Future Shock, page 1
Future Shock
Future Shock I
Christopher G. Nuttall
Cover By Tan Ho Sim
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Contents
Cover Blurb
Dedication
Chapter One: TFS John Birmingham, 3625
Chapter Two: HMS Vendetta, 3625
Chapter Three: TFS John Birmingham, 3625
Chapter Four: USS Grant, 2308
Chapter Five: TFS John Birmingham/ USS Grant, 2308
Chapter Six: TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Seven: TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Eight: USS Grant/TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Nine: Marine Assault Unit/TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Ten: TFS John Birmingham/ HMS Vendetta/USS Grant, 2308
Chapter Eleven: Titan Base, 2308
Chapter Twelve: TFS Dauntless/UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Thirteen: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Fourteen: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Fifteen: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Sixteen: New York, 2308
Chapter Seventeen: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Eighteen: Earth Orbit, 2308
Chapter Nineteen: TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Twenty: HMS Vendetta, 2308
Chapter Twenty-One: Chinese Government Bunker, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Two: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Three: USS Grant, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Four: Combined Marine Training Centre, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Five: TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Six: Earth Orbit, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Combined Fleet, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Diyang-14, 2308
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Diyang-14, 2308
Chapter Thirty: Diyang-14, 2308
Chapter Thirty-One: Luna Settlement, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Two: UN Compound, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Three: Chinese Spaceport, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Four: Xian Tian, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Five: Xian Tian, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Six: USS Nimitz, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Diyang Prime, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Diyang Prime, 2308
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Diyang Prime, 2308
Chapter Forty: Diyang Prime, 2308
Epilogue
Afterword
How To Follow
Cover Blurb
A thousand years in the future, human civilisation has been driven to the brink of extinction by the Killers, a mysterious alien race seemingly intent on exterminating every other form of sentient life. Desperately fleeing utter annihilation, a handful of starships use an experimental stardrive in a bid to escape, only to find themselves thrown back in time to the dawn of the First Interstellar War in 2308, where mankind is making its first stand against an alien foe. And they are not alone.
For the time travellers, it is a chance to rewrite history, to end the war quickly with futuristic technology, speed up the development of a post-scarcity society and prepare the human race for the second inevitable encounter with genocidal aliens. For the contemporary humans, their mere arrival is devastating; future technology threatens to undermine their society, future historical records name heroes and villains alike before they make their mark, future attitudes and values challenge everything they hold dear.
With two alien enemies breathing down their necks, and the fate of humanity itself in the balance, both sides have to cooperate. But as the impact of the sudden change in history spreads, and time itself is changed beyond all recognition, the threat to humanity may come from human nature itself ...
Dedication
To John Birmingham, even though I emailed and got permission for this.
Chapter One: TFS John Birmingham, 3625
“Is this all?”
Commodore Ethan Boswell stared at the holographic display in a dismay so profound that even the regulatory implants naval personnel carried as a matter of course couldn’t keep the emotion under control. Nine starships, all that remained of the Federation Navy, a navy that had once counted its starships in the millions. Nine ships, ten if one counted the Zargana heavy cruiser holding station behind TFS John Birmingham. Nine ships ...
“If there are any others,” Doctor Rachel Boswell said quietly, “they didn’t answer the all-ships hypercom call.”
Ethan swallowed hard, refusing to look at the eHuman behind him. His wife had transcribed herself into a datacore, reducing her entire body and soul into a matrix that would – one day – be returned to a cloned human body, assuming anyone remained alive to do it. She had chosen to keep herself awake and aware, running as an independent personality within the starship’s datacore rather than losing herself in a virtual fantasy or simply freezing her thought routines to ensure she had no awareness of the passage of time, something Ethan considered a mixed blessing. He would have preferred to be able to hold his wife, no matter how selfish it would have been when thousands of other naval personnel were unable to hold their own loved ones. They would be reborn one day, he promised himself, if the fleet managed to get clear of the Killers.
Yes, his thoughts pointed out. If.
“They can’t all be gone,” he said. “They just can’t.”
But he found it all too easy to believe. John Birmingham had been too far from Earth to join the battle, the hopeless engagement between hundreds of thousands of human and allied starships and an alien fleet that was so alien it was hard to get a lock on their hulls, let alone blow them apart. Four years of fighting had taught humanity a few lessons about engaging such alien targets, but even the massed might of the Federation Navy and the colossal industrial power of the Federation hadn’t been enough to do more than slow the Killers. In the end, they’d descended on Earth, unleashing powerful weapons that slid through humanity’s defences and hulls as if they weren’t even there, tearing through a fleet that had once been the unchallenged master of the known universe. They’d been racing to the core system to join the final battle, even though he’d known it was suicide. His orders had been clear – he was to take the handful of remaining ships far from the known galaxy, each ship containing one of the all-important genetic databanks through which the human race might live again – but he’d still felt like a coward, when he’d given the order to retreat. It was the right move and yet ... he shook his head. He had watched his home die, and yet he had run, abandoning the rest of the navy to its fate.
“There’s no answer,” his wife pointed out. He looked up at her shimmering face. “We’re on our own.”
“I know,” Ethan said. “If the new stardrive doesn’t work ...”
He scowled as he turned back to his display, watching the techs put the final touches into place before the drives were activated. A standard jumpdrive couldn’t hope to get the ragtag fleet away from their merciless enemies – the Killers had proved they could follow human ships through multiple jumps – but humanity’s scientists hadn’t been idle when they’d seen proof they didn’t know everything about the limits of the possible. They hadn’t been able to duplicate the Killer stardrive – it was as alien as the rest of their technology – yet it had given them some ideas. The modified drive might just get the fleet clear long enough to rebuild, to recreate human civilisation and prepare for the next encounter. Or it might get them all killed.
His eyes lingered on the light codes marking the handful of surviving starships. The Zargana heavy cruiser was alone; realistically, Ethan was surprised the starship captain hadn’t set out to his own homeworld, in hopes of saving what he could. The Zargana had been humanity’s enemies, then its rivals, then finally allies ... of a sort. Ethan was painfully aware there were still plenty of Zargana who blamed humanity for the troubles their empire had suffered over the last two centuries, the arrival of the Killers only adding to their fury as it became clear the Killers intended to kill everyone, regardless of their race or creed. The Zargana wouldn’t have an easy time of it, when it came to rebuilding. They’d never liked the idea of uploading and storing personalities in datacores and now ... he promised himself his fleet would do everything in its power to save their allies from extinction. The human race owed it to them.
“I read the report,” Rachel said. “As long as we have the colonist-carrier, we should be able to rebuild.”
“So they say,” Ethan said. Given time, the colonist-carrier could fabricate almost anything a colony might need, from basic farming equipment to starships and weapons capable of blasting almost anything to atoms ... anything, apart from a Killer starship. The ship was designed to operate alone, to set up a colony a very long way from home ... creating housing and then inviting settlers or recreating them out of the genetic datacores. “If we don’t get clear ...”
His wife elbowed him. The hologram passed right through his skin. “We’re safe for the moment,” she said. “It isn’t over yet.”
“You always were the optimistic one,” Ethan said.
He knew she was trying to cheer him up, but ... his wife, for all her virtues, wasn’t a naval officer. She didn’t understand the sheer scale of the defeat, didn’t realise that the end was nigh ... didn’t comprehend that rebuilding even a fraction of the Federation Navy would take time they didn’t have. Sure, a ll the lost officers and civilians would live again – if they’d backed themselves up in time – but would there be any safety for them? No one knew where the Killers came from, or why there’d been no hint of contact before the first – disastrous – encounter. Some naval analysts speculated they came from the Clouds, or even a more distant galaxy. The fleet might be heading right towards their enemy’s core worlds. There was just no way to be sure. It would take centuries for his fleet to reach Andromeda. How long would it take their enemies?
His heart sank. The human race was doomed, reduced to a handful of starships and a genetic datacore that might never be decanted into a multitude of clone bodies. The other alien races humanity had encountered – some friends and allies, others enemies or simply too alien for contact to be more than perfunctory – had been slaughtered too. It didn’t seem fair. The human race had overcome its problems and built a golden age where everyone had enough to eat and drink and follow their interests ... where everyone lived long enough to experiment with a hundred different careers and lifestyles until they found one they liked, or simply keep changing to ensure the universe never grew boring. The Federation Navy had sworn to protect a towering civilisation and failed, leaving billions to be slaughtered ... billions who might never live again. If they didn’t get clear ...
“Yeah,” Rachel said. “I guess I am.”
The console bleeped. Ethan glanced at it, feeling ice gripping his heart. The fleet was a long way off the beaten track, hundreds of light-years from the nearest settled world ... a world that had been blasted to atoms now, the population mercilessly slaughtered by the Killers. There was no reason to think they could be tracked down, but they didn’t understand how the aliens travelled through space or how their sensors worked. For all he knew, one of their weird fleets of strange – utterly alien – starships was bearing down on them now, their eerie technology making them difficult to track before it was too late. The fleet was supposed to be hiding, all drives and weapons stepped down as much as possible to keep from radiating any betraying emissions ... but were they nothing more than a child covering their eyes and pretending the adults couldn’t see them? The Killers might already be closing in to finish the slaughter. His fleet was exposed ...
He allowed himself a moment of relief. A random energy flicker. Not dangerous. Not yet.
“I think we’re far too exposed,” he said, quietly. “But what else can we do?”
Rachel smiled at him. “Keep going,” she told him. “The Navy wouldn’t have told you to preserve what you could if they didn’t have faith in you.”
Ethan snorted, rudely. He was a starship commander, true, and a de facto commodore through seniority, but he wasn’t one of the dashing young officers who made the holovids through daring commando raids and dramatic engagements against alien threats. His rise in the ranks had been slow because he refused to take risks and put his crew on the line to make a name for himself. It was something he’d always seen as reckless, even with the tech edge the navy had enjoyed until their final enemy arrived. Better to be slow and steady, he’d always thought. His ship represented the navy, and he was damned if he’d act like an imprudent fool, or a trigger-happy warmonger from a distant century. He’d thought there were no alien powers that could seriously threaten his ship.
He shuddered. He’d been wrong. They had all been wrong. And the entire navy had paid the price.
“I’m all that’s left,” he pointed out, quietly. “Nine starships. There’s nothing left.”
He stood, the hatch hissing open as he stepped out of his ready room and walked along the corridor. TFS John Birmingham was a kilometre from bow to stern, tiny compared to the giant planetoids that had been the pride of the Federation Navy, and normally there was plenty of room for her crew to spread out and enjoy luxury even as they fought to defend their civilisation. Now, there were hundreds of refugees lying in makeshift beds or sitting against the bulkheads, their heads in their hands as they waited to die. The fleet had picked up as many as possible, during the desperate flight to the RV point, but there was little they could offer in the way of reassurance. It was a scene from a bygone era, with men, women and children forced to flee their homes for an uncertain fate, all too aware that staying where they were would be far worse. The Killers weren’t interested in conquest; they’d never tried to enslave the human race ... they just killed. His heart twisted painfully. The refugees would never see their homes again. Their homes – giant star-spanning rings, smaller colonies, giant starships – were gone.
A hand caught his. “When can we go home?”
Ethan looked down. The girl was young. The Federation had unlocked the secret of eternal youth long ago, and simple human vanity ensured that most humans were utterly handsome and beautiful and so striking that the ones who really wanted to stand out made themselves ugly instead, but you could always tell by looking at the eyes. The girl holding him really was young, probably no older than she looked. Old enough to know how she could change her body to suit herself, young enough to be still under parental guidance, disallowed from changing herself too far until she knew precisely what she was doing. And too young to grasp the simple fact existence as they knew it was over.
“I’m sorry, child.” Ethan felt his heart break. The girl was too young. She wasn’t a hundred years old, old enough to live a full life. She would never know the glory of living in a post-scarcity civilisation, never know the security that came with being part of a society advanced enough to defeat any potential threats. “There’s no way to go home.”
He hated himself for saying it, even as he cast his eyes up and down the corridor. Where were her parents? Had they gotten out in time? The evacuation had been a nightmare, most humans hastily downloading themselves into the datacores and transferring their patterns to his ships before it was too late. Were her parents still alive? Isolated and frozen within the datacores? Or gone, gone so completely they’d never be resurrected? Ethan had grown up in a world where death was nothing more than a temporary inconvenience, where you could be reborn from a back-up unless you deliberately chose to go onwards. That world was gone now. Her parents might be gone too.
The girl stared down at the deck. She didn’t get it, he knew. How could she? He was old enough to be her great-grandfather and he didn’t get it either, despite the coldness gripping his heart. He knew the situation was bad, knew the human race teetered on the brink of extinction ... he was torn between the part of his mind that knew it was over, that humanity had finally come to an end, and the part of him that refused to accept it. They couldn’t be doomed. They couldn’t ...
But they were.
He turned and stumbled away, making his way through the crowded corridor. Some refugees spoke quietly, trying to keep their children’s spirits up: others stared at nothing, unable to comprehend what had happened to their once-great civilisation. They were lucky the ship’s life support was over-engineered, he supposed, although it wouldn’t matter if the Killers found them. Force shields that shrugged off nuclear and antimatter warheads were completely ineffectual against alien weapons that didn’t seem to follow the laws of physics, weapons that seemed to slip through defences and hulls alike to materialise inside the target and rip it to shreds. Five years ago, his ship had been practically indestructible. Now ...
“Captain,” Doctor Caroche said, as Ethan walked past sickbay. He was a tall, dark man, inhumanly thin, with eyes modified to see in ways natural-born humans couldn’t match. It wasn’t a fashion statement. It made him a more effective doctor. “Can I have a word?”
Ethan stepped into the compartment, trying not to shudder at just how many medical beds were loaded with wounded. He wasn’t used to seeing so many people so badly injured, not when they could be loaded into stasis and regeneration tubes or simply uploaded into the datacore and decanted into a new body. The doctors could normally handle anything that wasn’t immediately lethal very quickly, with a wave of their bio-regenerative medical wands. The sight in front of him was a grim reminder his ship and crew were being pushed to the limit, a reminder it was worse on the other ships. He’d thought John Birmingham had more than enough spare capability to handle anything, but ...
