When the Gods Aren't Gods: Book Two of The Theogony by Chris Kennedy Read Free Book Online

America.” He set it back onto the desk and pulled an authentic quill pen out of the inkstand. Having practiced for several days until he had it right, he used the pen to sign the document.
    The United States of America was now a founding father in the Government of Terra.
     
     
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Chapter Six
     

Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf , Stargate #1, March 22, 2020
    “So, now that we have a world government, can you please tell us how the gates work?” asked Captain James Deutch as he watched the shuttle launch. The trip to drop off extra mines and other defenses around the stargate was to be his last time in command of the Gulf . When they got back to the moon, he was going to be relieved by Captain Lorena Griffin, who was moving up from her duties as executive officer (XO). He would return to Earth to lead the new curriculum in spaceship operations for officers going through commanding officers’ school. Although it was necessary to pass on everything he had learned as a starship commander, it would not be as exciting to talk about driving a spaceship as it was to actually do it. Not even close.
    “Although the procedural methodology of wormhole employment has been reliably established,” answered Arges, “we are stymied as to the internal mechanism of its functioning.”
    “Huh?” asked the helmsman. He turned around and asked, “What was that?”
    The XO turned to look at the helmsman. “They don’t know how it works,” she said.
    Steropes shrugged, “Unfortunately, that is an accurate assessment. We don’t know how the gates work. They’re the product of an earlier civilization. We also don’t know why they were placed the way they were. Most systems have two stargates, which would appear to be a way in and a way out of the system. Why do some only have one? Why do other systems have multiple gates? We don’t know. It may be because of the stellar mechanics...it may be something as simple as the earlier civilization liked traveling to a particular star system for some reason, so all of their roads led there.” He paused for a second, collecting his thoughts.
    “ Our best engineers have worked on figuring out how the stargates work for over 10,000 years,” he said when he continued, “and they still don’t know. We believe that they are collapsed black holes, but the method for collapsing them and linking them together is beyond us. The closest we’ve come to figuring out the gates was the Churther Box. Arton Churther was a brilliant scientist whose life’s work was trying to figure out how the gates worked. No one is sure how he did it, but he created a box that appeared to open a doorway to either somewhere else or to some other time.”
    “ Didn’t he know what he created?” asked Calvin, who was aboard to coordinate the air wing’s operations. “Where did he think it went?”
    “That’s the problem,” said Steropes. “ He never got a chance to say; he got sucked into the first gateway that the box opened. His assistant turned off the box, but Churther was gone. The assistant knew enough about the box to try turning it on and off a few times, but he couldn’t find the world that Churther went into. After a large group of Drakuls came through one of the gateways he created, the government stopped allowing people to operate the box. Of course, there wasn’t anyone left alive who knew how to operate it, so the point was rather moot.”
    “So what d id your scientists think that the box did?” asked Captain Deutch.
    “We don’t know,” Steropes answered. “It create d a gateway to another time, another place, or another universe. We don’t have enough information to make a reliable guess as to which. The incredibly scary thing is that one time they turned on the box, the gate led to nothing.”
    “What do you mean, ‘nothing’ ?” asked Captain Deutch.
    “I mean just that,” replied Steropes. “There was nothing there. The universe was gone.”
     
     

Terran Government