Preserving Perfection: Self-obsessing with body augmentation has left the entire planet of Ramos without children. But to acquire children means interstellar war! (Veiled Destiny Book 2) Read online

  CHAPTER 2 – EARTH

  Dorial slowly awoke from suspended animation. He was the only one on his ship – there was no need for others. With so much body augmentation, he was able to fully integrate with all the ship’s functions. Shaking his head to clear out some of the fuzziness, Dorial saw that they were closing in on Earth.

  Dorial sent messages to the other four ships. Grecian and Rheana responded immediately saying they were good to go, but Markus took over a half minute to respond. Clearly, he felt the impact of the deep sleep more than the rest.

  After waiting another half minute, Dorial finally sent a separate message to Delile. She promptly responded with a brusque, “I am here.”

  The Ramos council leaders had discussed how they wanted to proceed when they arrived at Earth. Dorial wanted to try diplomacy, but Grecian felt that this was doomed to failure. They had discussed this at length and had finally agreed to give Dorial’s approach a try.

  Just then a message was received from Earth saying, “Welcome people of Ramos. The people of Earth greet you after so long a time. My name is Edgar Halitar, Director of the planet Earth. How may we be of service to you?”

  All the power on Earth had been consolidated by one man, Edgar Halitar. Edgar had craved power and had been remorseless in his acquisition of it. His entire purpose in VR was to further his stranglehold on the decision-making for Earth. While many of his peers also sought power, they went about it haphazardly, wanting to play games and dilettanting in other diversions for their pleasure. Not so Edgar Halitar – his entire focus was on complete domination of all decision making – which meant power. He had succeeded more so than any of his challengers, earning him the title of Director.

  Edgar’s artificial intelligence personal data assistant, or “persa” for short, had long ago alerted him to the approach of the ships from Ramos. When Earth’s sensors picked up increased emanations from the ships, he figured that the occupants had been awakened from suspended animation and it was time to communicate with them. Earth had come a long way in the years since the two ships had been launched to opposite sides of the galaxy, with the collaborative abilities that VR provided allowing for huge gains in technology. These Ramos ships were a threat to be sure, but Edgar felt confident that Earth’s technology would prevail if a conflict could not be avoided.

  Dorial started, “Greetings people of Earth. We have come due to an emergency on our planet. We have need of youthful supplements to our society. We would like to talk to you about the possibility of any volunteers who may want to join our cause.”

  Edgar chuckled to himself. His persa had automatically run millions of simulations to try to determine why the ships would be coming to Earth, with the predominant result being that they would be having a birth rate and child rearing problem, much like Earth had, but much worse due to Ramos’ lack of VR.

  Edgar responded, “I am sorry to tell you that our people are all quite happy in VR. There has not been a successful attempt to leave VR in hundreds of years. As much as I wish that we could help you, it just is not possible.”

  Dorial was not to be easily put off. He said, “I really must insist. We must have some new blood or our society is going to perish. Ideally, we need children between the ages of four and six, to ensure that they can assimilate our body augmentation. We would be happy to provide adequate compensation, but we are prepared to use force if necessary.”

  Edgar thought about his range of options. It appeared he had three feasible options.

  He could challenge the Ramos warships to do their best to damage Earth. At a minimum there would be loss of Ramos life, and the possibility remained that he had underestimated their capabilities and there could be loss of life on Earth as well. This option was clearly a last resort, and if possible, it should be avoided.

  Theoretically, he could provide the children to the invaders as they desired. But this would quickly be shown to be a waste of time as the withdrawals from VR would be immediate and acute. There was no way that anyone born into VR could live normally on Earth, much less on Ramos.

  The third and final option appeared to be the best by far. Edgar just needed to figure out how to pitch it to them.

  Edgar replied quietly, “First of all, I am sending data to you right now that shows I am not making up the information about our VR addiction. This should show you that it is not feasible to get any of our people successfully out of VR. Second, I do have a proposal for you that might help resolve your problem. There was a ship that was launched a year after yours that contained a group of people that rejected both VR and body augmentation. I strongly feel that they would be better stock for your needs and I believe that their technology would be far inferior to yours, if force is required.”

  Dorial thought about it quickly. “Let me caucus with my council and we will get back to you.”

  Dorial sent a message to the other four ships asking their opinion of the conversation that they had all overheard.

  Grecian quickly looked over the data and said, “I looked over the data and it seems legit. The data shows that there are physiological changes that occur early on due to their dependence on the virtual room and virtual suit. In my estimation, if we attempted to take someone out of VR that has lived their entire life there, they would be far more mentally unstable than even our children turn out.”

  Markus piped in saying, “I’m really suspicious that they are just sending us on a wild goose chase. It will take many years to get to this planet they were sent to. They may be doing this to give them time to prepare their defenses.”

  Rheana said, “I concur with Grecian’s analysis. We cannot use the children of Earth. We must attempt to get to the planet where the second ship went to, if we want to succeed. To address Markus’ concerns, we should delve in and see if this Edgar Halitar can assuage our concerns.”

  They all waited for Delile to contribute, but she stayed silent. Finally, Dorial asked, “Delile, do you have anything to contribute?”

  In a sullen voice she said, “I have already voiced my opinion. I have nothing more to add.”

  Dorial then opened up his communications so that Earth could hear. “Edgar, we would like to take you up on your offer, but we need some assurance that we can indeed find that planet the second ship went to and some assurance that you’re not just putting us off.”

  Edgar thought about it for a few seconds and responded, “You may not be aware, but we have made great strides in various technologies that are far beyond what you have. It is a good thing that you have decided not to use force against us, since then we would have had to use this technology against you. As a show of good will, we will provide you with two things that should assuage your concerns.

  “First, we will provide you with the emissions that we have recorded from the planet. We have extremely sensitive receivers and have been monitoring their emanations from when they landed until now. They are thriving on their planet, but have not yet been able to travel to other worlds. They are busy populating their own world, which they appear to be doing quite successfully – which is perfect for your needs.

  “Second, we will provide you with something infinitely more valuable. We have developed a quantum entanglement-based capability of faster-than-light transportation, similar to, but much more complex than, the quantum entanglement-based communications you already have. This means that in addition to being able to communicate over vast distances instantaneously, you will also be able to move your ship over those same vast distances instantaneously. The only major drawback to this FTL capability is that you need to be far enough away from a large mass, like a star or a planet, to be able to use this capability. Also, there are limits to how far you can actually go in a single jump – the further you go the more computational power is needed, so for practical purposes, there is a finite range for each jump. Luckily, the distance that the second ship has gone is well within a single jump.

  Our robotic drones can provide these devices, which includes the
vast computational capabilities required, for your ships within a week.

  “The only thing we ask in return is that you allow a robotic ship of ours to go along with you for our records. We have never traveled to this planet, so we would get something out of your pursuit as well.”

  Dorial was both relieved and somewhat frightened. He was happy that Earth had been willing to provide the assistance and the capability to shorten their mission by many years. However, he was more than just a little nervous that Earth had such FTL capabilities. He knew if they were that far ahead of Ramos in that area, they would have been more than a match for them if it had come down to war. They would have to tread very carefully with Earth in the future.

  CHAPTER 3 – TORVAL

  Star travel, thought Dorial, had been changed forever.

  The new FTL devices had indeed worked, making a many-decade journey take mere days. And therein lay the problem. In order to get the FTL device to work, they needed to be far enough away from anything with sizable mass for the quantum entanglement calculations to be feasible. Any closer and they would have had to calculate the effect of every particle of mass of the nearby planet or star, which would have taken decades of computation – defeating the purpose of the FTL drive

  Far enough away meant a three-day travel away from any massive object. Three days going away from one planet prior to the jump and then after the jump three more days going to the destination planet – so six days minimum. Dorial had always gone into suspended animation as soon as he was aboard the ship and woke up after the ship arrived, so to him there was almost no time elapsed. But for three days, even followed by a subsequent three days, it didn’t make sense to go into suspended animation. So even though the total ship time was infinitely shorter, the apparent time to Dorial was infinitely longer.

  The longer the jump, the more processing it took to calculate the correct destination. For short jumps, that was no problem since the processing could be done in the three days it took to get away from the local planet. However, as the jump length increased, the increase in processing time was exponential. This meant that it took less time to make several shorter jumps than to take one long one. Fortunately, this jump was short enough that it had taken only a single jump. But that still meant that he had six days to think about what was in store ahead for them.

  As he sat there, he thought of his fellow council members, each in their own ships. Going through their characteristics in his head, he wondered how much he could trust them when tensions really broke out.

  Each of them, of course had neural implants to enable vastly faster processing of stimuli of all sorts. And the stimuli came from every manner of embedded sensors and transducers, enhancing all five legacy senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.

  Sight enhancements ranged from radar for low fidelity radio wave object sensing and lidar for high fidelity light wave 3D object sensing to special processing of pixel patterns for enhanced lightening-fast object and context recognition.

  Hearing enhancements ranged from whole-frequency monitoring with adaptive gain to pattern recognition and automatic language translation.

  Taste enhancements were a bit esoteric, including automatic bio-compatibility detection to quickly warn of toxins and poisons and a whimsical taste bud enhancer that made everything eaten stimulate the taste buds as if it were the finest cuisine. This really helped on the space voyage, where otherwise the food would have tasted more like cardboard.

  Touch enhancements included skeletal-muscular augmentation for strength and speed amplification as well as a variety of tactile sensors including detection and manipulation of electric and magnetic fields.

  Smell enhancements added acuteness as well as aroma breadth and the pattern recognition to go with it, which could easily put even the most acute dog’s nose to shame. Fortunately, a scent enhancer was also provided that made everything smell good – another area that was especially appreciated during a long space voyage.

  Even more complex were the miniature nanite body performance monitors and enhancers. The bottom line was that each person could outperform their parents in every quantifiable measure – sensing, reacting, cognitive ability, sprinting speed, reaction time – you name it.

  He trusted Rheana’s judgment the most. She was thoughtful, never jumping to conclusions and always basing her decisions on well-thought-out logic. Her unique body augmentation was primarily focused on getting the most neural networking power possible.

  Grecian was by far the most impetuous. He was always the first to chime in and was the one that had to be watched to make sure he didn’t react out of hand to the first provocation. He was also the most creative though, which could be both good and bad. His unique body augmentation was primarily focused on speed, with specialized hardware and fine tuning he was noticeably faster both physically and mentally than any of the other Ramos council leaders.

  Markus was very cynical, always having to get a barb in. He constantly tried to get under everyone’s skin, and he succeeded for everyone, except possibly Delile. His unique body augmentation was primarily focused on muscle, exoskeleton and body armor enhancements and though he was short, he more than made up for it with his strength.

  Delile was a mystery to him. He never knew what she was thinking, which bothered him. She was extremely quiet, never giving away what was in her head. She would always bear a close watch. Being the youngest, by far, she had the most body augmentation of everyone, however it did not appear that she had specialized in any one technological area, as far as Dorial could tell.

  Looking around his own ship, Dorial was not too concerned about Ramos’ offensive armament. Each ship had the capability of incinerating all manner of threats, from small ships to the planet itself if need be. And as Edgar Halitar had shown them on the recordings, the Torval society had not progressed very far technologically. The Ramos council leaders had all gone through the recordings from Torval and they all agreed that they would be no match for the Ramos’ ship’s weaponry, if the Torval humans chose to put up a fight. Which they probably would – but Dorial was certain it would be to no avail. Dorial figured that his ships would be in and out within a few hours, honing in on schools and care centers, and wherever many small children would be congregated.

  They should have the element of surprise, which, along with their superior firepower, should allow them to accomplish their objective and be gone before their opponents knew what was happening. He figured that even accounting for unforeseen circumstances, they should be back on Ramos within a week.

  They had planned and re-planned on the long three-day journey out from Earth to settle on this course of action. The FTL jump itself had been anticlimactic, with so much discussion and angst, the actual event had gone unnoticed except for the jump in the star constellations.

  Now they were on the three-day journey to Torval and everything was going well. The five Ramos ships, as well as the single Terran ship, were monitoring the planet’s emissions. They were a day inbound to the planet and there were no signs that they had been detected, which was even better than Dorial had hoped.

  Finally, Dorial’s ship’s sensors relayed a change in the emissions coming from the planet. There was suddenly a warning being broadcast about detecting a fleet of six ships. “Well, they had finally been spotted,” Dorial thought. It had taken them long enough. This confirmed that their technology was much inferior to Ramos’.

  Dorial sent a message for everyone to hold tight and not do anything rash, no matter what response the planet’s defenses threw at them. All the ships’ sensors were attempting to collect as much information as possible about the planet and especially any defensive weaponry.

  Suddenly Dorial’s ship sent out an alert that a large weapon had just been launched from one of the Ramos ships. Before he saw the data, he knew that it must be either Grecian’s or Delile’s ship. He had been focused so much on the Torval world, that he hadn’t been looking at any activity from their own ships.


  When his sensors reported that the weapon had come from Delile’s ship, he was not surprised. He instantly sent a message, “Delile, why have you launched a weapon? Recall it immediately.”

  Dorial waited, but he received no reply

  He sent out another message to Delile, but again there was no reply.

  Suddenly, there was a large flash and Delile’s ship disintegrated.

  As the seconds ticked away, the sensors indicated that the weapon was large enough to destroy the entire planet – it was the largest weapon each ship carried. In horror, Dorian watched, knowing that there was nothing that he could do about it. As it got closer and closer to the planet, the sensors picked up increasing emissions coming from the planet warning of the threat, which evidently they saw but also could do nothing about. Suddenly there was a giant burst of light as the planet was rocked and started breaking apart. What was once one huge ball of matter burst into millions of pieces as the planet broke apart, leaving no hope of any survivors.

  Dorial watched in horror. Such a devastating loss of life was beyond comprehension. He was stunned. His mind, even with its advanced processing suite’s help, refused to believe what he had seen. But there was no question that the planet was destroyed, and with it all hope for their own planet was lost as well.

  CHAPTER 4 – DESTRUCTION

  All four of the remaining Ramos leaders were shocked by the planet-annihilating explosion. No one said anything for several minutes.

  Markus finally spoke up, breaking the unbearable silence, “It’s bad enough that she killed herself, but why take the planet out as well?”

  Rheana responded, “She was a troubled girl.” She paused, then continued, “I’m not sure if it means anything, but I did get some anomalous readings just before the planet was destroyed. The readings just don’t make sense.”