Sails.odt



Starting Point: The Gathering

© Vanessa Ravencroft 2014

This is a short story inspired by “Starting Point: The Gathering”

The story takes place in my own Sci Fi Universe “Galactic Chronicles”

http://galnet.wikia.com/wiki/Galnet_Data_Base



Preset:





“''The Sails had begun to gather. Three, then five, then ten. Now there were nineteen, all hovering in the same bay, waiting for more to arrive. There were at least four more on their way, and tracking showed that the paths of several more would converge further up the coast in a little over a week.''

''Nobody had ever seen anything like this before. The last time anybody had seen even two of the machines in the same place was over a decade ago, and even then they were like ships passing in the night.''

''It’s strange to think that after almost a hundred years of sharing this planet with them we were still no closer to understanding their purpose, origin, or nature. Were there life forms enclosed in those thick metal shells, or just a nest of circuitry? Had they been constructed here on Arda, or had they come from elsewhere?''

''And why this gathering? What was it all about? After a century of wandering the planet alone, why the sudden need to schedule a social event? I had a feeling we were about to find out, and my gut twisted at the thought.”''





<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">-1-

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">The short human, in the worn brown and white Bio Seal Suit shaded his eyes with his hand in an age old fashion, that he did not have Sunglasses was of course a clear indication that he was not from distant Earth.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What do you think, Gerome?”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">The tall colonist originally from New Parisi shrugged his shoulders.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Whatever or whoever they are, they picked the wrong day for their meeting. Once the Miller Boys see that, they going to break out the Davy Crockett and this nice planet won’t be so nice.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“We should call the Ranger. He know what to do.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“I can’t find anything on these flying sails anywhere on GalNet that means they are unknown. We sort of kept the secret of their existence secret. Me and my family invested blood and sweat for the last four generations into our farm. We invested over 10 million credits, and now as things looking up, I don’t want a Union Judge tell me to pack my things and leave, because this world belongs to some freaking flying sails. That is what’s going to happen if the Assembly gets wind of this.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">The short man listened to the name of Paul sighed. “I hate to lose it all, we just about to bring in the harvest and the prices on the XChange would make it a nice profit, the first real one that is, but what alternatives we have? The Ranger calling the Fleet or the Science Corps with the likely effect that we must evacuate or the Miller Boys get crazy and start throwing nukes. I doubt there is a market for radiated Oranges or sacks of nuclear ashes.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“We need to figure out what they want, what this gathering is all about. They haven’t so much as tried to make contact in the 122 years we share this world with them. Maybe they are gathering to leave. Let’s curb the Miller boys, make sure the Colony Manager doesn’t hand them the keys to the arsenal and see if we can establish contact.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Paul and Jerome had been standing on top of the Red Cliffs of Morgan’s Continent and stared westward over the calm waves of the Azure ocean.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">The air was filled with the invigorating herbal smell of Arda’s Rock-Grass. Small local insects, akin to Terran bees buzzed between the tall stalks of maroon red Cliff Bloomers and from here about 500

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">meters a above the shore line and the ocean they watched strange alien constructs, shaped somewhat like the single wing of a fast bird, or perhaps the sail of a sports yacht, gather along the coast line. Hovering perhaps ten meters above the water, Jerome estimated the things to be about 350 meters tall.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">While the sail part, colored red and white appeared of artificial constructed nature, the bulbous pod at its bottom had a grown biological character. There was also a faint blue glow of light underneath the sail. He counted seven of them so far, but more of these shapes descended from the western sky in a noiseless slow almost majestic way.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">These flying sails had been seen before. One or maybe two, and only for a brief moment, and less than maybe two or three times in all the colonies history.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">They never seemed threatening or tried to communicate, so the Colonists sort of kept the existence out of their reports to BoCA (Bureau of Colonist Affairs) because Arda was an exceptional beautiful and pleasant Garden world with arable ground and a bio sphere that was adaptable to Left turning DNA and left turning sugar based carbon life forms, or in other words the LDLS life was consumable by eighty six percent of the Union population. There was hardly anything more valuable than natural sourced foods. The Universe was a hungry place and planets like this provided the food.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Establishing a Colony even with BoCA support wasn’t exactly easy or done overnight.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">A new world had its dangers and problems. To produce exportable fruits and vegetables, ground that had never seen a plow, had to be prepared and made arable, ground bacteria had to be introduced, local vermin researched and controlled, the right hybrids found that grew best under local conditions and during all this build roads, towns and houses is a challenge and hard work.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Yet Union law was clear, any planet belonged first and foremost to its native sentient population. And could not be colonized. If the survey team missed a local sentient life form meant the Union colonists had to leave. (Unless the local natives expressed no objections sharing their world.)

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">So far this seemed to be the case.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">Paul turned around and saw a Chevy Work Skimmer approach. The big Arti-Grav Cargo skimmer was painted dark green and on its open cargo bed, the bane of Morgan’s Colony. Clyde Miller and six of his boys.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">While everyone else on MC raised fruit or vegetables, Miller raised boars and pigs. Granted he was not disturbing anyone. There were only 800,000 people on MC and most spread all over the planet. Millers Hog and Boar Inc. was a ranch the size of England on Earth and with the Togar cats now part of the Union there was a tremendous demand of bacon. Clyde became quite wealthy, even compared to Union Core. The main reason no one really care for him, was his boisterous personality.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“What in the name of Donald Duck have you got there? I hope you are not going to use it.” Paul said.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Of course I will. This is a genuine Fafnir Turbo flamer. Union Marine Issue. We show those flying bastards this is our world now.”

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">“Clyde you can’t declare war on a new species, if the Assembly hears of it, you wish you be dead.

<p lang="en-US" style="margin-bottom:0cm">No need for them to ever hear about it.