Here is the PROLOGUE to
CAPTAIN
ALGERNON FISK SAVES AN EMPIRE!
(undedited
so don't beat me up about the errors on the page, I know there are
plenty.)
PROLOGUE
Space is a very big area to cover. It’s
very easy to miss a small asteroid on a collision course. Asteroid’s
colliding with a planet was nothing new to the human race. It was what
helped usher in the human race and what caused humanity to fear the skies from
the later end of the 20th century to modern times. But
when you live on a moon of Saturn that is crater filled, such as Lapetus, you
expect asteroids to hit you - often.
This fear was the single
reason that the Rus/Com Alliance government had formed their Asteroid Hunters.
The Asteroid Hunters spent their days, nights and weekends not only searching
the skies around Saturn for these asteroids, but also worked to deflect the
large objects from hitting populated regions of space. Asteroid Hunters
were as common in every government of the system as bureaucrats, but far more
effective, as long as the real bureaucrats actually did do their job and
supplied them with the right material and manpower. In the Alliance, the
bureaucrats were decidedly under par for performance. Which was
unfortunate - very unfortunate.
Lapetus was known as the
bread basket of the Alliance. Much of the different cities and enclaves
of the Alliance couldn’t feed themselves, due to the extensive growth of the
industrial needs of the individual Alliance communities coupled with the
failing economic system and losses caused by a series of mismanagement of the
collective farming. The inefficient bureaucracy of the government caused
vast shortages in some areas and overabundance in others.
In an effort to stave
off this problem the Alliance created the largest crystalline dome system in
the Solar System on the moon of Lapetus. Lapetus is the furthest out
orbit of all of the moons of Saturn. It’s elliptical orbit gives it the
ability to create an equal travel distance between the different enclaves at
different times of the orbital cycle, cutting fuel costs for travel to and from
the moon. A critical unnoticed flaw of the domes was that they were all
interlinked. At the time it was hoped that the linked open air domes
would help to create a vast biosphere. But what was unforeseen was the
danger caused by depressurization.
“What do you mean the
missiles cannot be fired?” The commander said to the weapons officer. The
“command deck” of the Lapetus Collective was nothing more than a small room
with a series personal computers connected to the different parts of the
facility.
“Sir, the weapons
systems were taken off line this morning because the computer controlling them
had critically failed last week’s diagnostic testing,” the weapons officer
explained. “The protective squadron was supposed to take over asteroid
hunting duties for the duration of the repair.”
“Well then you idiot,”
the commander said. “Get on the radio to them and tell them about the
asteroid.”
“I passed the
information along sir,” the weapons officer said. “But they informed me
that they are unable to intercept with sufficient force.”
“What does that mean?”
The commander asked.
“It seems that no ship
has sufficiently large enough missiles to deflect or destroy the incoming
asteroid,” the weapons officer explained.
“Who approved this
plan?” The commander asked.
“You did, sir.” The
weapons officer said. “Last week when I informed you of the situation.
You were having dinner with Officer Klemche.”
“Whose Officer Klemche?”
The commander asked. “Oh yes, the blonde from human resources. The
party official.” The commander looked at the weapons officer. “I
would never approve of such a thing. You must be wrong Yuri.”
“Yes sir,” Yuri said
from the weapons station. “But regardless the asteroid is going to hit in
less than four hours.”
“Get me the Admiral in
charge of that squadron.”
“Yes sir,”
***
“What do you mean you
can’t?” The commander asked.
“As I told your subordinate
comrade commander,” the admiral of the squadron said over the communications
link. “We are unable to have any impact on the asteroid.”
“But you are not even
going to try?” The commander asked.
“According to party
policy to waste our very valuable missiles on an impossible mission is
treasonous,” the Admiral said. “I know you are not suggesting that I do
something treasonous. Are you?”
“Not at all,” The
commander said after a moment. “Lapetus Collective out.”
The weapons officer
looked over at his commander.
“We still have four
hours and with the gravitational flux, it might not hit us at all.” Yuri
said.
“With our luck I doubt
it,” The commander said. “And since the shelters are only partially
completed, we will not be able to save everyone.”
The commander sat back
in his seat. A squeak came from the springs buried in the well-worn seat
as he moved around. His drawn face filled with failure. He would go
down as the man who lost one of the modern marvels of structures of man.
But worse, his family would suffer. The party could not tolerate a
disaster of this magnitude to go unpunished. He could not let that
happen.
“Prepare my ship.
I will be going alone.” The commander said as he got up from his seat,
the squeak filling the small compartment. “Yuri you will be in charge
until a replacement is found. Good luck.”
An hour later the small
converted freighter used as the commanders personal transport ship lifted from
the pad next to the farming collective. He was alone on the small ship
and for the last time he looked out over the massive formation of domes forming
the roof of the agriculture collective. He wondered at it’s amazing
properties. The way it was able to convert the light from Sol and the
light reflected from Saturn into a sustaining form of sunlight that enabled the
workers below to grow massive amounts of food, without which the Alliance would
return to the troubled days of bread lines, threats of revolution and unrest
unparalleled in the history of his people. He could not let that happen
again.
Without another thought
he accelerated away from Lapetus. He instructed the computer to go to
full thrust and to maintain the full thrust as he targeted the asteroid now
bearing down on the planet. It would only be a half hour he would have to
wait for it to be all over. He used the time to send his wife a last
message and a second message sent to the Agricultural Minister to explain what
had happened.
He had just signed off
as the ever growing asteroid appeared to jump in size. A moment later the
small ship collided with the asteroid. Despite the size of the asteroid,
even it could not ignore the small ships speed. The commander had been
able to get the ship at such a speed that it would cause damage to the ball of
rock. Even small micro meteors can cause significant damage and that’s
exactly what the commander did to the asteroid.
The ball of rock
shuddered slightly as a significant crack began to fissure along its
side. If the rock had been in an atmosphere the friction from the
atmosphere would have caused the fissure to fracture more and eventually break
up the big rock. It might have even missed the agricultural
collective. But there was no atmosphere in space and the fissure that was
created only caused the rock to split slightly. And it turned out
it didn’t matter.
The ball of rock had
been destined to miss the collective, but then again, that didn’t matter
either. About three hours later the ball of rock came rocketing down towards
the small planetoid. The significant size of the agricultural collective
made it a big target, but somehow the asteroid missed it and landed less than a
mile away. But as mentioned before, it didn’t matter.
The surface of Lapetus
began to split, it’s rock and water ice surface couldn’t withstand the
punishment from this large asteroid, and like the countless other depressions
on the planet the asteroid’s secondary impact caused a cascade effect on the
surrounding area. The fissure running along the surface of the planet
reached the collective, near the center of the massive main dome and
the subsidiary buildings surrounding it, running directly underneath
the building. The fissure finally stopped at the mountain range that ran
along the equator of Lapetus.
The domes of the
collective just weren’t designed for this kind of punishment. One after
the other they began to collapse on each other. The explosive
decompression from many of the domes caused even more destruction to the
collective and surrounding facilities that supported the massive complex.
In one after another what had taken generations to build was utterly wiped out,
and all because someone had taken one of the computers off line.
***
“At least a decade, more
than likely two decades maybe even three to get it up to what we will need,”
the Agricultural Minister said from his seat at the round table. “With
our projected birth rate and we will need at least thirty years to get to where
we need to be to support our populace.”
“How can that be,” the
Interior Minister said.
“We were already at
beyond capacity of the facility when it was built,” the Agricultural Minister
said. “Now it will be worse, much worse. Cutting rations to unnecessary
workers will extend resources for nine months. Cutting rations for
everyone will allow us to last just over a year. That’s assuming that
food production in our other smaller facilities is pushed out to the maximum
available production levels.”
The room was quiet with
the implications of the situation.
“That is not good, what
are our options,” The head of the politburo asked. “How goes Operation
Kingmaker? Can that help us?”
“Sir,” the defense
minister spoke up. “Respectfully that is a very highly classified
program, would it not be wise for us to table that discussion until a more
private moment?”
“Chen,” the head of the
politburo said. “That is past now. If we are to survive we must
have every available idea out in the open for us to discuss.”
“Yes sir,” Chen
said. “As you have all heard, the capitalist UNION King is dead and our
operative is now in place to take the throne with our support.”
“Then we must give it,
and soon.” The interior minister said. “With the resources of the
UNION we can easily sustain our population, even with the projected increase in
the birthrate.”
“I’m assuming that you
are talking about the Bavarian Duke Maximillian as our ‘operative’. If
this is correct what of the UNION Navy, will it allow us to just waltz in there
and take what we want? I can’t imagine that such a force would allow us.”
The agriculture minister said.
“Vasily, I believe your
area is in agriculture, not strategy and military matters. It is best if
you confine your concerns to that area since you have lead us down this path of
desperation,” the defense minister said, his voice filled with venom. It
was clear that he did not like to be questioned.
The agriculture minister
looked at the head of the politburo and then the man sitting against the wall
behind him. The man against the wall was the head of the secret
police. He answered only to the head of the politburo and was beyond
reproach. He was not only a man to be fear, but THE man to be fear
because of his position of power. Vasily had no desire to upset the man,
and feared that if he rocked the boat too much he would meet the head of the
secret police or one of his operatives.
“Of course, I should
have known better,” Vasily said quietly. “Although the destruction of the
collective on Lapetus could not have been planned for.”
“It was the incompetent
commander that worked for you that allowed it to be destroyed,” Chen said from
his seat. Although the man had been recommended by Chen, but Vasily knew
this wasn’t the place for that conversation and let the matter drop.
“Regardless,” Chen said
shifting his gaze back to the head of the politburo. “Our forces are in a
position to pressure the UNION Navy to back down. With orders from their
new leader to back down and our Navy to their front they will have no choice
but to concede defeat or the confusion that will be caused will allow us to
crush their meager forces.
“Has anyone thought of
negotiating with the American and UNION governments for more grain production?”
The agriculture minister asked.
“Yes, it would be
preferable to a war that could damage our economy even more,” the interior
minister agreed.
“Why go beg when we can
just take,” the head of the secret police said from his seat in the back of the
room. “We would look weak, a position we should never allow ourselves to
be in.”
The room was silent as
the circle of men looked over at the agriculture and interior ministers.
The two had always been more along the same lines of thought then the defense
minister. But the two had never been able to garner more support from the
rest of the politburo. Vasily surmised that it had to do with the
incredible power that the defense minister wielded and because the rest of the
politburo was afraid to upset the powerful man.
“Yes, I can see how that
would be a problem.” The agriculture minister said.
"I see this as an
opportunity," The defense minister said from his seat. "We can
begin a build up of forces beyond the scanners of the UNION Navy," the
defense minister said. "I can cut the orders immediately and in one
stroke we can wipe out the entire UNION Navy and then move on to take over all
their food production facilities." The defense minister smiled as he
looked across the room. "Even if our operative manages to become
their King it will not matter because we will gain control of everything
through superior force of arms. By this time next year we will have
access to all the food we would ever need."
“Good then that is
settled, we will have food available soon enough. In the meantime we will
cut rations to all non-essential workers.” The head of the politburo said glad
he could have agreement between his ministers.
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