Read Online Starship Eternal (War Eternal Book 1) by M.R. Forbes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: M.R. Forbes
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uniform was laid out on it, and he ran his hand over the decorations pinned to the chest, and the space that had been left for the new one. He considered trying the uniform on right away, and then decided against it. It had taken almost a full day for him to get a minute alone.
He retreated to the living room, dropping down onto the gel sofa and leaning his head back on one of the arms. A thought brought up the p-rat interface, and a second started a query for "Goliath." The voices in his medically cleared head kept telling him to find it. He figured it couldn't hurt to learn what it actually was.
The first result was called The History of XENO-1 . Aldus had mentioned the name, and he had a feeling that somehow it had been what set him off. He scrolled the table of contents, skimming through the menu, with titles like The Arrival, The Discovery, First to Antarctica, The Beginning of the Xeno War, The Xeno War: Year 2, The Xeno War: Year 3, The Xeno War: Year 4, A Time of Peace, and The Goliath.
He stopped when he saw it, moving into that section with a thought. It was mixed media: video, imagery, and text all floating in the center of his left eye with enough transparency that he could see the ceiling behind it. He closed his eyes and spread the p-rat display across both of his retinas, finding himself immersed in a three-dimensional space, surrounded by floating boxes containing the content, all neatly organized. He held his hands out and reached for a section labeled "Construction."
The rest of the contents shrank away, while the photos in the Construction section flew out and expanded into a giant wall of imagery. He pulled the first image, and it shrunk down into a stack he could flick through.
The first picture was nothing but a shell, a frame of what appeared to be an earlier form of poly-alloy - a nano-scale material based on carbon, graphite, and iron. It was an extremely durable and light metal that along with carbonates, aerogels, and ultralight cement was used in just about everything these days. The caption beneath the photo read "A skeleton ship. First successful application of new alloy."
A starship? He checked the date on the image. September, 2043. Over four hundred years ago. He turned off the display for a moment, leaving himself in darkness.
Goliath. He tried to remember his history lessons. He had never been a particularly attentive student, preferring to watch the girls in his class rather than attune himself to the droning of his professor. Now he wished he had at least listened a little bit. He smiled, wondering if that was the day Keely Masterson had worn that skin suit with the dynamic patterns that flowed across it, the one that had been banned a couple of months later due to a glitch that would cause parts of it to randomly turn transparent. He didn't know if anyone else had seen it when the chest had gone clear. If his professor had, he didn't say anything. A sly pervert. Who could blame him for not paying attention that day?
He turned the display back on and flicked the graphic away. The next image was a few months later. More of the frame was completed, revealing the massive size of the ship. It wasn't quite as large as the Frontier Federation's dreadnought, but it was bigger than anything in the Alliance's stable. Two kilometers long, and half as wide. It was bulky for a starship. Not that aerodynamics mattered in the vacuum of space, but it would be an awfully big target, and impossible to lay shield coverage over. Mitchell wasn't sure they even had shields back then.
Four hundred years. He put his hand up to his head again, feeling the smooth skin where he had been shot. Dr. Drummond told him he was fine, and the scans backed him up. He didn't feel fine. Why was he seeing things, and hearing things? What did they all have to do with this antique starship? If it were still around, he was sure he would have heard about it.
"The bullet messed me up a little, that's all," he
He retreated to the living room, dropping down onto the gel sofa and leaning his head back on one of the arms. A thought brought up the p-rat interface, and a second started a query for "Goliath." The voices in his medically cleared head kept telling him to find it. He figured it couldn't hurt to learn what it actually was.
The first result was called The History of XENO-1 . Aldus had mentioned the name, and he had a feeling that somehow it had been what set him off. He scrolled the table of contents, skimming through the menu, with titles like The Arrival, The Discovery, First to Antarctica, The Beginning of the Xeno War, The Xeno War: Year 2, The Xeno War: Year 3, The Xeno War: Year 4, A Time of Peace, and The Goliath.
He stopped when he saw it, moving into that section with a thought. It was mixed media: video, imagery, and text all floating in the center of his left eye with enough transparency that he could see the ceiling behind it. He closed his eyes and spread the p-rat display across both of his retinas, finding himself immersed in a three-dimensional space, surrounded by floating boxes containing the content, all neatly organized. He held his hands out and reached for a section labeled "Construction."
The rest of the contents shrank away, while the photos in the Construction section flew out and expanded into a giant wall of imagery. He pulled the first image, and it shrunk down into a stack he could flick through.
The first picture was nothing but a shell, a frame of what appeared to be an earlier form of poly-alloy - a nano-scale material based on carbon, graphite, and iron. It was an extremely durable and light metal that along with carbonates, aerogels, and ultralight cement was used in just about everything these days. The caption beneath the photo read "A skeleton ship. First successful application of new alloy."
A starship? He checked the date on the image. September, 2043. Over four hundred years ago. He turned off the display for a moment, leaving himself in darkness.
Goliath. He tried to remember his history lessons. He had never been a particularly attentive student, preferring to watch the girls in his class rather than attune himself to the droning of his professor. Now he wished he had at least listened a little bit. He smiled, wondering if that was the day Keely Masterson had worn that skin suit with the dynamic patterns that flowed across it, the one that had been banned a couple of months later due to a glitch that would cause parts of it to randomly turn transparent. He didn't know if anyone else had seen it when the chest had gone clear. If his professor had, he didn't say anything. A sly pervert. Who could blame him for not paying attention that day?
He turned the display back on and flicked the graphic away. The next image was a few months later. More of the frame was completed, revealing the massive size of the ship. It wasn't quite as large as the Frontier Federation's dreadnought, but it was bigger than anything in the Alliance's stable. Two kilometers long, and half as wide. It was bulky for a starship. Not that aerodynamics mattered in the vacuum of space, but it would be an awfully big target, and impossible to lay shield coverage over. Mitchell wasn't sure they even had shields back then.
Four hundred years. He put his hand up to his head again, feeling the smooth skin where he had been shot. Dr. Drummond told him he was fine, and the scans backed him up. He didn't feel fine. Why was he seeing things, and hearing things? What did they all have to do with this antique starship? If it were still around, he was sure he would have heard about it.
"The bullet messed me up a little, that's all," he
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