Battlestar Solaria
Chapter 2: Dr. Astral
"Can our missiles still reach the meteor in time?" Dr. Morridon asks.
"I will run a trajectory estimate…" The navigator replies.
A few minutes later, the navigator gets a response from the computer. "I am afraid not sir! The meteor has penetrated too deeply into the atmosphere for our missiles to reach it in time! The missile's going to hit a desert in Pandemonia ETA 8 minutes and counting!"
"What did you say? Pandemonia? That country is one of the nations we hit with an Azuron missile so this other meteor is just the opportunity we need to cause them further damage! Navigator, estimate the blast area that will be made by that meteor!" Dr. Morridon orders.
"Yes sir!" The navigator replies.
"This other meteor is smaller and slower than the first one so we have nothing to worry about! The blast will cover an area of 7 square kilometers and will swallow up some nearby Pandemonian towns and cities."
"Well that is all in good because as long as we are not affected, we have nothing to worry about! But those Pandemonian morons on the other hand…" Dr. Morridon follows his comments with a maniacal laugh.
A few minutes later, the meteor impacts Pandemonia and triggers a powerful shockwave that digs a huge crater into one of its deserts and pulverizes some nearby municipalities with its powerful blast front.
"Sir, the meteor has struck, and the size of the blast area is just as we have estimated! The industrial zones of that area have also been crippled as a result!"
"Excellent! This will make our job of destroying our nation's most powerful rival a whole lot easier!" Dr. Morridon excitedly exclaims.
Meanwhile, west of Azuria, in the North American continent, the president of Pandemonia, Richard Garlyle sits nervously on his office chair pondering the series of incredible developments that have happened too fast too seem believable.
First those Azurians discover the most powerful energy source known to man and have freed themselves from the Ether Gas Energy Gridlock allowing their economy to get the upper hand on ours, then they use it to build the most powerful weapon conceivable and they have the audacity to use it to level one of our cities! And now, a meteor has struck down more of our cities and townships. God damn it all! I must be dreaming! All of these things happening simultaneously! It's almost as if our nation is fated to be destroyed!
"President Garlyle, the secretary of state is here to see you." The receptionist calls out through an intercom.
"Let him in." The president stands up from his seat and steels himself to calmly accept the startling incidents.
"Mr. President you have to see this!" The secretary of state calls out.
"What is it?" The president asks.
"It's the meteor sir… something is emerging from it!"
"Damn! I must still be asleep!" The president rubs his eyes wishfully but to no avail, he is awake to the horrible reality whether he likes it or not.
"This is no joke sir! You have to watch it to believe it!" The secretary of state nervously motions for the president to follow him.
"Fine, it's not like I have a choice in all the insanity the world has come to!" The president obliges and follows his secretary of state.
The president follows his subordinate to the video conference room to watch news live via satellite television. The secretary of state switches on the television and turns to the news channel.
"We are here live in the Panderian desert overlooking the meteor and we are seeing what appears to be the outer surface of the meteor cracking open to reveal what strangely appears to be an artificial internal structure. The army and air-force command in nearby Fort Bradley have been placed on high alert to watch out for mysterious activity coming from this strange extra terrestrial object."
"What? An artificial structure! What in God's name is going on here?"
"Richard Garlyle, president of Pandemonia, heed my request."
"What? Who the hell are you?" The president asks.
"Sir, is there a problem?" The secretary of state replies.
Impossible… you're in my thoughts! The president thinks, shocked. He decides to keep the conversation in his mind as opposed to verbalizing it to avoid appearing insane.
That is right, I am communicating with you right now using a psychic wave carrier signal I am transmitting from my ship. The mysterious voice replies.
Your ship… you don't mean…
Yes, the meteor, I used it as a heat and impact shield for my fast traveling interstellar ship. By the way, I am Zophar Astral, in human terms I am what you call a 'scientist', that is, a person who seeks to understand the forces of the cosmos and harness its tremendous power. I have journeyed far from my dying planet which my people have purged dry of natural resources and brought about the death of my race and scoured the galaxy for centuries in search of a planet with an environment that can sustain life so that I may take the heritage of my people and begin civilization anew. Judging from my observations, your world is in a similar crisis with the depletion of your natural resources and the outbreak of countless wars. Please enter my ship; there I shall share with you the secrets of my advanced race in exchange for natural resources and the right to settle down in your planet.
Yes doctor, our world is in crisis indeed and you could be just the answer to our problem. President Garlyle obliges the alien scientist.
"Secretary, summon the Minister of Defense, the Air Marshall, the Grand Admiral, and the General of the Army we are going to inspect this meteor."
"Yes Mr. President." The secretary replies.
Several minutes later, an airship carrying the four heads of the military and the president touches down tens of meters away from the meteor. Prior to the arrival of the airship, a military blockade has already been setup around the meteor with airships circling it overhead and armored hover-cars, attack robots, and the mage infantry assembled into a perimeter surrounding the blast crater.
"Ah yes, welcome visitors from Earth. I trust you represent all of Earth's leaders?" Dr. Astral communicates to the five ambassadors from Pandemonia.
"Yes, we represent the most powerful and worthy of the leaders." President Garlyle replies.
"Is it okay to lie to him like that? We don't rule the world after all." The Minister of Defense whispers.
"It's fine; we're only one of two national superpowers who practically boss the rest of the world around which basically can't drag its ass along without our help. And the other superpower has just been taken over by a madman so what choice is our interstellar guest left with?"
"Hmmm… Good point." The Minister of Defense replies.
"Feel free to enter, leaders of the Earth." Dr. Astral replies as he activates a series of controls which cause the meteor covering his ship to completely crack into pieces and fall off.
The shedding pieces of extra terrestrial rock reveal a massive white tower, roughly five stories in height looming overhead. An entry ramp is lowered from one of the many airlocks of the ship, inviting the five ambassadors into it.
"Good God, such a massive thing can fly through space…" The President looks around the high tech interior with amazement as he walks along the halls of the ship.
The interior of Dr. Astral's ship is something out of the world indeed, with all of the ship's instruments run by a fleet of almost organic machinery. The ambassadors are met by an organic looking robot that rapidly flaps the tiny wings surrounding its spherical body to fly around.
"Ambassadors from Earth please follow my lead. I shall take you to up to my master's laboratory." The robot motions the ambassadors to follow it into a massive platform.
Upon stepping into the platform, the ambassadors gawk as they are showered by a beam of light and are teleported into Dr. Astral's laboratory.
"Greetings, leaders of the Earth, we meet face to face at last." Dr. Astral walks towards the five men and a series of formalities ensue.
"So doctor, to be able to fly to space and carry all of this equipment and infrastructure with you is astounding. Not even our most powerful Ether gas rockets can propel such a load to space, so tell me, how was such a mean feat accomplished?" The president asks.
"The type of engine I use is far in advance of the ones that are used here on Earth, I traveled millions of light years in just centuries thanks to the use of a photon drive which uses the force of light beams to accelerate even the heaviest loads to speeds approaching that of light, which in human terms is 1,080,000,000km/h."
"Unbelievable, and the machines you use here, they seem almost… alive."
"Well these robots are actually bio-robots comprised of cells genetically programmed for self repair and self replication. This technology was critical for my departure from my home planet Kepleria because I could carry no other person for this trip, so the thousands of machines I employ need the power to self-repair. Of course I also used the technology on myself to grant me the power of eternal life and survive the journey through space."
"Amazing… to be able to run all of these instruments for centuries must require tremendous amounts of energy." The Minster of Defense comments on Dr. Astral's ship.
Dr. Astral then activates a monitor with his mind to show a bowl shaped dish positioned at the top of his ship which is monitored by cameras. "Well as you can see on this screen, the power source I use is the one that you humans see everyday upon the rising of the sun. I harness the power of solar radiation with the aid of a device called the photon vacuum dish. The dish can absorb and contain energy from even the darkest and deepest regions of space where the solar radiation from suns is weak and transmit it to the whole of the ship."
"Well, in that case, our energy crisis is solved." President Garlyle exclaims to the laughter of the people on board.
"Yes, with these devices in place, you can power all of your cities for billions of years." Dr. Astral replies.
"The only problem now is that madman Dr. Morridon, the bastard has built city destroying missiles and is now haughtily demanding the surrender of all of the world's governments to his rule! It's outrageous!" President Garlyle comments angrily.
"I have designs for just the weapons that may stop your enemies, but I did not bother to build such weapons because they would already be too heavy to carry onboard my ship. Bring me the following list of materials and I will build you what you will need to crush your enemies." Dr. Astral replies and then causes an organic book engraved with text to materialize from a nearby instrumentation panel; again with the interface his mind has on the machinery of his ship, and hands the list over to the president of Pandemonia.
Under the pretext of needing to ease the citizenry into accepting the surrender of all state power to Dr. Joseph Morridon to prevent any riots and needing to prepare the government and private sectors for the doctor's coming dominion, President Garlyle was able to buy a few days to assemble the materials needed by Dr. Astral in a military warehouse and move all of Dr. Astral's equipment into the warehouse to begin the construction of his weapons. In a matter of days, piece after piece of organic matter has begun to grow in the cleared warehouse to form massive organic robots, each one of them carrying large photon vacuum dishes on wings with transparent fins divided by arrays of hexagonal cells and supported by a green framework comprised of artificial plant cells. In the fore of the flying wing robots is a strange spherical piece of gel the likes of which have never been seen on any Earth weapon.
"So, Dr. Astral how goes the construction of the weapons?" President Garlyle asks Dr. Astral as they take a tour of the warehouse where the bio-robots are being built.
"They are nearly complete President Garlyle and in a matter of hours we shall launch the robots and prepare to destroy Dr. Morridon's missile silos."
"This is wonderful news! Those Azurian bastards are going to taste the power of Pandemonia's new weapons!" President Garlyle replies excitedly as he prepares to start a war on a scale so destructive it could rattle the very planet itself.