Talosian Chronicles 3: Talosian Alliance

Talosian Alliance – Book III

––––––––

By Ben Winston

Copyright © 2015 Ben Winston

Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

Copyright Page

Disclaimer

Dedication

The story so far...

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

About the Author

Connect with the author or Blue Space Publications, LLC.

Books Published by Blue Space Publications, LLC.

––––––––

A
ll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook 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 reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

––––––––

R
oughly forty-five hundred years ago, a Talosian Federation warship, the Heavy Cruiser,
F.S.S. Olympus
, crashed on Earth’s moon as the result of an attack. Faced with almost irreparable damage to the ship, the loss of ninety percent of its crew, and the total destruction of their ‘race’, Commander Zeus came up with a radical plan to try and save his race.

His plan was to leave the
Olympus
on the moon, go down to the beautiful blue planet, and breed with as many of the inhabitants as possible. The
Olympus
, under the control of the AI, would remain on the moon, make repairs, and then begin searching for someone with the correct genetic markers to assume command of the great ship.

A young pilot trainee that was orphaned in the attack asked the Commander for permission to take her own life since she no longer wished to continue without her mother and girlfriend. Zeus didn’t have the heart to grant her request, so he asked her instead to go into cryogenic suspension and assist the new Commander, once one was found. Believing that she would never wake-up, Talena agreed.

After watching the last of the crew depart, the ship’s AI had his hologram walk young Talena to the Cryogenics bay. He told her he would be there when she awoke. She just smiled sadly at him and said good-bye.

With Talena safely in cryo-sleep, the AI set about his first task of repairing and decontaminating the ship; it took far longer than it had estimated. Nine hundred years later it had finally completed all the repairs it could. However, it remained on the moon for the simple reason that since she was never intended to land; the ship had no means of lifting its large, multi-megaton mass off the surface.

Hoping its new Commander would have an idea, it turned his full attention to the planet its crew had emigrated to. After an exhaustive (even for him) survey, he was dismayed. It appeared that only a few of the natives showed traces of his former crew. Fearing that the Commander’s plan had failed, but bound by his final commands, the old computer resigned himself to monitoring the small planet and awaiting his eventual core systems failure.

In an effort to occupy his time, Olympus rechecked for the proper genetic sequences once every fifty or so years. Realizing that the planet needed help, but knowing that interference could very well make things worse, he avoided politics and religion. He began to influence man in small subtle ways that, while not correcting major issues, kept mankind from killing themselves long enough to learn how to fix it themselves.

Then one day, one of his probes reported finding two young people that were almost exact genetic matches for Commander Zeus and Colonel Hera, the ship’s second in command and bond mate to Zeus. Taken somewhat by surprise, the old computer shifted his full attention to the young couple. The fact that they lived only four blocks apart and were best friends amazed him. Excited and full of anticipation, he continued to monitor them as they grew and directed his remotes to continue to check the entire populace – this time with far more optimism. Shortly before Ian Williams graduated from high school, Olympus convinced him of his heritage, and Ian accepted the responsibility. He immediately began recruiting a crew after taking his best friend as bond mate. Suspecting that the ship had sustained further, possibly undetectable damage, Ian ordered diagnostics run on the ship. After rescuing young Talena from her impossibly long four-thousand-year stasis, the small group found out how badly damaged the ship actually was, and even Olympus was surprised by how close to killing his new crew they had come.

Not letting the unwelcome report deter him, Ian ordered major sections of the ship to undergo emergency repairs, to include the total destruction and replacement of its primary power reactor. While waiting for the ship to become safe for occupancy once again, Ian and crew set up a corporate township in New Mexico as a cover for recruiting new crew members, as well as forcing the introduction of suppressed technologies and ‘green’ research.

The ship repairs finally were finished and a method to lift off the lunar surface was devised. Shortly after officially assuming command of the newly rechristened Star Dancer, Ian and crew launched the old warship back into the heavens where she belonged. 

Once back in space, Ian and his people focused on preparing for the arrival of a Caldarian ship and whoever else may be planning on showing up. After months of preparation and worry, the Caldarian ship arrives and immediately begins searching the system for Ian and his people.

Seeing the opportunity to play it safe and possibly save some of the lives of his people, Ian keeps a low profile and begins a guerrilla warfare against the Caldarians. During the attacks, it becomes impossible for Ian to keep his existence from the government of the United States and the rest of the world. However, that wasn’t the only government to notice Ian and his people; just as the Caldarian Super Nova hadn’t been the only ship to make the jump to Sol System.

In the aftermath of the final battle, other ships that had jumped to Sol were revealed to be Talosian Heavy Cruisers, the same model as Star Dancer herself.

Once the shock of discovering that all the Talosian people hadn’t been killed had worn off, Ian and the two newly arrived Commanders sit down to discuss the battle and what would likely happen now that the Talosians knew Ian had one of their ships.

While the Talosian High Council debated their official status, a kind of treaty between the Talosian people and Ian’s people at Sol Sector was observed. Our story resumes six months after the Caldarian battle and the arrival of the Talosian ships.

––––––––

––––––––

I
an and Serena walked along the long main corridor of the new dry dock, inspecting the facility as it was nearing completion.

“Your people are simply amazing, Ian,” Serena said. “A project this size would have taken years to build anywhere else, and here we are walking inside of it already.”

“Well, to be fair, we already had the design and the plans for these stations finished. The drones are actually doing most of the real work. Remember though, that the AI won’t be finished and ready for installation until the second station, Pleiades Two, is about half finished,” Ian replied. “But, I have to agree with you, these folks impress the hell out of me on an almost daily basis.”

“Has your Council decided on the first project yet?” Serena asked.

“Not officially, no. Luke tells me that the Prometheus will be the most likely project though. Once she’s finished, then Star Dancer will go in for refit,” Ian replied. “Have you heard from High Command yet?”

Serena nodded. “As I said, Admiral Goya is all in favor of it. However, because of the way the Council works, he has to receive permission to take the Prometheus out of service long enough for the upgrades to be done. He told me that half of the councilors are worried that doing so will leave this sector under protected, and the other half believe that you’ll only succeed in destroying one of our warships.

“Houses Heracin and Bjorin are trying to convince the rest of the Council that the proposed upgrades you will be making are impossible and will not work. They have even hinted that such modifications will leave the ship defenseless during battle.”

Ian shook his head. “So far, no one has taken us up on our offer to send their technicians or engineers so we can show them what we’re planning. Every offer has been met with silence.”

“Heracin and Bjorin are the two main houses responsible for building new ships and keeping the ones we have working. They are failing miserably, and even before they lost all but one of the ship building facilities to the Empire, they had no plans for new systems or any upgrades of any type. In fact, I don’t think they were even planning on building any new ships,” Serena said. “If it hadn’t been for the other races helping to keep us repaired, we would have already lost most of our fleet.”

“Well, once these stations are finished, each one should be able to handle two heavy cruiser class ships at once. While Prometheus is getting rebuilt, we will be starting a couple of other new projects on the other side,” Ian said.

“So you’ve mentioned, but you haven’t told me yet what you plan on building,” the older Commander hinted, smiling.

Ian grinned back at her. “The Council has approved the construction of two torpedo cruisers and one mobile repair ship.”

“I’ve seen the plans for the torpedo ships, but I’ve never heard of this repair ship you are talking about. What will it do?" Serena asked.

“I think it’s one of the designer’s better ideas, personally. It’ll be a medium cruiser class ship that is basically a portable shipyard. It has extendable gantries that can expand out far enough to accommodate a heavy cruiser, improved power generation, and redundant systems capable of taking the place of any and all systems aboard ship while the ship itself is repaired without the need to return to a base for repairs. We see it as being deployed with a fleet or a task force, remaining in the rear during a fight, and moving to help badly damaged ships even during combat. It will have armament, but nothing like a heavy cruiser. Mostly just defensive weaponry, like point defense and fighter suppression systems. It’ll also have almost twice the armor and shields of any existing heavy class ship,” Ian explained.

“How under the twin suns can you do that? It’ll have so much mass that the engines would have to be huge in order to move it!” Serena countered.

“Enigma armor and dual reactors. However, you are partially correct, the engines will be larger than a medium class ship, but not that much. It’ll have larger hyperspace engines in order to be able to jump with a ship docked. The major difference over that ship and one of these stations is that the ship will need to be resupplied with raw materials. It’ll carry enough for a lot of major repairs, but if it has to rebuild more than two ships, it’ll need more raw material,” Ian explained. Once the torpedo boats are built, we will be building a freighter capable of resupplying the construction ship.”

“Are you still planning on moving your fighter production to the fourth planet?” Serena asked.

“Yes, in fact, there is already a crew there building that facility. Oh! The Council decided that once the crew here finishes the stations, they will be moving back to Mars to build yet another station for civilian use.”

“Your Council is wise to plan for the future. Having the ability to move freight and people without having to resort to the military is a valuable ability. Most of the other races still feel a little intimidated to have cargo delivered by warships. Escorts, they understand because those will stay outside the system and wait for the freighter, but they get nervous allowing other military vessels into their sovereign space,” Serena said.