Chapter 15

Sean was in a state of shock, he would have about 2 weeks before he and his wife would go to G’Acrax as Earth’s Ambassadors to the Central Worlds and as a Representative to the League of Free Systems. The past 2 ½ months had been a blur, he had to call yet another emergency Board meeting, one to put Kirkwood back on as CEO in Sean’s absence, and to award Tom Hardy Sr. and his son a position on the Board of Directors. Sean launched the colony ship and it would reach Mars about the same time that he was reaching G’Acrax. Oh how he wanted to discover the secrets to FTL travel. It seemed like a cruel joke, imagine to be able to cross the galaxy in the time it would take the best ship ever designed by man to reach Mars. Somehow he would achieve this dream, he had put the combined resources of the greatest minds on the planet Earth and brought them in on this project the only goal was an FTL drive.

He had also put most of his personal wealth into a trust with Harrison’s law firm. Granted Harrison was himself retired, but his sons and grandson were running the firm now. It was when he had come in for one of the meetings between himself and Harrison’s son that Harry showed up unexpectedly, he asked Sean to meet him in his old office, which the firm hadn’t used. Harry, from time to time liked to come in for the day and spend awhile just remembering the old days.

Sean entered the office and was shown to a chair. He sat down in it and in a matter of moments, his world would change forever. Harrison gave him a sealed envelope and a file box that had been sealed as well, from the date on both of them they were sealed for over 30 years. Sean opened the envelope, inside was a letter in his grandfather’s handwriting, the letter described a situation, which was until a few month’s ago would have seemed beyond the realm of possibility. He told him of a family secret so dark and so old that he himself never guessed at its existence. Sean learned he was 1/4 G’Acraxian his great-grandfather had been from G’Acrax and had crashed to earth with his expectant wife, and had lived here as an ordinary man. Sean could not contain his disbelief. He looked up to Harry, and asked, “Is this some kind of joke?”

“Not in the Least.” Harry responded. That is why there is the box. I thought the same thing when Edwin gave me that letter and told me to keep it for you. Then he showed me the box with the evidence that proves the letter.”

Sean looked into the box. There was a leather bound book, he opened it and it appeared to be a diary of some sort. With two sets of entries one in English and one of some foreign, obviously alien language. Also there was other things, a satchel made of some foreign substance that was a soft as lambskin but appeared not to have been effected by age, in fact it looked new. On the outside was some sort of Crest and a word, the word was not readable because it was not in English, or any other Earth native language. When Sean opened the briefcase there were various papers and documents inside, he decided to close it up and look at it when he would be in private and more able to study their contents. Among the other items in the box one other was a curiosity to Sean, a coin, a large gold one to be precise. When he picked it up out of the box he was surprised by its weight. He had handled gold before and gold coins as well. This coin had a rather interesting face imprinted on it, and it had to weigh at least 10 ounces. The date, presumably, a date was 3010 and it read 1000 GC on it. A weird combination to be sure, either this whole thing was an elaborate joke by his grandfather, or it was the total truth, which had some interesting ramifications.

He was told by Harrison to not reveal to anyone the contents of the box, that there were those who would kill for information of this type, especially now that the aliens had come and Sean should consider a permanent change of address as soon as reasonably possible.

The last couple of days had been very hard on Brooke, she was excited and nervous at the same time. Over the last week or so Sean had shown a change of character, he would not eat very much, he talked even less and was constantly working late hours at the office, even for Sean these hours seemed impossibly long. He would come home for a couple of hours and then go right back to the office. His reason was always the same, need to make sure everything is on track with the colony ship, Have to make sure That Chester is up to speed with the company and the transfer of the company headquarters to the Lunar Colony.

I Have a million other details to attend to and I need to make sure that the investors are getting the most complete up to date information possible.

So when the day to board the Galcruxian Patrol Cruiser arrived she was surprised that Sean was actually early for the departure, and he was trying to hurry her into the limo that would take them to the earth side space station and the awaiting shuttle to allow them to meet Captain Ry’Clif and his men on the cruiser. They left at about daybreak, way before most of the neighbors were awake. They arrived at the spaceport by the time most of the early morning traffic was just beginning to become unbearably bad. By 10 am they were cleared for launch. By 3pm they were on board the cruiser and being shown to their quarters by Captain Ry’Clif.

“I hope you will find these quarters to be suitable I have taken the liberty of converting two smaller staterooms and making one large one from it. I hope you will be comfortable.”

“I am sure we will be.” Sean replied.

Brooke asked if they were going to be put into suspended animation due to the length of the trip. And was assured that, that would be unnecessary for this trip as they were anticipating a long journey and would have adequate supplies.

After the launch, which Sean and Brooke were allowed to experience from the bridge and look through the large view screen, which they both felt unequaled excitement at seeing the future of mankind. Sean went back to his quarters and retrieved the box that he had fought so hard to keep from having to put into the ship storage area. He and Brooke were allowed 1000 KG of personal items, with the exception of clothing, most was supposed to kept in the storage hold if the ship. Sean had truly wiggled the concession for his box, by reducing the weight of his personal items and by promising that it would not pose any danger to the ship. He began reading the leather bound book, and soon discovered that was a dairy of sorts it was really a narrative tale of the main events in one mans life. It began.

March 15, 1948 countryside outside of the city of London under the cover of darkness an alien spacecraft crash lands in a deserted part of a minor planet on the extreme fringes of the empire. In fact the planet was so far outside of the mainstream that it was not on any of the most current up to date charts. This is simply because it had long ago been declared hostile and the population uncivilized and barbaric. These people had been at war longer then the Central Worlds have been fighting our epic and grueling Ulster Wars. This was the main reason for the daring escape to this small planet. I, J’Ohan had decided it was time to flee from the false accusations of selling trade secrets to a rival consortium, The Quiolian Traders Group. The two occupants, my wife I were safe, for the moment, but were a very long way from home, and that is way we wanted to keep it.

The Space Command and Exploratory Services should have been alerted to the crash, via the on board auto-distress beacon. This was activated as soon as the computer, received information from the gyros that a crash was imminent. There wasn’t much time, even though they were on a long forgotten and backwater little planet the SCES could be right behind them. He had no choice. J’Ohan had to destroy the ship. However before he blew up the ship, he pulled from the wreckage, the small amount of gold, and the personal items that survived the crash. He then put his laser pistol, along with everything else that screamed alien, inside the craft. Next he proceeded to set the charges for the explosion.

They were hoping to use this as a reconnaissance trip, to study the planet and find a suitable location to blend into the society, without too much notice. To do this would have been impossible back home on G’Acrax, the Corporate Headquarters of Enidocorp Mining & Exploration Consortium. This was because J’Ohan was from one of the wealthiest families of the Central Worlds. His grandfather had created the framework and the structure for what was the largest consortium within the League of Free Systems. His father had galvanized its position and added to its power and profits.

However the Ulster wars were threatening its spot at the top, as well as its ability to conduct its core operations. Eventually he would have taken his place at the head of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive, but he had been framed for selling trade secrets by someone, or a group of individuals within the organization. He was unable to confirm his suspicions but he deduced that it was D’Amien D’Haun a man of intense feelings of jealousness toward him. D’Amien was not only an opportunist, but a schemer. He had tried to take over the consortium before in an effort to occupy the Chairman position.

J’Ohan was leaving it all behind him, the trappings of a life of privilege, the prestige the power and the money, for love. He finally found a woman, who loved him for himself, and not what he represented. She didn’t care that he was heir to billions of Mega-credits, or that he was the heir apparent for the chairman of Enidocorp. The only thing that mattered was he loved her and she loved him and she was going to have his child.

They were going to be free of D’Amien and his underlings, who were trying to usurp the power within the organization, and had framed J’Ohan and even now were threatening to have them killed. D’Amien, had already arranged for an assassination attempt of J’Ohan’s father and was spreading the rumor that it had been an enemy hit squad who had performed the heinous crime. All the while he was consolidating power among the Central Worlds, and within and outside of the Enidocorp Mining & Exploration Corporation in an attempt to seize the position of Chairman.

J’Ohan had been forced into hiding, and then he fell in love with C’Anela. By then, he was not in a position to offer her anything but his love. He had a few credits that he could still use in his personal accounts on various small planets that he had frequented for vacations and the like. But soon even those accounts had been frozen. However he had been able save enough to purchase the small spacecraft that he now was destroying.

He had to face facts he would need to find a way for them to blend in on this planet, it looked as if they would be spending the rest of their lives on it. That is of course, if they were lucky enough to live that long.

They were in the pre-dawn hours, in a wooded area, on an island named England by the local peoples. The crash had truly been an unplanned ordeal. They now were forced to try to fit in without much information, as to the local customs or their way of life.

They had been walking all night when they finally noticed a small structure in the distance, they started trudging towards it. Hopefully it would bring warmth and maybe a bite to eat. The gold that J’Ohan had would not be able to be used just yet, it would need to be either hammered, or made unrecognizable or melted and recast into a more salable manner. It simply was not a good idea to have 1000 credit gold coins with the image of the emperor on them. That was especially true since these peoples neither knew who the emperor is and didn’t know what a 1000 credit gold coin was. So the next item on the list of things to do while trying to survive on a foreign planet was get rid of, or make usable the money you brought with you. He would work on doing that at a more convenient time where they would be sure to be alone and undisturbed. The structure turned out to be a farmhouse and a very generous old widow happened to live there. When they knocked on the door it was still very early, not yet sunrise. She sleepily came to the door and asked who was there. They answered travelers who have become lost and need some assistance. She opened the small shutter on the door and cautiously peered out, to see who was there. When she saw the lady was with child, she opened the door immediately and she brought them into the kitchen and offer the woman a place by the wood stove, to help take the chill off.

“So what brings you folks out on a fearsome night such as this?” she asked with a hint of curiosity.

“Well, we were on our way to the city, when we had an accident and resorted to walking the rest of the way. If you could be so kind ma’am as to give us something to eat, we would be more then willing to repay you for your kindness.”

“Oh! no problem with that my friends I can surely put together a little something to eat and maybe a change of clothes, seeing as yours look a little bit odd for these parts, which makes me ask, are you from nearby?”