ALL NOVEL Book 1 – Lesson 7: “Beware of Chicken.”
[Author's notes: Shout-out to CasualFarmer! If you’ve not done so, so far, check out his novel, “Beware of Chicken” on Amazon and Royal Road! It's one of my favorites, and Lian Peng was inspired by a certain noble guardian. Have fun with the chapter! And Enjoy!]
[One of my biggest regrets with the old Novel, was that Alpha didn’t really get the chance to “Show off” or fight any REAL threats before he lost all his shiny toys.
|_+) Let's change that. ]
<< Alpha Log - #002
6952 SFY-Third Era, two weeks since last entry. >>
It’s been two weeks since my last entry, and for once, things seem to be going according to plan. About time if you ask me! If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this entire mission was one big prank, with one failure after another. I’ve never believed in luck though, nor are AI prone to trusting in higher powers. I never could get SEAU-03 to explain why he’s one of the few exceptions, but that’s neither here nor there.
It took two weeks and thousands of minor course adjustments, but my ‘little’ makeshift life raft is finally nearing the closest large planet of the star system, as I type this report.
It’s quite the sight, I’ll admit, but visual confirmation of what my sensors have been telling me doesn’t make what I’m seeing make any more sense.
I mentioned in my last report how the local star was a typical main sequence A-Class star, roughly 20% larger than Sirius A. That much is true. Better yet, this close I can pick up signs of several known solar exotics (SEs), such as kelvinite and photonic silver. That suggests the surrounding planets will be rich in expelled exotics (EEs) as well. After all, the two should go hand in hand.
This could also account for the star’s odd white-yellow color, unusual for one its size and age. I’m not of astrophysicist; I’ll not pretend to have all the answers! That’s what we pay the eggheads for!
I know my exotics though! If my theory is correct, their presence will make repairs far easier and quicker. A lot of the better equipment stored in my database requires some kind of exotic — those physics breaking materials, both natural and synthetic — to work properly.
Finding photonic silver will be especially important for jury-rigging the FTL communications arrays. Even without the translight antenna, I might get a proper distress beacon working! I hope…
That said, none of that explains the rest of what I’m looking at…
Good news. My sensors are working properly.
Weird news. My sensors are working properly, meaning I’m staring at a group of planets that all known laws of physics say shouldn’t exist.
The system consists of three large, primary planets, all orbiting the local star at roughly the same distance. That’s right; somehow all three planets were orbiting the star in the same orbit.
Ok, sure, co-orbits are theoretically possible. I’ve heard of a few resort worlds who have tried something similar, but the idea was always scrapped. It’s just too hard to adjust the orbit of two planets so they don’t tear each other apart, let alone three. That’s not considering the constant micro-adjustments needed to keep them from wandering into each other.
Yet, somehow, here we have not just two planets, but three, all perfectly spaced and in sync.
Of course, there are other celestial bodies to consider as well. While two of the planets are orbited by several large moons, the third is surrounded by a massive ring of debris. I can’t begin to theorize how any of these things stay in place. None of it makes any sense.
That’s not the end of the weirdness, either. Their size is another oddity.
Using the local star as a reference, the closest of the planets was calculated at 5.7 Rj (Jovian radius) in size. Ya, you heard me. 5.7 Rj.
That would make it one of the largest planets ever discovered!
What’s more, it’s not just some bog standard gas giant. No, this is a rocky world!
The side of the planet facing me is covered in a massive storm at the moment, but the drone telescopes have picked up glimpses of rocky mountains and even what appear to be liquid oceans!
My commission for this one is going to be huge! I demand this planet be named Alpha-α!
Something with the storm is throwing off the readings, however, and other than a few blurry photos, nothing is certain.
The other two planets are too far away to determine much about them, other than their general size and distance, though one shines are murky green-red and the other is a vibrant aquamarine.
The original plan had been to enter orbit around the rocky giant and establish a ring mining operation. After all, the planet itself is far too large for me to land safely. The gravity of such a massive world would be substantial and make things more difficult. Better to build what I need in orbit, than risk not being able to get off-world for who knows how long?
The TAWP would need special equipment just to move normally on a planet like that!
Once I got closer, however, scans of the rings offered a better solution.
Two particular satellites stood out among all the others that made up the ring. Not only were both enormous — planets in their own right — but their orbital patterns were… strange. The largest, at least 0.6 Rj — about the size of Uranus in Old Sol — seemed to be an ice giant of some type.
The ridiculousness of an ice giant orbiting a rocky world wasn’t lost on me, either.
I can’t identify the outer layer of the ice covering the surface of the moon/planet, but it’s throwing off all sorts of strange signals, and most of the sensors can’t even penetrate more than a few kilometers. This suggests the planet is exotic-rich and ripe for exploitation.
The second anomaly is a much smaller planet, roughly the size of Old Earth. Optical observation shows it to have a barren surface and with a thin atmosphere. All-in-all, just a standard barren-type moon, like you’d find orbiting any other ice giant. But therein lies the strangeness of it.
It’s orbiting the ice giant — not the rocky super world.
I’ve watched the thing for three days now, and everything said this Earth-sized moon is somehow totally ignoring the gravitational pull of the rocky giant. Then again, I question how a planet this size has a ring or moons to begin with.
Wait… hold on… no, this is weird. I’m going to have to end the report here for now. The monitoring drones are reporting… signals? — coming from the smaller moon’s surface. I’ll update the report as soon as I’m able to confirm what’s going on.
For now, Alpha out.
———————————————
Alpha closed the journal file and turned his attention back to the real world.
The drone AIs were bombarding him with reports, and even for Alpha, it took a few seconds to shift through them and get to the meat of the matter.
“Ummm, why is the barren moon giving off radio signals?” Alpha asked himself.
Ok, ‘radio signals’ might have been a stretch.
They were primitive, and not in any encoding format he had on record, nor did they use any transmission method he could identify. The drones had only noticed them because of the regular patterns in their transmission.
Of course, it could just be that the moon naturally gave off radio waves. That happens from time to time.
It wouldn’t have been the first time Alpha had mistaken a natural phenomenon for signs of intelligent life. The general still wouldn’t let Alpha live down the time he’d wasted six months trying to communicate with a pile of rocks. Rocks that just happened to produce a near-perfect replication of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony during a storm…
If anyone ever asked, he had known all along and was just playing along for the laughs.
That Beethoven’s 5th had been banned on all of Alpha’s private shipyards after the workers began playing it on a loop meant nothing! Nothing!
That said, Alpha couldn’t dismiss the possibility the system wasn’t as barren as it appeared at first glance. This could be an opportunity.
With his current speed and trajectory, in seventeen hours, give or take, the vault would slip through the liminal space between the ice giant and its strange moon. Once inside, he could use his jury-rigged thrusters and the strange gravitational anomaly to enter a stable orbit around the smaller moon.
Further scans would help confirm the presence of others, or if it really was just a natural phenomenon. Either way, it would put him in the perfect position for what came next.
If there was intelligent life on the surface of the moon, as unlikely as that seemed, they would have spotted him by that point, for sure. Hard to miss the several-miles-long wreck floating in the sky above you. That meant he would have to pick the best possible place to… ‘land’ the Anatidae. He would need a place that was not only defensible, but offered what he needed to get started with his plans.
He had a few potential locations already marked through visual observation, but he’d have to wait until he was closer before he cou —,
A sudden priority alert from one of the monitoring drone’s AIs flashed across his awareness. The drone detected a strong, unknown energy signal emanating from the moon’s surface and a bright flash of light. Alpha immediately switched to the drone’s camera feed, expecting an attack.
In the distance, a small glimmer of light rose from the moon’s surface and raced toward him at an astonishing speed. It would still be several hours before it intercepted his trajectory — shortly before he passed by the ice giant, in fact — but the sheer speed the small object exhibited was impressive.
“Well, I guess that answers that question at least…” Alpha mumbled to himself.
He doubted that this was an actual attack.
Not unless they expected the tiny, watermelon-sized comet headed in his direction to do something about the giant wreck hurtling toward them. That would have been like throwing a rock at a mountain.
More realistically, it was a type of scout drone or something similar sent to better understand what they were dealing with.
That also suggested that whatever natives were present had at least some technological advancement.
Meaning his job just got a little bit harder. More so if they realized what could be hiding in his vault aboard the wreck — not that he thought they would ever be able to actually crack it.
Curious about what he was dealing with, Alpha focused his own drone’s long-range camera toward the object to get a better view. Then paused, both confused and shocked.
“… Is that a chicken?!”
————————————————
Lian Peng stood on the lunar surface and observed the massive object with a detached curiosity. No, even ‘massive’ may have been an understatement. The eyes of a High Celestial, only a half-step from the path of Divinity, could see farther than the horizon. Even on one of the Celestial Sisters, nothing could escape him. The empty void, bereft of obstacles and thick Celestial Energy blocking his view, magnified his sight exponentially. Coupled with his [Divine Sense], likewise magnified by the thin energy of the void, it was no exaggeration to say there was little in his territory that could escape his notice.
That he could see the object moving toward them from a distance at which even the largest void-ships ever constructed would appear as pinpricks shook something primal within him. More so since, from the barest details he could make out, the object appeared to be but a fragment of some greater whole. That someone had built anything this large without the Warden or Lunar Scouts being made aware was… worrying.
The Void Beast handler would have to be posthumously awarded merits for this discovery, even if it seemed they’d stumbled upon it by chance. If the discovery was significant enough, Lian Peng might even nominate one of their descendants for a Lunar Academy slot. Even the children of Divinity would fight tooth and nail for a spot in the Academy. Let it never be said that the Lunar Scouts didn’t care for their own or their families.
The original plan they’d devised during the emergency meeting — once his staff had stopped arguing about the nature of the approaching object — had been to let the object pass closer, then capture it for study.
That changed when long-range observation arrays noticed the object had made small but calculated coarse adjustments over the past week. Visual observation also noted dozens of unidentifiable creatures moving over the object’s surface. Details were still sparse, though, as combing through the archives revealed nothing of similar description.
That alone wasn’t too strange. New and unknown creatures were discovered or created all the time. Yet such things often came with some kind of warning, not simply out of the blue.
The new round of deliberations had taken hours, but it was decided he would intercept the object himself as it passed by the Mortal World. As a Lunar King, he was the most powerful being in this sector. Only the Grand Elders of the largest sects and clans on the Celestial World could match him. If even he couldn’t deal with whatever this was, then nothing else in the area could. If something happened to him, they would have to contact the HQ in the Heavenly City for backup, and by then, it might already be too late.
With any luck, whatever forces were using the wreckage as a life raft would prove no problem. Stragglers, or survivors, left adrift after whatever cataclysm ripped the vessel apart. Likely not organized enough to be a danger, but enough left alive to tell their story. With that in mind, he felt a bit of a show was in order. After all, as his dear grandmother had once taught him, sometimes the best weapon was a bit of shock and awe.
A bright swirl of pure, blue-jade crystal flames enveloped Lian Peng’s form, creating a small vortex centered on him. When the flames vanished, the form of the handsome young man was gone, and in its place stood… a small bird. Its stocky, solid body wasn’t built for flight, but was quite capable when needed. Instead, its form inspired images of powerful leaps and dangerous lunges as it chased its prey.
Its brilliant azure, black, and white feathers shone in the mythical light of the blue-jade flames that made up the comb atop its head. Its short, jet-black beak gleamed as each movement seemed to cut through the thin atmosphere around it. The mane of wispy, regal feathers around its head, neck, and tail flowed freely as if on some invisible wind, breaking and scattering into glowing beams of moonlight. For indeed, the figure that had taken Lian Peng’s place was none other than an azure… rooster.
It was a sight that would strike fear into the hea — GAUGK! Oomph! Gurgle…
Ahem. Sorry about that, folks. The previous narrator seems to have had a small ‘accident.’ But no worries! The story must go on.
Where were we? Ah, right. As one of the Great Families directly under the Warden, all worlds trembled at the grand majesty and haunting beauty their true forms inspired. Indeed, none within the Nine Worlds could ever have mistaken the majestic form of Lian Peng’s people for a common rooster. No, the Moonlight Phoenix clan had wiped out entire sects and felled Divinities for such an insult.
His transformation complete, Lian Peng spread his majestic, glistening wings wide and flapped once. Within seconds, the moon began shrinking quickly behind him as he soared through the void to intercept the object. The entire moon shook with the force of his launch, and Lian Peng turned into a comet of moonlight and jade-blue flames. It would still be a few hours before he got very close, even with his astounding speed. So great were the distances involved, but that was fine.
That would give his ‘guests’ plenty of time to contemplate their impending doom.
———————————————
Well, it was official.
Alpha had gone insane.
How else would he explain the glowing chicken — rooster? — comet? Or were chickens often covered in blue flames, hurtling through the void of space at speed on par with a small fighter drone?
But between auroric space squids, non-Newtonian star systems, and spontaneously generating black holes, this was only the most recent in a sequence of strange events that had Alpha questioning his own reality.
So sure, chicken comets. Why not?
As the object approached, Alpha got to work formulating his plan — on the off chance he hadn’t gone totally insane and this all wasn’t some kind of strange hallucination.
Wait, could AI hallucinate? That seemed like something he should have been informed about during orientation! He was going to file a complaint with HR when all of this was over!
By the time the object was close enough that Alpha could make out details with the TAWP’s optical sensors, his plan on how to approach the natives was complete.
First contact was always the trickiest part of the job. When appropriate, the Federation was open to engaging in discussion and diplomatic interaction to better ease the power shift and the merger of the new system into the greater Federation. When Alpha was involved, those ‘discussions’ typically involved lots of explosions and people running around screaming. Peaceful talks were much more smooth and peaceful when the other side’s entire military network had been turned into dust from orbit.
Other times, more… subtle approaches were in order. He’d once pretended to be a mysterious alien artifact and been ‘captured’ by a space-faring civilization that had yet to make the leap to interstellar travel. It had taken him only ten months to hack into and gain control of their entire defensive network, Skynet style, allowing the Federation fleet to warp in and sweep up.
The TAWP was stocked as well as it could be after the visit to his vault. But he didn’t have the requisite infrastructure to overwhelm a force capable of space-faring drones and moon colonization. Similarly, if they had even greater capabilities, he doubted his guests would be so lax in their welcome. Barring some strange, esoteric tech, he doubted they had anything capable of actually threatening him. Thus, the thing Alpha needed the most, more than anything, was information, leaving him with one option.
Poke the nest and see what comes out.
And if there was one thing Alpha was best at, it was poking things he probably shouldn’t.