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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 24, 2018 14:08:23 GMT
They are based somewhere in the asteroid belt and have been getting more active of late; they have not spent their time licking their wounds.
The Nazis did persecute some other races, but ended up using orcish troops in the latter stages of the war, as well as allying with some very nasty types, such as Count Dracula...
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 25, 2018 10:40:31 GMT
Chapter 2: From the Earth to the Moon
The construction of the Adventure captured the imagination of the British and world press in a manner not seen since Brunel’s Great Eastern twenty years before, but, unlike that magnificent transatlantic steamship, the manufacture of Britain’s first spaceship took place in the rather more restricted environs of the recently closed Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, which had been taken over by the Imperial Space Programme. A wary security force of Metropolitan Police constables and Royal Marines managed to keep the gawking crowds at a such frustratingly obscure distance that some intrepid journalists endeavoured to hire a hot air balloon in order to fly overhead and sketch images of the marvelous craft to obtain international exclusive; their efforts earned them a volley of shots from roof-mounted cannons and several close passes by a Royal Navy dragon prior to their apprehension by Scotland Yard ornithopters and a lengthy interview without tea in the Tower of London.
Manufacture of the spaceship was not limited to the precise engineering carried out by handpicked workers in the arcanely sterile hall built up over the Woolwich drydock and thousands of others laboured on the manufacture of dozens of other components across Britain, ranging from the production of the astringent alchemical fuels and the enormous rockets in Sheffield and Newcastle to the fabrication of the great spidersilk parachutes and delicate steelglass instrument panels in the mills of Manchester and workshops of Birmingham. Every piece of carefully forged cavorite was painstakingly assembled under the personal supervision of Professor Cavor at Woolwich, where he was joined by Sir Richard Hargreaves, the ingenious designer of the Adventure and Professor Ulysses Nicodemus, the scientific mastermind of the Imperial Space Programme. At Cambridge, Sir Charles Babbage directed the construction of the most powerful and complex analytical engine yet developed that would serve as the mechanical ‘brain’ of the spaceship and separate groups oversaw the construction of large observatories on the Isle of Wight, Malta, Egypt, Aden, Ceylon and Singapore. The coordination of the industrial production projects and grand design was carried out by a collection of the finest industrialists in the British Empire, including Sir Joseph Whitworth, Sir William Armstrong, Sir Robert Stephenson and Lord Brunel himself.
The scale of the Imperial Space Programme was not limited to industry alone, but also saw several dozen vessels of the Royal Navy dispatched to points near and far across the globe to path the way for the Adventure’s historic flight. Several Pacific islands were annexed by overzealous junior officers taking a very broad interpretation of their orders as a network of telegraph stations and supporting bases sprang up over the course of 1871 and 1872. Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal Party opposed significant amounts of the more profligate spending proposals that came to Parliament, but Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli fought bitterly to secure the necessary funds for the success of the programme, aided by the tide of public opinion and the support of financiers such as Baron de Rothschild and the dwarves of the north. No less than £12 million was spent in 1872 alone, but every shilling bought the great goal closer to fruition.
News of the British effort inspired the French to redouble efforts to expedite their own massive undertaking. Much time and progress had been lost in the aftermath of the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of earlier that year, but the new government felt it impossible to not carry on with the project that had become so identified with deposed Emperor Napoleon III’s quest for the greater glory of France. A public subscription raised the princely sum of 68 million francs to fund the Grand Space Columbiad and King Henri expressed his own personal desire to beat Perfidious Albion into the cosmos. Perhaps it was this level of overconfidence that fatally held back the French programme, or perhaps it was something rather more malign. In any case, it was struck by a vexing array of difficulties that thwarted the best effort of French scientists, industrialists and government bureaucrats alike. Poor weather and labour unrest slowed progress on the excavation works outside Paris before a minor localized earthquake wrecked it entirely in August, while the painstakingly precise casting of sections of the gun barrel was interrupted by a series of unfortunate accidents including an unseasonal rain of frogs and a wine shortage.
New projects began in Russia, Germany and the United States to create their own wonder of the industrial world with varying degrees of success. The Russian gun burst in its first test firing in November 1872 due to use of inferior cast iron and the Imperial German Army craft flew out of control after a malfunction of its alchemical rocket and ended up demolishing an entire wing of the Ottoman Embassy in Berlin. The prototype American winged ship, designed by a private consortium lead by young inventor Thomas Edison, managed to perform a successful flight from Ellis Island to Albany in March 1873 and would later be used for the first successful American spaceflight on July 4 1876. All of the international efforts at spaceship construction ran into the problem of sufficient cavorite, with all known deposits lying under British control and being subject to preferential purchase by the ISP, a state of affairs that would persist until the mid 1880s.
Meanwhile, the Adventure was formally completed on June 2nd 1873, floating out of the roof of its construction dock in front of a crowd of over 250,000 cheering spectators after Queen Victoria cut a silken cord with a silver sword and let loose its ballast chain that held it to the earthly main. This lead to the entanglement of several members of a gnomish brass band in the streaming ropes and chains, but not even their faint squeals of terror did not put a dampener on festivities; they were eventually untangled shortly after the celebratory luncheon had been taken. Prince Albert was most astounded at the outlandish lines of the vessel, which for all the world resembled a cylindro-conoidal bullet with the swept wings of a eagle in flight, albeit one with the great steelglass portholes and hatch of a submersible nautiloid. Coated in a thin film of hammered gold and silver covered in the most powerful heat resistant runes known to modern wizardry, it contained a well-appointed flying cabin at the front of the craft, behind which lay the analytical engine (powered in turn by its own internal steam engine), supplies of fuel and the intricately assembled aetheric engine. The hull of the ship itself was crafted of an alloy of enchanted adamantine and harbenium forged in dragonfire It would be steered in flight by careful movements of its cavorite flaps and wings, but for the moment, made its way towards the Channel and destiny far more sedately, towed down the Thames by a pair of steam tugs.
As the Adventure had a considerably greater mass than the smaller test ships flown in the 1860s, weighing 24 tons to their 6, it would require additional assistance in reaching a sufficiently high altitude for their cavorite propulsive mechanisms to counteract the gravitational pull of the Earth. Alchemical rockets could not supply the necessary power and studies into the employment of one or more steam airships came to a similar conclusion. It was eventually decided to employ a towing team of six fully grown dragons of the Royal Flying Corps to raise the ship up to an altitude of 40,000 feet, at which time her rocket engines and cavorite would provide the extra force necessary to send her up into the cosmos.
Communications were one of the most vexatious issues involved in the prospect of flight into space and many conventional solutions such as trailing a very long telegraph wire behind the speeding ship were considered and then discarded during its design. It was finally concluded that no option other than the arcane would suffice, leading to the rather rushed creation of a long range crystal ball that would permit limited communication between the pilot and the authorities on the ground. A trio of enchanted photographic cameras were fitted around the front of the vessel so that some permanent record could be made during the journey. Finally, a specialized beacon was placed atop the craft that would emit a sorcerous heliographic light that could be detected by receiving ships and stations set up around the globe that were equipped with corresponding devices.
As preparations for the launch of the Adventure from the great flying base on the Isle of Wight gathered pace, the selection of the pilot for her historic maiden voyage was finalized. Additional rockets were attached to the outside of the well-tethered cavorite craft to provide it with the power needed to send it hurtling skyward at the appointed hour. Some initial thought had been given to the use of an animal pilot for the first flight, given the range of dangers involved, and cats, dogs and monkeys were considered. The feline community proved disinterested, dogs slightly too enthusiastic and the use of apes was ruled out after a series of dire divinations indicated that, for some unspecified reason, it would end very, very badly. Thus, the Imperial Space Programme turned to its surviving test pilots and found their ideal man - 26 year old Lieutenant Simon McAdam.
He had first won renown for his heroism when serving in a Royal Navy gunboat squadron off West Africa and volunteered for flying service in 1866. He clearly stood out as the finest of the ISP’s corps of test pilots by virtue of his flying expertise, cool daring under pressure and unflappable temperament. McAdam passed the battery of exacting physical tests with aplomb and became quite the darling of the press with his dashing looks and upright character. His wry sense of humour soon became apparent in his responses to interviews and the Admiralty was flooded with correspondence ranging from offers of marriage to attempts to save his soul from the unthinkable heresy of violating the heavens.
On June 14th 1873, he would take his place in history, climbing into the cockpit of the Adventure and sealing shut the inner portal. Lieutenant McAdam had donned his protective flight attire, a close-fitting golden and silver contraption based on a diving suit replete with a steelglass helmet, saluted the esteemed audience his superior officers and the Queen and clambered inside the tight confines of his spaceship. Packed inside were sufficient essential survival supplies and iron rations should he land in an uncivilized wilderness through error – a repeating rifle, a purse of gold sovereigns, a homing ring, assorted clothing, a bundle of baubles and trinkets for savages, a clockwork music box, canned foods, pemmican, chocolate, tea and tobacco. Kept separate was a hamper containing a light packed luncheon of shooter’s sandwiches and pork pies and two flasks of claret and whiskey should he become peckish during his flight.
At 8:25 in the morning, amid cheers, huzzahs and music, the Adventure took off into the air from its iron gantry and was sped on its way up into the clouds, the mechanical clock aboard the ship beginning to mark the course of Lieutenant McAdam’s journey, as he gave a great shout of “Excelsior!” in excitement. Three steam airships circling above the Channel observed the ship gathering speed upon release as it streaked almost directly upwards, alchemical rockets roaring and full cavorite power being applied before it disappeared beyond normal sight. Now it was only the arcane beacon and the crystal ball that served as a link between McAdam and the world below. By the time that the ship crossed the coast of France, the skies had darkened and the world below had shrunk as if it were a schoolboy’s map. As the Adventure streaked over Paris at a height of almost 64 miles, McAdam took the most famous photograph of the journey, marking the moment that his aetheric engines roared into power and began to propel him through space. It showed the blue verge of the earth giving way to the darkness, broken only by the barely visible rainbow waves of the aether.
“Now begins man’s greatest adventure. God save the Queen!” Simon McAdam’s most well-known phrase of the first spaceflight have gone down in history, as has the map of his short voyage around the world. From France, he headed southeast over Italy, Greece and Crete before crossing the Eastern Mediterranean in scant minutes. He observed a reverent silence as he flew over the Holy Land, which caused momentary consternation on the ISP ground station below in Egypt. The deserts and mountains of Persia and the vast plains, rivers and jungles of India rapidly disappeared below as McAdam’s flight curved down towards the Malay Peninsula, Australia and New Zealand. The vast blue expanses of the South Pacific were but a momentary interlude for the flight of the Adventure and its progress was marked by the observation posts and ships in Tahiti and Easter Island.
Once the tip of South America came in sight, Lieutenant McAdam began preparations for his gradual descent back down through the atmosphere of the Earth, beginning the process over Southern Brazil. The thickening air caused some turbulence and shaking over West Africa, but the able pilot wrestled his spaceship through the trouble and streaked across the skies of Morocco and Spain so visibly that many mistook his passage for either a deadly meteor or a harbinger of the end of the world. The azure seas of the Bay of Biscay gave way to the lush green woods of Lyonesse and the rugged cliffs of Cornwall. Two hours, five minutes and thirty six seconds after he had taken off, Lieutenant Simon McAdam bought the Adventure to a shuddering halt in the midst of a farmer’s field in the Golden Vale of Tipperary, damaging his crystal ball in the impact. After a tense initial confrontation between McAdam and the suspicious farmers where it seemed as if mankind’s first foray towards the stars would be punctuated with a pitchfork, the exchange of a handful of sovereigns ameliorated any misunderstandings and arranged for a carriage ride to Thurles.
The news of McAdam’s successful landing sent Britain and the wider world into a spontaneous outburst of tremendous joy and excitement at the glorious achievement. Great street parties and celebratory bonfires took place across the Empire and all involved in the success of the Adventure were hailed as heroes. Congratulations and a multitude of messages marking the momentous achievement poured in from around the world, ranging from telegrams from Presidents Grant and Lincoln in the United States, prayers from the Pope and salutations from the Sultan of Turkey to warm wishes from the Mayor of Warsaw, a floral tribute from the Royal Floral Society and job offers from Texan cattle barons. Upon his triumphant arrival in London the next day, Lieutenant McAdam was received with a grand parade through the teeming streets before being personally knighted by Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.
A man had now flown in space. It was just the beginning.
……………………………………………………………………………………………… The space station seemed even larger from the inside, but apparently that was simply a function of the myriad passageways and escalators that connected the dockports to the upper levels. The lower reaches of the spherical station were dedicated to cargo holds, utilities, workshops, service bays, cooling systems and the atomic power plant, which allowed the upper two thirds to be dedicated to accommodation units, commercial enterprises, scientific and military establishments and public common spaces such as the triple story arcade where Tom currently sat with a fresh newspaper and a steaming cup of Lapsang Suchong. It was rather impressive that Queen Elizabeth station had its own daily paper of record, as well as a few more scurrilous cheap periodicals that were offered by competing hawkers inside the entrance portal. The news was fairly local in nature, as befitted a community the size of a small market town; apparently a new swimming bath was to be opened on Level 26 and there was to be a special performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by a traveling halfling theatre troop in the botanic gardens on Level 18 at 2000 hours that night.
According to the informational videogram that was playing on a television screen in the corner of the Lyons Tea Room, the design of the Oriental Arcade was based on the Grand Bazaar of Baghdad and extended along a 250ft long main corridor with eight smaller side galleries branching off on each level. The artificial gravity of the station was barely different than that of Earth and the ambient temperature within made for relaxed comfort. It was all intended to give an impression of the earthly home of the majority of the occupants, down to the artificial cycle of sunlight and nighttime from the enchanted roof of the arcade, which was currently displaying a panoply of stars and a crescent moon. It was quite easy to forget that they were actually deep within a two mile-wide artificial sphere orbiting 24,000 miles above the surface of the Indian Ocean; the design apparently owed much to that of dwarven underground cities, although thankfully not in roof height.
Any undue sense of normality was however broken by a quick examination of those who called Queen Elizabeth Station their home. A large number of men were clad in the familiar silver, white and blue uniforms of the Royal Space Force, but many elves and dwarves strode alongside them in the striking liveries of the Imperial Elven Star Fleet and Royal Dwarven Space Navy, independent organizations beholden to no earthly crown that Fowler had barely even heard of before his journey into the cosmos. There were still stranger sights to behold apart than these. Tom looked out to see a party of tall azure Selenites striding alongside a smattering of Martian traders through the milling crowd and a pair of feline-looking humanoid dandies admiring themselves in the window of the French fashion emporium while across the other side of the tearoom, two lizardine Venusians were deep in conversation with the amiable Texan Mr. Sylvester, displaying red mouths filled with sharp fangs as they trilled politely at his latest silicon-related bon mot. There were altogether more robotic automatons than he was used to seeing in London and the erudite golden android that was serving tea and jellies to a wild haired man in a long knitted scarf near the door seemed quite wasted on beverage delivery.
His stopover was to be brief, as the means of the next leg of his journey, the moonship SS Pandora was but an hour away of being ready to board passengers in Dockport Ardent. Tom had booked a second class sleeper compartment on account of the 42 hour trip and his general preference for privacy, his budget not extending to the Luna Express, which had departed scant minutes after his arrival in any case. Glancing at the digital clock above the counter, he decided that it was time to get a move on. Draining the remaining dregs of his tea, he pushed away the uneaten half of his Stardust Sandwich, which seemed suspiciously similar to a terrestrial chicken and ham roll sprinkled with popping cheese and given an exorbitant price mark-up, and rose up from his table. Before he was able to make for the door, the serving robot hurried jerkily over, followed by a smaller cylindrical service robot that emitted a series of whistles and squeaks as it wheeled across the floor.
“I trust all is well, good master. Is the sandwich not to your satisfaction?” asked the golden contraption in a pensive tone.
“More than fine, thank you. I’ve just got to be going.”
“Very well, sir. If I may recycle the leftovers?” Tom nodded his consent and the robot reached over and tipped the sandwich into a receptacle on the top of his smaller companion, which resulted in a long whistle and what seemed to be a raspberry.
“Oh, do be quiet, will you! Honestly, your circuits should be rewired to stop your incessant complaining!” The robots hurried over to a beckoning table of newcomers, where a dark haired elf with peculiarly large pointed ears was engaged in discussion with a dashing fellow in a close fitting yellow shirt. Tom walked out purposefully, intent on a little last minute shopping before leaving for the moon, apparently not noticing the figure in a long brown duster and a slouch hat that was pulled low over their eyes moving surreptitiously to follow him into the arcade at a discrete distance.
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The three years following the first journey of the Adventure saw the British Empire exploit its monopoly over cavorite space travel with a further eighteen flights of gradually greater scope and ambition. In September 1875, Captain Archibald Riley spent the better part of a day and a half orbiting the Earth in the Calypso, an enlarged Adventure-class spaceship carrying additional supplies and scientific equipment. The Challenger expedition was extending human knowledge of the vastness of the seas below and the Imperial Space Programme expanded that exploration to the skies and space above through their voyages of discovery in the Adventure, the Beagle, the Calypso, the Discovery and the Endeavour. Yet above and beyond the knowledge and prestige derived from the orbital flights into the aetheric void, the moons and planets remained as milestones on the road that lay ahead.
A flight to investigate the moons and their physical environs was the next natural progression of the efforts of the Imperial Space Programme once the general practices and processes of space flight were mastered. The lessons of history were paramount in the minds of the oversight committees, noting how Spain and Portugal had been eclipsed after their initial prominence in the Age of Discovery and resolving firmly that Britain would not follow the same path. The efforts of other powers, particularly France and the United States, meant that British ascendancy in space would not long remain unchallenged and newer and greater goals must be sought and surpassed in order to hold the strategic high ground of this new frontier. Whilst Earth’s neighbouring planets held the most significant allure, its three natural satellites offered the most immediate opportunity for further achievement.
Such a journey would push the limits of human endurance, industry and science alike, requiring a larger spaceship capable of descending to the unknown surface of another world, supporting its occupant for his period of exploration and then returning safely to Earth, all the while carrying all its supplies and fuel with it. It made the challenge of the Adventure seem straightforward in comparison, but, fired by the intrepid audacity and spirit of the age, the scientists, engineers and industrialists of Victorian Britain threw themselves headlong into the task. A moon flight would take a day and a half to reach its chosen destination and necessitated new technical solutions to the increased tribulations of long distance aetheric navigation. Luna was chosen as the ideal moon of the three, being the largest and possessed of the most curious phenomena for investigation, in addition to the sheer practicality of its current position in comparison to Minerva and Bellona.
The ship for this first journey from the Earth to the moons was to be the Victory. It weighed 52 tons and could accommodate a crew of two men in rather spacious conditions along with the requisite steam analytical engine and crates of supplies; later vessels were capable of accommodating considerably larger crews. Great efforts were taken to automate processes of navigation, communication and record keeping, allowing the pilots to alternate between control of the craft and some modicum of rest in their precariously slung hammocks. A sorcerous atmospheric generator fitted in the rear of the ship would provide sufficient breathable air within the ship as well as supplying their individual tanks for external exploration upon landing should the Lunarian air prove noxious or miasmic. The winged spaceship would be propelled into orbit by a combination of powerful new alchemical rockets augmented with external boosters and a remarkable 25 mile long magical railway specially constructed in the Great Indian Desert. A series of explosive engines and rockets would propel the Victory along the special track built by tens of thousands of Indian labourers to the tremendous speeds required for it to surge into the skies and beyond.
Crewing the Victory on her maiden voyage to Luna would be Captain William Ashton, a 32 year old veteran of the Grenadier Guards who had distinguished himself on active service in the Far Eastern War in China and Japan, and Lieutenant Edmund Sutcliffe, a 33 year old Royal Navy flyer who had made his name harrying pirates in the Arabian Sea. Both had successfully flown into space twice before and had shown their resourcefulness and indomitable characters in a range of illusory training missions in the grand halls of the newly Royal Space Establishment at Greenwich. Theirs was to be a mission fraught with great hazard, extending far beyond the range of any earthly support or succour, but with such peril came the greatest of prizes.
Greater urgency was added to the process by the news that one of the three competing American space projects had succeeded in achieving spaceflight, with Jasper Prescott piloting the Mayflower into space from Philadelphia on July 4th 1876 and traveling thrice around the Earth, providing the most glorious of achievements to crown the Centennial International Exhibition. The French had also overcome many of the technical obstacles that had plagued their Columbiad and had launched Lieutenant Reynald Girardot on a sub-orbital flight from Paris to the Algerian Sahara. Britain’s position at the forefront of space exploration required an urgent demonstration of her capability.
The launch of the Victory was therefore bought forward to July 21st 1876, when it was sent careening down the shining railway in the grey pre-dawn light, gathering speed with every yard as her rockets fired. The huzzahs of the ground crew and the crowds of soldiers and labourers faded away as it sped eastward up into the gradually brightening sky. Once in orbit, Ashton and Sutcliffe activated the pair of aetheric engines, which soon steered the Victory onto a course for Luna. Over the course of their 36 hour journey, they noted the dark vastness of space and the strange flickering of the iridescent rainbow waves of the aether as they ebbed and coursed just beyond the limits of human perception. On one occasion, when Sutcliffe was in control, he saw a fleeting glimpse of what looked to be another artificial object moving extremely fast through space, but no clear photographic evidence was able to be taken due to its oblique position in relation to the spaceship.
At 3:24 in the morning of July 24th, 1876, Captain William Ashton bought the Victory to a smooth landing on the cold, gray surface of the Mare Serenitatis, sending his famed signal back to Earth – “At last. We are here.” After an hour of careful preparation, he stepped out onto the ladder and descended to the lunar surface, recorded for posterity by a kinesigraph operated by Sutcliffe. As he set foot upon Luna, he uttered the words that have been subsequently etched into the memory of the civilized world – “Now, by the grace of God, man walks upon a new world. I claim this territory for Her Majesty Queen Victoria and for the British Empire. God save the Queen!” He was joined in his initial explorations on the strange, dusty surface by Sutcliffe several minutes later and the pair planted a large Union flag, the photograph of which is one of the most recognizable of the 19th century. They encountered a thin yet breathable atmosphere and a bizarre landscape of rocks, craters, twisted plants and lichens. There was no immediately apparent surface water in their vicinity and any wildlife apart from insects had been frightened away by the Victory’s fiery landing.
Over the next two days, they explored the immediate surrounds of the large crater they had landed in and proceeded to collect a number of samples, take photographs and make copious notes on local wildlife, which included crustacean like creatures, giant spiders and a large, burrowing mammalian beast they dubbed a lunar mole. Every morning, the sunrise would bring with it a thawing of the surface and a proliferation of growth of blue, green and grey plants and flowers. Ashton was approached by a number of curious blue insectoid creatures who became agitated at his gesture of greeting, but fled after he fired several warning shots from his Martini-Henry. The Victory departed Luna on May 27th and landed in Egypt on May 29th, touching down close to the Great Pyramid. Both Ashton and Sutcliffe were knighted for their deeds and preparations began for a second expedition, which returned to Luna in August.
Captain Ashton was match his feat the following year, flying the Victory to the surface of Minerva and Sir Christian Alexander landed on Bellona, Earth’s smallest satellite, in March 1878. By 1880, small British field camps had been painstakingly established on all three moons, manned by volunteer troops from the Rifle Brigade, Royal Marines and Gurkhas. These were supported by the Mark I Aetheric Spaceship, which could deliver up to two dozen men and large amounts of equipment and supplies to the moons, their new design being possible thanks to the discovery of a huge cavorite deposit in British Columbia. It was a harsh existence on the farthest of imperial frontiers, but from small beginnings, greater things would grow.
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Tom Fowler was greatly relieved when he finally cleared the customs inspection section of the spaceport at Victoria Station and was able to walk out onto Lunar soil, if one could describe a tarmac road lined with palm trees and taxi cabs as such. He decided to walk the short distance to his accommodation at the Grand Hotel at the heart of the old town, as it was barely half a mile and the artificial weather was artificially balmy. The afternoon streets were bustling with pedestrians who were teemed around the hawker stalls and market barrows that were loaded with a veritable cornucopia of fruits, flowers, vegetables, gewgaws, knickknacks, souvenirs and novelties. The brilliant liveliness, effulgent colours and sheer multitude of sounds and smells reminded Tom strongly of India or Singapore, but with an extra, alien edge emphasized by the great crystal dome which encased the town. There were touches of home as well – gas lamps, red pillar boxes and a blue police box. A pair of turbaned Imperial Police troopers strolled by, assault rifles in hand, giving a polite nod to Tom and an elven samurai wearing the surcoat and helm of the Order of the Karma who happily slurped from a bowl of noodle soup.
The Grand Hotel did not fail to live up to its name, soaring above the surrounding buildings and topped with Indo-Saracenic domes and spires. The immaculately liveried doorman doffed his top hat as he held open the gilded door and beckoned a porter to take Tom’s suitcase. The marble-floored lobby was sumptuously appointed in sky blue and gold and lit by a tremendous crystal chandelier. He strode over to the reception desk and smiled at the tall, bearded concierge who nodded in formal greeting.
“Good afternoon, sir. Do you have a reservation?” The concierge asked with a strong German accent.
“Of course. The name is Tom Fowler.”
“Let me see…Ah! All is in order. You are in the Copernicus Suite. It is one of our very finest, sir!”
“Excellent. Have my bag taken up and bring the key to me in the bar, if you please.”
“Certainly, sir. Enjoy your stay.”
The bar was half-full and a sorcerous piano played quietly in the corner. Tom pulled up a stool in the corner and sat with his back to the wall as the tuxedoed goblin bartender scurried over.
“What will it be, sir?”
“A Paranoid Slap. Heavy on the absinthe.”
The goblin nodded sagely in appreciation of the best way to take the cocktail and proceeded to duck beneath the bar and mix it up. As he sipped the multi-coloured concoction, a man in a long brown overcoat sauntered over and sat next to him. Before he could speak, Tom cut him off with a small wave.
“At last. I was wondering when you’d get around to it.”
“When did you notice me?” said the chap, somewhat taken aback.
“At the tea room, in the bazaar, on the Pandora and twice in the street on the way here.”
“Oh. Bugger.”
“It’s alright. Do you have something for me?”
His companion nodded and placed a folded sheet of paper on the bar. Tom slid it into his pocket wordlessly.
“Be careful, Mr. Fowler. In space, no-one can hear you scream.”
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 25, 2018 13:50:33 GMT
Chapter 2: From the Earth to the MoonThe construction of the Adventure captured the imagination of the British and world press in a manner not seen since Brunel’s Great Eastern twenty years before, but, unlike that magnificent transatlantic steamship, the manufacture of Britain’s first spaceship took place in the rather more restricted environs of the recently closed Royal Dockyard at Woolwich, which had been taken over by the Imperial Space Programme. A wary security force of Metropolitan Police constables and Royal Marines managed to keep the gawking crowds at a such frustratingly obscure distance that some intrepid journalists endeavoured to hire a hot air balloon in order to fly overhead and sketch images of the marvelous craft to obtain international exclusive; their efforts earned them a volley of shots from roof-mounted cannons and several close passes by a Royal Navy dragon prior to their apprehension by Scotland Yard ornithopters and a lengthy interview without tea in the Tower of London. Nice update simon darkshade , so i have few questions. - Can these Royal Navy dragons be comared to the dragons from the Temeraire (series) . - Are these roof-mounted cannons comparable to AA guns.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 25, 2018 14:59:06 GMT
So Mr Fowler isn't just an innocent traveler. I wonder what's going on. Sounds like both Prince Albert and President Lincoln survived their OTL early deaths. Wonder what happened in the US with Lincoln in charge of reconstruction? Also that the demise of Napoleon III's empire was followed by a monarchy - presumably Bourbon, although possibly Orlean's dynasty, rather than the OTL republic. The reference to the blue police box and the untidy man at the space base wearing a very long knitted scarf was noted. Also the two robots serving there.
Was the mention of the bad omens about using an ape as the 1st astronaut a reference to the Planet of the Apes universe?
Has Britain's claim to sole control of all three moons stayed uncontested? Suspect not as that would be a huge advantage to Britain plus we know that Luna at least has intelligent inhabitants.
So there is also strong dwarfen and elvish presence in space which are totally unconnected to any human state.
Looking very interesting. Thanks again.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 25, 2018 15:05:23 GMT
Has Britain's claim to sole control of all three moons stayed uncontested? Suspect not as that would be a huge advantage to Britain plus we know that Luna at least has intelligent inhabitants. Are there Luna Nazies like those on Iron Sky, because if so, i would not describe Luna being inhabited by intelligent inhabitants.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 25, 2018 16:33:14 GMT
Has Britain's claim to sole control of all three moons stayed uncontested? Suspect not as that would be a huge advantage to Britain plus we know that Luna at least has intelligent inhabitants. Are there Luna Nazies like those on Iron Sky, because if so, i would not describe Luna being inhabited by intelligent inhabitants.
I think your getting confused between the Space Nazi pirates, who I think are based somewhere in the asteroid belt and the Selenites, from HG Wells The_First_Men_in_the_Moon, who have been mentioned already IIRC.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 25, 2018 16:37:11 GMT
Are there Luna Nazies like those on Iron Sky, because if so, i would not describe Luna being inhabited by intelligent inhabitants. I think your getting confused between the Space Nazi pirates, who I think are based somewhere in the asteroid belt and the Selenites, from HG Wells The_First_Men_in_the_Moon, who have been mentioned already IIRC. I, thus no luna Nazis then.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jul 25, 2018 16:39:21 GMT
I think your getting confused between the Space Nazi pirates, who I think are based somewhere in the asteroid belt and the Selenites, from HG Wells The_First_Men_in_the_Moon, who have been mentioned already IIRC. I, thus no luna Nazis then.
Not that I'm aware of. Sounds like while you still have the problems with the wildlife I think Luna, especially is too close to Earth and too well settled and developed for such groups to hide out that but sdarkshade will tell us if I'm wrong.
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 25, 2018 21:47:23 GMT
I'll be able to answer the more extensive points after work, but for the moment, there are no Nazis on Earth's moons, which have been heavily developed and 'settled'. They fled for the much more secure safety of the asteroid belt.
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 26, 2018 10:46:01 GMT
You are quite welcome and it is I who should be thanking you for the interesting questions and comments.
Reconstruction under Lincoln was rather more successful and his legacy is even more substantial. Prince Albert's long life has some very interesting consequences.
The robots and the Doctor are but a few of the cameo appearances, which also include dandy cats (the Cat from Red Dwarf) and the newcomers in the tearoom (who look like, but unfortunately are not Kirk and Spock).
You are absolutely spot on regarding the ape omens.
Britain's claim was disputed from the moment other nations began to come up into space in strength. Luna, being the largest, has several non-British bases and the status of the other two is ...interesting...
The dwarven and elven presence will be explained in due course, but represents an opportunity for both races to branch out once again from human lands.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 27, 2018 14:36:11 GMT
You are quite welcome and it is I who should be thanking you for the interesting questions and comments. Reconstruction under Lincoln was rather more successful and his legacy is even more substantial. Prince Albert's long life has some very interesting consequences. The robots and the Doctor are but a few of the cameo appearances, which also include dandy cats (the Cat from Red Dwarf) and the newcomers in the tearoom (who look like, but unfortunately are not Kirk and Spock). Are the Cyberman and the Daleks also real, would be cool if their empires existed in the Darkearth verse and one day they would encounter the British in space and have their ass kicked.
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 27, 2018 14:51:57 GMT
No, they haven't factored into any of my plans at this stage. I can't say too much more on that particular matter for fear of spoiling this story...
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 29, 2018 11:03:18 GMT
Chapter 3: Between the Worlds
The first base stations for repeated use were established near the north poles of the moons, with the first and largest being Victoria Station on Luna, founded on April 24th, 1877. Life on the moons was fraught with the difficulties of incredible distance, the bizarre environment, the hidden dangers of the unknown and their essential isolation from the Earth. Initial travel was limited to the immediate environs of the base stations and the defence of these forts and the landing sites they contained was the primary priority of British forces on the moons. Everything about them was alien, from the weird, twisted plant life and the sharp, astringent note of the air to the haunting whisper of the lunar winds and the rippling lights that pulsed on the horizons. Until water was discovered, only small forces could be maintained, but the successful sinking of wells in June 1877 allowed an expansion of the garrisons and the beginning of lunar exploration.
Regular supply flights by the Victory and her newer sister ships Vanguard, Valiant and Voyager would arrive twice a month, loaded with food, tools, machinery and all of the equipment needed to establish civilization. Observatories, greenhouses, workshops and manufactories rose up next to the first rough barracks, fuel bunkers and and aethership gantries. The sorcerously-assisted cultivation of crops and vegetables was a difficult process and it took until 1878 for the first potatoes and wheat to be successfully grown in caverns blasted out beneath Victoria Station by the crew of agricultural druids. The weirdest source of victuals came from the strange fruit of a purple cactus, which bore a strong resemblance to green cheese in taste and texture and when dried could last for months; mooncheese, as it became known, would serve as the mainstay of space rations for many a long year.
Surveying expeditions began to strike out to explore and map the new worlds, aided by the eventual arrival of horses and specially designed arcane steam rovers, which gave considerable mobility through hills, deserts, plains and craters alike. Surface water remained elusive, but the discovery of frozen rivers and small lakes of ice in the Lunar Alps gave some hints as to the workings of this strange natural environment. Minerva had many of the attributes of her older sister, although its vegetation and plant life bore a more amethyst hue, whilst Bellona was a much more barren and rocky world with little beyond endless deserts of dust and insects above the surface. Mineral deposits of iron and copper were relatively plentiful, but more precious substances proved to be harder to locate.
The beasts of Luna and Minerva proved generally inquisitive and innocuous towards the new visitors, but some of the more monstrous fauna were rather more predatory. Swarms of large carnivorous spiders were the most common threat, closely followed by the hidden danger of the rainbow death worms that struck up from the dusty sands at unsuspecting travelers and the marauding menace of packs of bloodcurdling razor bats, which seemed like a weird coupling of the familiar flying creatures and vicious sharks. Intrepid explorers needed to be on their guard at all times and heavy repeating rifles were as necessary equipment as the heliograph and iron rations.
The most important moment came with the first encounter with intelligent moon life. The blue insectoids encountered by Ashton and Sutcliffe were discovered once again in the foothills of the Lunar Alps, herding flocks of caterpillar-like creatures. With the aid of arcane translation, the first basic communication was established between the Earthlings and the S’lentzhz, a name swiftly anglicized to Selenites. Their initial appearance turned out to be deceptive, as the external resemblance to insectoid life was in fact due to their armour, carefully fashioned from the shells of sapphire ants that were their chief prey. Their species was a primitive one, making use of tools of stone and bone, but had a long and rich history that included tales of golden creatures descending from the skies before the dawn of time. From the Selenites, the British explorers learnt of the hulking Khalkur, the mysterious nomadic Dazyar, of the curious swarming gremlins and, strangest of all, of the tribes of goblins who plagued the other denizens of Luna from their subterranean lairs. The mounting tide of evidence of some sort of ancient and unknown connection between the inhabitants of the Earth and its satellites aroused great interest from scholars and sages alike.
Yet always the promise of Earth’s heavenly twins hung heavily on the minds of those at safely ensconced in their terrestrial home and the moonbases alike. Venus remained an enigmatic mystery, shy beneath her enveloping clouds, but not Mars. New observations from Luna and Bellona gave even cleared indications of some sort of unnatural activity on the far-off red planet, including the apparent construction of a huge new artificial canal. This spurred the desire for further exploration and expansion of the British Empire to the surface of another genuine planet. The development of new and more powerful engines and advanced arcane means of solar communication now made the prospect of voyages to Mars and Venus a viable one. Substantial supplies of iron ore and coal on Luna, the latter obtained from the Selenites, permitted the construction of vessels on the moons to be seriously contemplated.
On Earth, pressures were steadily growing in a variety of different forms. Britain’s rivals in Europe and across the Atlantic had made steady leaps and bounds towards the manufacture of spacecraft capable of flying to the moons, threatening her monopoly on the effective control of space. The considerable expense of the Imperial Space Programme was steadily mounting beyond even what the ineffable evocations of eternal national glory could counter and the gradual trickle of income from the moons did even approach the level necessary for balance. Whilst the few voices that called for the curtailing of space exploration were soon quashed by the branding reproach of public opinion, it was clear that the edges of the new frontier would have to be pushed further.
The last days of 1880 saw the beginning of the new effort that would take mankind across the vast distance between the worlds as construction began on a huge drydock at Victoria Station. Here, two enormous cavorite spaceships would be laid down in 1882, dwarfing any previous designs, British or foreign. The benefits of construction in the more optimal gravity of Luna were obvious to the Imperial Space Programme’s chief designers and the products of the forges and mines of the moonbases were turned towards this focus. Whilst the craft that had carried men to the moons had been but an evolution of the first simple cavorite flying machines, these new vessels were intended from the beginning to be long range ships capable of travelling through the aether and the skies and seas of another planet. They were to carry both the engines of peace and the weapons of war and bore names redolent with the past glory of England – Eagle and Ark Royal.
Some small understanding of the sheer scale of this second great effort can be derived from examining the armaments, cargo and complement of the two space ships. Based on the lines of contemporary ironclad battleships and armed with four 12” guns in two mighty turrets and a host of lighter guns, the Mars Ships were loaded with sufficient food and coal for three years in special sorcerous bunkers, along with six complete cavorite flying machines apiece and the materials for the assembly of several steam airships. Their iron hulls were covered by a fine lattice of steelglass and brass designed to contain a breathable atmosphere for the long journey through interplanetary space. The provision of this air came in large part from a marvelous arcane garden hall deep within the ship which also served as the home for the herd of miniature livestock. Arms, ammunition, trade goods were packed into the holds, leaving little living space for men who would fly to Mars. Ark Royal and Eagle each had a crew of 525 handpicked sailors, sky pilots, aeronauts, scientists, engineers, missionaries, wizards and adventurers assembled from the cream of the armed forces of the British Empire. They were to be joined together in a new command established at the direction of Queen Victoria - the Royal Space Force.
On November 12th 1884, they were launched from the great Lunar drydocks and began a series of experimental flights between the Earth and the moons, performing several perfect landings in the South Pacific in preparation for their Martian task. When the Victory and Voyager attempted to keep up with them on the flight to Minerva, they were completely outpaced by the newer vessels, even as they only used two of their four engines. After extensive preparations had been completed and new heliographic relay systems had been put in place at Victoria Station, the Ark Royal and the Eagle set off for Mars on January 24th 1885 under the overall command of Admiral Sir Richard Bright, the first professional head of the new Royal Space Force.
The flowing tides of kaleidoscopic aether rippled about the dark vastness of space, driving the ships ever forward at tremendous speeds never before known to or imagined by man. The journey was marked by its relative tedium and predictable routine, made tolerable by educational lectures, scientific experiments, pantomimes, magical illusion shows and the regular exchange of information on sporting competitions between the two vessels by sorcerous heliograph. Initial rivalry between the contingents drawn from the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Navy and British Army gave way to a strong sense of solidarity as they coursed alone through the cosmos. Bright and his two captains, William Ryan and Archibald Steele, kept stern yet careful order over their crews, well aware of the strains that the long voyage held.
On October 15th, 1885, after a flight of 264 days, 17 hours and 32 minutes through the trackless void of space, the Ark Royal and Eagle arrived in Martian orbit. ……………………………………………………………………………………………
The departure lounge at Queen Victoria Spaceport was far less opulent than the one in Kenya where Tom had begun his journey, but its combination of silvery columns, black moonstone floors and vaulting crystal windows was nonetheless impressive. A quiet buzz of conversation among the waiting travellers hummed over the light background music of a far-off dance band and grey clad staff moved purposefully about their business. From his current table, he could look out on one side over the teeming streets of Victoria Station and on the other over the long runway that rolled off towards the deep purple lunar horizon. A wire fence separated the rugged moonscape of shrubs, rocks, craters and dusty plains from the neatly ordered concrete and tarmac of the spaceport, which currently played host to no less than two dozen craft of various sizes, types and flags.
Chief among them was the large British spaceliner, the RMSS Arcadia, and its American counterpart, the SS Franklin, flanked by a lone Soviet freighter and French, Japanese, German, Dutch and Italian merchant ships, all larger than the Pandora that had borne him to Luna. A bizarrely shaped Martian ship taxiied in towards the arrivals terminal, bearing a distinct resemblance to a winged manta ray. Three flying saucers of the Royal Space Force were being refueled and loaded for their regular lunar patrol flight next to the enormous hangar, where a Templar space cruiser and an Elven hawkship were also making their final preparations for launch. Busily rushing about the vessels were their ground crews of men, dwarves, gnomes and what appeared to be humanoid robots; Tom had noticed the decidedly increased use of their kind in space and the moons, which he put down to a matter of costs and environment.
He waved away an obsequious steward who offered to refill his tall glass of lunar tea and returned ostensibly to his newspaper. In any other circumstance, the article on the future of the battleship in modern naval warfare would actually have been quite interesting, but at this time, it served merely as a means of covering his vexed thoughts. Tom had painstakingly examined the sheet of paper his contact had passed to him in the Grand Hotel bar in his room last night before burning it to ashes in his fireplace. It had listed the next part of his instructions on who he was to meet on Mars, where he was to meet them and what he was to ask of them, but had not answered any of his burning questions. How could they be there? Why use him and not some asset already on the Red Planet? Still, the money was good, duty was duty and even if he could never speak of his main quest, the journey and sojourn off Earth would make for one heck of a story.
Tom was stirred from his musings by the echo of the loud voice of the announcer declaring that the Arcadia was ready for boarding. He stood up from the wicker chair, clapped his hat on his head, picked up his Gladstone bag and strode purposefully across the highly polished floor towards the exit gate. One of the attractive features of the spaceport was that the shining columns and glass walls allowed one the ability to keep an eye on anyone behind them. In this case, it permitted him to casually observe one fellow who had displayed a rather keen interest in him rising up and following at a discrete distance.
Curious.
The lunarian means of ingress to the Arcadia were far more commodious than those in Kenya, with the passenger aerobridge stretching directly to the spaceliner, obviating the need to venture out into the thin moon air; whilst it was comfortably breathable, it left a chap feeling a tad light headed and distinctly peaky, not to mention the dust getting all through one’s hair. The examination of his ticket and papers was something more than perfunctory and the pair of RSF sentries eyed him carefully as he passed between them through the arcane detection gates; the lessons of the Karamian Incident were seemingly still fresh in their minds. It seemed that the farther he went out into space, the further he found himself from the comfortable assumptions of civilized society.
Passing through the golden doors of the spacelock, he entered the liner’s cargo bay, where he was greeted by two far friendlier stewards clad in the bright blue and yellow livery of British Empire Interplanetary Spacelines.
“Good afternoon sir! Welcome aboard the RMSS Arcadia. Would you happen to be Mr. Tom Fowler?” The smaller of the two chaps, presumably named Chief Steward Robinson, doffed his cap at Tom in polite, smiling deference.
“I would.” All in all, he could get used to this business of being recognized. It had quite the cachet to it.
“Wonderful! Steward Hawtrey will show you to your cabin; there is also a place reserved for you at the captain’s table tonight.”
“Super! I’ve never dined with a space captain before!”
“I wouldn’t become too accustomed to it, sir; as a second class passenger, you’ll usually take your meals in the hall with the general populace.”
“Oh.” Tom was bought back to reality by the recollection that his complimentary ticket was not that complimentary.
Hawtrey, a thin bespectacled fellow, ushered Tom forward up a grand flight of stairs to the passenger deck and thence to his well-appointed cabin. No expense had been spared on the rooms and furnishings aboard the Arcadia and the provision of a king sized bed, refrigerator, a large television and an ambient wall screen displaying various images of pastoral landscapes made it significantly better than his rather modest lodgings in London. If this was second class, then he couldn’t dream on what first class would hold. A quick peak inside the drinks cabinet further improved his appreciation of its estimable quality and, as he fixed himself a gin and tonic, he allowed himself to relax for the first time since he had left Earth. For the moment, gazing at the sweeping vistas of the glorious Grand Canyon under a dazzling azure sky whilst laying on a featherbed on a spaceship at the North Pole of Luna, he could be at ease.
Later that evening (the notion of the passage of day and night aboard the Arcadia being artificially signified by changes to the illusionary lighting on cabin wall screens) Tom Fowler made his way into the main first class dining room, which stood on a mezzanine floor overlooking the second class dining room. There he would be seated with the captain and four other greatly esteemed guests. As was the custom on the first night, the range of comestible offerings from the Arcadia’s kitchens was plenteous, ranging from a pair of glistening suckling pigs, a hulking baron of roast beef and a plump broiled dodo to a dozen giant Alaskan lobsters, oysters so fresh that he could still taste the salt of the Pacific Ocean, dazzling plateaux de fruits de mer and a huge silvery king salmon that seemed to stare morosely at Tom. The wheels of moon cheese, tureens of turtle soup, cornucopias of edible flowers and platters of rainbow-hued fresh fruits and vegetables, many of which he had never seen before, made the mahogany table almost shift under their weight in a display of deliberate extravagence. Captain Alan Tate, a bluff and forthright Australian chap, was particularly punctilious about keeping a generous table.
“I’m particularly punctilious about keeping a generous table, you see.” exclaimed the Captain to his neighbour, the decidedly prim Lady Bracknell. “Company policy, my dear. More champagne?”
“I say, Captain, were those guns on the wing turrets I saw as we were boarding? Surprised we’d need them out here in space!” Colonel Newcombe-Smythe, snowy moustaches bristling as best they could while soaked with gravy, guffawed as he squinted through his filthy monocle at the approximate location of the Captain. An old India hand, he had been called out of a comfortable retirement for a consulting job with the British Martian Army for a few months and had loudly proclaimed this on several occasions thus far in dinner.
“Purely a precautionary measure, Colonel, let me assure you. I’ve flown a dozen Mars voyages in my time and never once has there been any hint of trouble. The RSF has those Space Nazi blighters well and truly on the run and they haven’t dared show their miserable hides this side of Vulcan for three, four years now.”
“That’s not quite what I’ve heard.” muttered a quiet man in a Scots Canadian accent. He was Dr. James Campbell, a sternly earnest fellow who was going out to look for a new life in the colonies for his young family.
“Come now, Doctor Campbell! You can’t take every bit of scuttlebutt you hear as serious!” scoffed Lord Dalrymple, a foppish young aristocrat headed out for a grand Martian safari on his father’s money.
Campbell fixed Dalrymple with a steady stare until the younger man suddenly became interested in the organization of the peas on his plate. “When I was back in Windsor, I had an interesting cup of tea with an old friend of mine from the U.S. Space Force. He said that there were some disturbing reports that the Space Nazis were launching a new offensive.”
“I wouldn’t put much stead with what the Yanks say, Doctor. Anyway, whatever trouble is there is well out beyond the trade routes. There won’t be any trouble on this voyage while my head remains on my shoulders!” Captain Tate smiled confidently as he reached for another lobster and calmly cracked its claw with his bare hands.
Tom moved to change the subject, keen to know whatever snippets he could gather on this job that he had rather fortuitously fallen into. “I saw two other ships take off just before us. Is it usually this busy on the flight to Mars?”
“By and large. Once we’re further out, we’ll be on our own on this aetheric current. The busiest time is always May or June, when the outbound Convoy sets out. That always has a fair bit more company from the Space Force boys to keep it safe, as well it should.”
Captain Tate referred of course to the famous Martian Convoy, the mainstay of British commerce with that planet. Anywhere between twenty and forty huge freighters would lumber at a sedate pace between Luna and Mars, if any interplanetary flight could be classed as sedate, as they had done for the better part of sixty years. He had once seen an illustration of a convoy freighter and it looked for all the world like an enormous steel cylinder, with only its rear engines and a few protruding domes indicating its real purpose. Each vessel carried thousands of tons of manufactured goods for the voracious markets of the Red Planet – machinery, tools, cars, aircraft, weapons, textiles, electronics, medicines and preserved foodstuffs. On their return flight, they would be equally laden with the myriad raw materials, rare minerals, exotic spices and trade goods supplied by Mars, not to mention a king’s ransom in gold and gemstones from its mines. The days of an effective monopoly on interplanetary trade were now long gone, thanks to the rise of the Americans and the Soviets, but the Convoy still represented a great source of both British power and British pride.
“I’d imagine convoys work as well in space as they did on Earth during the wars.”
“That they do, young Mr. Fowler. It takes quite a while to arrange the escort contingents at both ends and the big cruisers that can stick with them the whole way. We can’t be everywhere, after all. But never you fear. Space is awfully, awfully big, old boy, and there was nothing at Victoria that could keep up with us for either range or speed, apart from the Franklin.”
“Are we carrying much cargo on this run, Captain?”
Tate paused for half a heartbeat, then composed himself. “A pretty typical mix. Machinery, bulk supplies and luxury goods, half a dozen sports cars, four helicopters and a shipment of twenty Centurions.”
Tom nodded his thanks to the Captain, noting that Dr. Campbell was now examining him with no small amount of baleful curiousity; he privately kicked himself for opening his mouth at all. He was quite relieved when the chef led out a procession to the table to present his intricate sugar sculpture of a swan and joined in the hearty round of applause of the entire dining room which made the poor chap blush bright red all the way from the tips of his black pencil moustache to the crown of his white tocque.
Yet even as the clapping echoed around the room, Tom couldn’t shake the impression that there was something else out there, beyond the edge of the crowd.
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Upon arrival, the British ships orbited Mars for the next ten days, carefully observing and mapping what could be seen of the land masses and seas through the curious red clouds that obscured much of what lay below. A series of strange, long canals was evident on both of the northern continents, confirming much of what had been observed from Earth. Careful photographs, observations and sketches were made of both of Phobos and Deimos, the recently discovered moons of Mars, with the former being possessed of a number of strangely positioned craters. Pulses of light were flashed back towards Earth and Luna to notify them of their successful voyage. Once preparations for entry into the planetary atmosphere were complete, the secondary cavorite rocket engines were fired once again and both vessels began their voyage down into the unknown.
Deceleration from an orbital speed to one where a comfortable landing on the seas of Mars was achievable was bought about by a clever combination of the precise reversal of the cavorite engines, skipping across the upper stages of the atmosphere to gradually bleed off velocity and the use of advanced cooling spellcraft. By the time the Eagle and Ark Royal regained sight of each other, they had descended down into the Martian stratosphere and streaked south-east across the skies, high above the awesome volcanic peak of Olympus Mons. The Eagle was the first to come to a gradual landing in the warm seas off the coast of South Barsoom at 0624 on October 26th, followed shortly by her sister ship. Buoyancy of each vessel was fully intact after the long space voyage and scientists cocooned in protective suits obtained samples of Martian air and water. Initial tests confirmed that neither were poisonous or harmful to Earthlings and the ships were opened up to the outside world for the first time since their test flights in the Pacific so many months before.
They travelled steadily through the Martian seas, observing a vast abundance of marine and aerial wildlife and launching flying machines for reconaissance of the surrounding landmasses. A suitable area for the initial landfall was swiftly located and the ships steamed towards a huge sheltered bay, arriving shortly before dawn on November 2nd. The first landing parties went ashore by steam launches with the sunrise and Captain Ryan was the first man from the planet Earth to set foot upon the soil of Mars at 0556, followed by Lieutenant Edward Robertson carrying the Union Flag. The sands of the beach were a deep golden red and the ferns, trees and undergrowth were all noticeably alien in shape and hue, but the general style of the scenery reminded several naval men of Southern India.
Mars’s creatures astounded the British exploration parties as they ventured into the hinterland surrounding what had been dubbed Britannia Bay, which rivaled the great harbours of Sydney or New York on Earth for its sheer size and depth. Large blue reptilian quadrupeds grazed peacefully along the banks of fresh water streams and flying beasts covered in rippling rainbow plumage flitted through the dense foliage of the soaring trees. Still stranger were the multi-limbed and multi-eyed animals that burst up from the ground with a merry bleating and some weird form of pink-furred land squid, both of which proved to be overly friendly towards the Earthlings to the point of devoted obsession.
These wondrous sights were as nothing compared to the events of November 8th 1885, the day of first contact with the intelligent native species of Mars. ……………………………………………………………………………………………
Tom Fowler’s two days sojourn aboard the Valiant had none of the comforts of the Arcadia. This was not a merchant or exploration ship, but was unmistakeably a vessel of war and every detail reflected that, from the heavy bulkheads to the utilitarian aluminium furniture in his sparse cabin. After a brief check in the hospital wing, he had been released to the relative freedom of the upper accommodation deck, where he had spent his days enconsced in the quieter of its three bars, the Admiral Benbow, nursing a drink in front of the illusory fire and thinking deeply through what had come to pass and what lay ahead.
Of the 896 passengers and crew aboard the Arcadia, just over six hundred had survived the dastardly attack of the Space Nazis, with those who had fled in lifeboat spheres having been picked up by patrolling fighters in the following hours to face long and awkward questioning in the cases of the crew. The unfortunate Captain Tate had been among the first killed in the attack, a stray tea saucer having decapitated him in the chaos of the first surprise salvo. Whatever cargo had been onboard had been thoroughly wrecked or blown out into the void of space, but putting down the the entire raid to an opportunistic smash and grab job that was rather heavy on the smash struck Tom as quite unconvincing. The fortuitous arrival of the famed Commander Dare right in the nick of time was also far too convenient to be mere coincidence.
It was with some degree of relief that Tom greeted the sight of Deimos and the Royal Space Force battle station complex that spread across the smaller of Mars’s moons. At nearly four times the size of Queen Elizabeth Station, it was one of the foremost British bases beyond the immediate vicinity of Earth and its satellites and one of the most significant reasons was visible in the large drydock that dominated the upper hemisphere of the moon. He had read about it in the newspapers and even seen a BBC news story, but nothing he had previously seen prepared him for the scale of the space battleship under construction before him. It would tip the balance of power quite decisively in Britain’s favour when – and if – it was finally finished.
The sound of footsteps on the metallic floor of the observation bay sent him spinning around to see who had come to join him. To say that he was surprised by the figure who joined him would have been an understatement on the level of comparing the Dreadnought behind him to a rowboat. Of all the chaps in all the worlds that would join him here at the gates of Mars, he’d never quite thought it would be this one.
“Hey, Fowler! Heck of a sight, ain’t it?”
“Mr. Sylvester.”
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Jul 29, 2018 11:24:21 GMT
Chapter 3: Between the Worldsflanked by a lone Soviet freighter and French, Japanese, German, Dutch and Italian merchant ships, So space merchants exist.
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Post by simon darkshade on Jul 29, 2018 11:26:53 GMT
The overwhelming majority of space trade is conducted by private companies.
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