Y.

By Justin Jones

Yancey lives on the Fridge, his name for the Scientific Research Solar orbiter Icarus4 that is home.

 

He's a typical 14 yr old teenage boy, mad about gaming, avoids homework, awkward around girls and can build a complex holographic human to help in his video games, complete with emotions, feelings and solidity. Plus the Hologram is his twin almost, a badly behaved alter ego.

 

But the Fridge is more than a solar orbiter, unbeknown to Y., it's an important anti alien incursion weapon and someone and something is trespassing in Earth Space.

Gali is… troublesome, she hates being on this tin can of a space ship. Running away seemed a good idea at the time. Now it's late at night, she's alone, at the bus station waiting for transport to the Hermes7, a touristy spaceship and she is going to be robbed, except there's an old bloke there who doesn't appreciate crime in his neighborhood and has some weird ex spy agent gadgets in his possession.

Forced together because of an alien threat, Y., Gali, the stupid hologram and the old man discover that they don't get on that well, giant bugs are real, raspberry jelly shape shifting beings are tyrants and holograms can be stupid.
But then there is the giant, hairy, four armed Idesian warrior. He seems fun, loves a good BBQ and thinks everything will be fine.

That may be true if the Department of Secrets are not involved.
They're involved
And as long as an inter-dimensional mythical evil doesn't appear.
It appears!

What I am about to tell you is highly classified, will not be repeated and cannot leave this room.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Jones
• Release date: Jun 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227427540

Justin Jones

Justin is a new voice in the... Sci Fi humorous mystical genre, the hot new genre of the 21st century. He has also been frustrated by Kindle Formatting so against all conventional wisdom he wrote a book about how he does it.

Book preview

Y.

By

Justin Jones

––––––––

Based on historical events, some names, organisations and places may have been changed to protect individuals or secrets or reputations.

###

In the blackness of cold space there can be many unusual, chilling and frightful things. In the eerie huge silence that is the vastness of the universe there is only a small scattering of planets. Of those planets there is only a smaller number that are possible for supporting any form of life. Of those, there are an even smaller, teeny, tinier number that, in reality, have some form of life existing on them. And even smaller and teenier than that are the planets that have intelligent life. This story is not about any of them.

*

Chapter 1

The groan of the sub-stellar drive returned to a low-pitched hum as the vessel slowed to impulse power. A M'otu (mah - oh - choo) battlecruiser was a slow lumbering behemoth anyway. It often hid in the bright yellow glare of stars to lessen the tactical disadvantage of the slow speed.  And in combat the egg-shaped craft measuring 20 miles around the middle had to fire its main weapon at an even lower speed to avoid imploding by the massive recoil that resulted.

Many worlds across the galaxy knew them as Death Pineapples. Except for:

●  Spectral silicon based spore hiveminds or

●  Pure energetic disembodied ascended beings or

●  Mathematical irrational number intelligences or

●  Harmonic quantum entangled inter-dimensional whisps or

●  Post-transcendent non-corporeal biological entities or

●  Partially-transcendent corporeal inert sentient flora or

●  Radiated conceptual non-organic memory constructs or

●  The ever-increasing number of creatures that are as dumb as a hammer or

●  Those who did not know what a Pineapple was.

The life-forms that communicate in tonal colours or shades depicted a M'otu battlecruiser as a giant golden teardrop. A teardrop kind of looks like a Pineapple. The colour for death that shimmered through said teardrop is hard to describe. It’s not any tone that any human would know. But it is universally accepted that it was not good.

And something that is not good, is not good.

This Pineapple, named the Subur,  powered up her weapons and waited. Across her central yoke would shortly come a convoy of ships from the planet Hammoth Dor. Within the brightness of the nearest star, the Subur blocked all communication. The convoy would not know they were there. No warning of their position and no time to raise shields. The main fleet would only register the Pineapple as a rogue comet or asteroid, until it was too late and then the octopaedal, slime spitting aliens would decimate the unaware convoy.

Two Hammoth Dor advance scouts raced across space, like tumbling speeding snowflakes. They crossed over the elliptical orbit of a small inner planet near a yellow dwarf star and scan results showed the way was clear, satisfied, they began returning to the convoy. A solar flare erupted across the star, profiling the Pineapple, revealing its position. As quick as a quick thing each scout split into three parts. Pairs. A pair of craft much larger than the other two. A pair much quicker than the other two and a pair much brighter than the other two.

The large ones zoomed into attack formation and sped toward the Subur. The quick pair formed an X together. The bright two retreated some distance away and they became one and shone like the sun, a luminous glowing sphere that flashed on and off. 

As the larger fighters flew over and around the enemy, their screeching lasers fired at will. They were met with the Pineapple's groaning rumbling defensive pulsar cannons. Explosions on the battlecruiser's surface suggested that they were causing damage. The quicker Hammoth Dor pair started rotating like spinning tops. Their surfaces blurring as they circled around the gigantic mass of the M'otu vessel. Then they were gone, slingshotting back to the convoy, desperate to raise the alarm. 

The Pineapple’s movement dialled down further and fired its main weapon. A visible graviton wave created by the mass of the battlecruiser rocketed in the direction of fleeing scouts. Space buckled and twisted with violent intent. The wave caught them and crushed both with ease. The attacking scouts were now skimming the battlecruiser surface. Danger close, rendering the defensive pulse cannons ineffective. But not the M'otu vessel itself. It waited, waited, waited. The fighters came too close and the Pineapple increased its shield density.

They erupted into balls of flame. 

And finally, there were the two bright scouts left. They were in fact slow and clumsy as they dove into the battle, flashing on and off, on and off. It was one final bid to save the convoy. The Subur threw everything at the small glowing spheres. They took hit after hit as they made their ponderous way to the enemy. At one time the fierceness of the attack was so great that it made the black space seem like day. But still the last pair of Hammoth Dor scouts came. 

Finally, appearing to be almost dead in the water the scouts broke in half attached only by a thin thread of light. The M'otu sensing its impending victory over the ‘minor irritations’ stopped all weapon fire. The two separated craft redirected all remaining power through the delicate filament. In a flash it grew brighter and longer, matching the girth of the Pineapple. The light became too painful to stare at.

Slowly the two Hammoth Dor scouts circled the battlecruiser in opposite directions. It was making a noose! Once met, in the pincer movement, the two  joined without pausing and tightened the noose. The thread of light sliced through and cut the Subur in half. It repeated the process in rapid succession again and again. Pineapple rings sparked and burned in iridescent oxygen rich flames. They fell away clearing the route for the convoy.

*

What you are about to read is highly classified...

People in their seats started cheering. Evekian sea popcorn and Gorrt chocolate bar wrappers were hurled into the air. They cheered and cheered even as the credits for ‘The War for the Sun’ rolled on and the movie theatre lights came up. They had been fooled. Movies portrayed space as full of light and explosive sound, super speeding star cruisers and advanced races and technology! It was all lies, nearly all lies.

Honestly, space is pretty boring, movies are not based on any fact even in 2231. For example, if you fire a mega plasma bolt cannon at an evil slime spitting alien* mothership and hit it, you would be very lucky. There would be no blinding white-hot explosion that causes a chain reaction in the Blutonium crystal interface reactor. There would be no screeching or low rumble of the plasma bolt cannon firing and impacting the target. Oh no and as for the cut and thrust of the alphabetized fighters dogfighting in space, forget it. 

*In the past year a multi-eyed many tentacled slime-spitting alien was discovered. Called a Gung, from the planet Argggh. It is believed to not be evil but incredibly sticky, the size of a dinner plate and is now harvested and used as a replacement for fridge magnets, flypaper and in construction. 

- Alien Animal Almanac (p. 2202). E/ Solifugae. eFluidtone® Edition.

Space is big; very big and any movement in an atmosphere free big area is reasonably slow. Terribly slow, compare it with waiting for the end credit scene of a movie. Yes, it is that slow. So, space is boring. But for the sake of the story we will put in the booms and zaps. We will also add the blasting rocket thrusters, the zippy wee fighters and of course something to do with inter-dimensional travel and quantum physics. That is always exciting and mysterious because no one understands that stuff. 

You hope it would be exciting, especially Faster than Light (FTL) travel. But that is so fraught with inconsistencies that it is hard to believe it’s possible. For example, time dilation, time moves funny at the speed of light. Go anywhere and the folks at home would grow older, faster than you. Thanks Einstein! FTL is so complicated that we will probably not put it in this narrative. The story has to have a sliver of truth, only a sliver mind you.

But since this is a story about space, based on true events, kind of true events, we better get on with it.

-excerpt from the Department of Secrets officially unofficial report into the Icarus4 incident.

* 

The Otto Class ships were scientific and research space stations. Icarus4 was a solar orbiter of the Otto Class. Yancey and his family lived on it, he called it the Fridge.

It kept everything cool, said Yancey often. It was his standard go to joke.

And Yancey preferred Y.

I mean wouldn’t you? he also said ... often.

The Fridge was not only a research vessel though. It was a secret outpost defending against alien threats. Y. had no idea. Also unbeknown to him, his father was second in command on the Fridge. Icarus4 was an important part in guarding against an alien enemy. Named after the tragic mythical Greek boy. The lad, about Y.'s age, who flew too close to the sun. Many had come to think of the solar orbiter's name as quite an ironic humorous designation. Others, not so much as they hoped the fate of the Greek boy was not a harbinger for them.

Even more ironic was the heat protection surface on the Fridge, it was a gooey wax like substance. If Icarus4 moved too far away from the sun, without the exit protocols initiated, the wax would freeze solid. Within a couple of hours the orbiter would become very hot inside. Too close the wax would bubble and boil and burn like sticky toffee ... and become very hot inside. It was the Helm's job to stay within the Goldilocks zone, close enough but not too close, just the right distance.

The Solar Orbiter flew along its orbital path, its V shaped star structure rotating latitudinally to the rotation of the Sun. The polar spheres, one northern one southern, moved in line with the orbital path. Attached to the equator ring, by a space elevator, was a smaller moon-like satellite spinning in sequence with it. Designed to act as a mini-Earth-Moon system giving days and nights with Earth gravity and seasons. 

But the moon was more than that. It was also a weapon, able to be deployed in desperate situations and act as a great attractor, drawing energy from subspace and firing a blast the equivalent of a supernova in a tight focussed beam at the enemy. Once depleted it could also be launched with residual kinetic energy and be used as a blunt instrument so to speak, an extinction event asteroid or you could just blow it up.

*

Y. hunched over a small plastic box with a sonic welder. Parts from it, including blue and yellow wires, lay scattered over his desk. He repeated a verbal command to the welder without success. The frayed strands in the wire could not be knitted together and he raged, banging his fist in frustration. 

Yancey, what are you doing in there making so much noise? 

Mum, it's the DVD player, he replied. I can't repair it without the old parts.

It’s obsolete tech honey, said Y.’s Mum, taking a deep breath at the mess as she walked into his room. She was the only one who he let call him his full name; let being a subjective word.

My DVDs can't play on anything else, it's not the same on tech implants. 

Talking about implants, have you downloaded your class? she asked.

Yes, I have, he admitted But I haven't opened it yet. 

Young man, she sighed then paused, picking up a disc on the floor. If they were that much better, you'd keep them in the case. 

Careful Mum, that's the original Men in Black Collector's edition. 

Yes, I know, she said wearily. How many times have we watched this, at least 20? 

It's a classic, Y. said. Remember the scene when the big bug tries to escape Earth? 

The cockroach? she asked, Y. nodded eagerly. I hate that scene. 

And Agent K. gets himself swallowed by it. 

Yancey Theodore Baker, enough, log into your class please. 

But Mum, he pleaded.

No buts young man. 

I've found them, on a planet called Sestwec. Or it could be a moon, it’s a big bare rock. 

What? she asked.

The bug, I’ve found them, he said. It, the bugs, they're Juttar and they are huge, angry and at the top of the food chain. They also dribble acid or sweat acid. It stains everything purple and eats away at everything. 

Yancey, download your class young man, his mum said. And clean your room. She made to leave but then added. And no more talk about bugs.

Sestwec is not a well visited world, it could be called a moon, as a result the intrepid traveller will find a quasi-pristine untouched but desolate destination. 

– Lonely Galaxy Travel Guide.  

(Disclaimer)

Certain indigenous monophyletic giant insects native to the moon exhibit cannibalistic behaviour within the genus. Coupled with this violent behaviour is dominance over all fauna to the edge of extinction and it is also noted too, the surface is affected by their waste matter because of its acidic nature and the singular destructive effect on the moon’s flora. Sestwec is a featureless satellite with wild bugs. Caution is advised.

* 

Slugnoids were one of the two dominant species in the Idesia star system. A fourteen-planet system that consisted of four inhabited worlds. The most advanced being Slugghn, the Slugnoid’s home planet and Idesia. Populated by the Slugnoid’s most bitter enemy the Idesians. Idesia was a stunning ringed planet with friendly inhabitants and an abundance of natural resources.

Orbiting close to Idesia was Wigzell. A moon, some liked to call it a dwarf planet, with snow covered mountains and cold deep blue oceans of water inhabited only by marine mammalian life and tepid golden seas, at the poles, of what could best be described as nectar that fed the luscious and plentiful plant life. Wigzell was botanically and animally a precious wonder.

Slugghn had a moon, more of a barren misshapen rock really; Sestwec. It was just within their exclusive protectorate zone and had a livable habitable atmosphere in a very rudimentary understanding of the words.  A windy, rocky and fiery place with murderous red skies, impossibly flat plateaus and shallow depressions that you could really not call valleys.

But it did have much more evolved life forms inhabiting it than Wigzell including the Juttar. Despite this the Slugs had stripped it of every precious element imaginable and more. The Idesians however fiercely preserved Wigzell, guarded it jealously and prohibited any exploitation of its unspoilt beauty as part of an ancient treaty agreement.

The Slugnoids eyed Wigzell with bitter envy.

They were unique beings. Their true form, a raspberry jelly, looked like it was made in a fancy faceted mould. They wobbled because of highly developed shape shifting abilities and their most common form was bipedal, faceless and shamelessly evil. A body without a face, a faceless, nameless wobbly jelly except they had a name, Slugnoid and they leaked. 

They also could have a face if they chose to shape one. So not so nameless and faceless but they did leak.

That leak was a small trail of frothy bubbly salt water everywhere they moved. Similar to a snail trail back on Earth or the nose dribble of the large trunk Elsa beast of Toryss 3. They were mildly intelligent and often obsessively angry. Nonetheless they were very evil, so evil, they could be called malevolent. Malevolence without being vicious about it. They saved the vicious side for the Juttar they captured and let loose on their enemies.

The Idesians on the other hand were a large hairy humanoid species. Their two most distinctive features were four arms and very long ear hair, the erdi'ha (urd - ee - haa). Often plaited together during social events and on their chest like a necklace if they were single, behind like a ponytail if coupled with a spouse. But in battle the erdi'ha needed to be unhindered and free.

A race of muscular folk, they were social, fun loving and happy. They considered the Slugs, as they called them, an amusing species. One that tried their best even in the ongoing war between the two. Idesia held the upper hands in that war. After all, they had four and they were also good huggers. The Slugs had tried the Juttar against the Idesian home world but had failed. Juttar had become a favourite BBQ meat on Idesia. They loved a good BBQ. 

For more information on Idesian Juttar BBQ recipes see ‘The Complete Illustrated eBook on Smoking Predatory Meats in the Traditional Idesian Style.

This led the Slugnoids to meet their need for evil in other parts of the galaxy. They would roam the unknown and undiscovered space looking for a thing. A thing that would eventually give them an overwhelming advantage in their battle against Idesia. And they had discovered something, something that could sway the war, in a system called Oderbund Major.

*

The Fridge was a type K, Otto class research-based solar orbiter. Its predecessor the useless Klaus Class type E was a research vessel also. It was a misleading title because the research part usually led to conflict and conquest. Defeated worlds complained that they did not get a fair go at defending themselves because they thought there was no threat from a research spacecraft. 

The Supreme Court of the Henry alliance became involved in this matter, recognizing the unfairness and ordering the conquest to be re-done in a fair and upright manner. This rather brave court order was never established because a Klaus Class type E Solar cruiser on a quickly arranged research mission wiped out the Supreme Court.

That was frowned upon by a lot of worlds including the R'lyeh, an advanced race of cephalopods with the diplomatic clout to enforce an embargo not only on Earth but the whole of the Milky Way galaxy. As a result Earth negotiated a peace treaty and the R'lyeh Concord was created. Galactic research missions became actually about research.

But there was still the violent and ferocious side to this Galaxy and others and that sat squarely on the haunches of the Slugnoids, the Slugs. Of whom much will be said in this story. But to get things straight from the beginning, the Slugs are the baddies. 

The Klaus Class type E had several major flaws. The most glaring was the reaction of the subatomic reductional matter antimatter coil to the Blutonium crystal interface gel packs. Used for cooling a ship's electromagnetic power distribution matrix system the gel packs were prone to melting into a sticky mess if they overheated.

The general effect on the matter antimatter coil was the crushing of the spacecraft into the size of a ping pong ball with the gravitational force of a black hole. Applied quantum astrophysics is too hard to understand. But it’s not a nice situation if you were an inhabitant of a planet being researched by a Klaus Class Type E vessel.

Difficult to understand but ... #meltingbad.

* 

Y sat at his desk, pushing the DVD player aside, he blinked his left eye and spoke a word. His DNA implants fired up. A screen in his mind that his left eye projected externally appeared and the lesson began. It was math. He hated math. Especially complex algebra or fractions as the dynamics within his own DNA caused a vibration at a cellular level and it gave him gas. Not the type that you burped, the other kind. 

Nearly two and a half centuries ago clever people discovered how to make computers out of DNA, cleverer people discovered how to implant them into a person’s genetic code. The clevererest people discovered how to stop it from turning people into mindless dribbling lunatics processing trillions of computations per second at the expense of actual lucidness. But, for the most part, it was recognised as an innovation for the whole of mankind. 

Dribbling lunatics notwithstanding, certain quirks began to develop in the 2nd generation of users. Unfortunately, they were antisocial quirks. For example, the gas issue from certain data that did not quite mesh with the make-up of the individual's DNA and the severe yawning when the interface was not activated. 

But the two worst 2nd generation conditions were the shadow companion virus and its associated dysfunctional behaviour shadow companion by proxy. Fancy terms for people who subconsciously created an alter ego within their data matrix. An alter ego that was often badly behaved. With shadow companion by proxy the DNA implants projected the alter ego into a real time hologram replicant that was an outward manifestation of the internal bad behaviour. 

An evil twin so to speak or a mischievous twin. 

Anti-shadow software introduced, combatted the conditions. But hacks were soon to follow which dulled much of the potency of the programs. In retaliation, one company, as a last resort to protect its users from the malware, began to produce audio-visual devices. Devices that flowed like water in and around the user's head that could pair with DNA implants much more securely and safely.

The result of which kept much of the bad behaviour in check. When harmful downloads were attempted by the young, which they have tried since the computer was invented, the devices from this company provoked certain sweat glands and body odour. Very strong body odour..

Despite this, the devices went viral, becoming extremely popular for their spectacular quality performance. The manufacturer became very wealthy and branched out into personal care products like underarm deodorant. The name of this company was called ... 

Fluidtone® since 2209 

22 years’ service to the universe

*

Y. lay on his airbed, moving from his desk after giving up on the math lesson. Hanging out of his ear was a clear earpiece that rippled like water. This was the Fluidtone® audio chamber, the state-of-the-art entertainment device. Y.’s implants sent a bio-photonic digitised signal into the audio chamber that produced amazing sound quality. He was humming to music. 

An incoming message beeped to be displayed. Pausing the track, he stretched his Fluidtone® receiver around in front of his eyes and the message appeared in front of him.

‘Incoming mail from H.  Urgent status Y. 

Code red. Imminent hull breach Section K Level 9. First

lieutenant West dispatched. Confirm presence and ETA into

area. Standard level 1 security applies.

Configure weaponry to blast laser. Confirm.’

Y. pulled the Fluidtone® chamber down to his mouth and spoke in a watery gurgle. ‘Ahhhhhhglllle gurggggle glugggg glugggg.’. Finishing, he disengaged the device, ran as fast as he could out of his room and headed for Section K Level 9. 

Have you finished your homework young man? said his mum faintly as he left. He pretended not to hear although he did stutter step as he ran.

In the corridors of the Icarus4 his footsteps echoed in the otherwise quiet halls. The urgency of the message from H. had set his heart racing. He turned a corner, up ahead he saw the entrance to Section K Level 9. Red lights were flashing, and he could hear the distant sound of alarms blaring.

As he reached the entrance, a heavy security door slid open with a hiss. Y. entered and the door sealed shut