Eden

Chapter 1 (Maddie Roberts)

In the beginning, there was God. And God, being wise, created Eden. And Eden was good. But God, despite his ultimate wisdom, entrusted Eden to the inquisitive. These inquisitive, however, sought to replace God with themselves, so God destroyed Eden, and sent the inquisitive far away, to a place where they would be forced to live very difficult lives. -The Book of the Holy Party

         The starship Endevour flew out of hyperspace in the Arkies system. She was glowing from the remaining radiation of beam fire. To the standard steamship pilot, she seemed completely fine. However, if that pilot had been able to puncture her Strontium shielding, he would have been able to see the massive damage to her internally. She was a large ship; over 200,000 metric tonnes. Big enough to outclass most of the Party's ships, but she had not big enough to defeat three of the Fist's Novecek-class battlecruisers.
         She had been responding to a short-range RF transmission picked up by one of the many border scanners that orbited Union space. It had been an uncommon signal type; one used in some of the very first exploratory ships. A signal that was almost 3,000 years old. Signals that old get immediate high priority clearance from the History Council.
         All three of the major cultures in the Milky Way were extremely interested in anything that old. The Union, the  most democratic of the three, wanted it to further their knowledge. The Fist, not interested in anything that might dissuade his servants from their belief in his ultimate power, would want it to present it to his people, a kind of victory prize. The Party, a sort of religious communist society, would want it to prove their beliefs about the history of the species. All three wanted it to find Eden.
         Eden was half-myth, half-fact. No one knew when it was named, or even if the name had any meaning. All they knew was that their species had to come from somewhere, and most believed that the planet was named Eden. The myths that surrounded it were wild, and each of the cultures had different opinions of what had caused them to lose information about it.
         However, the fact was that no one had any idea where it was. And if someone were to find out where it were, they could bend the Galaxy to their will. And that is exactly why every
culture had sent a fleet towards the location of the RF signal.
         The battle had been great: there had been very few survivors. The most losses had been taken by the Party. They didn't have the military muscle that the other two races did. However, there had been no real victor. The source of the RF transmission had disappeared. The scans that had been gathered by the fleets showed it flying out of the system, towards Anark space. The Anarks were not a major power: they had no organization. They were, however, the most deadly
culture in the Milky Way. They inhabited a long band of space. Terrible things had been said about them. It was told that they ate the flesh of anyone who ventured into their space. Contact had been attempted multiple times, but the ambassadors always came back missing limbs. A communication attempt hadn't been made for a long time, mostly from a lack of willing ambassadors.
         Rumors had been flying about for years regarding the status of the Anarks. It had been postulated that their culture had died out, and that they had killed each other off. However, they had very strong automated border defenses. No one was brave enough to venture into their
territory. No one was even brave enough to send in an automated robot. The last one sent in had been re-equipped with a Neuro-bomb and launched at the nearest colony. The Anarks had made it clear that they had no wish to become friends.
         Endevour docked at the local starbase. Her crew disembarked. Her commanding officer, Captain Maddie Roberts, stepped out last. She immediately entered the CO suite, which was always reserved for the visiting Captain. She dropped her bag in the main closet. Immediately, the robotic assistant opened her bag and began taking clothing out and hanging it on the vacuum tubes. She sat down at the console and pushed her finger into the jelly-like DNA analyzer. The computer turned on. "Welcome, Captain Roberts. You have 52 unread messages. Message 1: Would you like to jump-start your career? Call the Eideos institute of ..... " "Computer," she interrupted, "Filter all junk messages" "Yes. One moment please. You have 2 unread messages.
Message 1: "Captain Roberts, this is Admiral Cheny. I'm glad to hear that your ship survived. Meet me in my formal dining hall tomorrow at 4261 hours.”
Message 2: Maddie It's me. It's Janie. I wanted to talk to you about that thing I approached you about last month. I thought you might be a little more .... interested now. Call me back. I'm here on the station. Rob's here too. We've got a new ship. It's big. Bigger than before, and much more powerful. And we need a commander. Call me, okay?”
         Maddie turned off the terminal, and sat down on the gravbed. She relaxed, and let the anti-gravitons sooth her body. She rolled things over in her mind. Janie. She hadn't talked to Janie for a long time ... not since Janie had lost the last ship, the Artriem, on a search for some supposed stellar fragments. And Rob. She missed him. He was the best companion a Captain could ever have. She'd felt terrible when she had to leave him with Janie. She wanted to see them, even if it wasn't because of the proposition. But she had thought Jaine's proposition over since they had last
spoken. And the incident at Vinidi had interested her. She wanted to know the history of her race, more than she ever had. She'd always wondered about the existence of Eden, everybody had, but she'd never really had this kind of a chance to actually try to find it. And the Admiral. She admired him. But she was going to put that off until later. Now she'd get some sleep. And in the morning, she'd go to see Janie.