Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers Read online

  Walter Stickle and the

  Galactic Rangers

  Larry Enright

  Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers

  © 2013 Larry Enright

  All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder. For permission, contact [email protected].

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Lawrence P. Enright

  Visit the author’s website:

  http://www.larryenright.com

  I know you’re out there somewhere

  FIRST EDITION

  Chapter 1

  The Keldarian Decapod turned a stalked eye skyward and dipped quietly beneath the water’s surface as Scout Ship Alpha skimmed the Great Northern Ocean, making for an island in the distance. Keldar was a fringe world not often visited by Galactic Ranger scout ships. There was little need. Ninety-three percent of Keldar’s surface was covered by water and filled with aquatic life-forms that a million years ago had evolved to a peaceful, sentient state, and with nearly all of the world’s land mass buried deep under polar icepacks, the only land creatures on Keldar were invasive species that congregated on the few habitable rocks scattered throughout the world in desperate outposts that came and went like the typhoons of summer.

  The Keldarian Collective tolerated these intrusions as a cetacean tolerates a barnacle until it scrapes against the sea bottom to dislodge it, or as a school of explosive gas fish ignores a predator that has wandered into its feeding ground, certain of the fact that the predator will get but one bite before it detonates. This time, however, it was no ordinary intrusion. This was the Goldotti of Deamus, a warrior race of predatory and parasitic gastropods that by an accident of evolution had become their planet’s dominant species. These slug-like creatures, no larger than a man’s thumb and lacking the arms or legs to evolve significantly in any physical or technological sense, nonetheless evolved mentally, and by attaching themselves to the brain stems of Deamus’ dominant homo erectus species, came to rule their planet. Cruel and unforgiving, they turned their world’s primates into mindless robots and waged war on every planet in their system. So, when the Keldarian Collective discovered that the Goldotti had established an outpost on Keldar, they sent for the Galactic Rangers.

  In the early days of the galaxy, when the mere separation of worlds and ignorance of each other’s existence was sufficient to keep galactic peace, the planet Argon discovered the secret of faster-than-light travel. It began with the invention by the manufacturing industry of a process called “space compression.” Developed as a cost-saving measure, this process allowed the more efficient storage of inventory by temporarily compressing a given physical space along with every object in it. Warehouses could hold more. Transport vehicles could carry more. The efficiencies of scale seemed limitless. This discovery was a miracle defying all known physics and sparked an industrial revolution of diverse applications in the field of miniaturization. The most significant of these, from a global point of view, was the invention of compressed-space living quarters. Massive structures like hives of ten-by-ten housing cubicles were erected, each with doorways to as much compressed-space as the individual could afford. Millions were housed where thousands were before, and the population of Argon increased tenfold, limited only by the planet’s resources.

  As the technology improved, astrophysicists discovered that the same principle could be applied to movement through space and time at faster-than-light speeds. By effectively compressing or folding space in front of a ship and expanding the space behind it, speeds faster than physically possible could be achieved, not by the movement of the ship, but by the movement of space and time themselves through their compression and expansion.

  With Argon’s development of faster-than-light propulsion using the “compression drive,” as it was called, the First Era of Exploration commenced, and with the discovery of life on worlds previously thought too distant ever to be explored, came the realization of the need for law and order extending beyond the boundaries of individual worlds, lest the invention that made possible the binding together of all sentient life become the mechanism for its destruction. The five central worlds, the only ones known to hold sentient life at that time, formed the first Congress of Planets, and on Sidereal 1031.42, as time came to be measured, they enacted the Articles, a comprehensive system of laws to govern the galaxy. Those Articles which regulated trade, civil, and interplanetary matters, also authorized the creation of the Galactic Rangers and charged them with three tasks: exploration of the galaxy, discovery of sentient life, and enforcement of the law.

  For over a thousand sidereals, the Galactic Rangers had faithfully carried out their mission. Whenever they charted a new system, the Rangers conducted a scientific assessment of the technological state of any civilizations found. Through proven algorithms, the Division of Mathematics then established a timeline predicting when those civilizations would achieve interstellar capabilities. No further contact by any member planet was permitted with a civilization until it progressed naturally to making the discovery of faster-than-light travel, until it began to expand beyond its own world, and until it became a potential threat to the peace of the galaxy. At such time, emissaries from the Congress of Planets would return to let that world know they were not alone in the universe and to offer them membership in the Congress and peace under the Galactic Rangers’ protection.

  At the time of the Rangers’ exploratory mission to Deamus, the Goldotti were as yet unknown and still living in dark places beneath the blind eye of their planet’s dominant species. The timeline established to achieve space compression for their world did not account for this aberration, so when the Goldotti took control of the primates and drove a frenetic development of technology, achieving faster-than-light travel far in advance of projections, they swept across their world and then through their system, subjugating civilizations on three peaceful planets before the Congress and the Rangers became aware of their ascendance to power.

  Rangers were ordered to Deamus to negotiate, but the Goldotti refused to cease hostilities and left the Congress of Planets no choice but to declare war. At the outset of the Goldotti War, the more powerful Rangers effected the complete destruction of the Goldotti fleet and the containment of any further aggression. Again, they attempted negotiations but found that the Goldotti could not be reasoned with, could not be subdued, and would under no terms accept peace. When the Rangers destroyed their ships, their enslaved primates built new ones. When the Rangers defeated their armies, they drafted reinforcements, extending their parasitic control beyond primates to other species. They would not negotiate and would not stop until they had subsumed all races, all planets, and all life, until the entire galaxy was Goldotti.

  The Rangers pulled back and the Deamus system was ordered quarantined. Impenetrable force barriers were constructed around the infected planets. No ship was permitted to enter or depart under penalty of death, and for a hundred Deamian years their system remained cut off from any contact with the rest of the galaxy. So, when news of the sighting of a Goldotti ship outside the quarantine zone reached the central planets, Galactic Ranger Scout Ship Alpha was immediately dispatched to Keldar to investigate.

  A scout class ship carries an active crew of four Rangers and a company of warriors in space-compressed cryo-stasis should the need arise for off-ship combat. The scout ship’s exterio
r is no larger than a B-class freighter, the kind often found ferrying cargo on shorter hauls in the inner systems, but with the latest advances in space compression, the interior of the ship is as large as an M-class star cruiser. It is equipped with firepower sufficient to obliterate a small moon and has a maximum safe speed of one thousand times that of light, limited only by the computational power of the onboard computers used to predict the ship’s real position and reentry into normal space. It has shielding powerful enough to stop the force of a plasma cannon or make the ship invisible. It is the most formidable weapon in the galaxy.

  Galactic Rangers themselves are beings from the planet Argon. Long ago, the Argonians evolved to an ethereal state where distinct physical form was no longer a primary requirement of existence and only to be assumed when physical activity demanded it. Most Argonians prefer their natural state, one that can best be described to one not familiar with such things as a cloud of shimmering lights. While on missions, the four Rangers manning the ship — the Captain, First Officer, Communications Officer, and Navigator — assume a physical state called “flight form” in which they coalesce into elongated, bluish humanoids with overly large heads and imposing physiques, a throwback to a previous period in their evolution. Flight form is necessary to operate the ship and interact with any species encountered.

  Captain Kleeg had commanded Scout Ship Alpha since his graduation from the academy. He was a prodigy, a natural leader, a powerful, large figure, and one who never deviated from the law. As he watched the island grow in the view screen, he drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “Analysis,” he said to the first officer.

  First Officer Gak was not the most physically capable Ranger when he assumed flight form, but what he lacked in stature and hand-to-hand combat skills, he more than made up for in intelligence. He had been assigned to Scout Ship Alpha when its previous first officer, a highly decorated hero, fell in the Battle of the Seven Moons. Gak was young but not ambitious. He was clever, but not devious. He was the perfect first officer and handpicked by Kleeg.

  “Captain, I have detected multiple alien life-form readings on the island,” Gak said. “I count at least ten active, and infrared has confirmed the Goldotti parasite on each.” He pressed several buttons on his console and the view screen changed to infrared imaging. It showed a biped patrolling outside a small ship that had set down on a plateau on the island. “Note the predominantly red heat signature throughout the species and the yellowish spot on the back of the neck where the Goldotti is embedded,” Gak said. “The computer identifies the host as a primate of the planet Deamus.”

  “The reports said the original hosts all died in the war,” the captain said.

  “Apparently, the reports were mistaken.”

  “Conjecture?”

  “An unlikely possibility is the escape of a ship during the encirclement and prior to installation of the containment barrier. More likely, this is a rogue Goldotti vessel that was on a deep-space mission prior to the war and was unable to return home.”

  “Mission to where?”

  “Unknown, Captain, but if they came in contact with another world and found a suitable host…”

  The navigator on a scout ship also serves as weapons officer. Scout Ship Alpha’s navigator was Klaxon, a hardened veteran of the Goldotti War. “Shall I ready the primary weapon, Captain?” he said without looking up.

  “Negative. Shields up, full invisibility, rig for silent running,” Kleeg said. “Take us in for a closer look.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain. Shields up. All power cut to non-essential systems. Engaging stealth mode now.”

  The ship flew low over the island while computers and sensors drew topological and tactical maps and collected data on ship configuration, defensive and offensive capabilities, and personnel. After the silent flyby, they took up position a safe distance from the island.

  “Captain,” said Klaxon. “An analysis of their weaponry indicates nothing more sophisticated than we saw during the war. They have two low-power plasma cannons, each capable of thirty rounds a minute, and primitive laser technology in the form of heat-seeking missiles and small arms. Nothing we can’t handle.”

  “Captain,” Gak said. “I highly recommend contact to determine if they have infected another world. Examination of their ship’s computers and logs could prove useful, as would interrogation of their crew.”

  The ship’s communications officer was Lieutenant Sparks. He was fluent in all known artificial languages and an electronics expert. He had lost a brother in the Goldotti War. “You weren’t there, Mr. Gak. You have no idea what these slugs can do. You can’t talk to them,” he said. “You can’t reason with them. They only understand one thing.”

  Gak raised an eyebrow. “Neither do we need to reason with their ship’s computer nor with the logs to gather what we need, and the information required of their crew can be extracted without their cooperation, Lieutenant. Keep in mind, the memories of one Goldotti carry the memories of all.”

  “With all due respect, sir, we don’t know that the Memory Reader will work on them.”

  “To try and fail is honorable. To fail without trying is not.”

  “Any indications that the Goldotti have adapted to Keldar?” the captain asked.

  “Negative, Captain,” said Gak. “Wide-range sensors are clear, indicating they have yet to find a way to tolerate the unusually high levels of sulfur and chlorine found in the Keldarian Ocean.”

  “Recommendations?”

  Scout Ship Alpha held its position, shielded and invisible, near the island. The lone Goldotti guard patrolling the perimeter noticed a shimmering ahead as he rounded his ship’s dorsal section. He drew his laser and faced the assembling molecules of Captain Kleeg, missing a second shimmering that appeared moments later directly behind him. First Officer Gak solidified, fired his weapon, and the Deamus host and its parasite fell unconscious to the ground.

  “Ready trans-beamer,” Kleeg said into his wrist communicator. “Lock onto these coordinates. Three to beam. Execute.”

  The Goldotti are a race possessed of a collective consciousness, and the others were immediately aware of the unexpected loss of communication with the guard. Their ship’s engines fired, and they lifted off. By the time the two Rangers had secured their prisoner in the brig and returned to the bridge, the Goldotti ship had reached orbit.

  “We don’t want to risk igniting the Keldarian atmosphere. Take us up to firing position, Mr. Klaxon,” Captain Kleeg said, watching the planet drop below them in the view screen.

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” said Klaxon.

  Gak looked up from his console. “Captain, they have locked onto the island and are preparing to fire. Even setting aside the potential damage to the atmosphere, if the superheated plasma strikes the water, the ocean temperature in this entire sector will rise to unacceptable levels and many indigenous species will perish.”

  “Time to firing, Mr. Klaxon?” said Captain Kleeg.

  “Our weapons are coming online now, sir.”

  “Target their primary weapons and engines. I want to disable them, not destroy them. Fire when ready.”

  Scout Ship Alpha reappeared and fired three bursts of blue-white light from its primary weapon. They struck the Goldotti vessel’s port and starboard cannons, and blew the ship’s engines apart, leaving it adrift in a decaying orbit above Keldar.

  “Open a hailing channel,” Kleeg commanded.

  “Transmitting on all frequencies,” said Sparks.

  Kleeg activated the com unit on his chair. “This is Captain Kleeg of Galactic Ranger Scout Ship Alpha to unknown Goldotti vessel. Surrender and prepare to be boarded.”

  “Captain,” said Gak. “They are locking laser targeting on us and preparing to launch missiles.”

  “Mr. Klaxon, target their bridge. Disable all systems.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” Klaxon said, firing a globe of plasma from Alpha’s secondary bank of weapons. It engulfed the Goldotti bri
dge in a fireball and exploded, sending the enemy ship spiraling out of control.

  “The Goldotti are responding, Captain,” said Sparks.

  “On screen.”

  The bridge of the Goldotti vessel was a twisted ruin, fire was spreading throughout the electronics, and the ship was out of control. The Goldotti Captain stood defiantly before them with his weapon drawn.

  “Goldotti Captain, surrender and prepare to be boarded,” Kleeg said again.

  “We would rather die than surrender to you,” the creature-turned-Goldotti mind slave said.

  “So be it,” said the captain. “Kleeg out.” The screen switched to an external view of the crippled ship. “Move us to minimum safe distance and bring primary weapon to bear. Fire when ready, Mr. Klaxon.”

  The image of the Goldotti ship began to shrink on the screen.

  “With pleasure, sir,” Klaxon said.

  Seconds later, there was a blinding flash, and the Goldotti ship exploded in a shower of particles more brilliant than any Argon Independence Day spectacle.

  “Mr. Klaxon, set course for Argon, maximum safe speed. Mr. Sparks, send the standard ‘mission accomplished’ message to the Keldarians and a status report to Ranger Command. Tell them we are returning with a Goldotti prisoner and host in stasis quarantine and request further instructions.”

  The application of space compression technology to faster-than-light communications had been one of the last and most difficult achievements before interstellar travel could truly be deemed practical, for what good was communicating with a ship five hundred light years away if any message sent took five hundred years to get there and another five hundred before an answer was received? The discovery of a practical method of the quantum entanglement of photon particles of the type used in subluminal transmissions solved that problem and made communications over any distance nearly instantaneous.