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Chapter 1 of The Defeated: Book One of the Rho Assimilation

As an early preview, I am posting the rough draft of Chapter One of THE DEFEATED – Book One of The Rho Assimilation.  Enjoy.  Best, Richard

 

The Defeated

Book One of The Rho Assimilation

By

Richard Phillips

Copyright © 2015 by Richard Phillips

Chapter 1

“My God!” Raul gasped. “You’ve killed us both!”

Jennifer Smythe turned her back on the suspended, legless apparition who had once been a handsome young man. As she adjusted the alien headband over her temples, its translucent length shifted colors, almost disappearing into her short, spiked-up, blond hair. Feeling the Altreian headband pour its power into her mind, a barely audible whisper slipped from her lips.

“I know.”

* * *

Inside the Bandolier Cave, a dozen miles southwest of Los Alamos, New Mexico, the coffee mug slipped from Dr. Hanz Jorgen’s fingers to shatter on the stone floor, spewing its hot, black wetness up his pants leg. As a brilliant white glow replaced the alien starship’s normal, soft magenta, he didn’t even notice.

Hanz didn’t know how he knew, but he did. Something powerful had just grabbed control of the Altreian starship’s computer, drawing every cycle of its immense processing power. He could practically hear the alien circuits groan under the terrible demand being placed upon the system. Staring at the glowing starship, he wondered what could tax it so intensely. Then, as a shudder traversed his body, Hanz decided he didn’t really want to know.

* * *

They were as good as dead. Raul felt the awful knowledge rip at his brain. No living thing could survive the awful G-forces of re-entry from an unanchored wormhole transit. But somehow this Altreian-altered bitch had tricked him into activating the Kasari world-ship’s wormhole engines, initiating the unstoppable sequence that would soon complete the gravitational wave packet that would fold space-time and thrust the world-ship through it. And when the Rho Ship emerged on the far side, its two quasi-human passengers would be little more than organic splatter in the ship’s forward compartment.

Thrusting aside the panic that had immobilized him, Raul called upon his connection to the Rho Ship’s neural net, initiating a desperate query, one final attempt to find some way to stop what was happening. The nano-crystals embedded in his human brain delivered the perfect connection that wedded his mind to that of the Rho Ship. Unfortunately, the answer that formed in his consciousness left him shaking. Not good!

Once again he felt Jennifer’s thoughts touch his, a caress that infected him with a sense of calm determination accompanied by a vision. How the hell was she doing that? But before he could attempt to eject her from his head, the vision resolved into a plan. Not a great plan, but one that might have the barest theoretical chance of saving their lives.

Raul focused the Rho Ship’s neural net on the proposed workaround, trying to ignore his mental countdown. Only a few seconds remained until the gravitational wave packet stabilized, but on the timescale at which the starship’s neural net operated, it would be enough. It had to be.

His mind one with the massive neural-net, Raul felt the solution lock in, marveling at its simplicity. In all the millennia that the Kasari Collective had been sending out these robotic world-ships, to find new civilizations and instruct them on how to build an anchored wormhole gateway, the Kasari had never managed to solve the central problem. They could send the robotic world-ships across the galaxy in an instant, but they couldn’t send living passengers.

But instead of performing one space-time fold between here and there, the solution Jennifer had proposed involved breaking the entire trip into a series of much smaller folds, sort of like a Chinese fan. If everything went right, the series of space-time coordinates would produce a jitter in the wormhole drive, breaking the entire trip into a series of minor wormhole steps that should be individually survivable.

Wrapping himself in the ship’s internal stasis field, Raul glanced at Jennifer, tempted to leave her to be thrown about. But the terror at the idea of being the lone survivor of a trip to some random point in the galaxy, ended the thought before it fully formed. With a flick of his mind, the stasis field tightly cradled her body, locking it in place.

Then the universe came apart around them.

* * *

Standing inside the Kasari starship that rested within the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Rho Division, Jennifer felt its wormhole engines ramp to full power. In seconds, a gravitational wave packet would thrust this ship through the resulting wormhole to an unknown destination, hopefully somewhere in this galaxy.

The sudden vision of what that would do to the surrounding high-bay and the scientists who were on duty left her sick at her stomach and almost made her lose focus. But if she was to have any chance of surviving this, she couldn’t allow her concentration to lapse.

Her mental connection through her headset to the Altreian starship that rested inside the Bandolier cavern, a dozen miles southwest of the Rho laboratory had provided her with the solution she’d mentally transferred to Raul. But that didn’t mean that it would work.

When the force-field draped her body, it startled her so badly that she almost succumbed to a claustrophobic panic attack at her inability to move even a finger. But then she understood. Somehow, Raul had caused the Rho Ship to generate the field that immobilized both their bodies and suspended them inside this compartment. Not a bad idea considering what she feared was about to happen. And then it did.

The first of many thousands of mini-steps was instantaneous. It was a sudden unintelligible shift in perspective as the cells in her body tried to tear themselves apart. Pain exploded in her mind and she lost sight in her left eye. Only the extensive neural augmentation she’d received when she’d first tried on this headset, allowed her to restrict the blood flow to the ruptured vessels.

Then it happened again. And again. And again. The transitions happening so quickly that she barely retained consciousness and wished that she hadn’t. It was an instantaneous and endless battering that left her blinded and gasping as over-stressed bones cracked and splintered within her body. Jennifer felt a scream crawl to her lips only to bubble out in a bloody froth that spread along the invisible force-field that encased her.

Despite the best efforts of her augmented mind and musculature, she was dying. A part of her begged for death to release her from the hellish agony, but Jennifer refused to let death take her without a fight, even though she realized that this was a fight she wasn’t going to win.

* * *

Despite the amazing regenerative powers his nanite infused blood granted him, Raul felt as if he were being hammered into pieces. Although each individual wormhole transit was instantaneous, the unanchored step into a new piece of space-time generated G forces that the human body couldn’t handle. And the pauses between those steps unleashed an unending sea of agony. But as he glanced across at the bloody mess that was Jennifer Smythe, he had a hard time feeling sorry for himself. She was still alive, but he really didn’t know how, given that she lacked the nanites that worked to repair his wounds.

When the series of transitions came to an abrupt end, Raul endured several seconds of dread that the wormhole transits would begin anew. The knowledge that he had made it, that his nanites would be able to fully heal his injuries, a wave of relief brought bloody tears to his eyes. Another look at Jennifer Smythe’s suspended body swept that warm feeling away in a fresh wave of terror.

Manipulating the stasis field, Raul lowered her body gently to the alien compartment’s gray floor where her blood pooled around her. The neural net told him many things, all bad. Jennifer wasn’t breathing and her heart had stopped. Worse, she had taken so much damage that chest compressions were out of the question. But she still had brain function.

Suspended by the stasis field, Raul floated to her side, gasping under the influence of the pain that even this gentle movement caused. If he was going to do something, it had to be now. Forcing himself to concentrate, Raul visualized a thin tube tapping a large vein in his left arm, connecting from it to a similar one on Jennifer’s. The stasis field complied, funneling his nanite infused blood into her body.

But he could tell immediately that it wasn’t going to be enough to save her. The damage was so widespread that by the time the nanites spread throughout her body, she would be dead. And then Raul would be alone, trapped on this lonely robot ship in the vastness of uncharted space, with no idea how to get home, even if the earth still existed.

A new idea formed in his mind, one that just might kill him, but his desperation left him no choice. Raul changed his visualization and hundreds of the virtual transfusion tubes sprouted from his body to Jennifer’s, delivering his blood to all parts of her body, simultaneously. And as it did, Raul felt himself weaken. Missing legs, his body just didn’t have the blood capacity of a normal person.

As he felt his vision narrow and his consciousness fade, Raul terminated the flow and let himself settle to the alien floor beside her. His fingers touched her right wrist and he held his breath. Nothing.

Damn it!

Then he felt it, the faintest of pulses beneath the bruised skin of her forearm. Raul took her hand gently in his, felt the broken bones of her fingers shift beneath her skin, and withdrew his hand in horror.

Dear God!

Raul caught himself. A new horror filled his mind. God had nothing to do with any of this. The light of belief he’d always held so tightly to had finally been snuffed out, and along with it, any relief that prayer might have brought.

Weak with blood loss, Raul rested his head on the cool floor, closed his eyes, and wept.

Answers to Two Questions from The Second Ship.

A fan recently asked two excellent questions from The Second Ship.  I answer them here:

1. What exactly happened when Donald Stephenson stepped into the first ship?” I know he assimilated himself into the Kassari Collective mission after that day but how? There were no headbands that we know of, that being the competing tech, or was he blasted or injected with nanites by the ships damaged AI?

ANSWER: This is total backstory, but when Donald Stephenson went inside the Rho Ship for the first time, despite being badly damaged, the ship’s neural net activated the stasis field generator and used it to inject Stephenson with the Kasari form of nanites … a much more advanced version than what Stephenson was later able to reverse engineer and test on Priest Williams and Raul, prior to releasing it for distribution in Africa. Those nanites gave him the ability to interact directly with the ship’s neural net. It’s also why he was able to override Raul’s commands at the end of Immune.

2. How was the crew sucked out of the second ship yet their headbands were not on their heads? If they were piloting the ship attacking the first ship it seems like they would have had their headbands on …

ANSWER: Very good catch on the headsets and I probably should have explained this bit of backstory in The Second Ship. The Altreian crew didn’t actually need the headsets to tie into the ship while they were on board. However, whenever they left the ship, they put on the headsets to allow them to tie into it remotely. That is why they weren’t wearing the headsets when they were sucked out into space when it depressurized.

DEAD SHIFT: Book 3 of The Rho Agenda Inception

In DEAD SHIFT, the third novel in my Rho Agenda Inception series, I set out to reveal the remaining portions of backstory for two important characters from my Rho Agenda trilogy, Jack “The Ripper” Gregory and Janet Alexandra Price. In addition, I wanted to tie up several multi-book subplots that lead directly into The Rho Agenda trilogy and my upcoming follow-on Rho Agenda Assimilation series.

One of the most important of these is the surprising discovery of the true origin of the alien passenger, Anchanchu, that threatens to break Jack’s mind. Since this being will become vital to the story yet to come, it was important to reveal its nature to you, the reader, as well as to Jack and, most surprisingly, to Anchanchu himself.

Finally, this is a tale of mankind’s quest for artificial intelligence and the existential risks that quest poses for all of humanity. In that regard, I credit Nick Bostrom and his wonderful book on the subject, “SUPERINTELLIGENCE: PATHS, DANGERS, STRATEGIES“, for his many insights into the dangers and containment measures that need to be carefully considered prior to taking such an evolutionary forward leap.

DEAD SHIFT is scheduled for release on Jun 30th, 2015.

Announcing Richard Phillips Novel, DEAD WRONG, Released

My new novel, DEAD WRONG, has just been released. For those of you who have finished it, I would appreciate it if you would take a couple of minutes to post a short review on Amazon.

Best,

Richard Phillips

DEAD WRONG

Rho Agenda Novels Special, $2 ea through January

I’m very happy to let you know that The Second Ship (A Rho Agenda Novel Book 1), Once Dead (A Rho Agenda Novel), Immune (The Rho Agenda Book 2) and Wormhole (A Rho Agenda Novel Book 3)will be included in the 50 Kindle Book Deals for $2 Each in the US Kindle Store, starting 1/1/2015 and running through 1/31/2015.

Enter to Win – 20 Book Giveaway

Enter the 20 book giveaway on Goodreads.com for your chance to win my new novel, DEAD WRONG.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22817315-dead-wrong?from_search=true Runs through 1/6/2015.

 

Free Beta Reader Program for DEAD SHIFT (Formerly DEADMAN WALKING)

For those of you who would like to read the Beta draft of my new Rho Agenda prequel novel, DEAD SHIFT (formerly DEADMAN WALKING), I just need you to add my email address (Richard.phillips@secondship.net) to your Amazon account’s Approved Document Senders list and then email me with your kindle’s email address (something@kindle.com).  Then I will push the free Beta draft to your device.  All I ask is that you not share this draft beyond your immediate family and that you let me know your general impressions of the novel.

This offer will remain open until my editors finish the final edit.

Best,

Richard Phillips

What has had the biggest impact on my writing?

I started trying to write while I was still an officer in the United States Army, when I began work on a fantasy novel titled “BLADE”.  It was a big project and the more I wrote, the more my writing style improved.  Noting that my later writing was of higher quality than when I started, I would go back and rework the beginning and then pick up where I had left off.  This happened repeatedly and each time I had more to rework before I returned to write new material.  As the book grew past one hundred thousand words and eventually past two hundred thousand, my progress slowed to a crawl, as I continued to rework what I had already written. 

One day my wife, Carol, looked at me in frustration and said, “Just finish the damn thing! You can edit it later.” As obvious as that seems, it was an epiphany to me.  My job as a writer is to tell the story that’s in my head without worrying about the imperfections, at least until I am finished with the initial draft.  Get it done.  Then go back and fine tune the verbiage, the descriptions, and the dialogue.  That one simple change to my writing process is what has enabled me to complete seven novels, four of which have already been published, with the fifth and sixth scheduled for release in January and June 2015. 

As I talk with aspiring writers, I find that many suffer from the same problem; they are overcritical of their work while they are still writing it.  This often leads to a new writer giving up in failure.  Always remember  that the first draft of every book is an ugly baby but, having finished it, you can be proud that that it has been given birth.  Then, with a bit of loving care, it can be transformed into the beautiful adult you always intended it to be.

Rho Agenda – Das zweite Shiff (The Second Ship), nominated for German Reader’s Choice Award

I’m happy to announce that the German language version of The Second Ship (Das zweite Shiff) has been chosen for the short list for the German Reader’s Choice Award in the Science Fiction Category. (Leserpreis – Die Besten Bucher)  Below is the announcement:

Dear Richard

I hope you are doing well. For the sixth time already, we would like to honor the authors of the best books this year, which struck, entertained or impressed our readers the most whilst reading. We are excited that the so-called “Leserpreis” is as successful as the previous years since it is the biggest people’s choice book award in the German-speaking region. More than 4,500 different books and authors were nominated. Until yesterday, the readers could choose their favourite books for the Leserpreis 2014. Hereby, we would like to congratulate you: Your book “Rho Agenda – Das zweite Schiff” (The Second Ship) was chosen most often by the readers and therefore made it to the shortlist in the category Science fiction. In each category there are now 35 books available for choice. As of today you can see the shortlists on the following website: http://www.lovelybooks.de/leserpreis/2014/abstimmungen/science-fiction/#liste

Now the important phase starts: readers can vote for their favourite books until November 27th. On Friday, November 28th, the Leserpreis in Gold, Silver and Bronze will be awarded.

Best wishes Marcel from the LovelyBooks Team

Dead Shift

Well, it looks like my publisher has settled on the title for what I have been calling, DEADMAN WALKING, from among all the candidates that fans of this blog have submitted. And the winner is … DEAD SHIFT, submitted by Paul Thompson. Congratulations Paul. The grand prize … selected by me, is a package of signed copies of each of my first four novels (Once Dead, The Second Ship, Immune, and Wormhole). Thanks to you all for your participation.

Richard