Farnhams Legend: Chapter 1 and translation status Jan 2004

[KiwiNZ]

Hi everybody.

As Helge mentioned in his Nopileos thread, there has been some progress on the translation of his first book to the X series, Farnhams Legend. In a common effort of a few people of the X community, we are trying to translate it from German to English. The raw translations are then being re-written by Steve Miller, who many of you may know through his Rogue Series, which is an exceptionally good read itself!

Out of 26+2 chapters, we are now at a point where 19+1 have been translated and some of those already re-written in a first version. So yay, we are closing in on the end but there is still plenty of work to be done. So while we are at it, I'd like to thank ALL who have contributed to this project so far and still do. They all do it purely out of enthusiasm in their own spare time. THANKS GUYS!.

October 2003 I posted the Prologue of Farnhams Legend and (if the forum lets me do it) this time you shall see the first re-write of Chapter 1.

Enjoy.


Chapter 1

“Never before so beautiful, n’er a blue so heavenly, n’er the clouds so gossamer, n’er the air so sweet nor my senses so intoxicated, so overwhelmed. Earth, the only place we will call home, no matter where we go or how far we travel. Permit harm to befall our planet?

Never.”

Dr. Elain Sutton

Logbook of the Winterblossom



John Friedman relaxed into the cockpit gravity seat and watched the unwavering stars, thinking. With the propulsion system switched off, only slight movement of the closer solar bodies hinted at the record-shattering speed of the heavy salvage vessel racing across the empty distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

Without stirring, Friedman stole a side-long glance at his companion in the second seat. Ayse McCallum lay back in the same relaxed position, also lost in thought, her dark eyes staring into infinity.

The dying flash of a micro-meteorite impacting on the shields snapped his attention back to the stars and his mind returned to the conundrum invoked by their velocity.

The Einstein Twin Paradox.

He knew the theory, but the fact that this journey of nine days would be significantly longer from the reference-point of their slower-travelling colleagues aboard the Eldridge was, and he could think of no better scientific term, weird.

A flashing indicator on the comm system pulled him back into focus.

"Rii-4, come in. Come in, over."

It was Joseph Schwartz from Mission Control aboard the Eldridge, his voice distorted by a slight signal echo. Reception was still slightly out of phase, despite the new software filters.

"Hi there Joe, Rii-4 receiving, over," he replied, cutting across Ayse, who was just about to respond. With a shrug of her shoulders and an apologetic smile she returned her attention to her panels.

After a twelve second distance delay the reply came in.

"Okay, Rii-4, telemetry analysis complete. Your mass, vector and speed have been calculated to a few dozen decimal points. We can guide you to your baby blindfolded and we’ve computed down to the last joule how much energy will be required for deceleration. It’s not a small amount either John. Data upload complete. Eldridge over and out."

"Understood, Eldridge."

Friedman stifled a flippant comment that Schwartz would certainly not understand, realising it was the wrong moment.

“Rii-4, out.”

Ayse was already studying the new flight-path projected onto the HUD.

The course of the Rii-4 and the target were each represented by two long straight lines, a coloured triangle delineating each vessel. The courses were converging, now only a few thousand kilometres apart. They would reach the Intercept Point within hours, assuming they had sufficient energy to match speeds.

She did not need a computer to tell her it was going to be very close.

"Look at the mass and dimensions, John," she said, indicating the tiny digits affixed to the red triangular target designator, her stomach twisting as she absorbed the implications.

Friedman nodded slowly.

"I see them, I wish we had a visual."

Ayse covered her face with her hands and took a deep breath.

"It’s a space ship, John, and not one of ours."

"That’s not news, Ayse. Keep focused."

She nodded and cleared the HUD with a slow wave of her hand.

She had not mentioned her fears to anyone during the weeks of training or the extensive mission briefing, silenced by the trauma inflicted on humanity and passed down through the generations.

Some thoughts were just too terrifying.

The last hours before contact passed slowly, the computer implementing the course corrections and retro burns needed to match course and velocity with the Unknown.

Ayse and John watched the energy reserves fall in silence. Everything had been said, what facts there were, they knew.

Eleven months previously, automated observatories on several asteroids on the outskirts of the solar system detected a massive disruption of the space-time continuum, accompanied by a hard radiation burst emanating from a single light source.

The Oort Cloud, the band beyond the planets where comets swarm like mosquitoes, had a new visitor.

The position was easily triangulated and a course extrapolated. Mass Detectors, quietly diverted from astronomical duties, tracked the path of the unidentified contact as it plunged in through the solar system from deep space.

Unnoticed by commercial space stations, the object was on an intercept course with the QUASI Experimental Installation, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. This fact alone was enough to cause significant alarm in government and military circles.

The UFO, almost certainly an alien space ship, posed a potential threat and was not responding to hails.

Within weeks it increased velocity and continued accelerating.

A diplomatic mission was dispatched but what appeared to be a major explosion brought the acceleration to a halt. Orbital telescopes indicated several pieces had broken off from the main body, which was now tumbling in space, rotating along several axes but still on course for the QUASI Station.

The mission of the crew of Rii-4 was simple. Slow the UFO down and salvage what you can.

Simple but for several unknowns:

Would the alien ship permit salvage attempts?

Was salvage possible at all?

Was it crewed? Were there any survivors? If so, would the aliens be friendly or hostile?

Or was it something completely different?

Their orders were deceptively simple.

Stage One - observe and analyse from a safe distance, transmit
a live data-feed to the "Eldridge".

Only approach and attempt salvage if everything looked safe. Stage Two.

As the salvage vessel neared the IP the intruder could barely be seen with the naked eye. The matt hull swallowed the pallid light of distant Sol, its presence hinted at by the occlusion of stars.

Only in the last few klicks, while John concentrated on the final, manual course adjustments, slowing the Rii-4 to 50 kph relative, could Ayse make out any detail, even with vision enhancers at maximum.

"Looks like they’ve suffered a catastrophic failure." John blinked and tried to focus on the brightened-up image on the main view-screen. The sensors were registering weak energy signatures.

“Active emergency systems?”

“Possibly,” Ayse murmured. “The shape, you know, it could be a shuttle. " She paused and focused the scan.

"Hey, check this John. Looks like something is missing back there."

The UFO was close enough now to reveal a compact aero-dynamic design. A barely visible shadow, extruding centrally from the main body may have been an aerofoil, indicating an atmospheric capability.

This was confirmed as the unknown craft rotated slowly, revealing a jagged edge stump where a second wing could have been.

"What in hell is an atmospheric shuttle doing in deep space?"
Ayse wondered.

She could think of no explanation.

As if reading her mind, John looked at her.

"This doesn’t really make any sense, does it?"

Ayse shook her head vigorously.

"That thing is atmosphere-capable, or was anyway. So what’s it doing here and how did it get here in the first place?"

"No idea,” Freidman replied. “It’s disabled now."

As the UFO tumbled the stern came into view, unveiling more destruction.

The propulsion section was completely destroyed. Close up scans of the shattered stern showed melted material on the inner chamber, drops of a dark, metallic alloy, frozen in the moment of disaster, protruded like stalactites into the freezing vacuum.

The hull itself looked like it had both melted and fractured in places, like a plastic plate placed on a hot stove and then plunged into cold water. Apart from the jagged edges of the torn wing stump there were no remaining straight edges, giving the ship a disturbingly organic look, as if it were alive.

It was an unsettling thought and one John discarded with an involuntary shudder and a joke.

"As Kyle would probably say, get a load of that flying turd!"

Ayse laughed, it sounded forced.

"Yes, probably."

"What do you think?" John asked after a short while.

Her answer was short,

"Stage Two," but she did ask for his opinion.

The Eldridge reluctantly agreed and with delicate bursts of the lateral thrusters John moved the Rii-4 closer to the gyrating alien ship and held steady at 10 meters.

Little more detail appeared, there simply wasn’t enough light this deep into the solar system and Ayse was reluctant to activate the spots in case that was taken as a hostile act. But there were no signs of survivors and they did, after all, intend to halt its rotation with an electro-magnetic field prior to salvage.

That would hardly pass un-noticed, lights or no lights.

John concurred with her reasoning. Setting the exterior spots to low intensity she illuminated the alien ship and emboldened by the lack of reaction she increased the brightness until for the first time they could see the ship in detail.

It looked surprisingly small, no more than 20 meters in length, give or take a few lost in the accident. The low albedo black alloy covered about two thirds of the hull, from the bow back to what may have been the section housing the destroyed propulsion system and possibly, John hypothesized, a magnetic M/AM storage tank, or an equivalent.

He quickly discarded that idea. A Matter/Anti-matter accident would have vapourised the ship in an explosion visible from Earth, in daylight.

No, whatever destroyed this ship was far less destructive.

Ayse continued to study the object, gripped by the feeling that something was wrong and unable to put words to her fear.

A craft of a type normally used for orbital transport found in deep space, travelling at near light speed?

For a moment her thoughts went back to Earth and the entrancing vision of the blue planet from space. It was a sight she’d witnessed on a hundred shuttle trips and every time yearned for more.

"John ..." she started, her tongue suddenly large in her mouth.

"John, there aren’t any viewports or windows, not even a cockpit!"

Friedman frowned and shrugged his shoulders.

"You’re right but I’m not sure what you’re driving ... holy shit!"

Ayse sat rooted in fear, a wave of horror flooding her body as the under-side of the rotating ship tumbled into view, revealing a large symbol emblazoned onto the light-swallowing alloy.

A simple drawing, a few distinct lines. Almost child-like.

The symbol of the Terraformer Fleet.

John instantly activated the shields and fought the temptation to start the engines of the Rii-4 and back off.

No need to panic, the possibility of an encounter with the most feared enemy of humanity had been touched on in training.

Briefly.

Worst-case scenarios - no-one actually expected them to happen.

Taking a deep breath he made an effort to relax and assess the situation. Okay, it may be a Terraformer ship but it was severely damaged and appeared non-functional.

It was crucial that they remained with the object and finished the mission as planned.

Now more than ever.

At all costs they needed to find out where the ship had come from, if it actually was capable of inter-stellar travel without jump-gates, and, most importantly, what it was up to.

Worst case scenario? A scout for a huge fleet of the Terraformers coming to finish off what they started five centuries ago and extinguish humanity for good.

"It is disabled, isn't it?" Ayse asked, seeking re-assurance. John did not answer, understanding her fear. It was a fear whose roots were deep.

Simultaneously they sealed their helmets and fought fear with outward calm. Her voice firm and in control as she briefed the Eldridge, John, by-the-book methodical as he prepared the electromagnetic impulse decelerator.

The device would scramble and fry the electronics of any ship whose components were not shielded to military specifications. Hopefully the same applied to alien vessels. The Terraformer ship was heavily damaged and inactive – the odds on an unpleasant surprise were long.

He hoped.

The Eldridge gave the go-ahead and Ayse held her breath as the magnetic fields of the impulse decelerator seized the Terraformer craft.

Imperceptibly at first and over long minutes, the rotation slowed.

Ayse focused on the consequences of their discovery.

And in the centre of her thoughts was her partner, Gisbert, a marine biologist, down in the submarine plantations of the Pacific Ocean, where he belonged.

She hoped being apart for so long wasn’t too painful for him, but he was an emotional person and a romantic.

This discovery, she knew, meant she would not be returning to Earth anytime soon. He would find that hard but she realised she would not.

She loved Gisbert so much but if there was something threatening Earth, something threatening him, her place was up here, doing something about it.

He probably would not understand, he might even question her commitment but she had made her decision. She would stay with the USC, even if it drove a wedge between them. In space was the only place she could make a difference.

Ayse wondered if John had similar thoughts but for the moment he was completely focused on the controls of the impulse decelerator as he fought to stop the rotation to allow the salvage clamps to get a purchase.

That took only five minutes, and further millions of kilometres in the wrong direction.

The damaged vessel had stopped rotating and hung, apparently motionless in front of the Rii-4, leaving the two pilots staring at one half of the Terraformer insignia.

It was a symbol that used to be a sign for prosperity, for a new beginning.

Now all it conjured was terror and repugnance.

The Rii-4 juddered as the big salvage clamps snaked from the bow, lending it a grotesque appearance.

The clamps were on the same axis as the propulsion system of the Rii-4, allowing the ship to move salvaged objects by pushing rather than towing them. In less serious situations Ayse referred to this as the 'octopus manoeuvre'. This time, however, she did not feel like joking. The alien ship was too terrifying.

The Rii-4 could grasp ships and stations of up 50 metres circumference, maybe more, depending on the shape and centre of gravity. That would be more than sufficient.

A brief blue flare indicated the shields had been deactivated. Almost reluctantly she watched the tentacles wrap around the body of the Terraformer ship and pull it close, like a mother reclaiming her lost child.

Gisbert. One day they planned to have their own children.

Her nape hairs rose as the sensors registered a rapid increase in Terraformer energy output, from zero to the terra-watt scale in seconds. An electric blue beam arced through the salvage clamps, a hot knife through soft butter.

''Computer, shields!'' Ayse yelled as John powered up the propulsion system.

The beam slashed a deep scar in the nose of the Rii-4, as fast and precise as a scalpel in the hands of an insane surgeon. The terrible roar of escaping oxygen drowned the alarms as the laser sliced into the cockpit.

Their closed visors saved them from asphyxiation long enough for their internal air supply to cut in but it was already too late. The bow and cockpit absorbed the brunt of the attack but the blinding coronal discharge seared through their terror-clenched eyelids, searing their retinas.

Belatedly the thrusters came on-line and the salvage vessel began to turn, slowly, then quick enough to force the crew back into their seats.

Torn by relief and panic Ayse prayed for deliverance from this place, this machine, but as the ship turned it impaled itself further on the beam forcing it deep into the hull, slicing towards the reactor.

''Gisbert!'' A last desperate scream she barely finished.

The Eldridge found only wreckage, a few fragments drifting through space. The Terraformer ship fared little better, broken into two big and several small and easily salvageable fragments that posed no further threat.

They would be taken to Earth for further investigation.

At the same time, far away on Earth, a young man in an aqua-suit sat on a solitary rock in the empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean, staring into a blood-red sunset.

It came from nowhere, a sudden fear that gripped with the cold certainty of premonition, leaving him burned out and empty in the fading light.

A single tear ran down his cheek.

''Ayse,” he whispered, “I miss you so much.”

He stood up and, as night swept over the rock, slipped into the ocean.

[Met]

Will the english version of "Farnhams Legend" actually be sold in stores or just provided via download?

Met, collecting all about X

[KiwiNZ]

That has not been decided yet. There are various options, i.e. print, free download, e-book etc..

First we will have to get closer to the end of the translation before we will stress about that

[Met]

That has not been decided yet. There are various options, i.e. print, free download, e-book etc..

First we will have to get closer to the end of the translation before we will stress about that

OK *hehe* many thanks

Met, patience is a virtue

[Witchking]

Great work KwiNZ, Steve and of course Helge. signing off now for what I know will be a great read...cheers



Edit: rushes breathlessly back online 20 minutes later.......

What a great story.....when's Chapter 2 comming, more please!!!!

[Moss]

Seems it won't be too long before we're able to read the whole story .

Thanks for the update and preview Kiwi, very good work, and well done to all involved.

[thrangar]

Whoooohooooo A light in the middle of the bleak and blackest nightmare!


Thank you KwiNZ ,Steve, and Helge

[General Morphit]

Wow, i just gave me a quick reread of the prologue, this is excellent so far I've always wanted to read farnhams legend. So thanks to all the team and keep it up, your doing a great job.

So, you finished rough translation of 20 chapters out of 28, yes? How long has this taken you all?

[KiwiNZ]

I could be wrong but I think I started with the prologue almost a year ago or so. But that was when I foolishly believed I could translate it on my own. Then Helge organised a few people who were going to translate it and we continued in communal effort.

[Steel]

Steel

[Al]

Good stuff! Now I can see why folks have been talking about this! CAnt wait for more.

Al

[Mercenary]

Cheers KiwiNZ,

Great job all, and looking forward to reading the full story..

[SteveMill]

It has been re-written up to Chapter 4 so far. I get them in a straight translation from German and which I then comprehensively rewrite into readable sci-fi. It can take a full weekend's work to produce something good enough to pass muster so there's a long way to go yet.

I'm working on Chapter 5 at the moment - if this is being published on a weekly basis perhaps it'll encourage me to prioritise it higher.

Anyway - can't this be made a sticky so we don't have to keep bumping it?

[Al]

Just out of interest, do you submit your re-written versions for approval by Helge?

Al

[SteveMill]

Just out of interest, do you submit your re-written versions for approval by Helge?

Al

I send them to K who sends them to H. It's often quite difficult to get a sense of what's going on from the first translation so i'm sure there'll be things i've got wrong.

[KiwiNZ]

bump

[SteveMill]

bump

echoed.

[KiwiNZ]

bump

we are currently progressing in leaps!

next update and chapter 2 will be posted end of Feb!

[pixel]

Great Stuff