The Euclidian: When Worlds Collide (uncut) Read online

  The Euclidian:

  When Worlds Collide

  Jay Cannon

  The Euclidian: When Worlds Collide

  (Illustrated & uncut)

  Copyright © 2010, 2011 Jay Cannon (JC)

  Published by Jay Cannon at Smashwords

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever or stored in a database retrieval system without written permission except in those cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  For more information contact the author at [email protected].

  First edition: December 2011

  Cover illustration by Igor Kieryluk

  Book illustrations by Corne Illustrators

  Book design and formatting by Cheryl Perez

  For Renée who pushes me to believe in my dreams.

  PROLOGUE

  Morgan was a teenage loner. He spent most of his free time wandering the streets of DC playing with his tennis racket, hitting balls against a wall or at targets. One day while playing in an alley he was thrust between an alien hunter and his alien prey. He ended up saving an alien kid not unlike himself and now he is the last hope for the planet Earth.

  CHAPTER 1

  CAPTAIN SHISAL

  Two individuals in deep discussion walked down a long, wide, dimly lit corridor, followed by a shadowy figure. Light tubes stretched across the ceiling and down the walls, providing some light in the otherwise dark expanse. The sound of their boots striking heavily against the metal floor echoed down the vastness of the corridor. One of the individuals was Captain Shisal, the skipper of the space vessel Andrea in which they were traveling. The other was Commander Lippon, the chief interrogator. Locked metal doors lined the corridor. Each door led to a cell for the enormous resource extraction ship’s interrogation area. The cells were full of captives from other planets. Some were spies. Some had been captured in hopes of recruiting them as spies. Others had been captured during mining operations on distant planets, thought to hold valuable information that the captain wanted to extract.

  Figure 1. Captain Shisal and Commander Lippon followed by shadowy figure

  On rare occasions a crewmember, probably guilty of some mutinous activity, could be found imprisoned in a cell. Crewmembers didn’t last a long time on this level. It was well known how to interrogate Euclidians, the race of people that ran the ship. Once a crewmember had spilled the beans about intent, plans, and accomplices, he was typically tossed into space in full view of other crewmembers. The captain felt that type of punishment acted as a deterrent to others that might be considering mutinous acts. To maintain discipline and discourage insurrection, the captain sometimes bestowed a more ruthless form of punishment against crewmembers.

  The many security measures on the ship made mutiny extremely difficult, but not impossible. One successful method was to take out the captain and form an alliance with the XO. The ship’s sensors mitigated the captain’s risk of assassination but they were fallible. Captain Shisal had survived an attempt on an earlier mission, and learned a valuable lesson about decreasing his level of vulnerability. Hence the shadowy figure that followed him as he toured the ship. That person had a sole purpose on the ship: keep the captain alive.

  The conversation continued as they walked by an interrogation room where an Earthling was being questioned. The interrogator was trying to get the captive to provide a map of where the nuclear material under his command was stored. The sound of a power drill broke through the voices.

  “I don’t want to waste any more time torturing you,” said the interrogator to his prisoner. “I’m going to drill a hole in your head,” he said, pulling the drill’s trigger so the man could clearly hear the sound, “and then I’m going to place these Bellini bugs over the hole so they can enter your skull and eat away at your brain. The section of your brain that I will be drilling into is the one that controls your ability to withhold information. Little by little you will feel your self-control slip away until you will be conversing with me as freely as if you were talking to a trusted friend.”

  The workers in the interrogation area were ruthless beings. Not because they were necessarily evil, they just hadn’t evolved with a compassion gene. When a grizzly bear attacks a human and mauls it to death, it doesn’t do it because the bear holds a grudge against the human or derives pleasure from the attack. It’s just what they do. The Perjorans were a race of emotionless beings, much like sharks or jellyfish. They tortured other beings to get answers requested by their superiors. They might kill their captives on occasion, but not with malice or enjoyment. They were just doing their job.

  “Unfortunately,” the interrogator continued, “once I have the information I need I won’t be able to retrieve the bugs from your brain. Not to worry though, we will dispose of your body in space long before the little invaders eat away at any parts of your brain that might lead to an excruciating death.”

  The interrogator pulled at the drill’s trigger a few more times to drive the point home and then placed the drill bit against the human’s head. The human screamed and begged for mercy. “If I tell you what you want to know,” pleaded the prisoner, “will my life be spared?”

  “I promise that we won’t kill you,” replied the interrogator. “We will give you a comfortable and safe place to live out your life. Now tell me what I want to know and STOP WASTING MY TIME!”

  The prisoner confessed everything he knew about where the nuclear material was hidden. A message was sent to an agent back on Earth and the human was placed in a holding cell while his information was verified. Later he was sold to a private collector of alien species and spent the rest of his life on display like a zoo animal.

  Captain Shisal was happy to hear that this particular prisoner had decided to talk. Knowing the whereabouts of the nuclear material would be important to the success of the ship’s next mission. Captain Shisal did not like going into a mission with too many unknowns. He also didn’t like surprises like the one he had gotten from a cell he visited earlier. An Alpha had been captured on the last planet they visited. How did he get there, the captain wondered, and what was his purpose? And what was he to do about it? Technically, according to the truce, he was not supposed to hold any Alphas hostage. Interrogating one could cause him to lose his ship or even land him in prison. He figured he would quietly put a psych on the Alpha and see what he could figure out surreptitiously before letting him go at the next port. No reason to waste electrons using the Andrea’s transporter.

  Blue tubes in the corridor marked the entrances to cells holding those waiting to be interrogated. Red tubes marked the doors of rooms where prisoners were actively being interrogated. Captain Shisal and Commander Lippon were headed to a particular cell with a red tube.

  The ship was normally silent. Ventilation systems, engines, and equipment were normally pretty quiet. Here, however, screaming, begging, and whimpering could be heard coming from the cells over the sound of the uniformed figures’ heavy boots. The smell of fear was in the air and not just from those being interrogated. The captain was irritated about the lack of progress in interrogating a certain prisoner and he wanted his irritation to be known. “Have you tried everything?” the captain demanded. “Pain, drowning, manure, killing a family member, the animal cage?”

  “Yes, Captain, we’ve tried all that and more,” replied Commander Lippon, nervous about disappointing him. The captain was not ve
ry forgiving. He had survived two wars and a mutiny, basically unscathed, and after all that did not suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The captain was not prone to mental scarring. That was something he inflicted upon other people, like interrogation officers who didn’t get him the information he needed.

  “Bring in the psychic. I want to know how that weapon works by this time tomorrow or you’ll be the next one that we test new interrogation techniques on.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” replied Commander Lippon. He bowed and hurriedly left the captain’s side.

  Captain Shisal continued his tour of the interrogation area. He had just completed a mission and was on his way back home to turn in his bounty. He needed to know the worth of everything to be certain of maximizing his earnings from the haul. Understanding how all the captured systems worked helped him understand how much he could charge. The new weapon they had discovered was a good example. Sometimes he had to torture people to find out what he needed to know.

  Captain Shisal commanded one of the many ships that were used to mine distant planets for their resources, which were then sold on the open market. Most of the spoils from the mining operations were purchased by the government, which either added them to their military arsenal or distributed them to the citizenry to help continue their dissemination throughout their galaxy. The Euclidians had learned from the Alpha attack that they needed to deploy their military capabilities beyond their home planet to avoid being trapped there. The government had funded the research and development for the original ships used in the early mining missions. In return, it had first right of refusal for all goods that were returned. Once they had their pick, businesses, wealthy individuals, and other planets could purchase the goods returned from mining missions.

  Captain Shisal had been lucky on his latest mission. He had discovered a remarkable weapon just developed by the inhabitants of the newly conquered planet. The weapon could somehow break down the molecular bonds of a substance. By simply dialing-in an element’s atomic definition and firing the weapon at an object, all traces of the element within the object were deconstructed, and the object destroyed.

  Their military never had a chance to use it against the Euclidians; it was still in development. Their scientists destroyed the design and usage files before the Euclidians could acquire them. Unfortunately for the scientists, they had been captured and eventually the interrogators would get the information they needed. The Euclidians had mastered several means of interrogation, and no captive could keep his secrets from the Euclidians for long, except through death. But the Euclidians were careful to keep their captives alive until they were ready for them to die. Dead captives were of no use to Euclidians. They only represented lost knowledge, labor, or money. Killing them was not tolerated unless absolutely necessary. If a prisoner became unruly they had several means to non-fatally subdue them.

  Shisal had been in the mining business for the twelve years since he left the military. It was not something he would have ever put on his list of desirable occupations while he was in school. It seemed too much like being part of a large business, which he had always resisted.

  Chaell Shisal grew up in an upper middle class family in an exclusive region of the Peejay Province. His father was a retired army officer, become businessman, and his mother was a professor of astronomy at the university. He had loved his father’s war stories and often dreamed of being in the military, leading the charge against an enemy. But the wars ended shortly after he joined the military, and his father felt that to remain would be a waste of his talents. Chaell’s father ran a successful resort and pleasure business catering to wealthy Euclidians, founded with the help of his military and political contacts, and he wanted his son to help run it.

  Chaell’s mother thought he would enjoy being a college professor like her, based on his curiosity about technology in the science fiction movies that he enjoyed watching. She didn’t know that it was the fighting and carnage he enjoyed more than the space exploration or scientific aspects of the movies. Chaell always saw himself as the commander of one of the space vessels, attacking a formidable enemy and winning. Sitting in a classroom and teaching students, or sitting in an office and measuring return on investment, was not his idea of excitement.

  As soon as Chaell was old enough, he left home to join the military. Though it didn’t deliver the action he had hoped for, it got him away from his parents and their constant nagging about following in their boring footsteps. After basic training, Chaell specialized in air combat. He took advanced training in hand-to-hand combat, weapons, and assassination techniques. He considered himself a peaceful person, but he longed to kill someone in the line of duty.

  The first two years of his military life were drudgery. Chaell felt he might as well have joined his father’s business. Then the Alpha attack came. He was a junior flight officer of a military aircraft but due to the loss of command and control, he had been grounded and unable to participate in the battle. The military lost so many aircraft during the attack that it was afraid to send any more out and besides, those currently in service were not designed to operate in space. The event had darkened Chaell. At the moment he had been waiting for all of his life, all he could do was sit back and listen to the reports of his comrades being slaughtered by the thousands.

  Years later when a counterattack was launched, Shisal, now a squadron commander, was assigned to destroy any enemy vessel that attempted to escape to their outer planets. The plan was to do as much as they could to minimize the Alphas ability to ever attack the Euclidians again.

  As commander, Shisal was expected to stay back and manage the logistics of his squadron’s attack. But that was not his way. He not only led the attack, he destroyed more enemy vessels than anyone in his squadron, and against the orders of the air wing commander led an attack against a remote planet to which some Alphas had fled. Afterward, instead of a reprimand, he received a commendation and was promoted to air wing commander when the current commander suddenly retired.

  Chaell had finally achieved his dream. This was why he had joined the military. He was not going to pass up an opportunity he’d waited for his entire life because of some silly rules of engagement. Luckily, his gamble paid off.

  After the Alpha attack, life returned to normal for Commander Shisal. His air wing was assigned to patrol the solar system frontier, the duties split amongst his six squadrons. He found it painfully boring. Then, at the end of a long patrol he received a distress call from the Delta Quadrant. Several thousand Alpha ships had attacked the Delta home planet, landing a large force of ground troops and establishing a foothold on an isolated part of the planet. The Delta air defenses were quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of ships that the Alphas had propelled into the battle. The Alphas lost a lot of ships, but didn’t seem to care. Their main objective was to take out the Delta space defenses and the major military bases on the planet so they could land their ground troops, and they accomplished that mission early on.

  The battle raged for a week before the Deltas sent a distress call to the Euclidians. The Euclidian high command spent a day reviewing options and finally decided to send in Commander Shisal’s air wing to protect the space around the planet and set up new base stations. A mining vessel was sent to collect four of Commander Shisal’s six squadrons and place them in orbit above the Delta home planet. Within a month the squadron had secured the area above the planet and placed in orbit four new space stations with tactical capabilities. As the Alpha space fleet and bases became ineffective, the fighting moved to the planet’s surface.

  Over the next six months, the Delta planet was overrun run by the superior Alpha military. A truce was signed to prevent the slaughter of billions of the Delta population. The Euclidian fleet was forced to pull back and remove their space stations, which were soon replaced by Alpha space stations.

  Commander Shisal was annoyed at the truce. He had lost several of his men in the war and was not ready to accept defeat. Why,
he demanded, should a truce between the Alphas and the Deltas apply to the Euclidians? Why couldn’t he send his air wing into the Alpha Quadrant and wipe them all out of existence? “The greater good” was the only response he received.

  Once Shisal’s tour of duty was over, he left the military in disgust and joined the mining alliance as security officer on a resource extraction ship. He felt that, with their excursions into deep space, he would eventually run across some hostile species that was looking to start a fight. But he soon found out that the real danger came from greedy crewmembers that wanted to keep more of a ship’s haul for themselves. After fending off those types of attacks for several years he became the executive officer (XO) of a resource extraction vessel. Three missions later he became captain of the Andrea, one of the newest resource extraction vessels. That had been five missions ago. Now he saw it as his destiny to eventually retire with mining wealth, and to join the ranks of the idle rich waiting to die. It was not something he wished for, but at his age it seemed all but unavoidable.

  As much as he resisted it, he found his parents’ dreams for him intertwined with his own destiny. As the captain of the ship he was running his own mining business, and he was responsible for teaching new crewmembers about the wonders of space. He sometimes laughed to himself about the cleverness of fate. But as he found out on his next mission, when he became the commander of a new army against an all too familiar foe, fate had a lot more in store for him.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE EUCLIDIAN

  The Euclidian were a homogeneous society of humanoid creatures that have moved beyond large-scale conflict among themselves. A central council with representatives from every major region governed the planet. After their mining operations started, the Euclidian citizens did not have many needs. They continued to have wants and desires, though, and many of those had been satisfied as citizens became part of the mining trade, which was extremely lucrative.