Revelations: The Cost of Foresight

By Robert J. Hamilton

After traversing the void to return to the Milky Way, the starship Destiny finally returns home.
But home, is not as she last left it. . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9780994282255

Book preview

Revelations

The Cost of Foresight

Robert J Hamilton

This novel is a work of fiction. The characters are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

Copyright © 2017, Robert J Hamilton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the copyright owner.

Book cover designed by Book Stylings, www.bookstylings.com

Edited by Sarah Norton of WordsRU, www.wordsru.com

Proofread by Sheryl Lee

Self-published by Robert J Hamilton

ISBN: 9780994282231 (Paperback)

ISBN: 9780994282248 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 9780994282255 (E-book)

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

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

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Look up to the stars.

Humanities finest achievements are yet to come.

Chapter One

Captain John Russell was face down on the cold, grey carpet. He took a sharp breath as he picked himself up. The pitch blackness of the room broke off as the trail of emergency lights powered up, but the only information they provided was an outline of the aisles on the bridge. Where were they? The last thing he remembered was flying his starship, Destiny, into a trans-galactic worm-gate in the Andromeda galaxy.

John heard a moan over to the right, and recognised the voice of his first officer. ‘Megan! Are you okay?’ Through the darkness, he carefully stepped towards her.

She pulled herself up, fumbling for the edges of her seat. ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Captain!’ a voice cried from behind the sensory and information console.

‘Zack, are you all right?’ He shuffled his feet through the darkness. ‘I can’t see much of anything here.’

‘Hold on’, the man replied, searching around for the emergency override switch. After a few moments, he pressed a button that brightly lit up his station with power. To John, he sprung to life—a dark shadowy figure silhouetted by the lights of his console.

John approached the work station. ‘Excellent. So how about the rest of the bridge?’

‘I’m working on it—inputting my access code now’, Zack said. ‘Here we go.’

The overhead lights and wall panels glowed dimly with a whining hum as the lights began to power up.

‘That’s more like it’, John said, clasping his hands. He turned around to the front of the bridge and noted that the viewscreen was currently offline. He also noticed that his pilot, Sergei Yakov, was slumped over the controls. ‘Can you work on getting that viewscreen operational?’ John asked as he hurried over to the helmsmen. Megan jumped from her seat and rushed over to assist.

‘He must’ve smacked his head on the console as the ship crossed through the worm-gate’, she said, gently tapping the pilot’s cheek. ‘He’s coming around.’

Sergei grimaced and placed a hand on his forehead. ‘Did we make it?’ the helmsmen croaked, his Russian accent thick with pain. ‘Have we stopped?’

John looked over at his console readout. ‘We are currently travelling at half the speed of light.’ He noticed Sergei reaching for the speed control lever. ‘Don’t touch that!’ John snapped, swatting his hand away. ‘I’m sorry, but remember what the Zuravorn said? We must remain at precisely half-light speed until we are out of the vortex, lest we end up in the void between galaxies.’ He found the plain grey wall of the viewscreen. ‘If we’re still inside it…Zack, how is that—’

The viewscreen flickered to life, showing the perspectives of the ship’s external cameras. They were flying through a large, oval tunnel with a multitude of dark green shades swirling around the inner edges. ‘Incredible’, he whispered. Brief flashes of light danced like sheet lightning within the walls.

‘According to the calculations the Zuravorn gave us, we should be out of the worm-gate and somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy in less than five minutes’, Zack informed.

‘Are you okay, Sergei?’ John asked.

The broad shouldered giant gently patted and rubbed his forehead, where a bump was beginning to form. ‘I’ll be all right. I’ve had worse in my time!’ he chuckled before swivelling his chair back to face the viewscreen.

John swung his head towards his bridge relay officer, who tapped at the buttons on his console before wiping his hands through his long, black hair.

‘Eddy, what’s the status of engineering?’

‘I’m getting the report now, Captain’, he replied, pointing and dragging his finger along the console. ‘Engineering reports are all in the green, sir.’

‘Excellent.’ John made his way over to the tactical and security station at the back left corner of the bridge. ‘Bruce, all good on your end?’

‘Security teams are on standby, and weapons are currently offline until we clear the vortex, sir.’

‘Right.’ John tapped his hand on the top of Bruce’s work station and looked over at the viewscreen, almost hypnotised by the swirling shades of green. If only the Destiny would emerge somewhere close to Earth!

He walked back over to his chair and sat down to read over his console, which was displaying a continuous report on every update to the ship’s computers. ‘There was a system overload upon entering the vortex’, he mused, turning to Megan.

She twirled the strands of her dark brown hair through her fist, and then let it fall so that it brushed against her shoulders. ‘I guess it could have been worse’, she replied, smiling.

After a few moments, the walls of the tunnel seemed to drag forward. Then it vanished from sight as a slight jolt kicked John’s feet up off the floor. The Destiny sharply decelerated to a halt.

They were back in the blackness of space. John sent a grateful thought to the universe that he hadn’t ended up in the void between galaxies. A star burned before him, menacingly large and shining with an almost blinding brightness.

‘Zack, can you get a fix on our position?’ John asked. He held his hand over his eyes. ‘And filter out some of this light, too.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Zack pressed a sequence of buttons on his station and toned down the illumination of the star while he triangulated their location. He cleared his throat. ‘If these sensors are right, that star ahead of us should be…Deneb?’ The officer scratched his head as he read his scans again. ‘Confirmed. We are a little over fifteen hundred light years from Earth.’

‘That…’, John paused, working the calculations in his head, ‘that could mean we are home in less than a year, three hundred days, give or take. Zack, how close are we to Deneb?’

‘Roughly fifteen AUs away. Out of all the places in the galaxy…perhaps the Zuravorn have a safeguard in place to stop near a star?’

‘Who knows?’ Megan said. ‘Their ships only travel at light speed, so it would make sense they’d want to be sure to emerge near a star system.’

‘Deneb.’ John stared at the white hot ball of gas. ‘One of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way. I remember pointing my telescope at it for the first time and thinking to myself, What would it look like if I was actually there? Does life even exist out there?’

‘Now we have a chance to find out’, Megan said, holding his hand. When he looked at her she blushed, and let go.

‘I’m detecting seven planets in orbit’, Zack informed, looking up from the scan on his console.

‘Since we’re here, we’ll chart the system briefly before we head home’, John said. He reached over to the comm terminal and pressed the communicate-to-all button. ‘Attention all passengers and crew. We have successfully traversed the trans-galactic worm-gate and I am pleased to report we have arrived safely within our own galaxy, the Milky Way. We are currently located inside the system of Deneb, a little over fifteen hundred light years from Earth. We’ll do a little swing around the system here before heading home. Captain out.’ John smiled, staring into the star once again. ‘Sergei, let’s get a real good look Deneb and her seven planets.’

‘Aye sir’, he replied.

Sergei flew Destiny towards the star, but it wasn’t long before the orb’s searing heat and radiation pulled them up short. So Eddy sent in a probe to scan the innermost planets.

The first planet was of comparable size to Pluto. Unlike the dwarf, however, it had been charred to a crisp. Surface temperatures reached over two thousand degrees, and the orbital probably couldn’t be considered terrestrial; it was nothing more than a liquid molten mass of lava. Zack relayed an image from the probe on the viewscreen, showing that even the planet’s night side was glowing red hot! Not an ideal place for a summer vacation, John concluded.

The second rock was nothing more than blackened coal, but the third world lay five AUs distant—far enough from Deneb that the Destiny could safely visit. Even so, they found this planet was not particularly hospitable. Temperatures were so hot it had amassed oceans of liquid polonium. Heavy, acidic clouds covered its ever-changing landscape. There was no hope they would find life in such a radioactive wasteland.

The fourth world was a trinary planetary system made of three barren rocks, each one roughly eleven hundred kilometres in diameter and orbiting around a central focal point. They were heavily cratered and dusted with regolith, and scans from the surface composition indicated the system had probably once been a single planet. John wondered what catastrophic event had caused the schism.

The fifth planet was a ringless gas giant twice Saturn’s size. The northern hemisphere was shaded pale brown, with the southern half a swirling, topaz blue. A thin band at the equator produced turbulent winds and lightning as the gasses mixed.

The sixth world was a terrestrial goliath shrouded in mystery. The planet’s day was a mere three hours, with wind speeds soaring to almost ten thousand kilometres an hour. As a result, the globe resembled a flattened ellipse more than a sphere. Sensors attempting to penetrate the darkened clouds to see what lay beneath were only reflected back. A probe was launched to gently skim along the cyclonic winds, but as soon as it plopped under the fog, all contact was lost. John was itching to know what lay beneath the clouds. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared down at his console, knowing it was time to move on. ‘Perhaps there are some things that should remain a mystery’, he mused.

The last orbital, which lay more than sixty AUs distant from Deneb, was roughly the size of Mars. Its surface crust comprised tin and magnesium, and it had a landscape of hills and valleys slathered with minuscule kyanite rocks that gave the planet a pale blue appearance. With temperatures averaging a hundred and sixty degrees below zero and no magnetic field, the planet had been subjected to harsh solar winds and the constant radiation output of its parent. John felt a little disappointed to find no form of life resided on this world, either. The system was dead.

As Zack concluded his final scans, a massive, X-class solar flare erupted from Deneb. The flare was much stronger than any activity yet recorded from Earth’s sun.

It seemed as good a time as any to leave.

‘Mr Yakov,’ John began, ‘set a course back to Earth. The Revelationists are waiting for us to bring about their demise.’

‘With pleasure, sir.’

John turned to his console and activated the comm system for engineering. ‘Chloe Matthews, please report to the bridge.’

John watched as Sergei turned the ship around. The marble-sized star of Deneb whisked past the viewscreen before centring itself among the white specs of neighbouring stars. Directly ahead of them, fifteen hundred light years away, was home.

John leaned forward in his seat and clasped his hands over his knees. The fanatical religious cult known as the Dawn of Revelations would destroy everything he loved, if he couldn’t find a way to stop them. His mind flashed with images of an apocalyptic wasteland of ruined, smouldering cities and a fire-burned sky. Hordes of ships shot down civilians as they ran for their lives. ‘No way I can let that happen’, John said to himself.

He rose from his seat and turned to Megan. ‘Breakfast in Andromeda and dinner in the Milky Way. Would you care to join me in the cafeteria?’

‘I’d love to’, she replied, standing up.

John brought a hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. ‘Sergei, I want you to assist in preparing Ensign Matthews to take over from you at the helm. Then go down to medical and have Angela check out that bump on your noggin.’

‘But sir, I feel—’

‘That wasn’t a request, Sergei. Ms Matthews can cover the rest of your shift.’

‘Now?’ he questioned, lifting an eyebrow before adding a belated, ‘Sir?’

‘It’s just an hour before your shift finishes anyway, lieutenant, and her preliminary scores have been quite good, from what I hear.’

‘Adequate, maybe. We’ve only had one turn in the simulator.’ Sergei stared at the floor in silence, pondering all the things that could go wrong with that woman at the helm. ‘What about Ensign Trevino?’

‘Do not concern yourself!’ John said as he stepped into the lift with Megan. ‘Chloe knows how to fly. Did you know she came third in the Lap of the Belt race last year? She’ll be fine.’

‘But speed racers and starships—’, the doors swished closed, ‘—are completely different’, Sergei quietly finished. He logged out of his console. ‘Lap of the Belt. Ha!’ he scoffed. ‘I’d lap her!’ From the sniggering he heard behind him, Sergei realised he should have kept his mouth shut.

‘What’s the Lap of the Belt?’ Eddy asked.

‘It’s an endurance race through the asteroid belt’, Zack said. ‘Typically, competitors take three to four months to complete an entire orbital lap, starting and finishing on Ceres. It’s dangerous, you’re all alone, and the race has claimed more than a few lives. Wait a minute.’ Zack scratched his frizzy hair. ‘How old is Chloe? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?’

‘About that’, Bruce responded.

‘She would be the youngest competitor to ever achieve a placing!’

Bruce whistled in astonishment. ‘Hey Sergei, not to worry—Destiny will be in great hands!’ The man began to laugh, slapping his hand down on his console as he did so. With a sigh, Sergei stood up from his chair.

‘It’s not the ship I’m concerned about’, he muttered quietly. ‘It’s you two!’ He pointed at Bruce and Zack, raising his voice. ‘And you!’ he continued, waving his finger at Eddy. The three of them began to giggle.

‘Well, she does have a reputation for being the most flirtatious woman here. Or anywhere, for that matter. She’s a man-eater!’ Zack joked.

‘I would say she’s quite seductive’, Eddy added, staring at the ceiling as if in a daydream. ‘Young, petite, blonde hair, brown eyes….’

‘And that husky voice’, Bruce summed up.

‘You three!’ Sergei shouted. ‘Whenever she’s around, productivity decreases ten-fold! You all better make sure you keep your eyes on—Chloe!’ The woman had walked out from the lift while he was unaware.

‘Mr Yakov’, she replied in her trademark husky voice. She was outfitted in a black uniform with green on her collar and cuffs. The emblem of the Sol System Alliance was depicted in the same coloured green on the insignia over her heart. Although Sergei towered over her, she always somehow made him feel small.

‘Yes, well, um…the captain said you were taking over from me, so, ah…this is the helm. It’s all prepped, ready for you to log on. I’ll be down at medical.’ He eyed the lift doors, but Chloe grabbed at his arm before he could take off. He paused, captivated by the alluring scent of strawberry musk.

‘Aren’t you going to assist me for a little while?’ she said, sliding her hand down his sleeve. ‘Make sure I’m not…pressing the wrong buttons?’

‘My head hurts’, Sergei promptly replied, brushing the girl’s hand away. ‘I have to go.’ He scuttled into the lift and tapped the button for the medical deck several times in rapid succession, impatiently waiting for the doors to close.

John and Megan were sitting among the more than fifty people who had come to the cafeteria to share their high spirits at being so close to home. The golden walls shimmered vibrantly from the fluorescent lights that shone above. A small group watched as Officer Carmen Vale played a celebratory tune on a brass clarinet. Others were engaged in a game of pool or enjoying the virtual reality rooms.

Gary, the head chef, came over and placed their bowls of soup on the table. ‘I can’t believe we made it this close to home!’ He picked up a jug of water that rested on the table and filled their glasses. ‘I was half expecting to end up on the other side of the galaxy.’

‘And you get to see Earth almost every day, in here’, John mentioned. Gary looked over and appraised the holographic image of the Earth displayed on the window simulations throughout the cafeteria.

‘Looking at that, it really feels like we’re back home at the Pegasus station.’ Gary set the jug down, and his eyes met Toblar and Maganes’s as they entered the cafeteria. ‘I’m glad they decided to come with us’, he said, nodding his head at them in welcome. John and Megan looked over their shoulders to see.

‘Our friends from Andromeda’, John delightedly greeted the approaching aliens. They were dressed in the silver, tight-fitting, one-piece jumpsuits that were the uniform for the Redovan star fleet. ‘Welcome to the Milky Way!’ he cheered.

‘It’s a pleasure to be here’, Maganes replied, gleefully smiling as she flicked the deep red strands of her hair back. ‘There is something I wanted to ask of you.’

‘Name it.’

‘Toblar and I would like to change our uniforms. These jumpsuits of ours really stand out.’ She stared woefully at her arms.

‘Something similar to your own uniform, perhaps?’ Toblar said, scratching at his fiery red locks.

‘Well….’ John picked up his glass. ‘The Sol System Alliance uniforms are typically black, with the collar, cuffs, and emblem edged with a colour that signifies a certain operational position within the SSA. The jobs you have been performing are somewhat unique—this is the only ship in the fleet that even has the capacity to open wormholes and doorway portals to other planets.’

‘Now we are in the Milky Way, the Wormhole Room has become redundant’, Toblar said. ‘It’s only of use in the Andromeda galaxy—that was the only galaxy we had data for. But it should make for an interesting library, nonetheless.’

‘True,’ John said, ‘but that by no means indicates you’ve lost your usefulness to us. Your ability to upload an entire alien language to your mind in a matter of hours, I’m sure, will come in handy. I don’t know how we could have dealt with the Farswar without your help.’ John swirled his glass of water, watching it swish near the rim. ‘Well, you can’t have purple,’ he joked, ‘that’s reserved for the captain! Engineers wear green, medics blue…yellow, however, is used for a wide variety of ship operations. Security, piloting, and anything science related, really—I think that would be best for the both of you.’ Maganes and Toblar studied each other, picturing the updated look.

‘Works for us.’ Maganes nodded with approval. ‘I like it! Just one more thing.’ The woman took out a glove that belonged to an environmental suit from her front pocket and placed it on her hand. One of the glove’s fingers flopped down, empty.

‘I can’t believe I never thought of that’, John confessed. ‘I’ll have some four-fingered gloves made especially for you both.’

‘Thank you, Captain.’ Her gleaming red eyes shifted towards a group of colonists at the back of the room. One was waving her over. ‘Excuse us—we are being summoned.’

‘Until next time.’

‘And I’m needed back in the kitchen’, Gary added. ‘Enjoy your meal.’

John gazed at the window featuring a holograph of Earth, licking his lips as the odour of peas and ham passed his nose. ‘He’s right’, he said to Megan, stirring his soup.

‘About what?’

‘Seeing that Earth out there and feeling like it’s right here.’

‘I feel it, too’, she replied. ‘So…normally we would be having dinner in your quarters. Why here?’ she asked, turning her head to the side as she kept her eyes locked on him. John took a brief sip of his soup.

‘I wanted to see how everyone was. A captain can’t always stay hidden from his crew and passengers.’

‘It’s not because people are talking?’

John raised his eyebrows. ‘Talking?’

‘You know.’ She leaned closer. ‘About us?’

His face began to blush. ‘Oh. Well you and I, you see, we have been getting….’ He swallowed nervously and took another spoonful of soup. ‘I think if you and I take our meals occasionally in public, people will start to see…well, it’s a small ship. It’s not like we’re doing anything other than eating—’ John anxiously cleared his throat.

‘I understand’, Megan said, showing off a wide smile.

At that moment, John’s attention was drawn to the door as one of his crew burst through the cafeteria. He firmly grasped on to what looked to be a green flag, and had a small, weapon-like device in the other hand. Not long after, three women wearing orange shoulder pads stormed in pursuit, with one taking cover behind a table next to John.

‘What’s going on?’ John asked, grabbing the edges of the table.

‘Capture the flag, sir’, the woman responded. She looked up over the table and fired her weapon at the flag bearer. A high pitched shrill sounded before she quickly ducked back down.

‘Capture the flag?’ John repeated.

‘It’s based on an ancient Earth game. We play opposing sides—Revelationists versus the Alliance.’

‘I’m hit!’ one of the other orange players said, her shoulder pads flashing red.

‘Maggie’ll be out for a full thirty seconds, now’, the woman explained. ‘Shit!’

The flag bearer bolted from the lounge, and she leapt up after him. ‘Don’t let him get away!’ her partner cried.

‘I think this was Chloe’s idea’, Megan said. ‘I believe people on the side of the Revelationists have their base stationed on the tenth deck, and those siding with the Alliance have theirs on deck two. The objective is to find the flag from the opposing team and bring it back to their territory to score a point.’

‘Looks like a lot of fun.’

Megan smiled. ‘Maybe we can have a go someday.’

John Russell journal entry, 14 December 2174

We have travelled consistently at top speed for the past four days since our return to the Milky Way and are now twenty light years closer to home. Our chief engineer, Harvey Munro, is detecting slight vibrations in the upcoming space ahead. Scans reveal that this disturbance, if we can call it that, is rather widespread. We should know by morning whether the folding matrix of our light drive can handle this phenomenon.

John sat behind a desk in his quarters, re-reading the journal entry he’d just made on his data pad. He took a sip of water from the glass that stood atop the table, and selected to play some music from Mozart—Piano Sonata number sixteen, second movement. He continued to write while he listened to the piano’s delightful, upbeat tune.

On another note, our Redovan friends, Maganes and Toblar, seem especially excited about being the first of their kind to enter a new galaxy. They spend most of their free time reading up on our star charts and watching movies in our theatre room on deck ten. Tomorrow, the 2122 movie Andromeda Aliens will play. I wonder what they will think of our portrayal of aliens from their galaxy? Part of me worries how they feel about never being able to see one of their own kind again, but I am certainly grateful they chose to come with us.

John switched off the data pad, acknowledging the time above the headboard of his bed. It was nearing midnight. As he lifted the satin sheets, the beep of the comm sounded.

‘At this hour?’ John wondered. ‘Activate comm system.’ He waited for the high pitched chirp to confirm the connection. ‘This is the captain.’

‘Captain Russell, this is Bruce.’

‘What’s up?’

‘Please report to deck four, starboard, immediately. One of the colonists is dead.’

Chapter Two

Bruce, along with half a dozen members of security, had cordoned off a section of deck four outside the laundry room. They stood beside a figure crumpled against the blood stained carpet as John hurried in with Megan close on his tail.

‘What happ—oh, my.’ John kneeled down and stared at the man, whose mouth was open and frozen with horror. The wretched soul was clutching on to the pole of a bright green flag, just like the one John had seen used in the afternoon’s game. The shaft had been impaled through the man’s heart.

‘What?’ Megan whispered. ‘Who?’

‘Who was this man?’ John asked.

Bruce looked down at his data pad. ‘Lee Jarvis. He signed up for the colonisation program alone. From what we know, he was playing on the side of the Alliance, but his teammates left him for a late night snack in the cafeteria and went to bed.’

‘How many were playing on the Revelationists side?’ John probed.

Bruce scanned farther down the page. ‘At the time, none. After Lee acquired the flag on deck ten, they decided to quit for the night.’

‘Except for one, it would seem.’

Bruce nodded. ‘We will speak to all those who have taken part in this game and look at video footage from the internal cameras. We’ll get whoever is behind this.’

John moved to a nearby window along the corridor. ‘This could only have been done by a member of the Dawn group.’ He turned to face Megan. ‘Someone who took offence at this game. We must find out who.’

‘And quickly’, she added.

‘Do we have any suspects at this stage, Bruce?’

The security officer fumbled with his data pad. ‘I would hate to specifically name names at this point, but we will question colonists and crew alike who played this game. This section of the corridor is in a blind spot from the cameras, but we should be able to narrow down the suspects by tracking this man’s final movements.’

‘All right’, John said, moving back towards the body, gazing once again at the dead colonist. ‘I thought this game would be a little harmless fun. As of this moment, Capture the Flag is prohibited. Keep me apprised, Bruce.’

‘Will do’, he said, pocketing his data pad. ‘Neil, grab that body bag. Let’s take him to the medical ward.’

John awoke after five in the morning to a quick but sharp rumble that shook his bed. With a yawn, he forced himself to sit. ‘What was that?’ he muttered. All was quiet, and still. ‘Just dreaming’, he decided, and lay back down. A few moments later, a whispering thunder echoed from outside his room, accompanied by another small quake. His eye found his half drunk glass of water; its surface rippled with vibration. Before John could lift his head, a series of four rapid, high-pitched beeps sounded. After a brief