Announcement

**Kassiopeia** · July 17, 2001, 18:02

CHAPTER TWO

The following day, xenoarchaeologist Dora Newton insisted an audience by the Provost himself. But, suprising his underlings, he appeared at Newton's department, inside the Technicality Institute of New Arzamas.
His bodyguards left outside, Zakharov came trough the thick doors that slided when someone came near. Newton shook his hand and greeted him. "How was the flight, sir?"
The Provost smiled and replied: "The new helicopters are marvellous. I hear that they were designed in this very building."
"Well", Newton laughed and pointed to the ceiling, "you probably mean the Aerodynamics guys upstairs. They moved to University Base this morning, and we have no idea why."
I do, Zakharov thought to himself. I surely do.
"I believe, doctor Newton", Zakharov started, "that the reason for me being here is somehow related to our newest discovery."
"It sure is", Newton confirmed. She prompted one of her assistants to open one of the artifact containers.
The assistant opened a hatch of the several lockboxes on the storage department of the large room. The assistant asked a few of his comrades to help him lift the object, and in time it was laying on a table in the middle of the room.
Newton switched on a halogen lamp and pointed it so that the other side of the orb was bathing in bright light. It was steel gray, and shone like a mirror.
"We had to clean and polish it to get a clean surface sample. It is very beautiful."
"Like a petanque ball", Zakharov muttered. "Have you determined the origin, or the purpose of this... artifact?" Calling the orb "a device" would of been overestimating it's properties. For now, it just sat on the table silently like a cannonball.
"Well, last night we opened it up."
Zakharov's impression erupted into rare amazement. "How on Planet?"
"We examined it with different equipment, and the second it received a dose of X-rays, pop! It opened up."
"What was inside, then?" Zakharov said quitely and stroke the orb with his hand glaring it in fascination.
"That is why I asked to see you. To show you myself." She again prompted her assistant. She was given a shedder pistol-like device. She pointed at the orb and flipped the switch. The device hummed for a second or two and then silenced. She put the device on the table and looked at the orb.
Zakharov blinked, and suddenly there was a small fracture going smoothly in the centre of the egg-shaped object. It spread rapidly, and suddenly the top half of the orb was gone.
The orb was hollow. The outer layer was about ten centimetres thick, and the orb itself was about one metre of diameter from top to bottom - if one would imagine it as laying on it's 'side'.
Zakharov reached to the centre of the orb. There was a square-shaped metallic disc. The top of it was covered with what seemed to be zeros and ones. It was strapped to a foam-like cushion filling half the orb's insides. Next to it there was something that seemed to be a laser disc.
"Have you touched them?" Zakharov asked with excitement.
"No, sir. The orb was apparently 'vacuum packed', there was no air inside. Since there is no visible hole on the top, we presume that the contents were placed there in space or other air-free location, such as an airlock."
Zakharov looked again at the square disc and said: "That appears to be a binaric code. Clever. Have you scanned the sequence and tried to decipher it?"
"Well, we think there's more on the other side."
"Open the straps then!" Zakharov ordered. Newton took an electric knife and cut the straps. She took a pair of lab gloves and lifted the disc. She turned it over.
"Oh my God", both Zakharov and Newton said in chorus.
There was a depiction of what seemed to be a solar system. There were nine planets, and a single star. And the third planet from the star was lifted above the other's orbiting level, to highlight it. And to continue the presentation, there were two pictures crafted to the disc: A naked man with his hand raised in greeting and a naked woman standing next to "him".
For Zakharov, who had seen pictures of the disc that was stored in Voyager II, and for Newton who wasn't blind, there was no doubt of the origin of the mysterious metallic orb.

**Kassiopeia** · July 17, 2001, 18:04

CHAPTER THREE

I have often been asked: if we have traveled between the stars,
why can we not launch the simplest of orbital probes? These fools
fail to understand the difficulty of finding the appropriate
materials on this Planet, of developing adequate power supplies,
and creating the infrastructure necessary to support such an
effort. In short, we have struggled under the limitations of a
colonial society on a virgin planet. Until now.
- Col. Corazon Santiago,
"Planet: A Survivalist's Guide"

***

"Mission Control, this is Zykhanov", Valeri Zykhanov spoke to the microphone/headset system strapped to his head. He looked out side the round window, where the atmosphere of Planet dispersed the sunlight making it look bright blue. When the layer of gas around started to thin, he checked the pressure gauge and waited for the correct reading. Forty-nine, forty-nine point three, forty-nine point seven, fifty.
He quickly turned his head and saw how the blue and white cover of the Planet disappeared, and the stars started to shine without blinking. A sight none had seen in a hundred years, except via satellites or other devices.
He gasped to the microphone: "Mission Control?"
"Yes, Valeri", the voice filled with anticipation replied.
"This is Zykhanov. I'm in space."
He could hear loud applause and shouting echoing trough the speaker. Suddenly a sound familiar to every University citizen said: "This is Prokhor Zakharov. Well done, my boy, well done."

***

MORGAN-NET NEWSFLASH - 12.05.2200
SUBJECT: UNIVERSITY ASTRONAUT REACHES SPACE
Celebrations were held yesterday at the Aerospace Complex of University Base as commander Valeri Zykhanov, one of the University's most commended Needlejet test pilots, reached outer space in the space capsule Freedom at twenty-two hundred hours PMT.
In a brief statement, all faction leaders except Chairman Yang commented the event, almost all of them praising the excellence of the University space program. Lady Deirdre...

***

Zakharov smiled. The square disc's contents had been deciphered. The zeros and ones, when arranged properly, gave a straight-forward mathematic formula trying to tell about how the probe was sent from Earth to outer space by sling-shooting it with the gravity fields of other planets.
The laser disc's contents were yet to be determined, there were no CD readers left anywhere on Planet and manufacturing a one would take several weeks.
There was still one hierglyph on the square disc that they had missed in the first look.
The letters MMCL, and the numbers 2150.

***

"This plan is extravagant", technical advisor Andrew Scott complained. "You are suggesting that we freight twelve tonnes of payload in to low Chiron orbit in two weeks! We had Zykhanov up there three months ago, but that took us a century! What the hell are you planning, anyway?"
Konrad Rennen, chief advisor of space projects, replied calmly: "We are building a space station up there. It's not as difficult as the Power Transmitter or the Defence Pods. Just modify a Defence Pod and make it able to sustain people. Two at most."
"This is damn crazy", Scott continued. "Launching Freedoms one, two and three has already cost us over a million energy credits. We need more hitech components from the Morganites, more fuel matter from -"
"The University Treasury can produce all the credits you need, Andrew."
"I'm going to need at least five, maybe six million more."
Rennen shook Scott's hand and smiled. "It's all your's, Andrew."
Rennen left the astounded man at the Space Program Institute and proceeded to the Headquarters, to speak to the Prokhor himself. The greatest engineer on Planet had agreed.

***

Celebrations were taking place. It had been now exactly one hundred years since Planetfall, and many champaigne corks popped on the moment the clock showing Planetary Mean Time turned to the reading 15:23:03, the second when the first of the seven colony pods' sensors reported that the pod had touched the surface of Chiron.

**Kassiopeia** · July 17, 2001, 18:07

CHAPTER FOUR

"The Earthfall Project?"
"No, we can't publish it with that. Think, people", the PR chief ushered. Zakharov had put his hope on them to invent a striking name for the new project.
"Return to Homeworld?"
"The Earth-Chiron Express."
"To Earth and Beyond."
"Ah, heck, just call it the Earth Program."
"Okay. Obejctions? No? Accepted. Get me Konrad Rennen on the commlink."

***

"Mister Renner", the reporter asked, "we have been able to monitor Earth via a space telescope for several years now. Light travels only four years from Earth to Chiron, why have we not seen any signs of civilization there?"
Renner cleared his throat and came closer to the microphone. "We weren't able to see any signs of life on Chiron from Earth, simply because details can't be seen with current technology, and probably with noe technology in the future. If Earth would of been covered by dust in a Nuclear war, the planet would of still reflected as much light as with a normal cloud coverage. There simply is no other way then go and look ourselves."
Another reporter raised up. "Mister Renner, how has the University come to the conclusion that there still is life on Earth?"
Renner smiled and clicked a switch. The wall behind him came to life and showed the orb that had crashed 16 months ago.
"This is a probe. It's from Earth." Before anyone could ask, he showed the disc with the pictures of man and woman and the solar system. He spared his words, mostly because there were no needs for any. The crowd of reporters that had been invited to the press conference were as astounded as Prokhor Zakharov and Dora Newton had been.

***

"This all was made in two years", Andrew Scott said proudly and gave the piece of paper to Mr. Renner. "There finally is an LCO station, and three men occupying it."
"We are returning to Earth", Renner cut him.
Scott sighed. "I hoped it was just a rumor, but... Are you really serious? Do you know how much it took time and effort even from seven billion people to build the Unity?"
"Look Andrew. We are not on a mission to re-establish humanity on another world. We are sending only ten percent of the number of Unity crew down there. One hundred and twelve people. We will need just a central structure, about two hundred metres long. Two small hydroponics bays to re-establish nutrient stocks if Earth has been lost. A fusion drive similar to the one on Unity, and because of smaller mass we can get there in 33 years. And this is an interfactional project, we are getting all needed support from other factions. Except Believers and the Hive, but others are eager to help."
"I'll think about it."
"We could discharge you and get a new technical chief."
"I don't think that you could find anyone that would agree to do it if I have said that it is impossible. And you wouldn't fire me, Konrad."
"You are right, Andrew. So right."

***

The next day, Scott sent Renner a brief text message.
"Give me five years."
And the reply was as short:
"Four and a half and we have a deal."

**Kassiopeia** · July 18, 2001, 16:37

CHAPTER FIVE

What went wrong? Was the only thought crossing his mind. What on Planet went wrong? That, and the horrible screams he had heard in Mission Control, through the speakers. Screams of death, pain and fear.
He looked at the computer screen. There they were, the detailed descriptions and blueprints of the Unity fusion drive. Nothing even close to it had been constructed, and at that moment it seemed that there wouldn't be a change to that in the near future.
The Earth Program was already five months behind schedule when disaster struck. A test vehicle, a miniatyre model of the ship designed to take 112 brave souls back to Earth, had been built on the LCO station. It was then fitted with a prototype of the new fusion drive.
But at 14:00 PMT, when Andromeda II was about to launch, it erupted violently without a warning into a ball of hot plasma and gas. Everyone onboard, eleven members of crew, were killed.
And now Andrew Scott was studying old documents for the hundredth time, to find out what happened.

***

Konrad Renner stood in silence as Provost Zakharov unveiled the monument.
"This recreational forest at Academy Park", Zakharov declared, "shall be the resting place of all of those brave men, women and cyborg that have sacrificed their life to the altar of Space Exploration."
The monument was a Planetmarble ellipse that had been laid to the ground. There were eleven stars in it, with a name, rank and two dates under everyone. There was no 'free' space in the monument for more stars, a gesture to prevent bad luck.
Zakharov read the names of the eleven people.
"Let us hope that nothing compared to this may never happen."

***

"The telemetric data show clearly that two seconds before the explosion, the heat-alarm of section seven went off. This shows -"
After half an hour, Provost Zakharov was both aware of all the complexities of fusion reactor mechanics, and of the fact that one of the electro-magnetic generators keeping the hyperreactive mass from touching the inner walls of the reactor had failed.
"How soon can we complete a new prototype?" Zakharov asked. "And any creative ways to speed things up would be most welcome." The Earth Program was now eight months behind, because of accident investigations and resource problems. CEO Morgan had already withdrawn from the project, due to "interests of factional economy".
One of the Earth Program advisors, chief researcher of structural design, noted: "The original program included three test flights. One for the drive, one for the structure and one for the cryogenics. We could combine the two first flights and not launch the Andromeda IV - flight at all."
Zakharov pondered the suggestion for a moment and then asked: "That would mean that we take extra time to fit the drive for the B ship in U.N. Space Operations Command. Then we would suffice without building an extra ship, and we could concentrate our efforts to building the Homeworld."
Approving nods. The scientists sitting next to the structural chief shook his hands.
"We will be able to save at least three months by that, and we can start building the ship two months in advance", one of the flight engineers said after using a calculator.
"All right, make it so", Zakharov said and smiled for the first time in several months.

***

The PR personnel had insisted on Zakharov that he would of used some Chironian Chardonnay from the Gaian vineyards, and they had hired a Morganite expert that had recommended vintage 2178.
But Zakharov had not paid attention to any of the recommendations, and now he was on the recently enlargened Low Chiron Orbit station Alpha One, loading a ten year old vodka bottle on the robotic arm. The airlock then hissed and the arm was raised carefully to keep the bottle from slinging away to space. Then the arm operator used all his expertise to hurl the flask towards the cylinder-shaped ship.
"Interfactional Space Ship Homeworld", Zakharov declared to the only camera linked to planet surface. Then he made a short speech and stepped into the connection pod.

He watched in silence as the stars shone through the window of the pod. It was attached to a connection cable a hundred metres long that combined Homeworld and Alpha One as a whole.
The 205 years old Provost sighed, but so that no-one could hear onboard the pod.
Nobody except his personal assistant Lieutenant Tomlinson and Konrad Renner knew what he was about to do. The ship surgeon had carefully stopped anyone not able or young enough to join the crew. Zakharov didn't want to undermine the authorities of the surgeon, nor upset anyone on Chiron. But when Renner would appear in the press meeting after the launch, he would publish a three-level secured and authenticated document that would declare that First Professor McLean was to be the replacement leader of the University of Planet until an election could be called.
The democracy of the University would know be real democracy, not the dictatorship of a prominent researcher.
And here he was, the only human ever to travel twice between stars. Zakharov had a naive hope that maybe some day he would be remembered not as the most achieved scientist of all times, but the first man to travel the suns...
And return.
The cryogenic treatment might kill me, he thought while being placed into a lone chamber in the cargo bay of the ship, but at least I have tried.

**Kassiopeia** · July 19, 2001, 16:07

CHAPTER SIX

It had felt like a second. He thought that he had just closed he's eyes and then opened them up again. But the headache and the feeling of muscles waking up after decades made it clear to him, that he had awoken from a long period of sleep.
He looked around the sleep chamber. It was to smallest detail identical with the ones on Unity. Because of this he didn't have to ask anyone to instruct him how to open one. This helped him avoid any inconvinient situation 33 years ago.
The University might as well be in ashes, he thought. But then he punished himself. Surely they could manage onwards without their eternal leader. The brilliant people was the engine that propelled University to the future, not some grumpy old Academician who had born in a small village in western Russia.
Russia. Nobody on Chiron knew much about Russia. They did know about the USSR, the Eastern Block, the Warsaw pact and their western counterparts. But non-communistic Russia had existed seventy years before Unity launched, yet there was nothing mentionable to teach the youth about.

I wonder if Kossaja Nymrak still exists?
Does Lenin still rest in a glass coffin in that mausoleum at the Red Square?
He laughed loudly in the confines of the cryochamber.

***

Captain Keith Northeast glanced at the monitors of the command bridge.
"Anything valuable from that telescope array, lieutenant Wakazashi?"
"The imaging processor is comparing pictures from Unity with the ones we are getting. But there is no usable footage from Earth yet. It appears that there has been some changes in the rings of Saturn."
"I know some astronomists back on Planet that would give an arm to get a first-hand look at these pictures", science officer Hannah Norton laughed.
Northeast stepped to his console and made some adjustments to the guidance thrusters. The ship was in it's second to last maneuvre. It was turning around 180 degrees to use the main engines for slowing down the ship.
"Ensign Burowski", captain Northeast called for the communications officer, "get me the chief engineer on the intercom -"
The intercom announcer beeped. Burowski reported: "It's chief surgeon Jokinen."
"Put him through", the captain ordered.
The face of Heikki Jokinen appeared on one of the comms screens. He looked very nervous. Before Northeast could ask him, Jokinen said with haste: "Captain, you must come to the Sick Bay now. You are never going to believe who just came in."

***

As Northeast stepped trough the sliding door of the Sick Bay, doctor Jokinen rushed to him and whispered: "He is sleeping now, and I don't think we should wake him up."
"What the hell is going on, Jokinen?" Northeast asked, but quietly following the doctor's advice.
Jokinen walked slowly to one of the beds and carefully put on a light to emphasize the patient's face. Northeast had an urgent need to shout something, so he ran out to the corridor. As Jokinen followed him through the sound proof door, he could hear the captain screaming on the other end of the corridor. After this brief moment of astonisment the captain walked back to Jokinen.
"What kind of a prank is this then?" he asked.
"This is not a prank, captain. He is Zakharov."
The captain could not help another outburst. "How on Planet can Zakharov be onboard?"
"He didn't tell me. He just walked through that door and collapsed. I helped him to the bed and then scanned his DNA, retinas and finally fingertips. He is too identical to be even a clone."
The captain regained his stature and said: "Doctor Jokinen. As soon as he wakes, give me a level two alert on the intercom."
And as Northeast was walking towards the lift, he noted: "And doctor. Do not talk to him. And if you must, record everything."
"Yes sir", Jokinen murmured and returned to his station on the Sick Bay.

***

After three long hours of silence, there was again a voice of speech on the Command Bridge.
"Captain, I'm getting a level two warning -" But before the ensign could finish the sentence, the Bridge door had closed.

***

"Does anyone else know, sir?" the captain asked.
Zakharov replied: "Oh no, captain. Just doctor here, you and me. Of course my personal aide and mister Renner, but they remained on Chiron." He coughed.
"Provost, sir, I need to ask something -"
"Doctor Jokinen", Zakharov interrupted him, "I believe it has something to do with the state of my physical health. Oh, and I haven't been Provost for 33 years now. Now I'm just Academician Zakharov, a civilian and a stowaway on ISS Homeworld."
Jokinen smiled briefly and said: "I believe that I know why you left for Earth. The Longevity Vaccine."
"Precisely", Zakharov confirmed. "The last regeneration treatment took three and a half weeks. And the effect is every time smaller and smaller."
"You have developed an immunity for it, Academician."
The Academician grunted. "No one lives for ever, I guess."
"It is showing clearly. I mean, you were already 83 when you started taking the treatments. Your physiological age remained at some eighty-five for the last century, but according to my analysis you are now almost ninety. Two hundred and thirty two by the record."
"Oldest human ever", captain Northeast awed.
"The future people traveling to the far stars will live several centuries", Zakharov told them.
The doctor took the captain's hadn to take him for a private discussion, but Zakharov prompted them to stay. "I wish no secrets kept from me. How much?"
"Excuse, Academician?" Jokinen asked.
"How long until I die!"
"You are collapsing every second more and more, sir. I doubt that you will live longer than seventy-two hours."
Zakharov grabbed the arm of the captain. "How long... to Earth."
The captain looked disappointed. "I am so sorry, sir, but we can only reach the orbit by that time."
The Academician whispered: "I... will... not... die... until... I... have... seen... Earth." Then he closed his eyes and the grip loosened. The medical equipment started to beep like in panic.
"What is it?" Northeast asked, worried.
"Some instability... He is unconscius, but I can wake him up any time with medication. I'll stabilize him... Did you hear him, captain?"
"That is his dying wish, and that I shall fulfill", the captain said.
The Homeworld was no longer an exploration ship, it was now also a to-be funeral barge.

**Kassiopeia** · July 21, 2001, 15:51

CHAPTER SEVEN

The second-to last maneuvre was now complete. The ship's aft, equipped with the Scott Fusion Drive Class 2204, was now pointing at it's destination.
Once the guidance thrusters were finished, the main drive was re-initialized to slow the ship from "cruise speed" to "encounter speed".
As the drive finished it's accelerative roar, the chief engineer contacted the bridge to inform that everything was all right.
"Metherstone", captain Northeast asked the chief engineer, "how long until we reach Earth orbit?"
"Sixty-nine hours, captain."
He can just make it, the captain thought and felt a bit relieved. Then he informed the rest of the crew about their high-class stowaway.
Most thought at first like the captain originally; that this was a bad joke. But after the captain had presented them consistant documents that the dying man really was Prokhor Zakharov, the crew was puzzled.
Then the captain explained how the Academician was in the later part of his life, about the failing longevity treatments and the fact that he had only three days at maximum remaining.
"But remember", Northeast said to them, "that this mission's purpose is not to take him back to Earth, but to determine that was the prediction of UN offices that the world would be lost in a nuclear war in the next century be a mistaken one. If so, then the UN Evacuational Act to Save Mankind of year 2058 would of been needless. But in case of this, the UN did declare the Insterstellar Colonization Act so that the Unity mission wouldn't of been in any situation useless. This was a backdoor of UN officials to prevent a possible post mortem - inquiry into their work.

***

"His condition is still stable. I can wake him up now if you -"
"No thanks, doctor", captain Northeast cut him. "I believe that he would have nothing to say to us."
"Then why have you come, sir?"
"I want to know if -" the intercom beeped. Northeast ordered the computer to open the channel. It was the chief engineer.
"Metherstone, when we move into a geostationary orbit around Earth, which side of the ship will be turned to face the planet?"
After a moment's silence he answered: "The starboard side, sir."
"Does it matter which side we turn to Earth?"
"Flight mechanically there's no difference. We have the same amount of fuel in the central tank, and the consumption won't increase, nor decrease, if we use the port thrusters instead of the starboard ones." The terms "port", left side, and "starboard", right side, had changed places in official speech as the ship had rotated 180 degrees. This was simply to avoid confusion. Hence the side that had been on "port" when leaving Centauri was now "starboard" and vice versa.
"OK, that's clear. Can we turn to the port side when on the GSO?"
"Sure, no problem. I'll rewrite the computer code, it'll take a few minutes."
"Thank you, Metherstone. Captain out."
"May I ask, sir, what was that?"
Northeast smiled. "Just some organizing. You see, there's a big synthclass viewing window only in the port side Hydroponics section. For some reason there isn't one in the starboard side. Now we can look at Earth there. Which brings me to my original question, doctor. Can we move the patient?"
"On the gravstretchers, yes. And the Academician's health gives no reason why he couldn't be moved."
"Very well. Doctor Jokinen, take some of your staff and move Zakharov and any necessary instruments to Hydroponics bay two. I'll meet you there in two hours."
"Yes sir."

***

"Probes one to three launched. They will reach the atmosphere in twenty minutes", science officer Norton reported.
"And when inside the atmosphere, we can search for the first signs of a possible nuclear devastation", she continued.
"I thought that just visually looking at the planet would help", captain queried.
Hannah Norton fingered the controllers for a while and then said: "There has been no empiric evidence of a thermonuclear war ever before. Therefore we can't determine the situation just by the way the planet reflects light. There is no evidence that the nuclear winter's cloud wouldn't dissolve in some one hundred years. Until we can find certain radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere we cannot scientifically -"
Northeast fell to his thoughts as Norton explained about the results of a nuclear war on a planet. Earth wasn't the Homeworld for these people, he thought. Nor was it to him, for that matter. For example, for Norton it was just an object of study, nothing else.
But that man in the Sick bay. He had born on Earth, he was raised there, and for some time he had worked and grown older there. Like all of the faction leaders and those old people who had received longevity treatments. They were the ones who prized Earth the most, yet only one of them had taken the journey back.
Maybe they were afraid of what they might see, Northeast pondered. They wanted always to remember Home as a green - living - world. They didn't want to take the risk of spoiling those memories by taking this voyage to probably see a dead piece of rock covered in dust.
But Zakharov was a scientist, a man of knowledge and truth, and because of that he has come all the way back. To see it, to witness it himself.

**Kassiopeia** · July 21, 2001, 15:53

CHAPTER EIGHT

The nine portside navigational thrusters ignited. Homeworld's course started to turn so that instead of colliding with Earth, it now headed sixty degrees past it. When on Earth's side, the ship would then ignite the starboard thrusters and then decelerate, placing it into a geostationary orbit. When on a GSO, the ship would be over the exact spot of Earth all the time instead of actually orbiting the planet. This was so that managing sample probe and possible transport units would be easier. There were two shuttles attached to the belly of the ship, with enough fuel to do five runs between the ship and Earth.

***

Ensign Burowski studied carefully the screens before him. There were no sings of radio waves emitting from the planet. That didn't prove anything, since in the late 2040's most of communication traffic had been transferred to optical fibres. And if there had been technological development for the past 180 years, who knows what miracles there could be waiting for them?
Burowski comforted himself with this thought and decided to move to watch as Hannah Norton was organizing the probe fleet plummeting down the planet's atmosphere.

***

"The telescopic array hasn't given us any information so far", Northeast briefed doctor Jokinen. "There seems to be blue and green spots, and the cloud cover seems to be at least five percent denser then two centuries ago, but the planetologic department insists that this isn't unusual. We have spotted some cities, especially the megalopolii in the eastern coast of North America, but nobody has found the way to ascertain whether they are ruins or living cities. we aren't able to monitor Earth's nightside for six hours, so we can't find out anything by light pollution.
We have detected satellites with our scanners, but we aren't sure whether they are derelicts or active units. We have received no transmission from them, nor from Earth via radio waves."
"But if they have even binoculars and basic astronomical capabilities they could notice us", Jokinen noted.
"No they can't, we can be now seen only from day side. They can only detect us by the satellites or radio waves."
"How about Norton's probes? Have they analyzed the air?" Jokinen asked.
"Not yet. They have entered the atmosphere a few minutes ago, but she'll notify me on the intercom as soon as possible. But now we have other matters to tend to. Earth can be seen here in approximately seventeen minutes. I suggest that you take that syringe and wake up Mister Zakharov."

***

"They are now analyzing the air", Hannah Norton informed the rest of the crew via the intercom. Her sound trembled, but she kept her head cool and concentrated on the readings. "The composure is normal to Earth, 21 percent oxygen and 78 percent nitrogen with other gases."
On Chiron there was much less oxygen, and the ship was filled with a mixture of 16 percent oxygen and 83 percent nitrogen to lessen oxygen consumption. The human race had adjusted to the harsh conditions on Planet, and when growing numbers of Earth forests had increased the oxygen level, one could walk outside the base domes for several hours before even the slightest signs of nitrogen poisoning.
There were speculations that the high amount of oxygen on Earth might prove fatal for the travellers, but tests had revealed that there was no actual threat. The amount of red cells on blood had increased from Earth times, and even with increased gravity the crew could walk easily on Earth surface, unless it had been blanketed with radiation and such.
Suddenly the command console of ensign Burowski started to make noice. Burowski rushed to the monitors with some of his crewmates and looked closely.
"A radio message! It's coming from the satellites!" he shouted. One of the pessimists of the crew said: "It could be a recorded message, Burowski. Is it two-ways?"
"I'm adjusting the equipment for the signal", Burowski reported.
Norton started laughing. "There are no unusual numbers of radioactive isotopes in the samples. There has been no nuclear war! None whatsoever!"

***

Prokhor Zakharov opened his eyes. He looked around confused, without moving his head. Jokinen said quietly: "Academician? Can you hear me? Can you speak?"
"I can, doctor", Zakharov whispered.
"Are you in pain?" Jokinen asked. He had already administered some morphine to him.
"I am fine, doctor."
"You know who I am? And where you are?"
"Perfectly, doctor Jokinen of the -", he coughed for a while, "starship Homeworld. Is captain Northeast here?"
"I am, sir. We are in Hydroponics Two", Northeast replied.
"Ah, the one with the window. My thanks for your concern, captain. I hope I have not been much trouble, captain Northeast."
"None whatsoever", was the answer.
Zakharov moved slowly his head until he was facing the window. He stared at the glistening stars and said: "Could you turn the lights off, please?"
"Certainly", Northeast said and did so. The reflections of green vegetation disappeared from the window. Earth's glow started to flare in the corner of the window.
"Perfect."

**Kassiopeia** · July 21, 2001, 15:54

CHAPTER NINE

The whole crew waited nervously as communications officer Burowski adjusted the ship's computer system to receive the repeating signal.
"It is a text-format message", the ensign announced. "It's Earth English." Earth English differed from Chiron English only from certain idioms and phrases, and any expected communication problems had been expected only for the poor Earthlings who couldn't understand Planet-based idioms. "Message reads as follows: This is satellite DG-2331 of the Planetary Defence Grid of Earth. The Defence Grid serves directly under the control of the military command of the United Goverments of Earth and Territories. Your vessel has violated the territorial sovereignity of the UGET, and will be eliminated unless proper confirmation be received by any Defence Grid unit in a time frame of three minutes. Any attempt to land or lauch any objects to Earth will be dealt with lethal force. Accepted identification codes are class One, Two, Three, Four and Special. Note: Special codes are the ones issued to the senior officers of UNS Unity." A pause. "Message ends", the startled voice of Burowski said.
Like any of the crew members, captain Northeast's thoughts were: "What the hell?"
Northeast opened a channel to the bridge. "Captain to Bridge. Are those satellites a potential threat?"
Hannah Norton's amazed voice responded: "According to scanners they are equipped with some primitive rail guns and a number of missiles. There are at least several hundred of them, and we do not have any weaponry."
"Good Lord. Time left?"
"Two minutes and twelve seconds, sir."
Ensign Burowski entered the frequency. "Excuse me sir, and ma'am, but I think I can respond to the satellite with as similar text format. I need the code. Heard the final sentence?"
"Yes!" Norton said enthusiastically. "Ask Zakharov for the code. He was the chief engineer, he must have it! That's the only possible way we can avoid being destroyed. Talk to him!"
There was a long silence in the intercom. "Sir, time is running!" Burowski hurried him.
Captain's voice was quiet and trembling. "Zakharov.... he has been dead for five minutes now."

**Kassiopeia** · July 24, 2001, 16:02

SECOND PART

CHAPTER TEN

Helena Lavrieux strolled hurriedly on the bulevard decorated with different types of trees and bushes. She had her high heels in her handbag and she was using her jogging shoes to speed up her pace.
Two minutes ago she had been drinking a cocktail and chatting casually in the birthday party of the Assistant Secretary of Economics, when a message headlined with an orange code had been delivered to her.
I was damn lucky I had these shoes with me, she thought as she turned around the corner. It was eleven o'clock in the evening, and the streets of Pretoria were amazingly vacant. Usually at Saturday nights there were people walking around chatting and doing late shopping.
It has to be the bank holidays, she remembered as she saw the security guards waiting at the paveway. "Miss Lavrieux?" a lieutenant and apparently the leader of the detachment asked.
"I am, lieutenant... Ramirez."
"We are here to escort you for the rest of the trip to the headquarters."
"How come?" Lavrieux asked and was feeling quite angry for the delay.
"That is not my concern; escorting you is."
"Very well", Lavrieux sighed and continued her fast walk along the street. One half of the street lights were off; from this she remembered that another electricity conservation programme was running.
But the ninth and tenth levels of the skyscraper of the UGET Headquarters was lit like a christmas tree. No wonder, she thought, that they sent me a priority three code. They have even awoken all the staff up.

***

(Thirty-three years earlier.)
As the cameras of all five major news networks of Chiron were rolling, Konrad Renner, head of the University Space Program, drew out a datapad. He also made a gesture to one of his assistants, who opened a door in the back of the press hall of University Base.
Renner held up the datapad and said: "This is a declarement of Provost Zakharov himself. Due to the content of this document, it has been secured with three levels of identification; fingerprints, DNA and retinal scan. Before I read this document, I ask that three neutral representatives, of different faction each, come forward and check the authenticality of this datapad. The representatives are data experts nominated by faction leaders themselves. First, Nicholas Ryan of the Human Hive, Theresia Fuerte of the Spartan Federation and finally Jacob Freeman of the Peacekeepers.
The representatives sat down on a round table in the front of the hall. Renner handed the pad to Ryan. He scanned it with his tools, checked it's memory and other datatechnical sections. The other representatives did the same, and then Ryan stood up after discussing with his colleagues and said to a microphone: "All three of us have determined that this datapad is authentic and that is has not been tampered with."
Renner nodded and cleared his throat. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am hereby going to read the letter of resignation from Prokhor Zakharov, former Provost of the University of Planet."

***

Lavrieux looked at the text on the door. "Space Administaration - Offices". She opened the door and walked into a quiet qhite hallway which had been lit dimly. The ten metres long hallway ended into the desk of a security officer and a door.
She walked to the guard and gave him her ID card. "Commander Helena Lavrieux, Space Military Operations."
The guard glanced at the commander with a suspecting look. That look Commander Lavrieux had seen before, everytime she introduced herself to a stranger and told him/her about her job.
In year 2235, it was a miracle that there were was the UGETSA at all.
All had started in 2060, when the famous Unity had launched. The UN report of the humanity's path coming to a dead end before 2071 leaked into publicity.
The result was staggering. The report was about a nuclear devastation, but there were also notes of global warming hampering the human kind's future. The report shook awoke almost all the people in the world. In 2062, USA, Russia and China had all had a bloodless revolution and a peacuful split-up into several smaller nations. The UN headquarters building was enlarged, because now there were almost 250 different countries in the world, from the Pacific States of America to the Republic of Canton. Nuclear weapons were taken to Earth orbit and launched into the Sun, as risky as that operation had been if there would of been an accident. But the removal of the risk of nuclear devastation was considered a better option then the risk of a world-wide radiation contamination.
From 2062 to 2069 the human stayed at Earth, trying to develop the undeveloped and nourish the starving.
But these ideals were dismantled when 2070 the 12 nations that were formerly the USA, founded IPCA, Interplanetary Colonisation Agency. IPCA started constructing colony ships based on the techonology of Unity. When the first IPCA ship landed on Mars and set up Planetdome City, suddenly there were organisations like the Chinese Commonwealth Colonisation Organisation, Russian Space Coalition, European Space Agency...
And, like many had expected, in 2078 there was the first war. It lasted three years, as IPCA Security detachments took over lands that the CCCO had claimed before hand... The great powers of Earth had not vanished, but they made their reappearance on Mars, Venus and the moons of the largest planets.
But the largest threat in the history of human life on Earth was just waiting to happen, in the years 2098 to 2105.

**Kassiopeia** · July 24, 2001, 16:09

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"Commander Lavrieux, you were quicker then I thought."
"Your little security detachment actually slowed me down."
"Oh yes, that. You have been sent multiple death threats, n'est ce pas?"
Once again Chief Connelly tried to impress Lavrieux with his language skills. She felt sick how the man tried to impress her in the same sentence in which he talked about those letters.
"Yes I have, Chief, but I don't see there's a reason -"
"We had a letter here, on the SA floor. The Earthbounds sent it. We scanned it for bombs, toxins et cetera, but none was found."
Ah, the Earthbounds. Dedicated to keep the human back on Earth, to prevent any furthere tragedies like the one in 2104, Lavrieux thought. They were a large organisation, and had committed terrorism on rocket launches and such.
"That's not why you got me here so hasty", Lavrieux said and listened to the racket coming through the door labeled: "Operations".
"No. We have a situation with the old Defence Grid, I'm afraid."
"The Defence Grid? How is it possible?"
"It seems that a ship ended up on Upper Earth Orbit. It couldn't send an ID code, so it was shot down."
"When did this happen?" Lavrieux asked, startled.
"Twenty minutes ago. The wreckage of the ship has been located. It's either in the Mediterranian, the Red Sea or in Sahara. Nowhere near populated areas, fortunately. Come, let's go to Operations."
The Defence Grid has been unused for over a hundred years, Lavrieux thought amazed. It was left operational, because it was self-sustainable and in excellent condition. It would of been more expensive to shut down and guide down the satellites then just leave them there.
The Operations was nothing more than rows of long tables full of different sorts of desktop computers, a central mainframe in the corner and a large infoscreen on the back of the square-shaped room with 15 metres long sides.
There were five men and two women working at the array of computers, and one man was studying carefully the info screen. Lavrieux was familiar with most of the systems and procedures used at SA, but her office and actual working place was at the UGET Military Headquarters at Johannesburg. If the Assistant Sec of Economics would of had his party at Johannesburg, she would of then been called to the MHQ there.

***

He was now the Provost of University of Planet. Officially 60 year old and biologically 43 year old Geordi McLean had rose from the post of a faculty teacher to a Base Governor at Technopolis, then to a member of the University Committee, and then to First Professor and Vice Provost. And now he had reached the apex of his career; Provost.
The post of Provost wasn't expected to open for at least fifteen years, but here he was sitting at the office of Prokhor Zakharov.
The shadow of the former leader was still cast over McLean, and some of Zakharov's closest assistants and workers, who felt betrayed and deceited, thought that McLean was an usurper and that he had fabricated the document with Konrad Renner. But no evidence of this had been found.
McLean did appreciate his new job, but he knew it would be only temporal. It was strikingly ironic, he thought. If he would argue the document about that part, he would also jeopardize his right to be even a temporary replacement. The old man did have a sense for drama.
He rose from the chair and looked through the large window that allowed one to gave directly at the forests and plains stretching a couple of kilometres of the perimeter defence boundaries. He saw a transport helicopter with armed escort choppers coming in from east.
The Planetary Council officials, he thought. They were over four lightyears away from the developed countries, and still the local UN was afraid that a democratic election wouldn't be called and that he would make UoP a Police State.
McLean smiled almost viciously and flipped a switch on the desk. The hotline to Local Air Defense Command opened. "Provost, sir, this is LAD Command."
"Target is approaching from east, one large with two escorts."
"Yes, we have it in our scanners, but they are -"
"Get me commander Huxworth."
The familiar voice of commander Huxworth. "Sir."
"It is time to initiate our little plan."
"Yes sir. Provost, all clear."
McLean flipped the switch again and the speaker fell quiet.
He sat down and watched as six missiles left from the launchers standing on the perimeter walls and made their way to the helicopters. Three burning wrecks fell to ground and exploded.
"This is better then those Action holos", he thought out loud.

**Kassiopeia** · July 26, 2001, 16:57

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Shot down, without a warning."
Commissioner Pravin Lal listened to the commander's report, without a change in his expression or in his look. He just sat there, eyes fixed on a spot on the wall behind commander Alonso's back.
"What if they had a technical glitch?" Lal asked calmly. Inside he was furious. He had been a temperamental man in his days, but on Chiron he had refrained from building up such a reputation. A small voice in his mind ushered him into breaking things and shouting at people, but he kept himself sitting there listening as Alonso explained that the chance of a technical failure was nearly non-existant.
"But there hasn't been a formal declaration of war."
"No sir. We believe that this is a terrorist act of some underground movement in the University. We have several intel files that suggest that groups like the Demosthenians or the Cyborg Liberation Front would be responsible."
"And that these... assailants have also downed the entire University communications system?"
"I see no other reason for them not answering our hails."
Lal sighed. "Let's do it the old fashion way, then shall we? Send a rover unit there; but equip them only with flame guns for worms. They might consider dragging a shard tank squadron there as an act of hostility." But should I consider shooting down twenty civilian officials for no reason as an act of hostility? he asked himself.

***

The computer expert punched in some sequences and then turned around to face commander Lavrieux.
"This doesn't look too good", the man warned. "I sent the satellite network a query of status and event logs a few minutes ago." He scratched his head that was covered in grey hear brought by age. "I'll send it again in a couple of minutes, but..." He shrugged.
"Those things are a hundred years old. What if you are using a code or programme that is too new?"
The programmer gave a brief laugh. "I tried to copy the programme from our archives but it was clearly too old. I and a friend of mine from Peru modified it to fit modern comps."
"So it should work?"
"Like a charm, Miss, like a charm."
Lavrieux looked at the screen. "What's that?"
The programmer turned around and smiled. STAT_LOG_2733. He opened the file and a list of actions with time markings and frames appeared. The programmer quickly copied the file and sent it to the central mainframe. "You can use my console, Miss." He opened the file again and left for the coffee room. Lavrieux sat down and read.
Two hours and fifteen minutes ago an unidentified craft had appeared on the scanners. It had been scanned and determined as -
Lavrieux was confused. According to the scanners, there were traces of a fusion drive. Of a fusion drive that's model was almost two hundred years old.
She tried to memorize her lessons of the Interplanetary War back at school. Would They use old fusion drives? No, they had the Henderson ion drive, not the DynaCorp model of 2057...
Her eyes opened wide. Could it be possible?

***

By 2103 the political situation of the solar system was explosive. Minor rebellions had occurred at some colonies on Callisto and Ganymedee, but the main colonies of Venus and Mars had been intact, if the word "intact" would mean four different greedy semi-corporatial organisations bickering for land rights.
By then, space ship manufacturing had remained as a priviledge of The World Were You Don't Need a Suit All Te Time. This way IPCA and it's rivals had kept control on the off-Earth colonies. This balance was tilted as a shipyard was discovered on Mars... suddenly Earthlings found themselves surrounded with too much Martian ships to handle. Earth's colonisation agencies faced the fact that the population that had stagnated under their strict, police state-like goverment turned against them.
Earth was filled with fear, as there was only a nominal defence fleet patrolling on orbit. There would be no opportunity to build more ships, and the first fleet would appear in seven months. The fear was not towards the Martian ships armed with rail guns, but the payload they were carrying; a genetically altered plague that would kill all human life on Earth in a matter of few weeks.
The panicking nations finally decided to join as a whole; as the United Goverments of Earth and Territories. The "and Territories" part included those rare colonies, like the ones of the Moon and some moons of Saturn, that had kept their loyalty to Earth.
As a whole, the UGET started building up several defence satellites armed with missiles and other weapons to be launched on Earth orbit to repel attacks. In four months, the Orbital Defence Grid consisted of twenty units; a system that had been dreamed last time over a century ago.
In the remaining months the number of defenders increased with sixteen, and they were carefully positioned so that the incoming ships would be right at their aiming systems.
The firepower of the satellites alone would of not brought down the attack, but the element of suprise helped UGET Space Forces to repel the attack. The sixteen ships that had been sent were stranded, crippled and finally destroyed by the Defence Grid working with the Space Force ships.
UGET was almost victorious; one of the destroyed ships didn't disintegrate totally, and the contents of a single viral bomb spread over Europe.

**Kassiopeia** · July 26, 2001, 17:01

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After two days from the end of the Interplanetary War, the plague took it's first victim. An old woman in Poland mysteriously died. An autopsy revealed that her internal organs had rotten inside her, but it was too late to stop the disease spreading. Next came Germany, the Baltic countries... By the year 2104, over 800 million had died, and more was to come.
At the same time a disaster of nearly equal magnitude occurred on Mars. One of the fusion reactors powering a quarter of the colonies exploded in mysterious circumstances. After that, half of the water supply was poisoned. People were paying back for the lives taken on Earth.
When year 2104 was on it's second quarter, the earlier population of seven billion had collapsed to five billion. When the plague reached Far East, the death toll increased to three billion.
Countries in Australia, southern Africa and America closed their borders. As the northern hemisphere died, UGET was re-established at South Africa, the only highly industrial country with Australia and Brazilia.
Then in year 2105 the plague was extinguished. All humans that had habitated Europe, North America and Asia had died, with only few survivors that had fled to isolated colonies on mountains or deserts. The greatest cities were all dead ruins as violent wars had erupted when people who thought were not tainted wanted to flee the continent.
Due to the tragedies and sorrow brought by colonizing the solar system's planets and moons, humanity made a promise to itself. Never to conquer space, when there was much to improve with the nature of human itself. By a century this ideal had faded away, but still people shivered thinking of space at all.

***

Geordi McLean was a relatively happy man. The military leaders that he had convinced on creating a Police State had thrived in their efforts. Some commanders and entire armies had however denied the chance of gaining power over the faction.
The most able of these commanders were general Reeve and Admiral Komanova. Komanova had control over most of the University battle fleet, whereas Reeve had taken control of several Hovertank battalions and Infantry regiments.
They posed a great threat for McLean and his leadership, because though they had allies like Chairman Yang and Colonel Santiago, the Peacekeeping Forces, Morgan Industries and Gaia's Stepdaughter's were heavy on his back. And all the time McLean's and his associates' war machine was losing battles or changing sides to join Reeve and Komanova. McLean was very certain that if he couldn't do something miraclous about it, he would be captured and taken to some War Criminal prison in a couple of weeks.
But, as earlier told, McLean was a relatively happy man, for the ill mind of Geordi McLean had deviced a plan.

Planet Busters were a rather old weapons system at the beginning of the 23rd mission century. They had been there for a couple of decades, but only a few had been built and no one was truly afraid of a possible nuclear destruction.
When taking control, Provost McLean had ordered all industrial complexes to start producing immense numbers of this terrible warhead. The whole faction couldn't of been able to produce full sized missiles at such numbers in that small time frame, but with right techniques and materials they could produce over a thousand warheads in roughly a week.
McLean also arranged the production to happen in such way that no outsider could find out what he was doing. The warheads were completed of many smaller, generic components that had been built all across the faction. These were then shipped to University Base were tightly guarded drones would complete the warheads. The drones were nerve stapled, and they had no idea that they were manufacturing devices of destruction. They knew only how to eat, sleep, and work.

***

"Commander Lavrieux", Chief Connelly said. She turned from the console and asked what was going on.
"We have a video link to Chad. The wreckage has been located."
"So soon? How?"
"You have to see the satellite footage."

When ISS Homeworld was launched, it was filled with an air supply that had been compressed and manufactured by extracting oxygen from the atmosphere of Chiron. Simply put, there had been several compressors outside the domes that would extract the needed substances from local air.
This gas compund was then packed and loaded to Homeworld. There was one thing that the people preparing the ship had forgotten. And the same thing was forgotten again on Earth, though no one there had a chance to do the needed measure.
Quarantine.

**Kassiopeia** · July 26, 2001, 17:08

THE CONCLUSION

Now Geordi McLean was a really happy, though a quite sick, man. He could hear the ambient sounds of battle on the plains near University Base. Helicopters, zizzles of laser fire, roars of engines... and from the lower levels of the Headquarters, sounds of University Guards killed by Peacekeeper Military Policemen.
They are coming for me, he thought and laughed coldly.
Yesterday, in the eleventh hour, the last warhead was dug underground near a seismologically fragile area. There were now warheads under all University bases, and some lucky Probe Teams had placed PB warheads under U.N. Social Council, U.N. Great Refuge, Gaia's High Garden... Fifteen enemy cities at total. The trick was that the warheads wouldn't just evaporate some enemy bases and cause major earthquakes, but they would also give Lal and his comrades an expression that Santiago and Yang had fired them. They would retaliate. Yes, they would retaliate.
He looked at the dramatic, small red button recently installed at his desk, and laughed again.

***

The satellite-taken pictures were in full color. Lavrieux asked: "Are you sure that the camera was operational?"
"We sent several airplanes to confirm it. It's true."
They viewed the stange sight. A Chironian would of identified the phenomenon in a second, but Earthlings were puzzled.

Dormant seeds of Chironian xenofungus. Small microscopic particles that had drifted in the hallways and tunnels of Homeworld. Now they had awoken, and on an atmosphere that had five percent more vital oxygen, the fungus bloomed with an amazing pace. The red stain had already taken over several square kilometres of land at the time Lavrieux saw it.
Once again, a ship shot down had brought them an unwelcome suprise, but this suprise would be even more cataclysmic, as was determined as the first boils of mind worms were found.

***

The defector had told them the following things. One: If they would blow up the entire headquarters building, or even the floor with McLean on, the bombs would detonate. Two: If McLean would be killed, the biometric sensors on his body would detonate the bombs. Three: If McLean pushed the button, the bombs would, of course, detonate.
These three directives were in the minds of all Military Police troopers as they stromed the building. They were equipped with electronic stunner rifles that would make McLean unconscious but not kill him. And they were in a hurry.
They opened the office door. McLean looked straight at the first of them as the electric bolt left the rifle and made it's way to McLean. He jolted and dropped down.
The police ran to the man and checked his pulse. He was alive. He sighed deep, took the tight helmet off his head, slammed it in triumph to the table and enjoyed three seconds of triumph before he was vaporized to atoms by the immense heat of a quasi-nuclear explosion.

Announcement

The Homeworld

The Homeworld

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