Ilox Saga 1: Eris Monroe: More Than Human
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Authors: Bruce Adams
ERIS MONROE
MORE THAN
HUMAN
By
Bruce Kevin Adams
Table of Contents
20
20 -- Breakthrough in Fusion technology leads to fast track development of Large Scale Fusion plants throughout the United States, European Union and China.
202
3 -- Robotic probes on Mars discover vast amounts of useful minerals and metals.
202
7 – First Fusion plant constructed begins operation in up-state New York at Willowbrook Point. It produces over 10,000 Megawatts of energy.
202
8 -- First permanent settlement on Earth’s Moon is created. Fusion technology allows for digging out huge caverns and tunnels for humans to exist in great numbers.
2029 - Fusion powered ship
Odyssey reaches Mars in three weeks with human crew of ten. They conduct scientific experiments and leave supplies.
2030 -- The Mars Consortium - made up of twenty companies, begins to plan for the settlement and exploitation of the Red Planet via tele-operated machinery and robots.
2031 – First human settlement on Mars, the outpost of Olympus is created for mining nearby deposits of valuable metals and minerals. Terraforming begins - a process that will possibly take centuries.
20
32 – First neural nets created heralds the birth of Neural Implant technology.
20
34 – General Synthetics begins mass production of household ‘MEKS’. GS robots sell for less than a compact vehicle, typically costing around $8,000. The Meks clean, cook and even baby-sit.
20
36 - Plasteel invented. Stronger and lighter than steel, the material revolutionizes construction and fabrication processes.
204
0 - The first wave of Neural Laws is written in the EU, limiting what is allowed for Implant Technology.
20
45 – First orbital human settlement on Titan, the moon orbiting Saturn.
2062 – Physicist and entrepreneur Jonathan Lindstrom
creates the first FTL propulsion system based on Quantum Zero Point Field manipulation. The exploration and colonization of the galaxy by humans begins.
2073 – First extra-solar planet colonization begins in the Vega system on the planet Terra. Vega is only twenty seven light years distant from Earth.
2075 – First Turing AI is built by a team from Rhineholt Industries. The AI is dubbed ‘Jordan’ and is given a female voice. The AI is shackled by the so-called Asimov Protocols, which prohibit it from causing any harm to living organics, or by inaction allowing harm to occur. Jordan is used extensively for studying computational jump point configurations.
2082 – T’sell T’savri
is born on the homeworld of the Zari – Dena.
2086 –
Four other solar systems with planets have been colonized by humans since the first world Terra in the Vega System. Massive migration from an overcrowded Earth is well underway. Birth rates soar.
2091 – First openly admitted Psi
onic, or Esper, proves beyond any doubt that such abilities exist in humans. Emilio Jesus Ramon, a Brazilian, holds numerous press conferences to demonstrate his telekinetic abilities.
2094 – Jump Drive technology is invented by a team of scientists bank-rolled by Dynamic Space Development. Expansion and colonization increases dramatically.
2100 – Earth’s Republic is formed comprising 10 planets with Earth as the capitol.
2102 – First contact with the Zari ends peacefully in the uninhabited Aryadu system in the Dabih Quadrant. The Zari Protectorate and the Republic sign treaties of friendship and cooperation.
2105 – First contact with the Arras is facilitated by the Zari who introduced the race to Humanity.
2112 – The Decker Incident. An esper named Gerhard Decker, a German-American that immigrated to Misoz in the Vega system in 2111,
destroys a facility using Level Five Pyrokinesis. The total destruction of the refinery and mass outcry leads to the first implementation of the Psi Laws in the Republic. Mandated testing of new-born infants for Psi ability as well as registration of all those having the extremely rare mutation is passed into law.
2120 – Earth’s Republic passes
100 billion people. A new Golden Age of humanity is widely believed to be occurring throughout the galaxy as diseases are conquered, food is plentiful and life spans increase.
2127 –Discovery of the lost civilization of the Valdren by humans on the planet Ediru in the Medea System, Sol Quadrant. Evidence shows this race only died out 30,000 years ago due to
an unknown and sudden biological catastrophe. The space-faring civilization traveled throughout the galaxy not using ships, but psionic power, and left behind many artifacts of great beauty which are prized.
2131 – Mar’s is sufficiently terra-formed to allow humans to walk the surface without pressure suits. However,
supplemental oxygen is required. The oxygen content at the surface of Mars is equivalent to 1/3
rd
the surface content on Earth, similar to traversing the top of Mount Everest.
2133 – Contact with the K’Tosk takes place. The Misunderstood War begins as Outpost K-6421 is totally destroyed by Hegemony warships. Warfare between the two species is brief but violent.
2134 – Diplomatic relations are established between the K’Tosk Hegemony and Earth’s Republic.
2141 –
Kinetic Shielding principles first discovered. HZS Corporation is established.
2145 – Eris Monroe is born on Darol Station, System ZSB-3,
in the Mirfak Quadrant.
2149 – Humanity has now colonized over 150 worlds and the total population approaches
125 billion.
2152 – Hyperdrive is discovered and expansion of the human race accelerates throughout the galaxy.
2154 – Eli Bowman is born in Olympus, Mars, Sol System, and Sol Quadrant.
2157 – The War against the Ilox is concluded when their homeworld is wiped out by the combined military forces of the Arras and Orvod fleets.
2160 – Alliance is established in the Border quadrants deemed the ‘Verge’.
2166 – Furnace, a heavy mineral planet, is discovered in the Mirfak Quadrant.
2167 – Establishment of the 10km long space station ‘Holdfast’ in Magellus System by the Alliance.
2172
– Present day. Humanity has settled over 200 planets in the “Core Worlds” and tens of thousands of other outposts have been established in countless systems across the galaxy. It is estimated that over 150 billion humans are spread out on countless planets and outposts spanning ten thousand light years throughout the galaxy.
1
At daybreak the binary suns were shining low on the horizon and it was already a hot, dusty morning. Satellite forecasts had predicted a ninety-five percent chance of strong winds blowing from the northeast. No one was watching the weather from inside the massive plasteel structure buried deep underground. The woman stood in a small cramped room in front of a workbench and a utilitarian desk. A circle of sterile white light shone on the desk from an overhead glow panel. A low-level hum of indeterminate origin filled the room. Dim light from recessed partitions softly lit the woman’s beautiful face from above. She wore a common jumpsuit worn by Republic soldiers in the core worlds - there were no medals or decorations on the clothing, just her last name,
Monroe
, stitched above her left breast and the rank of
Commander
on her right shoulder. Her hands were large for a woman’s and calloused from hard use. She was tall and gorgeous.
He thought back to his assignment.
He had been ordered to replace a pilot that had been severely wounded in the line of duty. He usually never wondered or thought about personnel, especially those he was replacing. He was the new guy still getting his bearings and trying to figure things out. He wasn’t sure who had tapped him for this assignment, but he had jumped at the chance to join the elite Division Six unit. He looked at the woman standing a meter distant and paid attention.
“
The… Valdren, what do you know about them,” she asked. She was Eris Monroe, and his superior officer in the Division Six unit. Kyle thought quickly,
not that much
, but he said nothing and only shrugged his shoulders.
While waiting for a reply, Eris
quickly typed on her datapad, took a sip of her Patera Chai tea and grimaced. She tossed a small square lump of shiny black metal no larger than two centimeters across to her companion. He quickly snatched the object with his left hand and looked at it quizzically. Feeling how smooth and polished it was, it also pulsed with a small electric vibration the moment it touched his skin. The feeling persisted, which made his teeth begin to feel funny and ache. The man was dressed in the same type of jumpsuit as Eris, though his rank indicated he was a Lieutenant.
“
Is that an Alien Data module?” There was a faint tinge of uneasiness in the tone of his voice as he looked directly at his commanding officer. At one hundred eighty-eight centimeters, Eris Monroe was taller than Kyle Arneson, though just barely. She had short jet black hair styled in a pixie cut. Her bare arms showed muscle and not a hint of fat. She exuded both sex appeal and charisma. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to be inviting and drew his gaze. She was beautiful and warm. He
desired
her but tried to keep those thoughts hidden. Even though he’d been sent to this outpost only three weeks before, he hadn’t met a man that could see her and not want her. He kept those feelings bottled inside. He casually tossed the data module back to her. She deftly caught it and put it in a side pocket at her hip.
“Yes, it’s the first one I found on the derelict ship. The others are under lockdown by the Science Division. I’ve been running diagnostics on it for days - I managed to keep it away from them.” She glanced at
Lieutenant Arneson. He was roughly one hundred and eighty six centimeters tall; he had a mop of glorious golden locks and summer green-hazel eyes. His build was slim and athletic and he was normally clean shaven, though a hint of stubble appeared on his face.
She smiled as she answered.
That smile made him feel good just to be near her. There had been rumors on the deck that she had tailored genes, but that didn’t bother him. Most people these days had neural implants – along with other genetic improvements.
Neurocallis
was the proper scientific term used by doctors and technicians concerning the bio-engineered implants. Though implants were ubiquitous and used by ninety-nine percent of mankind they weren’t brought up in everyday conversation, especially when conversing with one’s commanding officer. Though, he
was
curious about all the stories he had heard in the preceding two weeks about the legendary Eris Monroe. He turned his thoughts to the present and saw her smirking at him.
“
Have you learned anything?” Kyle Arneson furrowed his brow as he asked. He was a pilot - not a scientist. Flying was all he knew or cared about. Science made his brain freeze up, unless it was to compute vectors for a sub-orbital drop on an enemy position or to calculate how much fuel it would take to perform a mission and get back in one piece. He had been transferred to the Division Six unit on Kanpur three weeks ago, and he was still getting his bearings. Division Six was informally known as the Marauders by those that served in it. The trip from Earth to the Mintaka system had only taken three solar days – there were no layovers. Everything about the assignment was top secret - Eyes Only. Hell, even the depot he was stationed at was clandestine. No one talked about it, and no one knew what its true purpose was. Not that anyone ever asked…but if someone did he was supposed to say it was a re-fueling way station for Republic starships passing through to nearby systems. In fact, the station was owned by the TEC, the Terran Economic Consortium, a group of powerful corporations based in the core worlds, with deep and abiding military connections to Earth’s Republic. Kyle had been assigned to Eris Monroe’s group for the duration of his tour on Kanpur. He would act as the primary pilot anywhere the elite Division Six unit was ordered to go. He had quickly learned that Commander Monroe was in charge of the select unit and all military matters over the station known as Deep K115. TEC civilians were nominally in charge of everything non-military though there was a grey area where duties overlapped. The Marauders were charged with helping the TEC discover anything they could about the alien Valdren and their derelict ship that had been discovered. They were also ordered to safeguard any useful information that was found.
“You’ve been fully briefed on the project?”
Eris looked directly into his eyes - a serious look.
“Yes ma’am. I know that a
hidden Valdren base was discovered by a TEC exploration team about nine weeks ago here on Kanpur, but that something went wrong…” Kyle had never heard the full story and was curious to learn the truth.
“The Ancient
complex we discovered under Dawson Slope…the data hints that there are more alien installations out there, and we’ve been tasked with finding them.” Eris moved closer to Kyle and put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch was warm, but her voice was sober and commanding.
“The Valdren left a partially functioning starship at their
base. We have the science teams poring over every square centimeter of it, but the technology is advanced. We’re not even sure exactly how it flew. This module seems to hint at a map buried within its data archives - a military map showing points of interest and places to go.” She let the last word hang in the air and looked at Kyle, pausing and waiting for him to talk.
Kyle nodded.
A thought crossed his mind that the Valdren, long gone, might have been studying humans in the past. He suppressed such thoughts and concentrated on what his commander was saying. Nervousness crept into his voice and Kyle tried to keep his voice calm as he replied. “A map of Valdren military facilities would be tremendous. Do you think there are other bases nearby, perhaps in near-by star systems?”
She
looked at Arneson and nodded her head in agreement, her short black hair shifting into her eyes. Eris brushed an errant lock away with an unconscious motion of her hand.
Such
a beautiful woman
, Kyle thought. He couldn’t conceive how any creature so delightful could be a devastating force on the battlefield.
The chatter from the other squad members seemed to confirm the portrait of Command Monroe as an avatar of death in combat.
Eris stretched
, covering her mouth as she yawned. She had been awake without sleeping close to seventy-eight hours…she tossed her datapad, expertly aiming for a corner of the desk and precisely missed her cup of tea. The datapad landed with a soft thud in the low Kanpur gravity. She had been poring over the data the scientists had pieced together at the Valdren facility. Arneson flipped open his own datapad and idly scanned it. The reports were fairly short and succinct; not enough was really known, only a lot of conjecture. The alien underground facility had been protected by some kind of non-Hayles-Zinder barrier or kinetic field that only a civilian named Eli Bowman had somehow disabled. Every other person that had gone near the entrance to that ancient site had been killed immediately or been driven insane. Arneson recalled the main mission reports that detailed the fight with the
Valdren
Entity
and those it had controlled. Many Division Six personnel had died that day, and many more had been seriously wounded. Some had mental breakdowns. If rumors were to be believed, some had been driven insane by the experience. Kyle didn’t believe those rumors…at least he hadn’t seen any direct evidence to support the wild stories.
“You think the
Valdren built other facilities on Kanpur?” Kyle stared at the wall behind Eris, not meeting her probing eyes.
“There
are
more facilities. I just don’t think they’re on Kanpur…that’s what the data hints at anyway. I want to find out what happened to Eli Bowman and I want to get in touch with him…if he’s alive. Nothing in our orders mentions him at all. The data we recovered under Dawson Slope has the information buried and we have to dig it out and to do that we need Bowman. There’s literally no one else that can do…what he can do. He’s unique.”
“
Look who’s coming…” Kyle stated the words quickly as a middle aged woman wearing a Science Division patch on her uniform entered the small room. Tess Sahin was short with a plain-looking face. She had a very obvious and protruding Roman nose and eyes that seemed slightly too far apart, which gave her an unusual appearance, one which could have been easily corrected with
nanobot
cosmetic surgery. Her brown hair was tied in a bun at the back of her head. If she ever let her hair down he didn’t know - he’d always seen her like this. She was the smartest person on Kanpur no matter what her appearance looked like, and she usually let others know that fact.
“
Commander Monroe, Lieutenant Arneson… I gave orders that all personnel assigned to the Deep Project…” Tess Sahin spoke in short bursts but was cut off before she could finish. Sahin’s voice was rough, as if from lack of sleep or too many cigarettes.
Eris took
two quick steps forward. Tess Sahin was one hundred and fifty five centimeters, smaller than an average woman and Eris Monroe towered over her. Eris gestured at the patch showing the golden double helix of the Science Division.
“I don’t take orders from you,” she stated
coldly. It was a matter of fact. Her employer was Division Six, the special elite corps of operatives under the covert branch of the Republic Fleet.
Tess Sahin didn’t seem fazed by the aggressive
ness of the taller woman. They had temporarily been reassigned from duty in the Verge to this science project controlled by the TEC, a powerful conglomeration of corporations.
“Nevertheless, I am in charge of this proj
ect and we were promised full cooperation from the Fleet in this matter. And the goal…the overall goal of this project is to uncover what other facilities the Valdren constructed on Kanpur…or on other planets and to unravel the mysteries of their amazing technology. With that knowledge, TEC will be the first to claim all rights from the alien technology caches.”
Ms. Sahin
gave a half smile that hinted at a hidden secret. Eris knew her type and she didn’t like them. Smiling on the outside and scheming on the inside; there were too many secrets hidden behind smiling people. Secrets got people killed.
“Is there something you wanted, Doctor Sahin?” Kyle interrupted. The tension between the two women seemed to increase
with his interrogative. Eris turned on her heel with the grace of a dancer, scooped up her datapad and walked out of the small office without another word. Kyle looked at his feet, trying to think of something witty to say. Nothing came to mind.
“
Actually, it’s Project Director Sahin…Arneson…I need an update on your progress. What has Commander Monroe uncovered in the last twenty-four hours? I have not received a single update on any of her activities. It’s bad enough I had to come down here in person, it is standard TEC protocol to send all updates via implants.”
Kyle thought it over in his head how he should reply.
He’d been hand-picked for this assignment, and he didn’t want to blow it. He was now between the proverbial rock and the hard place. On the one hand, Dr. Sahin could ruin his career with Division Six if she really wanted to. On the other hand, Eris could kill him with her bare hands. It was a thin line. He felt uncomfortable as he cleared his throat.
“Well
… Commander Monroe doesn’t have any implants, Director. She can’t send anything…at least not in that way…”
The
ice cold glare from Tess Sahin made him rethink his approach.
“S
he said something about the Ancients just before you entered her office.”
