The Silence of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (book recommendations website txt) 📕

GH306 had recently been promoted to commander of a squadron that was busy protecting the Asteroid Belt that lay between the inner and outer planets of the solar system.

It was located between Mars and Jupiter, and the ships guarded this area all too closely. Of course, there were no serious problems since Earth had regular membership in the so-called Galactic Federation. But sometimes uninvited guests were not lacking, so this time all available forces in the area were brought to heel.

The Ervanans, a parasitic and predatory race, had allowed themselves such intrusion without regard for the current galactic laws. They had entered these territories for a very specific purpose. Incidentally, it was proper to point out that very few of these celestial bodies were of any serious size - most asteroids were relatively sparsely distributed across the cosmic expanse - such was Ceres, for example.

It was there that the Ervanans decided to land temporarily - they knew they would be hard to spot if they did so here.

Their stay was relatively short and they sent scout ships beyond the Asteroid Belt - in the direction of Pluto. They had studied the capabilities of the Earth Federation, but even they did not know the capabilities of Korolan Bru.

That was exactly why they had been defeated most ingloriously. GH306 had made a very sneaky and ruthless ambush and dropped many atomic bombs on the enemy ships. The Ervanans, though technologically more advanced, had not expected such serious resistance. They had not appeared in this part of the Galaxy since.

 - "This plague has not been eradicated," GH306 pronounced with fervor, not because he had emotions, but because he was genetically programmed to do so, "They will return sometime, whether these or some others. We must protect the Earth."

The Earth fleet was under the direct command of a small group of specialists who could communicate with them via telepathy[1], but not too often. They only whispered the right thoughts to them if any of them strayed too far in their emotional susceptibility. This naturally caused them distress. A tremendous pain that was locked somewhere deep inside them. They didn't dare share about it all because the punishment was only one - instant death.

The Earth Federation did not care about their loss - not because it was not somewhat dependent on them itself, but because it intended to capture the critical number of displaced people who would provide it with the resources it needed in its further development.

Yet someone had missed the presence of errors in their cloning process.

Sometimes clones had memories of their donor's previous lives - vague traces of some unexpressed pain, a rebellion against the nature of life - of real life. Yes, they had some semblance of free will, but it was not intended by their creators to be human-like in any real sense.

The various Earthling ships had certain functions - some of them served as liaisons to the Mars robots and clones that operated them.

Other ships were of the Destroyer class - similar to those of Zegandaria, but their structure was vastly different. Earthlings still used composite alloys and nanomaterials. Instead, the inhabitants of Zegandaria emphasized kevlarite and silicon aronault, which were unknown to their Earth counterparts.

The most important function, however, was that of interceptor ships, on which the outcome of combat often depended.

It should be mentioned here that the Earth fleet was the real threat that loomed over many other civilizations - only they had no idea how little they needed to be wiped out.

The Earthmen were too cunning and cleverly simulated an excellent glide on the razor's edge. They knew they could easily be attacked by everyone else, and they hadn't gathered enough forces yet.

A clone made his decisions as if in another world - unbridled by scruples. Given the fact that he was going to die too soon, at about thirty-five or thirty-six, the prospect of having his name placed on a memorial plaque that would last through the ages aroused some enthusiasm in him.

The more they looked at their warped selves, they clearly saw all their moral and life degeneracy, but it was masked in a way that could be presented as socially useful. Even more, because of their role as cannon fodder, they had to be presented as something refined and almost aristocratic. That was how the system worked.

It was also not to be overlooked that many dangerous areas in the Kuiper Belt, including the dwarf planets of Haumea[2] and Makemake, were uncultivated according to the understanding of the super-powerful Korolan Bru Corporation. From an economic standpoint, they represented an appetizing morsel that could be bitten off relatively easily. Nor was it a technical problem that could not be overcome.

Haumea was a beautiful silvery world that could have been an excellent opportunity to move Cerberus' outpost to a place where resource extraction could actually be combined with warfare. There was frankly some irony in the fact that its surface temperature was less than 50 kelvin , which put it in roughly the same bracket as other relatively nearby dwarf planets, but the raw material extraction would have been enough to support a small settlement of about two hundred military personnel and a few interceptor ships that would have been the eyes and ears of the Earth Federation.

Also gravitating around Haumea were her two companions, Nimaka and Hyaka, named after the children of the fertility goddess in question.

But Galactic laws were in effect here to limit and deter cosmic aggression. There was also a serious problem. The humans still remembered the humiliation they had inflicted on the Ervanans and allowed for the possibility that sooner or later they would return.

The only one who actually remembered, and wished to remain etched in his memory, was the impressive performance of Or Suv Res, the commanding admiral of the Ervanan fleet, was the clone in question.

The Ervanans had been ordered to refrain from direct attack in order to better study the capabilities of this race. And they strictly adhered to that. Of course, the victory of GH306 was not to be downplayed.

They weren't aware of how technologically advanced they were during that time, nor how many bad memories they were feeding from their last encounter. The fact was that their defeat was the most overwhelming space military victory ever sustained by Earthlings. There was an electronic memorial plaque on Earth that could read the following, above and below:

"Clone GH306 boldly entered combat with Ervanan forces near the Asteroid Belt. He had used the 'sack' technique to his advantage, with which he surrounded and destroyed the enemy ships, still letting their commander Or Suv Res slip away! We do not know the exact numbers of the enemy, but witnesses to the battle state that the number of ships was over two thousand, strange as it may sound. They had long been secretly patrolling, and guarding, in a state of free hanging, some key points of this region. We assumed that the ingenious GH306 would get re-promoted, as the United Earth Fleet forces needed such heroes! Once again we bow to the sacrifices made in this colossal battle!"

Further on, the caption was strangely unreadable. Perhaps the command had seen fit to delete some unpalatable facts about their own losses, or simply to embellish their truly remarkable victory by refraining from sharing further information about the details of the battle.

[1] Telepathy (Greek: τηλε, meaning "long distance"; and Greek: πάθεια "feeling") is a parapsychological phenomenon - the transmission of thoughts and feelings between people over long distances without the use of technical means.

[2] The asteroid Haumea is named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, Haumea.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: METEORITE HUNTING

Hunting meteorites is romantic, but also dangerous. Gerard Downs was gone ingloriously, and I had been warned by Rento of the great danger that loomed over me. Of course, I had taken Enbright's men for a real threat long ago. They had an interest in my death for a number of reasons.

After our last adventure, I soon received clear indications that my time was numbered right by them.Perhaps, I, Jervond Om San, had neglected to mention some essential details of our daily life on Charon - it was far from consisting solely of sleeping, working, or even guarding our ridiculously small colony. There were quite a few other factors that had to be taken into account. The space hooligans were aggressive, but they couldn't really run the colony on their own - either because of their lack of knowledge and skill, or their own narrow-mindedness.

The misfits gathered around Enbright had a certain sense of importance when they were around such a prominent and distinguished thug - though many had long prayed that McDougle would simply go away, either from natural death or some other cause.

Perhaps fate heard their pleas and did indeed answer - and in time.

The problem was that the real source of funding for Enbright's group, was Zerilia Cox, who was also dead. They were running an illegal gambling operation that was dripping something. Anyone who didn't have currency, either Earth Ents or Galactic Federation e-credits, which probably vaguely resembled our own, that was in exchange on Zegandaria, paid otherwise. And no one complained. The problem was, amidst having the Unspeakables strike so unexpectedly before my friend Jake's death, the whole gamble came to naught, as Enbright's real goal was thought to be to raise enough funds to get out of "that hole," as he affectionately called Charon.

But not to go into unnecessary detail, as not everyone would have the patience to go into every detail.

It would be proper, however, to mention some details of the type of gambling activity they were developing. On Zegandaria they played "Entosu" and so on, but here there were no conditions for these games.

It was played on a huge field - roughly a metre and twenty by Earth standards. Each of the four players had life cards, which they paid for with their own blood, in cases where they couldn't even pay with food. In the course of the game, a veritable space war was waged on the colony, played to the last survivor, who was usually one of Enbright's men. There were also cases of people dying from excessive gambling. But Enbright was shrewd and tried to avoid this scenario, which incidentally also hurt his business reputation. When the game was lost, the delinquent was obliged to surrender his life to Enbright and his men. The shrewd business guru resold his wares secretly to other nearby human settlers. But we learned about that much, much later.

We didn't have the resources to organize a police force to deal with all his transgressions, since the yields from the space greenhouses were barely enough for us, and there was no point.

The late Zerilia Cox also became aware of her partner's greedy nature and soon backed off. Rumor had it that Enbright was preparing to physically remove her and pass the blame to the Unsullied.

But these creatures thwarted his attempts to do so.

I was in one of the main buildings of our colony. When building on