EVE Fiction

Ok, I've posted the whole thing - it's a bit lengthy, bear with me! You can also read the story over here.

Hope you enjoyed it - if you did, tell your friends! If you didn't, speak of it to no one. :) Thoughts and constructive criticisms are appreciated!


Escape From Eden


Pator laughed with the other traders and threw back his drink. He looked around at the colossal hangar and the buzz of ships coming and going. Fully 60% of the colonial merchant marine was amassed in New Eden, either here at the station or on the planet below. The hangar was crammed full with traders, and everyone talking either about the radiation spikes in the wormhole or the Jovian ships that would soon be docking. He turned back to the crowd of men joking in time to hear a punchline:

“And then that Jovy freak turns to her and says, ‘I didn’t hear ya baby, I was asleep!’” The gang laughed, and Pator grinned. Of course, they’d all be buddy-buddy with the Jovians when they showed up with their cargo. The Jovians might have given most colonists the creeps, but facts were facts: they’d managed to carry the beta warp drives through the worm. Attitudes were about to change – people were about to get a whole lot more accepting of Jovian habits. No sense in letting prejudice get in the way of good economics.

Pator crushed his paper cup and threw it to the wall. His thoughts were starting to get fuzzy – he’d spent too much time with this group of pup traders. The station announcements overhead were giving him a headache. He looked across the huge atrium, took in the hundreds of traders, all waiting for the Jovians – waiting for the trade auction to get going. From the crowd he spotted his brother, jogging towards him. The younger man slowed, and motioned with his head for Pator to follow. He broke from the group and intercepted his brother.

Matar was out of breath. He started to speak when Pator reached out his hand and clasped it around the back of the younger man’s neck, pulling in so their foreheads touched. Matar sucked in air.

“There’s news, Patty, big news!” Between breaths, Matar’s voice was a little higher – he was nervous.

“Ok, I’m listening!” Pater whispered harshly into Matar’s ear, instantly impatient.

“Ok…ok. Patty…. I just saw Aldrich. He was on a patrol boat out in the helio… all the ships are coming in – all of ‘em! All the transports towards the worm are coming back. Patty - he said there’s readings – the radiation’s spiking off the chart!” He breathed. “He says this is it!” Matar’s voice was rising in pitch. More than nervous, there was fear in his voice. He moved back from his brother and grabbed both his shoulders.

“Patty - he says the worm’s closing!”

Pator’s eyes went out of focus. The noise of the hangar faded away. He stepped back a bit, and looked down, the gravity of the moment threatening to crush him to the floor. He looked to the group of pup traders off to his side, still laughing. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought about Aldrich – the marine had no reason to lie, not about something so big. Pator’s pulse quickened: they wouldn’t be going home, the colonials would be severed from the home cluster. Millions of people, stuck out here – dear God.

“How soon?” Pator asked.

“Right now, Patty – today! Aldritch says there’s massive radiation spikes, magnetic field flux – he says ships closer to the worm might already be knocked out – they’ll never make it back! We got hours, Patty! All ships in transit have been called back – no one’s passing through. They’re going to start evacuating the system!”

Pator felt sick. They needed to be moving. He looked his brother in the eye. Fear. Matar spoke again:

“This is it, bro, the clock’s ticking!”

Pator shook head and turned to run, pushing his brother head of him, “Come on, we need to get back to the ship right now!” Their boots thudded on the steel floor as they made for the ship, and Pator yelled one more question, fighting his growing fear:

“Is dad still in the station?”

***

Continue reading

On the bridge, Pator spoke to family members on other ships in the system. Excited voices – they all got it. A significant portion of colonial defensive ships were here in the system, hoping to be the first to get their hands on the new warp drives. To get to the safety of the Promised Land, they needed to wait in the stargate queue – and the longer anyone had to wait, the more likely it was that radiation would knock out their reactors, or a magnetic field flux would physically rip their ship to pieces. Presumably the stargate itself was just as threatened – and if it were knocked out, it was end-of-the-line for anyone stuck on this side. Warping to the Promised Land without the stargate would take a ship decades.

“Except for the Jovians,” Matar had returned from the hold with a few new rigs online. He spoke to his cousins and uncles on route to the gate, “They’re decked out for interstellar travel. They don’t need the gate, they’ll warp to the Promised Land and just sleep the whole way. They’ll be plugged in, having picnics and playing checkers and plotting how best to ride out the apocalypse. In 10 or 20 years they’ll show up at the Promised Land and have it all figured out.”

“Well,” Patty spoke, “they still have to travel for 20 years. And by the time they show up, we’ll be garrisoned in CMS-17.” He was distracted, trying to figure out why their dad wanted them to wait at the gate instead of sprinting the tube to CMS-17. He thought that if they could create a chokehold here at the gate to the Promised Land and let only the commerce through – if they could hold it, trap the defensive ships here, corral the traders, – they’d better their odds for holding CMS-17 – home to the most bountiful, resource- rich planet ever recorded at a time when resources were about to become incredibly scarce. They would have also declared war against just about every colonial faction.

The ship had dropped out of warp. The alert sounded: “Approaching stargate”. Pator checked the ships around the gate, now coming into view. The console listed nearly a hundred ships already. He recognized house ships, aligned in a cluster on the far side of the gate. The ship hummed and vibrated as the gate sent out beams of light, steadily delivering fleeing ships to the safety of the nearest star system, The Promised Land.

Matar moved to stand next to his brother, and they both watched as their ship moved past the gate and began rotating to face back the way they’d come. From their vantage point they watched as the massive gate grew closer and closer. In their screen the gate loomed impossibly large, impossibly ancient. It seemed to drift overhead until it slowed and seemed to rotate, and then begin to shrink in the same direction it had come. The ship lined up with the rest of the house fleet – cousins, uncles, friends, all had originally been thrown together by their desire for adventure in the new cluster, the excitement of risking it all to be first to a new land. Now they’d be thrown together for survival.

An impossibly low voice came over the family channel – the voice of their father, patriarch to the family, to the business, to their entire house:

“It seems that the wormhole is certain to collapse in the near future. Our immediate concern is no longer in getting home, or how to approach the portal, but in escaping this system before our reactors are knocked out by radiation, or our ships torn to pieces by field flux. As of this moment, our long term survival is dependent on our ability to make strong decisions quickly.” The old man breathed throatily. “As of right now we are at war. Our objective is CMS-17.” Matar glanced at Pator, and then stared straight ahead. Pator listened, thinking that his father’s voice had grown even lower than when he’d last heard it, if such a thing were possible. “I appreciate your waiting at the stargate, and I guarantee you that it’s worth the risk. I am somewhat delayed, but I when I arrive you’ll be required to clear the ships from the queue, by which I mean destroy them. When the queue is cleared my ship will jump through first, and the rest of you will follow. We’ll form up on the other side.”

Matar turned to his brother, his head cocked to the side, “Do you know what’s going on?” Patty shook his head no. Matar continued, “I say we get details, or we’re out of here. I’m not waiting around to get my ass atomized on the wrong side of a dead stargate because dad wants to play secret agent man.”

Pator stared, and didn’t respond.

The minutes passed slowly. The gate was cycling ships through constantly, but more ships were warping in all the time. The only planet in the system wasn’t home to a large outpost – its use was mostly bureaucratic – but the outpost, and the station orbiting above, was nearly full to capacity in anticipation of the Jovian ships. Now all the ships wanted out, much faster than the stargate could work. The hull of the ship hummed every time the stargate sent another vessel through to the next system – a place that once represented the start of a journey towards points unknown – but was now the route to their only salvation.

Matar paced the deck. “We shouldn’t do this on faith! We’re talking about turning on the entire colony! On friends, Patty!” But Patty was looking out into space, where the hundreds of ships milled around the gate. There was strange movment – among the crowd of ships, a larger vessel was moving forward indiscriminately, approaching the gate, forcing smaller vessels to burn out of its way. Some ships were struck.

Patty spoke, his voice full of meaning: “He’s trying to the jump the queue.”

The small fleet of ships began moving from their relative safety on the far side of the gate. Matar was shaking his head, “Patty – this is war! We’re going to need every ally we can get and we’re about to declare war on them!” Patty was resolute. The ships plunged towards the Tau vessel and began to fire. The house channel fell silent. On local, however, the commander of the Tau vessel broke through the din.

“Pator – you’ll regret this! Call off your ships! Call them off!” A man’s voice cracked. “And then he directed his voice to the chaotic mob of ships, “Unite! Unite! The House of Sebester is treacherous! Unite!” Back on the ship, Pator snapped, “Close local! Close it!”

And now weapons fire began to fall on Pator and the members of his house. He yelled commands into the channel. “There’s another Tau ship coming in! Burn in close! Burn in!” The Sebester fleet began to break up, some moving erratically towards the second Tau ship. Weapons fire flashed all around. Smaller ships were still running the gauntlet towards the gate, which still flashed. And then, from sensor ops, “More magnetic field flux!”

In front of Pator’s eyes the first Tau ship began to break up. “Face the second Tau! Burn!” But now a new ship moved between them and the Tau, blocking their view. Golden-hued, it was making its own run on the gate.

Matar was breathless with fear, “It’s a prophet ship!”

Sensor ops yelled, “Sir! A Jovian ship has dropped in!”

And on the house channel, the voice of their father: “Gentlemen, good to see you. I’m commanding the Jovian ship. I’m approaching the gate now – I had better not need to wait.”

The brothers lurched as a blast struck the ship. Sensor ops screamed, “shields nearly down!” Patty yelled into the house channel, “Concentrate on the prophet ship! Take it out!”

Matar shrieked, “You’re insane! You can’t attack a prophet ship!” Patty shoved him aside, “Concentrate on the prophet ship! Take it out!” The younger brother lunged towards Pator, tackling him around the waist, driving him to the ground. Pator wrapped his arms around Matar and the two wrestled. The bridge crew stood and moved towards the two. Pator punched at his brother in the face, over and over. “It’s just us now!” He yelled. He freed himself from his smaller brother and drove a foot into his stomach. Matar cried out, “This is insane! This isn’t the way!” Pator moved back, wiping blood from his lip. “Get him off the bridge! Lock him in the cargo hold!” Two crewmen, already standing, dragged his brother from the bridge, who screamed back at them. “Allies, Patty! You’ll never win a war without allies!”

Outside, smaller ships had begun warping away from the stargate, despairing of the situation and hopelessly making for empty space. They warped off in the direction of the Promised Land, useless decades away. The massive Jovian ship began to fill the screen, moving towards the gate. Pator struggled to assess the situation. “The prophet ship!” He finally yelled, and watched as blasts rained upon it.

The large Jovian ship barreled towards the gate, smashing past smaller vessels and sending them careening out into space. Now it too was taking fire, first from the remaining Tau ship, and then from dozens of ships. The ancient father of House Sebester came over the family channel again:

“Gentlemen, according to the sensors on this vessel, a large particle blast is incoming and may be strong enough to knock out the gate. You’ve all done well. Wait for my jump and then begin the evacuation to the Promised Land. We’ll form up on the other side.”

The giant Jovian beast shot past the prophet ship, striking it and sending it drifting off-axis. Pator yelled directions to the fleet and then, to his father, “Where the hell have you been? Don’t you think we need to get to CMS-17 instead of declaring war out here?” His father responded, “We’ll be first to CMS-17, Pator.” And then, “The gate has our ship, we’re jumping through. Follow as fast as you can.”

Pator yelled into the family channel, “You heard the man, burn for the gate!” From the viewport, and with the wormhole still pulsing in the distance, the prophet ship began to break apart. Pator saw bodies expelled into space. What have we done?

The Sebester fleet approached the gate, blasts still crisscrossing the space. The gate began cycling the small fleet to the Promised Land, but from sensor ops, another warning, “Sir! Another magnetic flux! Incoming!”

The vessel groaned, and Pator reeled. Then – another blast from a ship. Pator’s ship trembled violently. Another blast – it was the Tau ship, gas clearly venting from its hull. Pator yelled, “Concentrate on the Tau ship!” Nearly half the Sebester fleet was away, and the Tau ship continued towards them. Patty starred, and then, “Local! Get me local!”

No sooner had the local channel been brought up then the commander of the second Tau ship screamed at them. “If we’re going to hell then you’re coming with us! And so help me, the entire Tau Ceti will know what you’ve done! House Sebester is dead, Pator! Dead!”

Pator starred as the Tau ship bore down on them. “Re-route power to shields! Shields!” And sensor ops yelled again, “Flux! Incoming!”

The ship began to vibrate violently and Pator closed his eyes. The bulkheads groaned unbearably. Somewhere, an alarm sounded. The Tau commander was yelling, “I’ll see you in hell, Pator! You hear me? I’ll see you in hell!” And the noises again began to fade out, the yelling, the vibrations under his feet faded away even as the ship shook from another blast, and far away, a woman’s voice: “Warp gate active. Session change in progress…”

Silence.

***

Spectacular piece, i greatly enjoyed it.

Only thing, in the first page or two, The Promised Land get repeated quite a bit.
But thats the only flaw i could think of.

Great job :)

Hi, thanks guys, much appreciated - I'll take the 'promised land' suggestion into consideration, thanks for the note.

More Please - MORE MORE