Star Traders

Jayne sat in her cabin rubbing Sheba’s silky head and watching the activity on the various decks. Sheba was her cat. Sheba was a concession she demanded as one of the conditions of her acceptance to command the Earth Princess. Wherever she went, so did Sheba. She had picked up the cat at a pound the year before and it had turned out to be great company.

“Sheba, damn it! How do I get myself into these things?” she asked the cat, who merely purred louder and rubbed the side of her head on Jayne’s ear.

Jayne knew very well how it happened….

In late 2003, Jayne had finished writing one of her best sellers and, as she often did, was surfing the net and watching such programs as “unsolved Mysteries” on television searching for a plot for a new novel. She found what she thought was an interesting start when she discovered a connection between a murder in Michigan and a massacre in New York twenty years later. That connection brought her to the conclusion that a semi secret organization of heroes from WWII was involved in both incidents. That organization, known as Lodge 16, with an offshoot called Personal Securities, Inc., or PerSec, had its headquarters in Newberry, Michigan and was pretty much a self-governing entity in itself. They had made their money from transporting war refugees and others across the Atlantic to the United States during World War II.

After the war, Eric Tanner, the founder of the organization, and the captain of the Sea Princess, which was used for that transportation, purchased 5000 acres east of Seney, Michigan, and invited a host of WWII heroes to join him. Their motto, “We Take Care of Our Own” was taken literally by them. When any one of that group was wronged, the entire group took action and corrected the injustice. Many times they ended up taking the life or lives of those responsible. They were a vigilante group. They took the law into their own hands.

During her investigation to get a lead on her new novel Jayne confronted Eric the Younger, Eric the Elders son, about irregularities in the group. In turn they investigated her, and by the middle of 2004 they had convinced her, through Eric the Younger, to write their story. The result was a fictional novel that predicted what an independent terrorist group based in the United States would do to end the threat of worldwide terrorism.

Lodge 16 and PerSec had successfully perfected a “Smart Bomb” that promised to take out known terrorists. They had also perfected a method of identifying those terrorists by planting devices on or about those terrorists that could be zeroed in on by a GPS unit and, ultimately, the smart bombs.

PerSec, over a period of two decades, had developed a worldwide organization on the order of UPS and FED EX, which could fly over every country in the world with impunity. They also had people on the ground in all countries where terrorists were known to be. The meeting places of the terrorists were identified and their actions recorded.

The book was passed off as a work of fiction. It detailed how the known meeting places of the terrorists had already been mined and how the terrorists themselves had already been identified and targeted. It told how various Islamic Mosques throughout the world had been investigated as to their part in worldwide terrorism and that they would be destroyed. It gave a timetable for that destruction. First, meeting places of the terrorists would be blown up. An estimated 30,000 people would die at that time. Two weeks later individual terrorists worldwide would be bombed individually. Another 10,000 people would die that night. Two months later, 60% of the Mosques in the world would be destroyed at 2am local time in every country they existed. Few people would die in that attack, for it would be done early in the morning. Thus the name of her novel: Sometime After Midnight.

The book was well received and became a best seller. Threats on her life were sent to Jayne from many parts of the Islamic world. They did not appreciate her telling the rest of the world some of the facts she came up with in the book, especially about how they treated their women. None of the western nations seemed to get it. They did not look upon the terrorist threat as the beginning of a holy war. Islamic radicals who saw the creeping influence of western civilization as a threat to their power over their own followers, governed the nations held in the fist of Islam. For centuries they had held millions under the thumb of fear and guilt, promising their followers a sure road to heaven by killing the Infidels.

The last paragraphs of the book were a warning to the terrorists worldwide. It described the penalties that would be exacted should the terrorists continue on the road they had been following for decades.

A year after the publishing of Jayne’s book, Lodge 16 and PerSec proved they could do what was threatened to do in the novel. They began by doing exactly what was outlined in the fictional novel by Jayne Rice called, “Sometime After Midnight”.

The first attack came early in the evening, local time. The very structure of Islam guaranteed the success of the first attack. Islam encourages group meetings several times a week. Lodge 16, through it’s enforcement arm, PerSec, Inc.; Personal Securities, Inc, had identified thousands of terrorists and planted locator devices either in them or on their person, usually disguised as cell phones, buttons or what have you. These devices were monitored by another branch of their organization that delivered goods all over the world by air. Each of these planes could fly over any nation on earth in the course of their business. Aboard each plane was a battery of computers tracking the locator devices. On board each of the planes was also many small bombs programmed to seek out and destroy their targets. All the bombs had to do to be effective was be within ten miles of the intended target.

That first night 40,000 people died. Was there some collateral damage? Yes. Quite a lot of it, in fact. An estimated 15000 innocent people died during that attack. A month later that attack was followed up by another attack. 10,000 individual terrorists, missed by the first attack for one reason or another, were killed in that attack. Then the world started to take notice. What was happening had already been forecast in Jayne’s book. According to the book, one more attack was due in 60 days. The world girded itself for that attack. That attack occurred on schedule and at the time predicted in the novel. Few people were killed in that last attack, for the warning was taken to heart. Hundreds of Mosques, schools, and other meeting places that advocated and taught the edicts of the Islamic fundamentalists were destroyed.

Lodge 16 laid down an edict for ALL extremist groups. “All peoples have the right to believe as they wish, EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT THAT BELIEF IS INTOLERANT OF OTHERS. If your religious belief advocates the killing of any others, you will be destroyed out of hand. THIS INCLUDES ALL RELIGIOUS GROUPS. NONE WILL BE SPARED. NO ORGANIZED GROUP HAS THE RIGHT TO DESTROY THOSE OF ANOTHER GROUP BECAUSE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.”

The question as to why Lodge 16 and PerSec thought they could do what they prohibited others to do came up frequently. Their answer was always “Because we can! When a responsible person has the ability to act, he has the responsibility to do so!”

The edict was non-forgiving. In the first year a Christian splinter group in Idaho was bombed out of existence. A right wing Russian Orthodox group followed shortly thereafter, and Muslim groups all over the world continued to be targeted. The world was slowly changing. Fewer and fewer activist groups were advocating the disbanding of Lodge 16. More and more groups were following the lead of Lodge 16 and embracing their concepts. It was now a worldwide trend. Splinter groups claimed responsibility for killings at their own risk. They usually lasted for about a week before being destroyed. No longer could clerics sit back in safety while their minions did the dirty work for them. Lodge 16 went straight for the head of the snake. Were there some mistakes made? Yes. Less than one may think, however.

In 1989 Eric the Elder, Ted Sobieski and Hans Gruber were reported to have been killed in the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie incident. As it turned out, just before that flight boarded, those men had not boarded and instead went along to other duties on a different interest level for Lodge 16. They did so in secret even from their own people in Lodge 16. They continued to allow their people to believe they had been killed. What they were doing was too important to even take the chance of word getting out to anyone. They were going off into the unknown; into a space so vast as to boggle the imagination of all people. They had discovered the secret of faster than light space travel.

In 1947 these three men had rented a boat in Tampa and went out trolling in the Gulf. They went out a long ways, for Eric the Elder had been a fisherman in Lake Superior and felt most of the big ones lurked in the deeper water. Some 50 miles from port they were enjoying a day in the Gulf when a dark spot appeared for some seconds less than a quarter mile off their bow about 2 in the afternoon. It then disappeared in about 10 seconds. They determined the spot covered an area of about 300 feet around and 150 feet high.

Always the curious one, Eric talked the rest into going back the next day. Sure enough, the spot appeared again. They knew they had to investigate this odd phenomenon.

Over the next two weeks, they sent several unmanned rafts and vessels into the core during the darkness. They had come close enough to the darkness to determine it wasn’t always dark. Sometimes it was lighter, as if there was moonlight shining through.

There was only one thing to do: send a manned vessel into the hole. They all agreed on that. Ted quickly made preparations. He took it for granted he would be the one sent through

He was infinitely more qualified than either of the others to survive. He’d had a lot of practice on Makin Island during WWII where he had survived for 16 months in spite of the fact the island was crawling with Japs. He would listen to no arguments from Eric or Hans.

Ted opted to take a rubber raft with at least a week worth of supplies; a small battery powered radio and all weather clothing. They had already determined the pressure between here and wherever “there” was, was insignificant. No sucking sound was heard and neither was there a wind from the hole. They felt it was another “place”. Where that “place” was located was a toss-up. Ted also took a days supply of oxygen, just in case there was none there. A chain saw and tools followed, including hammer and nails. He had no idea what he would run into.

Ted disappeared into the abyss at 2 the next afternoon. Eric and Hans waited patiently for the time to pass. At 2 the next afternoon, Ted appeared again, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He was babbling unintelligibly. They finally got the story out of him.

He had dropped about two inches onto a cradle when he went through. Not really dry, he said, more like mud. A little bit of seawater came through on each opening. With his flashlights, he quickly found he was in familiar territory. It was just night here. The trees were just ordinary trees. Grass was just ordinary grass. Owls hooted here just like at home. He lit a fire and crawled into his sleeping bag to wait for daylight. At daylight a curious deer eyed him from the bushes and squirrels chattered away, scolding him for disturbing their territory. Birds sang and the sun shown warmly.

Ted studied the situation and determined he would have to build about an 8-inch platform to put his raft on before he could be sure he would safely transfer back where he came from. By noon he had the platform erected and was about to drag his boat to the top of it when something stopped him. Suppose, he thought, that there were other times the hole opened. If that was the case, I would be trapped somewhere else. It would be best to wait until midnight before dragging the boat to the top.

Ted was right. At 2pm a dark hole appeared and cut about 6 inches off the top of his scaffold. He rebuilt the scaffold and at 2am he was sitting in the boat when the light spot engulfed him.

“And here I am!” he grinned.

During the next year they had a large platform built that would be anchored to the bottom of the ocean at that point and was large enough to encompass the portal. Dragging the huge structure out to the transfer point was somewhat tricky, but they accomplished the fact with only minor difficulties. Once the platform was in place with all the necessary amenities aboard, they were ready to transfer regularly. The platform didn’t get a lot of attention from any quarter because of the interest in drilling for oil in the gulf. Everyone assumed this was just another oil well.

In six months they had determined the extent of their discovery. They had access to several identical earths, right down to the location of the landmasses. They explored some of the area around the transfer points on 3 adjacent earths. As it turned out, there was some difference, but not a lot. They named them E-1 through E-4; E-1 being our own earth. E-2 was a wild world, as was E-3 and E-4. These worlds were apparently untouched by man.

In a few days they had reached E-5. On E-5 they found a dais already built. It was well kept and in good repair. Surrounding the dais were remains of a stone building built in a circle around the dais. It looked somewhat familiar. They found remnants of a village and soon spotted natives scurrying through the forest and a few miles away found a small village of small swarthy people. They were quite friendly and not at all a threat. The natives followed the party like puppies, smiling all the while. They appeared to be of consistent intelligence; about 12 years old or so.

The stone formation surrounding the transfer point was recognizable. It was definitely Stonehenge in style if not in fact. It was larger than Stonehenge, to be sure. It was at least 4 times larger. As far as they could remember, Stonehenge was about 100 feet across. This one was closer to 400. It appeared to house a battery of storehouses around the perimeter.

A few days later they transferred to E-6. Transfer to E-6 was a revelation. They were correct in their assessment of storehouses. Those storehouses were still there on E-6. As were the people taking care of them. As were the farmers and artisans in the village around them. A thriving civilization met them, right down to the rulers. What it turned out to be was a civilization run by a people called Dran, with the help of a serf style race called Larn who exhibited an IQ of about 85 or so and the mentality and stature of a 12 year old human. The Dran were as intelligent as Earthmen, and perhaps a little more so.

Hans posed the most important question of the day. What do they use as a power source? There was no evidence of oil based power source. What drove their economy? What drove their existence?