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    The Star Queen
    The Star Queen
    The Star Queen
    Ebook175 pages2 hours

    The Star Queen

    By Robert A.V. Jacobs

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    About this ebook

    The passenger liner the Star Queen, suffered mysterious damage to its jump engines and emerged from hyperspace, close to the sun, at half light speed on a collision course with Earth. Distress signals were sent out as the ship scorched into the Earth’s atmosphere to explode devastatingly just before impact.
    600 years later, and 600 light years away, the distress call is intercepted by a warship of Her Majesty’s Star Fleet. The distress call is a radio signal, presumably because of an FTL coms failure, and it is soon realised that its origin is the start of the twentieth century.
    A race of incorporeal beings called the clouds from another reality had come to a period in their time when their society needed t o expand. This was achieved by absorbing another race which had reached the correct point in its development. Humanity was chosen, and they watched and tested.
    Some humans with special abilities, unknown to the Clouds, discovered the watchers and preparations were put in hand to resist any forced integration.
    Discovering that humanity had a greater aptitude for scientific advancement than they did, they became afraid that, when the time came, humanity would have become so powerful, that if it resisted, it could destroy them. So a pre-emptive strike was launched.
    As the war rages in its unstoppable fury across the galaxy, one man, James Oxford suffers a loss so great, so devastating, that the only thing left in his life is revenge. So he embarks on a mission to bring peace to his soul, and if he can’t, then he intends to take as many of the enemy with him as he can.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert A.V. Jacobs
    Release dateJul 11, 2012
    ISBN9781476015644
    The Star Queen

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      Book preview

      The Star Queen - Robert A.V. Jacobs

      The Star Queen

      The Star Queen

      Fourth Edition

      Copyright 2014 Robert A.V. Jacobs

      Published by

      Robert A.V. Jacobs

      Cover Image by Richard K Green

      Smashwords edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      This book is written in ‘English’ English, so there may be some differences in spelling to other international forms of English.

      Internet sites quoted in this book were active at the time of writing. No responsibility is taken for web sites that cease to exist or discontinue the stated articles.

      This book is a work of fiction and all characters are fictitious or are portrayed fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

      Whether any of my scientific statements bear any relationship to actual fact is most unlikely.

      Suitable for Young Adults and Adults

      Also by Robert A.V. Jacobs

      Children’s fiction, ten years upwards

      Daisy Weal

      Daisy Weal and the Monster

      Daisy Weal and Sir Charles

      Daisy Weal and the Last Crenian

      Dauntless

      The Adventures of Daisy Weal (Omnibus edition, containing four of the books in the series)

      Grandpa’s Shed

      Young Adult and Adult Fiction

      The Lost Starship

      Speaker (A collection of 31 short stories)

      The Yellow Dragon

      The Diamond Sword of Tor

      Cardoney (Omnibus edition containing both The Yellow Dragon and The Diamond Sword of Tor)

      Adult Science Fiction

      As a Consequence

      Taldi’na

      Adult Detective/Political Thrillers

      Dexxman

      The Disappearance of Natalie Firth

      Time to Die

      A Promise to Doreen

      Almost Enough

      Non-fiction

      Sudoku, Food for the Mind

      Table of Contents

      Also By

      Author’s Note

      Dedication

      Foreword

      Chapter One: Timeslip

      Chapter Two: HMSS Endeavour

      Chapter Three: Arrested

      Chapter Four: Hetti Jenkins

      Chapter Five: The Daisy Weal

      Chapter Six: Nantet

      Chapter Seven: The New Admiral

      Chapter Eight: The Wedding

      Chapter Nine: War

      Chapter Ten: Jill Seymour

      Chapter Eleven: Technical Support

      Chapter Twelve: July 1908

      Chapter Thirteen: Attack on Antares

      Chapter Fourteen: A New Reality

      Why not write a review?

      Character List

      As A Consequence

      About the Author

      Author’s Note

      This one is for me, I liked the idea years ago and decided to finish it and move it into the Daisy Weal Universe. Even though Daisy Weal herself does not appear in the book, it is part of the Daisy Weal series and falls between ‘The Lost Starship’, and ‘Dauntless’, and is the sixth in the series.

      I do apologise to my readers for using parts of text that can be found in ‘The Lost Starship’, but it was a case of describing the same scene, but from a different perspective. I also apologise for repeating part of the first chapter later in the book, but as the reality was changing, I felt that it was required.

      This book should probably have been entitled ‘The Clouds’ or something similar, because the Star.Liner. The Star Queen does not feature heavily in it. But she does play a pivotal role, and anyway it sounds good.

      I have promoted people through the ranks in star fleet, with indecent haste in some cases, and it is unlikely that an armed service today would work in the same way. I make no apology for it. It is a work of fiction and I am perfectly at liberty as the author, to make life as rosy or as unpleasant as my imagination will allow.

      I hope you enjoy it.

      In this the fourth edition of ‘The Star Queen’ I have added some text regarding the initial use of the time shift equipment, and as a consequence reduced the length of the text repeated from ‘The Lost Starship’

      Dedication

      This book is dedicated to my lifelong friend:

      David Speller.

      He won’t read it, because he’s not into Science Fiction, Fantasy or Magic, but it’s for him anyway, so go on David, force yourself.

      Foreword

      Captain John Kane stood on the bridge of the Star liner, ‘The Star Queen’, gazing out at the nothingness that was hyperspace. It was another uneventful trip, to rank alongside the several hundred that he had already managed to complete since he had become a Captain.

      On this trip, they had swung by the Antares system, and dropped off some supplies for the military base there, and then jumped to a new colony that was being established in the Circinus Galaxy. His ship had been carrying over fifty new colonists, who had turned out to be a welcome boost to the hard pressed and vastly over worked community as it suffered the inevitable growing pains of a recently settled planet.

      It was a job normally reserved for the military, but after over sixty trips, it was deemed to be safe enough to place into civilian hands, and on this occasion Captain Kane had drawn the short straw. It was a somewhat longer trip than the commercial routes that he was used to travelling, but it did make a change, and he was actually starting to enjoy it.

      He was now on his way home. He had a few passengers, no more than half a dozen who had found that life in the colonies did not live up to their expectations, and had decided to return to Earth. He reflected that having met the returnees, he was not surprised, as they all looked a little too soft to be pioneers.

      He was suddenly brought down to earth, by the sound of a distant and violent explosion. The floor kicked under his feet, and he staggered into his XO, Lieutenant Commander Paul Marsden, who was equally having difficulty remaining upright.

      What the hell was that Marsden? he asked his XO.

      I don’t know sir, but I intend to find out, replied Marsden who walked unsteadily across to Nav Con (Navigation and Communications Control)

      It appears that we have experienced an explosion in the jump engines. He announced after a few seconds. It has kicked us back into normal space. I’m not sure where, but I could swear that damn great star is Sol.

      The strident sounds of the ship’s alarms were making it difficult to think, but what Kane did know was that explosions just did not happen in jump engines. Well not without help they didn’t, not in this day and age anyway.

      Fortunately, the engineering crew were not in the engine room at the time of the explosion, so there was not loss of life. The first to arrive in a protective suit was in time to see a puff of strange coloured smoke drift up from the damaged equipment and dissipate, along with the remaining air, out through the hole in the side of the ship.

      Chapter One

      Timeslip

      The Star Liner, ‘The Star Queen’ dropped out of hyperspace far too close to the Star for comfort. The star was just ahead and slightly to the right, and they were well inside its corona. It was not a calculated point of emergence, but one that was just an accident of circumstance. An explosion that couldn’t happen had just happened in her engine room. The resultant damage to her energy converters and jump engines caused the field that kept the ship in hyperspace to fail. There was no warning, just a ripple in space, the sudden appearance of stars, and the howl of every major alarm on the ship. The ship’s starboard forward viewports automatically and almost instantaneously, became opaque against the intense glare of the star. But it was still not fast enough to prevent a residual image being burnt onto the retina of everyone on the bridge. For a few precious seconds they were all blind, but gradually their site began to return and they turned their attention to their instruments. The ship’s kinetic energy level was still uncomfortably high, with the damaged energy converters being unable to compensate.

      To Captain John Kane as he hastily shut off the alarms, it was something of a blessing in disguise. Their high kinetic energy levels caused them to scorch past the Star, and out of its gravitational field at just under the speed of light. It saved the lives, for the moment at least, of all on board as the ship came out of the star’s corona leaving a trail of smoke which rapidly dissipated in the vacuum of space, but other than the minor split in the engine room wall, there was no serious external damage. As they moved away from the star the hull began to cool, and the smoke from the overheated skin eventually disappeared. For a few moments though, it did get very hot inside the ship.

      The ship’s energy screens, tied to the energy converters as they were, had failed as well at the instant of emergence, and without their speed and vector away from the star, they would certainly have been destroyed.

      From the myriad of displays on the bridge, Kane could see the converters cutting in and out as the engineers fought to bring them under control. He quickly contacted the engine room, and ordered that work on the converters should be suspended until they had put enough distance between themselves and the star. He didn’t want the ship to come to a sudden stop, or to even slow down for the next few minutes at least, before they were far enough away to ensure their survival.

      He touched a control on the panel in front of him, and forcing emotion from his voice, spoke into the air.

      This is the Captain. There is no cause for alarm. I repeat. There is no cause for alarm. Some minor damage has occurred to the ship as a result of an explosion in the engine room. Everything is under control, and for your own safety, all passengers should remain in their cabins under vac seal. Please stay calm. I will keep you informed. Thank you.

      The next few minutes were tense, but finally he was satisfied that enough distance had been achieved, and ordered the engine room to recommence work on the converters. Almost immediately, he felt the ship respond to the engineers’ efforts. Each time the converters cut in a little Kinetic was converted to Potential energy, and their speed was dropping. Inertia and internal gravitational controls were still holding, which was just as well, because handling emergencies while you are floating about is not the easiest thing to do. In addition to which, without Inertia protection, they would probably all be unpleasant smears on the walls. So only he and the bridge crew knew, from their displays, of the tremendous stresses that the ship was experiencing.

      Commander Marsden was standing in front of Nav Con, engrossed in the view from the holographic displays, when the Captain addressed him,

      Your report Commander Marsden if you please,

      "Yes sir. I can confirm that the star we have just passed is definitely Sol. We have managed to reduce our speed to a little less than half-light and we are heading away from it, on

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