The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception (33 page)

"
Space and time are linked. Hyper-field technology can be used to fold both. We cannot fix the past but we can bring those we have hurt into the future. You will find new races appearing soon. They will be troubled and in need of friends. You can be their friend... And in doing so you will be closer to the creator. Fair well, beloved of the creator. We will not meet again for many years
."

- End of Book One -

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Thank you for reading this novel. Please be aware, one hundred percent of the royalties from the first book in each series I write goes directly to feeding impoverished families and providing for their basic needs.

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Blessings beloved of the Creato
r…
Andrew Beery

by
Andrew Beery

(Click on titles to jump to order page)

The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles

Inception, #1 - July 2012

Redemption, #2 - January 2013

*Exploration, #3 - 2013 Summer

*
Deception, #4 - 2014

The Ways of Mages
(with Catherine Beery)

The Ways of Mages, #1
  -Revised July 2012

The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds, #2
- Aug 2012

The Ways of Mages: Starfire, #3
January 2013

*The Ways of Mages: Three Swords, #4
- 2013

* Coming Soon

Rastii was a green eyed Ashkelon. The world was a crazy place. In another few years when his eyes turned blue he would join his father in the space corps. The space corps was where the excitement was at. The Ashkelon had recently broken the light speed barrier by folding space like a wall worm inching along a lava leaf... At least that is how his flock mate Sassi explained it. His eyes were almost solid blue and he was really smart.

Mother had left him early this morning. She had flown out of the family's nest with little more than a peck on his beak. The ships had left the spaceport... All of them. The skies had glowed with an unusual electrical display... Like the bad season for flying. But there was no rain and the sound of thunder's clap never came to his nest. For some reason the sun's red glow seemed brighter than he had ever remember it... And it was getting brighter still. He wished his nest mates would come home. It was all very confusing.

***

The GCP Yorktown was parked in orbit around a planet called Gliese 581g. Gliese 581 was an M-class star that was roughly a third the mass of Earths sun. It was, what the astronomers called, a red dwarf with spectral type M3V, located 20.3 light-years away from Earth.

The planet designated "g" was nicknamed "Goldi" because it was the first earth-like planet in the so-called "Goldilocks Zone" discovered by humanity in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

Because Gliese 581 had a much lower mass than Earth's Sun, the core region of the star fused hydrogen at a much lower rate... The result was both a much lower level of spectral emissions and a significant shift in frequency.

Commodore Catherine "Cat" Kimbridge swiveled her black faux leather command chair to face her science officer's station. Cat was a deceptively petite woman with long bright red hair, perpetually tied in a tail with a simple black band. To look at her, one would imagine she barely massed 110 pounds and was little over her mid-thirties. In point of fact, because of enhancements made by an alien race known as the Heshe, her body was teaming with advanced nanites that increased her mass to almost 200 pounds. Rather than being in her thirties, Cat was approaching her eightieth birthday. She held multiple advanced degrees in the sciences, and at one point had been Earths foremost authority on Hyperfield Dynamics, which was the science that allowed ships to exceed the limits imposed by the light speed barrier.  

"Commander Trifa, what are the sensors telling us?"

Commander Trifa was the Yorktown's science officer. She looked for all the world like a five foot iridescent green feathered kangaroo with three fingered hands and a nub tail. She was from a race known officially as the Hupenstanii but whom everyone, including the Hupenstanii, called the "Hoppers."

"The surface temperature of the star is approaching 3200 kelvins with a visual luminosity of 0.23% of that Sol. The star's primary emissions are shifted deep into the infrared with peak emission at a wavelength of roughly 830 nanometres. Total bolometric luminosity is closer to 1.3% Earth normal. If we choose to visit the planet be forewarned this star is a strong x-ray emitter.

The planet itself is roughly 1.7 times Earths mass, however, the relative density is only sixty percent that of Earth, so the surface gravity is only fractionally more than Earth normal. As you can see from the forward view screen, it is most certainly a water world with sixty nine percent of the surface taken up by a single large ocean.

The planet is orbiting much closer to its sun and so the tidal impact of the primary is more acutely felt than on Earth. The atmosphere is primarily nitrogen and neon gasses with a seventeen percent oxygen content. The X-rays from the sun have created a fairly substantial protective ozone layer.

The light is wrong for most of our species but other than that is is a very habitable world."

"Any signs of intelligent life?" Cat asked.

Trifa adjusted a setting on her console before answering. "It's difficult to tell ma'am. There seems to be an abundance of plant life but because of the relatively low level of energy being emitted by the primary and the resulting shift in frequencies, the rate of evolution seems to be much slower on Goldi than on any of our worlds. The apparent biodiversity on the more easily scanned land masses seems to be considerably lower than even present day Earth given the mass extinctions on your world."

"Ziggy, are you picking up anything on comms?"

"Negative, Ma'am. Just a lot of popping from the X-rays interacting with the ionosphere... Hold it... Hold it..."

Leaning forward Cat said softly, "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Commodore... I'm getting something really strange on the hyperfield detectors... I've never seen a signal like this."

Turning in her chair to look at her First Officer... "Ken, take a look and give me..."

Before she could finish her request she was interrupted by the blaring of the ships battle klaxon and a sudden shift of the bridge's lighting to a deep red.

"Silence that alarm, Cal what the hell is going on?"

The ship's Heshe sentient AI responded instantly.

"
A temporal hyperfold in space-time has occurred and a new planet has temporally jumped into position zero point six AU from our current position. There appear to be 490 ships surrounding the planet with their weapons systems fully charged.
"  

"Seven times seventy..." Ken muttered.

"What?" Cat asked.

"Nothing, sorry... Commodore, that fleet is changing course and are headed right for us. Shall I raise shields?" Ken asked.

"Probably a good idea.  Ziggy try to raise that armada. Tie in the ship's encounter unit. It might know the language they're going to be using with us."

"Raise shields" The First Officer yelled... "Chief Wrobleski, charge the beam weapons but keep them locked down until we know for sure we have a fight on our hands."

The D'lralu power engineer, a Commander Ben, inched the main reactors up to eighty percent capacity.

Cat activated her internal encounter unit. The nanite infused computer was a gift from her Heshe benefactors, and provided her with a personal AI as well as universal translator based on the massive language archive available to the ancient Heshe race. It shared a collective consciousness with the ship's AI.

"Cal, can you identify the language being used by these people?"

"
Indeed, Commodore. They appear to be the Ashkelon... A race my progenitors regrettably destroyed some two point three million years ago.
"

- End of sample -

Andrew Beery and Catherine Beery

Love…

Such a simple word. It could almost be missed in a crowd of other words. But a simple word is often the best creation can offer. There is only so much that our imagination can hold even though it is so vast. We, the creation, need to define everything around us in order to have a chance of understanding our surroundings and each other. But love is so much more than the powerful feeling that most of us assume it is.

Love lives. Love has feelings and plans. Love creates.

Love created everything around us. He created so He would no longer be alone. And what He made was good. Love was a silversmith creating the world as a mirror.  The detail, the complexity; all of it proclaimed the glory of the one who made it for all to see. The silver mirror was thin to the point of fragility, but it was strong when it leaned upon its creator’s strength.

Love granted His created companions a choice. He created everything, but there was one thing he could not create and have it be genuine: love. He did not make His creation to be empty constructions spilling empty praise and words of adoration. He wanted them to love Him. Genuinely and truly love and care for Him. So He gave them a choice: they could love and follow Him or they could choose not to. 

There were those who chose to know Love and the mirror was strong. But there were also those who turned away. They wanted to do things how they saw fit, no matter what the creator said, no matter who it might hurt. Each time they chose to go their own way something ugly was born. Something made of Hatred and Greed and Jealousy. These evil things tarnished the mirror.