The Deep

A collection of stories by Razor Blizzard

This is a collection of stories about an area of the Milky Way known only as ‘The Deep’. 50 light-years along, and 5 light-years deep, this collection of black holes, worm holes, nebulosity’s and gas clouds is a phenomenon only safely traversed by the alien creatures known as the Toll-Kiel. No human can truly say what lies on the other side of ‘The Deep’ as no human (bar one case) has ever been any where across ‘The Deep’ besides the Toll-Kiel trading stations as human ships don’t know the paths through ‘The Deep’ and have to be transported to Toll-Kiel trading stations attached to ‘toll’ ships, Toll-Kiel ships that have connectors and hangers to accommodate human ships.

Story 1 Station Ship

Chapter 1

Through the darkness of space it glides, through a soundless vacuum it soars, through the everlasting dark night, a silver bullet flies.

Surrounded by bleepings, whirrings and flashing lights Captain Craig Tegarth sat in the raised, aft position of the Captain’s chair. He was in his element, he had previously only captained frigates and the odd capital ship or two, but to be in command of a hyper-capital, station class, starship, the Mayflower II, that was the high point of his ambitions. It was also the low point of his wallet, as the only way to captain a station ship is to scrape together funds along with the rest of the people onboard to pay for colonization rites and the ship its self.

“Captain? Captain?” Captain Tegarth heard his navigation officer calling him over the direct comm. channel. Tegarth keyed in the Navigation officer’s number

“What is it Mr Derika?” he asked

“Nothing I’ve ever seen before” navigation officer Fredric ‘Freddy’ Derika said over the comm.

“Punch it up on my display screen,” the captain asked

“Aye, aye captain” Derika said as he keyed in the captain’s screen number and sent him the image

Craig’s eyes almost fell out of his head

“What in blue blazes is that Freddy!?” Captain Craig almost shouted into his mike

“Dunno, I’ve sent copies to sciences and astro-physics, oh and to astronomy as well” the navigation officer replied

“Any result?”

“They’re totally flummoxed”

“Is there a viable planet nearby that thing?” Craig asked, according to colony parameters, at any uninhabited planet rich in resources they were to send down mining pods to gather resources to replenish stocks, if atmospheric conditions were within certain boundaries then a colonisation expedition could be sent out to start a colony

“Yup, colonisable as well, want set up shop in orbit around there?”

“Yes, I do. Set a course for planet…” here he checked the screen “…X910-45I and prepare orbit vector”

“Aye, aye captain…course laid in…and initiated”

It took three days to reach the planet, and they could easily see how good it was for colonisation, lush green lands surrounded by lighter green oceans, plains, ice caps, the works. Craig ordered an E&E (Exploration & Evaluation) team down for a look, and the results they brought back were extremely pleasing, it was almost a parallel Earth, with an excess of resources. They decided to name the planet Pewar, Parallel Earth With Abundant Resources. Captain Tegarth authorized the drop of colonists to Pewar as he began preparations to activate the main feature of a station class ship, transformation from ship to a massive, habitable, space station.

When all colonists were on the planet captain Tegarth went to the very front of the bridge, to a panel with a keypad, two hatches and a keyhole on it, the console for the transformation activation and authorization. He stepped up to the console and began the first code.

1946204-8364724-985573645

The first hatch opened, and a spiral door opened behind that, a key came out. Captain Tegarth placed the key in the keyhole, turned it 180 degrees clockwise, pushed down again and tuned it 90 degrees anti-clockwise. This opened the other hatch, a spiral door behind the hatch stayed closed. Next code.

8837264-0046380-622847092

The spiral door opened and a cylinder slid out, another cylinder then slid out of that, a plunger button. Craig depressed it and entered the final code.

9477294-4475628-605030701

As the last code was entered alarms and red lights went off

‘Alert, alert, alert. Station transformation activated, separation in thirty minutes, evacuate all decks in sectors 5-7’

That announcement sparked a mass migration from sectors 5-7 into sectors 4 and 8 as people raced to get clear; you didn’t want to be in sectors 5-7 after the 30 minutes was up. 30 minutes later two massive spiral doors sealed off sectors 5,6 and 7, and the bridge and bow section of the Mayflower II detached from the rest of the ship. Then the ship shifted into a vertical position as the kilometre long engine column split into four and locked in a new position, sticking out of the ship at 45 degrees, about a half a kilometre higher then they had been. A kilometre long communications array slid out of the bottom (stern) of the ship into the newly vacated space. From around the centre of the ship eight curved, tubular sections suspended on tubes rose up and formed a dotted ring around an area about half a kilometre away from the point where the bow section had just left. This circle would be, when completed, the bio-deck, an area that resembled a planet, with fruit bearing trees, weather and pools. The aforementioned bow section connected itself to a site about 15 kilometres below the bio-deck, this bow section now became central control, or C&C. the slider door behind C&C opened, connecting it to the rest of the Mayflower II station. The construction of the bio-deck would take another three weeks to complete, and then the bio-deck ring would be rotated to provide centrifugal gravity to the bio-deck, a different type to that of the gravity generators that were used everywhere else on the station.

“Engineering?” Captain Tegarth called via the intercom

“Yo captain,” replied chief engineer Alex Grandacos

“Alex, how are your teams doing?”

“Fine, fine, we’re setting up positioning thrusters now”

“Good, call when you’re done, bridge out.”

Two months later Captain Tegarth was sitting in his ready room when there was a call from the observation deck

“Captain, come down here quick, you gotta see this”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, come here, quickly, observation out”

Captain Tegarth hurried to the tube-lift and chose the observation deck and stood beside the officer on duty, one Cadet Andy Belloren, and looked at the object that the cadet had enlarged on a separate window

“Wow” was the one word the captain used to describe that moment

“Exactly” replied the cadet

“What is it?” asked Captain Tegarth

“As far as I can tell, it’s an alien spacecraft,” said Cadet Belloren

“Crrrrrk Captain? You’re needed in C&C; something is trying to talk to us, brid…I mean C&C out crrrrrk”

Captain Tegarth raced out of observation and took the lift to C&C

“Raise shielding to 75%, there’s an unidentified spacecraft heading our way,” the captain said as he walked through the door

“Captain, the craft is hailing us”

“Well, run what they’re saying through the translator, let me here it and open a channel to them”

“Aye captain”

When the message came through there was a collective gasp

“This is … vessel …. We request to dock with your unidentified station and meet with your governmental representative to conduct talks”

Captain Tegarth hit the reply button and spoke to the aliens

“This is Captain Craig Tegarth of the station ship Mayflower II, you are clear for docking in bay…alpha 6, welcome aboard”

“Thank you Captain Tegarth, please meet us in the docking bay to escort us to the conference room, if one is aboard”

20 minutes later, Captain Tegarth and Governor of Pewar, Amy Ballinio were standing in bay alpha 6 waiting for their mysterious guests. Upon reflection the captain thought it a bit odd that these aliens were speaking the same language as the creatures on Delta 3 in the Dyson colony, but the captain thought that it was probable that the language was a common one. The doors opened, and what a sight greeted their eyes, this alien was wearing some kind of armour, full body armour. With massive shoulder arrangements, a helmet (upon which was a crest that gave it a very roman look) and some kind of backpack, with curved wings on it. A ceremonial environmental suit thought Captain Tegarth. They led the mysterious ambassador to the conference room. He sat, and removed the helmet. Underneath, his head was a creamy white, with large, oval shaped, blue eyes, pointed back ears, long black hair that went from his scalp down to his shoulders and small fangs poking out either side of a pale-lipped mouth.

“I have come to talk with the ‘leaders’ of this colony,” he said