Terraformer Dreams - Chapter One (complete)

[The Zig]

_______________________

Terraformer Dreams
The Xenon Evolution


Chapter One: The Fly-Through Sector

A quiet, out-back system, light-years from the hustle and bustle of the core sectors. Spaced out around the dark empty ecliptic just four small stations. No trading post, not much of anything. A few ships trailed to and fro, mostly transporters hauling something into, out of, or usually just through the system. It was sometimes called that: a fly-through system – one of those systems you just fly through on the way somewhere. An Argon M3 carried out a lonely patrol.

On one such transporter, flying through the system, Hillios Aksandros II was watching the Teladi Business News from his sub-cockpit. His mother, the renowned industrialist Hillios Llizandross, was being interviewed. They were discussing the Teladianium market.
“The prices around the edge worlds will drop,” his mother was saying. “They must, they’re unsustainable. But the saturation, or baseline, value there will of necessity be higher than that of the...” <Yawn!>
Aksandros had been trying to take notes, his mother was sure to question him on this, but a half page of doodles showed where his attention had fallen. He was half-consciously sketching an Orikin, a nasty sea predator he’d once seen on one of the Boron edge worlds, when his attention was pulled back by a sudden change in tone.
“Of course, no one is without their problems, Hillios Llizandros,” the interviewer was saying, with a slightly mocking under-hiss. “For there is an old saying that for every decent, profit making Teladi, there is a lazy layabout offspring! Is this not so?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Llizandros answered tersely.
Aksandros winced. Please, he thought. No!
“Many are saying that you gave your children both a considerable sum of credits, but that...”
“That is true," she said. "But it was a wise investment as my daughter has built a great...”
“Sure, we have all heard good things about Hillios Kiella, but...”
“Kiella has just...”
“Indeed, but rumour has it that your son has now lost all his credits on a Nividium scam!”
“What!?” Llizandros hissed. “This is not true. Why do you...”
“The word around Eighteen Billion is that he is all but bankrupt. Is this not so?”
“You dare repeat such lies?” she was almost shouting now. “This is slander. You dare to... I thought this was a reputable station? What kind of questions are these? Hillios Aksandros II has made profit. He is a great trader. Bakazu! If you continue such scurrilous slander, your channel may find itself in some trouble. I advertise! You ask for my time to talk of the markets and then this and...”

Aksandros turned off the screen. This is bad, he thought. About as bad as it gets. Why did they have to mention him? The worst thing was that it was true, for the most part. He was no ‘great trader’, he had barely covered living expenses, let alone made profit. He'd lost almost all the credits his mother had given him in just a few tazura, not on a Nividium scam – things were not quite that bad – but the truth wasn't much better. Not to his mother. She wouldn't understand.
And now, here he was, in the edge worlds with a hold full of silicon. In the edge worlds! The very systems where silicon is produced. He'd sold all but his last shield to afford this cargo. It had been an absolute bargain, incredibly cheap, but honestly... he would be lucky to sell it all out here, let alone at profit. Especially heading outwards. Why was he headed outwards again? If he turned around to the home sectors he might become a wealthy man. He'd certainly be safer man. These edge systems were said to be rife with pirates, high-jackers, and slavers. The muscles up and down his spine pulsated nervously, causing his ridges to click. No, he told himself, turning around isn't part of the plan. He was almost there. Just two more systems. The place he had dreamed of for years, the Paranid station, just two systems away. He had to steel his nerve, it was not much further. He was almost there.
...
When the comm device beeped, Aksandros was staring out of the window lost in thought. There was a planet nearby. It was said that there was not a planet like it in the known universe. It was luminous. It was a solid planet, but it's entire atmosphere glowed a pale pinkish colour. No one knew why. They speculated that it was some atmospheric gas reacting to the unusually high UV radiation from the local star, but no-one really knew. Not for sure. Every probe they'd ever sent down there had been lost immediately. A mystery, it there sat like a big, fat marshmallow. The colour faded off at the edges where the atmosphere gave way to vacuum, and on the nearest side of the planet, Aksandros fancied he could just make out mountains – rocks poking through the murk.
The comm beeped again more loudly. He looked down at it blinking as he reached back to massage his neck. He shut his eyes. It was his mother. He took a deep breath, let it out. Slowly, he pressed the answer button.
“Hillios Aksandros the Second” his mother, Hillios Llizandros, greeted him formally. “I hope I find you well and in good profit!”
Aksandros bowed his head in response. “I am well. And how are you, great mother.”
“Tired,” his mother relaxed the formality. “Good, but business has been tiring me, Aksandros. Still, profits are good. Business is good... so life is good.”
“Good.”
“You saw my interview on TBN?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think?”
“I...”
“The interviewer was a fool,” she said. “I'm sorry he spoke of you, Aksandros, he had no right. It's...”
“It's okay.”
“They will not be getting any more of my money for adverts, the Bakatz!”
He flinched, it wasn't like his mother to use such language. “It doesn't matter. Don't lose profit over me. The rest of the interview was good.”
“I suppose,” she said.
“And it's good business for people to see you like that.”
“I know,” she acknowledged, calming visibly. “So you heard about your sister? Your twin has built her second factory. Did you know?”
“I didn't know that. That's good.”
“An Ore Mine,” she told him. “Good profit.”
“Good profit,” he agreed.
“How is your business?”
“I have a hold full of Silicon,” he told her proudly.
“Excellent!” She grinned, “There is a shortage right now in the Missile factory in Siezewell. If you go...”
“I'm...” he cut her off. “Not headed that way.”
“Yes, where are you? The signal is so poor.”
Aksandros swallowed, “I'm two systems out of 'Pilgrims Rock'.”
“Where? That sounds like a Paranid sector? You'll make more profit back in...”
“I told you before,” he snapped. “The research outpost. Remember?”
“No.”
“I did tell you, it...”
“No. Aksandros, don't!” she whined. “The Paranid science... no! I thought you'd grown out of that.”
“Grown out..?”.
“Aksandros, no. I thought we'd...”
“Mother, I'm not a businessman. You know this. I don't love credits the way you and Kiella do, I...”
“But look in the mirror Aksandros – you are not Paranid. Do you think they’ll even let you in? Teladi do not make science. Everyone knows this. It is not in our nature! We are Teladi! Ha, not scientists! It is not in our... our DNA. See: DNA! Science itself stops us. The Paranid make great science because that is their way. Teladi make great profit. That is our way! And then we buy their science with our profit,” she laughed. “That's the way!”
“But why?” He asked.
“But why?” She mimicked. “Grow up. It's just the way it is. The way things are, and the way...”
“But if you could see what I am seeing now,” he looked back to the planet with eyes wide, mouth open. The wonder, it was in his mouth, he could taste it. His mouth was dry as the void. Words were lost in it. “If...”
“I want to be proud of you, Aksandros,” His mother was telling him. “You are so smart and clever, and I know this. But how can I ever be proud of a son who cannot make profit?”
Half-dazed, he looked back at her on the monitor. A red LED started to flash beside another screen. His eyes drifted over to it.
“Profit is life blood,” she was saying. “ It is our economy that makes us...”
“No...” he said. “No!”
“Son, listen, please,” she pressed on. “I don’t want you to give up your dreams. I want you to make them happen. Turn around now and make profit, Aksandros, and... Aksandros?”
His eyes had widened even further.
“No, no, no, no, no,” he chanted, pressing buttons and checking screens. “No!”
“What is it?” She asked.
He looked straight at her.
“Xenon.”
...


Jo Slammer was arcing his Argon Nova tightly around the power plant when the distress signal sounded. It was totally unexpected. He had passed most of the day scanning transports – like he passed most duty shifts – just sitting back watching trade pass through the system.
He had learned quite a lot about trade in these systems. It was all food shipments headed out to the out-worlds, and mostly just silicon heading back in. And the odd energy shipment here and there. That was about it. Not much happened out here. There was hardly ever any trouble. Honestly, he had never heard this distress signal before. His purpose here was mainly symbolic, as a presence, a face for Terracorp. If he was honest, he was just here to keep the locals honest, to keep the pirates from moving in. He hadn't fired a shot in mazura – not outside of the simulator at least.
So the emergency beacon took him completely by surprise mid-swerve, and almost caused him to graze his left wing on one of the plant's billboards. He spun his ship within metres of impact, and pulled away from the station. He felt an adrenaline hit. Now what was going on? It was at least another four hours before his shift was over. Was that the emergency channel?
“Uhh...” He looked for the emergency reply button. “Um, hello?”
Nothing. He toggled the radio switch.
“Um..? Ah!” He pressed the red button. “Hello?”
A hissing rushed through the speakers – for a moment he mistook it for white noise.
“What? Is anyone...”
“Assssissstanccce requessssted. Pleassse assssisssst.”
'Teladi?' Jo thought. 'You're a way from home.'
“Assistance please!” it hissed.
“Sure,” Jo said. “How can I help?”
“Help me!” it said. “Xenon!”
A wave tingled through his entire body, from his heart to the tip of his fingers. Xenon. He clicked on his active scanners.
“Where? I don't see it?”
“The field in the North. The asteroids. Wait, I'll patch it though.”
“You'll what?”
“Open your Sat port.”
“My what?”
“Your Satellite receiver,” he snapped. “The green button with a 'C' symbol.”
“Huh?” Jo looked around his cockpit. Found the button. “Uh, okay, but I don't see... uhn?”
His navigation console now showed a second active-scan circle surrounding the Teladi ship.
“That... that's very clever,” he muttered.
In the far North, just on the edge of the debris field was a red dot. He brought up more information on it.
“Oh, it's okay. It's just an M. M4 class. No problem. It's headed straight for you, but transporter shields can hold off an M4 for stazurae. Just stay on course, I'll cruise over and pick him off your tail.”
The Teladi made a strange noise.
“Sorry? That didn't translate.”
“I can't. I... I sold my shields.”
“Huh? You...” Jo scanned the Teladi ship. “One 5 megawatt?! You must be..? He'll tear... We have a problem. Uh.” Jo was stumped.
“Okay. I'm heading right for you. Move to intercept.”
“Yeah, I'm heading for you fast as I can, but we don't have the speed. He'll be on you in four mizuras, I can't get there for seven.”
“Just do it,” the Teladi hissed. “I'll buy time. Just make sure your guns are hot!”
The comm channel closed. Jo shook his head – that Teladi was dead. He scanned that Teladi ship again, drifting towards him at 83 metres per second. One five megawatt shield, not a gun, not a missile. Not even a few fighter drones. Nothing. That lonely Teladi drifting towards him was dead. Using his 'Zooms' he could see that distant Xenon bearing down on its prey. 'Fancy,' he thought, 'a Xenon out here.' He tried to remember, was the nearest Xenon sector eight or nine sectors away? He checked. Seven. And yet here it was, and now there was nothing that poor, dead Teladi could do.
Nothing.
...


On his Vulture, Hillios Aksandros was doing a lot more than nothing.
“Please, please...” he was muttering under his breath. “Please.”
Desperately Aksandros was trying to wire in a device. His hands were suddenly clumsy, and simple things were taking too much time. For some reason he just couldn't thread a wire.
“I don't have time for this”
This device: very few people in space knew for sure that they actually existed, virtually no-one had one. Aksandros had paid a fortune on the black market for this, most of his inheritance. He had made a pirate very rich. This was one of the brand new, top secret Paranid cloaking devices. He had thought it would be great for heading into the far flung sectors, he could be completely safe, invisible. The problem was, he had never quite made it work. Aksandros wasn't stupid, of course he had checked it before he bought it. It did work, he knew this, it just did not work on his ship. He had tried everything, but no luck. The problem was: his ship just couldn't pump in enough power to maintain a stable field around the huge bulk of his ship. Simply put, the device was designed for fighters, the high power, low size combination made it possible. A transporter, at the opposite end of the power vs size spectrum was a serious technical challenge. He had always figured he would get around this problem somehow, sooner or later. Although until now he never had any real incentive. He looked up.
“Arrgh!” Two mizuras. He already had laser and shield power running through it, along with the enviro-suit battery. He had just routed all the extra power from comms and engines, but it was still not enough. Computer power? It was worth a try. He toggled the switches and relays. Nothing? But that was everything... Almost everything. There was one power supply left... Life support. He thought for a second. Life support... Oh, what did he have to lose? He was pretty sure that he could last three mizura without air recycling, and the heat drop shouldn't be that fast. It was just three mizuras, surely he could hold out. Did he have a choice? He re-routed the power, ignoring the emergency warnings. Suddenly the hiss of the air vents disappeared, the light faded to black. As the ship sunk into complete darkness and silence, the power through the device rose. Was it enough? The device signal clicked over to green. Yes! It worked! Aksandros felt his way blindly back toward the cockpit, which was dimly lit by the pink light from the nearby planet. The Xenon ship was less than a mizura away.
“Work,” he begged. “Please.”
...


Jo was concerned. The Teladi Vuture had just gone dark.
When the engine had died a mizura ago, he had been concerned, the ship just drifting towards him on pure momentum. Next the comms signal had died, along with the extra circle on his scanner. He couldn't get a reply. And just now the all the lights had gone off. Now he scanned it there was no sign of life. Even the life support had gone. He couldn't understand it. What had happened to the Teladi? The Xenon wasn't even in firing range. Was this some kind of new Xenon weapon? What was going on?
As he scanned the Vulture again, suddenly 'Target Destroyed' appeared on his console.
“No,” he looked up toward where the ship had been. “What?” The Xenon was still out of range, but the Teladi ship was gone. But, the back of the ship still seemed to be hanging there in the void. Was it... jumping?
“What the..?”
The tail was fading away. Had the ship jumped? But now the cockpit seemed to be appearing again, but then it too faded back to nothingness. For an instant it appeared as if the whole ship had vanished, when suddenly, a paparazzi camera-flash of white and the entire Teladi ship was visible again. Plain as day.
“Teladi Vulture,” his targeting computer informed him.
The Xenon ship bore down, almost in firing range. Jo watched as the Vulture came back to life.

It had failed. The cloak had failed. Aksandros was cursing the stars, the Paranid, the stupid Argon who couldn't make faster M3s, himself – selling shields for some two bit cloaking device – cursing everything as he struggled to get his lone five megawatt shield back on-line. Why hadn't he just bought a jumpdrive? His mind was racing, jumping randomly. Now his school, his sister, his first girlfriend, his visit to Ianamus Zura. He could feel the reality of it now. He was going to die. Really, to die. Him. He distantly noticed the air was stale, breath steaming from his mouth. The chill was severe now. His eyes stung. He watched himself putting the life support back on. That's right, echoed through his mind, I must have life support. I need life support.
“For just a little while longer,” he heard himself say.
The Xenon was closing for the kill... “Target is now in firing range.”

Jo watched on helplessly. “You'll be avenged, Teladi. I promise.”
It was such a cliché, but what else could he do?
An instant of silence passed, as all breaths were held.

The comm screen burst into life, an unfamiliar shape amidst chaos, lights and circuitry.
“This is Hzzar Qr of the Terraformer Epsilon, calling Teladi trader. Please respond.”
Jo heard it too, staring through his comms screen in disbelief.
“Please respond,” the Xenon continued. “I come in peace.”
...

----------------------------
Chapter Two - Danger is coming...

[RSDark_Angel]

Very interesting story. Builds up the tension well toward the last climax. The ending took me completely by supprise! cant wait for the next one!

[KiwiNZ]

Very good read. A lot of tension in there!

Looking forward to the next part.

[Mastery]

Very good, can't wait for chapter two.

[The Zig]

Thank you people!

Chapter Two's almost ready... maybe tonight.

[bladeuk]

Awesome i really enjoyed that, cant wait for chap 2, the end was a real good twist!

[X-Periment]

Hmm.... something unexpected happened: an allied Xenon. Good work. 9/10. Keep up the good work.

[Glumski]

Ok, now I'm translating your story. I've already opened a thread in the "Kreative Zone".
My first qestion is: Where's the sector "Pilgrims Rock"? I can't find it on any sector map.

EDIT: OK, I've finished Chapter 1 now, but I need to know, where the sector pilgrims rock is.

Greets
Glumski

[Glumski]

Sorry for the Doublepost, but this is worth an own post:
The German translation of Chapter 1.

Greets
Glumski

[Lord of Nothing]

Pilgrims rock is not actually in the game.

[The Zig]

Yeah, sorry. Pilgrims Rock was a name I made up as it just sounds kind of Paranid.

I wrote this after X2, before X3, the X-Universe seemed to be expanding. I imagined this in one of the strings of sectors somewhere around Black Hole Sun. However, due to the sectors that emerge later in the story, there were no actual in-game locations that worked. As such, I kept the setting vague, and made up a little local geography.

Edit:
Oh... and good stuff on the translation. Wow!

[Glumski]

OK, I thought, that Pilgrims Rock isn't an original sector.
And that the Xenon sectors don't exist in the vanilla game is absolutely clear!
Tranlating is fun!
Maybe I'll finish C2 tomorrow, it is longer than C1.
Thanks for your great story!
Greets
Glumski

[Glumski]

Hello, The Zig, here is the first comment about C1 (German). It's written by Teladi Profit:

The Teladi names consist of three pieces and not of two.
[note of the tranlator]1. name: grandmother; 2. name: mother; 3. name: first name[/nott]

Furthermore the clue: The Xenon don't speak like human beings / Argons.
[nott]And they don't do that in your story...[/nott]

Here's the link to the original post: click me

Greets
Glumski

[The Zig]

Yeah,
Reading that, I can see that my German isn't good. I can just about follow that thread. Kind of...
I'm sorry, I really wish I could understand German better, but my efforts are all going into Japanese.



As for "the Xenon don't speak like Argon"... I agree, but...

I don't speak "computer". But if I study computer communication for a while, then build myself a tool specifically for this purpose, I'm sure I could build something that could transform my message appropriately.
As a more specific example, my language is nothing like the "language" Egosoft's server "understands". But through the computer I built, I can quite easily post here.


If the Xenon wanted to communicate with Argon, they could. There is more than enough radio chatter for them to analyse linguistically, plus whatever language knowledge they inherited from the Terrans. And judging by their ships, I don't think building a speaker or two would be vastly beyond their technology!

[KiwiNZ]

Look at that Zig. He is still around. Good to see you mate. And good on you regarding your explanation of ways of speech. Glumski, don't let yourself deter from some silly pedants. There is a reason why I never post on the German forum (despite actually being German). Good effort with the translation. Zig's story is great and well worth being made available for a greater audience. There will naturally be people who think they are too smart to enjoy reading it. Though, that shouldn't put you off continuing your efforts.

[Glumski]

Thanks, KiwiNZ!
Unfortunetly I have not much time, so I can't continue translating for a longer time. Maybe I can continue in the holidays (3.04-19.04).
Greets from Germany
Glumski