I am sorry it's taken so long to continue this collection, but I am back now. I hope you enjoy reading this collection. As usual, I do not own Space 1999, but I love having fun with it.
As usual, please feel free to leave feedback.
The Drift.
"Station 2 controller, to Eagle 5…you are cleared for landing at Utopia Planitia city pad."
Erin nodded. "Roger that, landing now."
As she flew to the pad, slowing her Eagle down before she cut power to the rocket motors, Erin took a moment to look out at the plain of Mars through the port shields which separated her breathable atmosphere from the unbreathable atmosphere of Mars's atmosphere. The planet was still barren, but since the terraformation experiments were still going on to make a suitable home for the majority of the human race despite the lack of sufficient resources, Erin knew it would take time before the planet became green.
Erin knew it would take decades before the human race had developed the means to properly terraform Mars and Venus, but with all of humanity's resources dedicated to repairing the damage caused when the moon was mysteriously blasted off into space, upsetting the gravitational influence, it was remarkable there were even humans here at all.
The Eagle shook as it made the touchdown on the landing pad, and Erin got out of her seat and stood up before she used her commlock to open the doors before she went to the airlock. After making sure the atmosphere of the boarding tube was equal with that of the Eagle, Erin opened the doors.
On the other side was her friend, Jenna Fewsham. The two hugged.
"Erin, it's great to see you," Jenna grinned.
"I know, Jenna. It's good to be back, especially out of that damn Eagle. I swear, I'm just relieved they've made spacecraft with solar sails now, but the travel time still needs work," Erin complained making Jenna look at her sympathetically.
"It's been going on for twenty-one years, Erin," Jenna said as they went off. "By the way, is there any news?"
Erin was silent as she thought about the news she had. Jenna was a scientist as well as a doctor, and one of her uncles had been one of those who had been on Moonbase Alpha before the moon was blasted out into space. The incident had inspired the young Jenna, who had managed to survive the resultant cataclysm that had afflicted Earth, to train up and head into space. Erin and Jenna had both met while they had been at the Academy which had seen a greater rise in importance as the human race came to accept that Commissioner Simmonds' statements about humanity's future existed in space were correct since there was no future on the husk that was once Earth.
It was ironic, really; for years Simmonds had argued for projects like the Metaprobe and other exploratory missions while U.N representatives and members of the Council had claimed the cost was incredibly high, but now humanity was hanging on by threads, everyone was saying they needed to go into space. Erin and Jenna were just two people in a growing number of people who were taking their first steps to leave Earth because they simply had nothing to lose since Earth had lost so much as a result of the Devastation. But while Erin had moved into the piloting side of the Space Commission, Jenna had gone into science and medicine. Both of them were veterans of the outer and inner exploration missions which had been demanded in order to find new resources and potential habitat sites for human living before their assignments had changed. Jenna's position put her directly on the command staff of one of the Martian colonies.
A smile spread over Erin's face as the news settled in her mind. "You mean Interstellar One?" she asked.
"Yeah, don't keep me waiting!" Jenna grouched.
Erin giggled. "It's going ahead," she whispered, placing a finger to her lips and making a shh sound. "I've got to tell Controller Bryant and the rest of the Martian colonies. And, I've got to tell them something else."
"It's going forward?" Jenna whispered. "And what else?"
"Yeah, but I'll tell you the rest in Main Mission," Erin replied, a brief look of unease on her face before she resumed her walk towards Main Mission. They walked past a number of robots on the way to Main Mission before Jenna spoke again.
"When will the launch take place?"
"A while from now. For the time being, they are just assembling the right group to board the ship, and then go out into space. There's also talk of preparing two more Interstellar ships."
"Two?"
"Yeah, but nothing has been substantiated."
Jenna's voice was quiet as she realised something. "With the Queller drive?"
Erin's voice was just as quiet. "I'm afraid so."
The Queller drive was seen as a necessary evil nowadays, but since it was the only way for long-range interstellar flight unless one of the numerous laboratories and workshops discovered a more advanced, less dangerous and more versatile form of propulsion, the Queller drive was all they had.
Named after its inventor, Ernst Queller, the drive spewed out fast neutrons that collided with one another, generating thrust. As a drive, it worked wonders for it allowed space travel although it was just below light speed.
Unfortunately, the dangers of the drive were clear. You could use it to send probes out deeper into space, but stand in front of a Queller drive, and you were dead. You could also hide in shelter miles underground, and it wouldn't make a difference. Many people had died because of the drive, and as a result of the outcry of its use it had been banned. However, in these times things were desperate, and desperate times called for increasingly desperate measures.
Both Jenna and Erin understood, of course, the need to use the Queller drive. Indeed, nowadays probes sent out powered initially by rocket fuel and solar sails were directed under computer control to the edge of the solar system, and the Queller drives on them would send them out into space. Fusion power derived from the use of Helium 3 offered a superior form of space propulsion, but since there were no major habitats or mining outposts near Jupiter, they had no way of getting the gas while experiments showed the promise behind it.
Thanks to the Queller drive driven probes, they had found and photographed several habitable planets light-years away. Thanks to the Queller drive, the probes had arrived near Alpha and Proxima Centauri. There were plans to colonise the planets while sending out another towards the Meta system which had shown signs of being inhabited around the time the moon was lost, while it was hoped another expedition would travel to Ultra that had been discovered long before but had never been explored by humans.
Jenna shook her head irritably. "What is taking them so long? Why can't they develop a faster than light drive that is many times better than the Queller drive?"
Erin sighed. She had heard all of this before. "Experiments are taking place all the time," she reminded her friend, knowing why Jenna was unhappy by the prospect of being inside a cryogenic unit while their ship was being propelled by a bastardised nuclear reactor.
"Not soon enough," Jenna shook her head, but then she sighed. "Come on, let's get to Main Mission."
XXX
Just do it, it's for the Greater Good of the human race I do this; yes, many people will be killed in the ensuing fighting, but it will be worthwhile in the long term, the man thought to himself while he sat inside a darkened room somewhere in the solar system, sitting in front of a bank of consoles.
Finally, he touched a control, and a clock started to tick.
The man leaned back in his seat and he sighed. "It's for the Greater Good," he whispered to himself before he slipped something from underneath his tunic, a Christian cross. "Lord, forgive me," he kissed the cross.
XXX
In the meeting room of Main Mission, Erin looked around the large circular table while Commander Daniels presided over the meeting. Daniels was a tall man with greying brown hair that was immaculately styled. Daniels, like the majority of Main Mission control, was an experienced veteran in space exploration, and it showed in his expression that was weighed out by his calm manner.
"As you all know, Erin has returned from Earth with important news. Erin," he said, waving a hand.
Erin leaned forward, scanning each person sitting at the table. "I will just say it; in another ten years or so, the first fleet of colony ships will be leaving our solar system and colonise worlds closest to Earth."
Everyone around the table looked at each other in surprise by the news.
"That's a bit of a rush, isn't it?" someone asked seriously.
"Yeah, we've barely managed to colonise our own system; what hope do we have with another?"
"It's not as simple as rushing forward with building an ambitious colony," Erin shook her head. "For the last two decades, resources on Earth have been stretched thin. The colonisation of Mars following the loss of the moon took over fifteen years to put into effect while the city-domes on Earth were under construction. You all know the Council wanted to relieve the strain on the population by sending them out into space to Mars and even to the Martian moons to construct colonies and ensure human survival in space in case anything happened to what was left of Earth's civilisation.
"All that has been done; already the population of the Martian moons and of Mars itself are on the rise, now that the problems of the radiation of the surface and the hazards here have been solved. But now the Council have come up with something more ambitious. The Council are currently in the last stages of planning the construction of a fleet of O'Neil cylinders to offload the strain on what's left of Earth's resources," she began, "already designers and engineering teams are developing the space colonies, but at the same time they are planning on constructing a small fleet of Queller drive interstellar vessels to colonise worlds outside our solar system."
"So, why?"
"Why what?"
"Why the rush? Our population is rising all the time, and plans to terraform Venus are only forty years away-."
Erin shook her head. "Those plans have been cancelled."
"What?"
Erin nodded this time, her expression solemn. "Remember the mining accident three years ago where an asteroid was destroyed in the disaster, along with not one, but three of our asteroid colonies? There were over eighty thousand of us lost in the disaster. During that time there were plans galore to terraform Mars and Venus. The disaster sent shockwaves through the solar system."
Everyone at the table was silent as they remembered the disaster, especially as it was close to home. No-one was entirely sure what had caused the disaster, but the favourite explanation was over-mining which had been fairly common on various asteroids at the time, had gone too far, bypassing the insufficient safety precautions in place to ensure such a disaster never took place.
Unfortunately it did.
Eighty thousand people had died, and while the mess had made the Council realise they couldn't just send people off to construct space laboratories or colonies in the asteroid belt without taking proper inspection of the mining stations, it had only just served to remind everyone of the dangers of working in space.
But to cancel the terraformation projects…
The projects to terraform Mars and Venus had been in the works for decades, long before the moon was blasted out into space. But now they were critically important. Humanity just didn't have the room or the resources to have large populations which was desperately needed following the mess on 13th September 1999 when the moon was blasted out of orbit.
Not only had millions of people perished, but a large chunk of Earth's natural flora and fauna had died out as well, and what was left was clinging on to life by threads.
While they had constructed colonies in space, it would be decades, maybe even centuries before it was to the original height and even higher than before. But for that to happen they needed space, and while the city domes scattered on Earth's mutilated surface and the ones on Mars and the asteroids were large, they needed to be larger in order to accommodate the growth of crops. And lots of them.
It was hoped the terraformation of Mars and Venus would relieve the strain and allow humanity to breathe on a planet's surface without needing breathing apparatus.
The plans were going ahead, but to hear they were cancelled was a shock.
"Cancelled? Why?"
"All resources are being funnelled into the construction of colony ships and the O'Neil cylinders," Erin replied solemnly, "they're to be given top priority. When the population around the solar system has reached a certain level, that's when the real work will commence. The Council have come up with a new plan."
"What new plan?" Jenna asked, remembering the grim expression her friend had worn earlier.
Erin sighed. "The news has been given to me to handed to you in person because Mars will have a huge part to play in the operation, but essentially the Space Commission has decided to stop mass colonisation of the solar system, and is instead looking further outward. There's Interstellar One, the first of an interstellar fleet of colonisation ships, already under construction. In another few years it will be joined by two, maybe four more ships, and they will be sent out into space."
"To colonise the nearest worlds to Earth," another female member of the command council Erin didn't know whispered in awe.
"To set up colonies on planets, keeping in contact with Earth," Erin corrected. "Once they're established out there, the plan is to slowly evacuate the solar system, and travel to new worlds and make a new life there."
"Evacuate?"
"You mean we're abandoning the solar system? Abandoning Earth?" someone whispered in shock.
"I guess it makes sense," Daniel's commented, although his expression showed he was surprised by the news like everyone else. "With everything happening and the slow building of the colonies, the different approaches taking place, it makes sense we'd be leaving since there's little on Earth."
"Earth still has water, and there's still life on the surface, so scientists are still hopeful there's a chance it can be saved," Erin observed. "But with solar flares and other events happening out in the solar system, the Council are worried any attempt to terraform Earth will just fail, so they plan on doing the barest minimum to try, but there are hopes that life will find a way to make the planet live again. In the meantime, we need new worlds. We can't exist underneath atmospheric domes for the rest of eternity."
"Is that why they've come up with the plan, to find somewhere else to live?"
"Pretty much."
Daniel's commlock chirped and the commander took it out of his belt. "Yes?"
"Commander, fleets of robot ships are swarming through the system! They're attacking colonies, Eagles, freighters, everything! They've also attacked Earth!"
XXX
The mood in Main Mission was hectic, everyone was stunned by the sudden turn of events that many of them didn't know how to react. Commander Daniels had noticed the mood, and he had no intention of letting anyone dwell on it. He got them working trying to identify what was happening.
On the screens of Main Mission, the view was grim as the images were bounced off of the satellite network scattered through the solar system.
The robot ships - simple and functional in shape, resembling mini Eagles - were swarming through the system. They were firing laser beams and missiles at the space stations, habitats, laboratory complexes and colonies.
The manned Eagles had now gotten over their surprise and were putting up a fight, but they were outmatched and outnumbered. The robot ships didn't have any problems fighting them off. It was a massacre of epic proportions.
"I have thirty Eagles prepared, Commander," the Eagle commander reported.
"Only launch fifteen of them. We don't want to throw our resources away just yet, and keep them as close to the city-domes as possible," Daniels' ordered.
The Eagle commander opened his mouth to protest, but he quickly saw sense and he nodded while he carried out the order.
Erin was standing off to the side, watching over the proceedings with a heavy heart and a lot of unease. She wasn't a member of the command crew of the Martian complexes, so she had no official duties here.
What the hell was going on? Why had the robot ships suddenly turned on them? The robots had been constructed years ago to help them colonise the system, and their ships were armed to help them blast meteors and stray asteroids out of their path, but they had millions of separate programs installed to ensure they did not malfunction like this.
At least Erin was sure they were malfunctioning, she couldn't really explain what was happening.
"Commander," the communications operator said, "we're getting a broad-range transmission."
"From Earth?"
"No, sir. I can't find its point of origin, its just been broadcasted throughout the solar system."
Daniel's frowned. "Play it."
The Main Mission screens changed, showing the aged face of a bald man who looked quite old, but his eyes showed quicksilver intelligence.
Erin gasped, and she was one of many. "Dr Marcus," she whispered.
Marcus was the cyberneticist who constructed the robots after the moon was torn out of orbit in order to help what was left of the human race develop, and to seed the solar system. He did it gladly, but over time according to rumours, he became tired of humanity's inability to grow despite the fact everyone was trying their best to make do with their minimal resources. In the end, he had disappeared. No-one had seen him since until today.
So what was happening now?
Somehow Erin knew this man was responsible for what had just happened, but she didn't understand what the point was.
"Hello, everyone from the Earth," the scientist began in a sage but grave tone as if the subject he was about to speak of was hard for him to even describe, "You have all witnessed the attacks from the robots. Many of the colonies have been destroyed, or there are survivors who have been sealed away inside other parts of the colonies, laboratories, or space stations. My robots have attacked even Earth. You are probably wondering what has happened, and who is behind this. I will save you the trouble. You are looking at the man responsible for the attack.
"For a long time I watched as the human race was forced to leave what was left of Earth following the disaster which blew the moon out of Earth's orbit, devastating our mother world. I was delighted in spite of the circumstances. I believed Commissioner Simmonds when he said repeatedly our people's future lay in space, not living on an increasingly resource-poor world because our people were stupid and short-sighted. Many called me a crank for my own ideas, but when I built robots to help us, I became a celebrity and I hated it. I hated the hypocritical attitudes, and I hated the fact even when we were in space, we weren't even bothering to truly evolve.
"That is when I read a book describing human evolution, and I found that competition such as war helps evolution and development. And that is why I have started all this. I want the human race to evolve, to become better. You will need it."
Marcus' face became graver. "Now, the robots will be attacking you in waves, and they will be increasingly more powerful than the generations before. And I mean more powerful. For instance, one generation may use high-powered lasers, another might use fusion missiles or bioweapons. Yes, that's right…bioweapons. You will grow, even if I have to have you dragged towards the doors that will open you up into space. Oh, and before I forget, I was also a geneticist. For the last few months, my robots have installed a specific type of virus to be delivered on every colony and ship. The virus is designed to make humanity more intelligent. Just a nice little prod. One day you will thank me when humanity is established in deep space, where we will have become stronger than ever. What are a few million lives compared to that? Good luck!"
Daniels yelled. "Get to the air-recycling plants at once, check them over!"
But while everyone raced out to check the damage since they knew they couldn't dismiss the possibility of the virus' existence, Erin was left wondering whether Marcus' final words were his grand vision or just some possible future he had an idea of.
One thing was for sure, the human race was at war with their robotic helpers.
God help them all.