had a lot of both.
With a start, Calvin realized how mesmerizing it was to watch the shuttle emerge from the replicator. Sadayo must have written his poem after watching the last one come out. Although it was
interesting to watch, the process was still going to take at least another couple of hours to complete. He had more important things to do. “Let’s go,” he said to Samurai.
The two men put their helmets back on, checked each other and went back through the airlock to the surface of the moon. At some point, a tunnel was going to connect the hangar with the living area, but it hadn’t been completed yet. It was inconvenient to have to go outside, but by now Calvin had put his suit on enough times that it was second nature. The two men walked across the 50 feet of open area to the main base entrance. Calvin looked at the shuttle sitting on the ramp and the army of people unloading the raw materials and building supplies that he had brought up.
Flying a shuttle was a lot different than flying an air-breathing airplane. After every flight in an F-18, he had to go into Maintenance Control and write up all of the things that were wrong with it. The shuttle was a big step forward. It had its own small artificial intelligence (AI) that not only kept a running log of all of the things wrong with it but also worked with the maintenance technicians to fix them. Still, he was the shuttle squadron’s commanding officer, and old habits die hard, so he went by the squadron’s maintenance office before going anywhere else.
“How’s it going?” he asked the master chief sitting behind the desk in Maintenance Control.
“Not good, sir,” replied the master chief. “All three of our birds need some serious down time.
Shuttle 02
in particular needs a major overhaul. It’s AI said that it was turning itself off after its next flight and that it wouldn’t come back online again until we fix some of its issues.”
“Really?” asked Calvin. “I’ve never heard of
a ship doing that before. Do you think it will?”
“Sir, I
’ve been in the aircraft maintenance business for 27 years,” replied the master chief. “I have no idea if it would shut itself off, or even if it could, but I don’t want to find out. I think we should just fix it, and then we wouldn’t have to worry about it.”