Published: Dec. 23, 2011
Words: 75,094 (approximate)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781466029354

Short description

As many cool ideas per page as possible. Indiana Jones on Mars! This book is half science and half fiction. It describes what life might be like in the 35th Century.

Extended description

It had been a war of attrition. Starting with superior forces, Tzin and his navy could have lost every battle and still won the war. In the comfort of his office, Matej adjusted his dwindling resources, and waited for the computer to generate the new theater of war configuration, in 100x real time. His command ship, the Sudeten, was disabled, in a helpless Keplerian trajectory. All available energy was diverted to life support and defensive countermeasures. Decoys and chaff were deployed, probably to no avail. Since Tzin knew his position and velocity 5 simulated days earlier, he could calculate the new position, if he was aware that the Sudeten was adrift.

Hopefully, he was not. However, he seemed to following a guidance strategy toward an intercept point on the Sudeten’s elliptical orbit, indicating that he did know, or at least suspect.

Tzin’s battle group was led by a dozen fighters, in a planar configuration, perpendicular to the direction of travel. This arrangement was .. (Read more) It had been a war of attrition. Starting with superior forces, Tzin and his navy could have lost every battle and still won the war. In the comfort of his office, Matej adjusted his dwindling resources, and waited for the computer to generate the new theater of war configuration, in 100x real time. His command ship, the Sudeten, was disabled, in a helpless Keplerian trajectory. All available energy was diverted to life support and defensive countermeasures. Decoys and chaff were deployed, probably to no avail. Since Tzin knew his position and velocity 5 simulated days earlier, he could calculate the new position, if he was aware that the Sudeten was adrift.

Hopefully, he was not. However, he seemed to following a guidance strategy toward an intercept point on the Sudeten’s elliptical orbit, indicating that he did know, or at least suspect.

Tzin’s battle group was led by a dozen fighters, in a planar configuration, perpendicular to the direction of travel. This arrangement was intended to reduce the possibility of friendly fire, and to present a wide target grouping to the enemy. Behind the fighters lay 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers, and Tzin’s command ship, the Zhongzheng.

Location, location, location. If your enemy knows where you are, you’re dead. Stealth was life or death. War was a deadly serious game of counter measures, counter-counter measures, deceit and subterfuge. Winner take all, of what’s left.

Before losing power, Matej was able to nudge his ship into an orbit that would put Jupiter between it and Tzin’s forces. The Sudeten, stripped of its protecting entourage, still had one hope. As Tzin’s fighters navigated their way around Jupiter, they would have to break formation. There would be some confusion as they formed back up on the near side. The formation was spread out over millions of kilometers, and it took several seconds for light speed communications to reach the fighters from the Zhongzheng.

Also on Matej’s side of Jupiter, was Callisto, the outermost of the Galilean moons. Here lay one of Matej’s last operational bases. A mass driver, or coilgun, fed by a gargantuan strip mining machine, and powered by a large nuclear reactor, had been preparing since the beginning or the war, some 3 simulated years earlier. The mining operation had produced millions of tons of rock and ice chunks, each about half a meter in diameter−just the right size for the mass driver to fling into space, at over 200 km/sec. The escape velocity of Callisto was only 2.4 km/sec, and escape from Jupiter at the distance of Callisto’s orbit required another 11.6 km/sec, so the projectiles had plenty of speed to get out of Jupiter’s gravity well and do some damage.

The desperate trap was set. Tzin’s fighters came around Jupiter on all sides, followed by the larger ships in the battle group. The enormous magnetosphere surrounding Jupiter played havoc with communications among Tzin’s forces. The fighters regained their planar formation as the plane approached Callisto, and the mass driver opened fire. Some of Tzin’s ships were visible because they were thrusting. The positions of the others had to be guessed at. Chances of a hit were low, but with millions of projectiles, Matej might get lucky.

It was all about putting ordnance on target. Same as it ever was. Since David slew Goliath, the strength of nations was largely determined by how fast and how accurately they could throw things.
The strategic phase of the war was over, since the major population centers on both sides were in ruins. The only significant targets remaining were military targets. In a sense, this war could have no real winner. A few of Matej’s stealth colonies still survived, slowly drifting away from the Sol system, cowering in radio silence. In a real war, these would probably also be doomed, as the military victor would have plenty of time to hunt them down, and either invade or destroy them.
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Tags

education, robotics, science fiction, future, science, spaceships, future population, genealogy, cryptography, science and technology, future government, space stations, future cities, future adventure, space mining, space warfare, future of mankind, future history space, future combat, future societies, future tech

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Reviews

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Review by: Karen De Groote-Johnson on Aug. 06, 2012 :
I absolutely loved this book and wished there was a sequel when I finished it. Easy but technical science abounds and enough twists and turns in the story made it highly interesting from beginning to end. Despite the great use of science, you never get lost and the character development was good, not as deep as I normally read, but for this story it was spot on. Two thumbs up!
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Marc antony Cutler on Feb. 29, 2012 :
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's entertaining throughout, extremely well written with layered characters. I've read many books by published authors which are poor to say the least and I wonder how many writers of William Haloupek's quality we are routinely robbed of without the likes of Smashwords. If you fancy a nice piece of escapism to take you away from the mundane, spend some time on this. You won't be disappointed.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

Review by: Greg Adams on Jan. 01, 2012 :
I really enjoyed reading Far-Called. The book was hard to put down.
This is a fascinating story about a couple of exceptional people who live in the 35'th centurty AD and their adventures.
The book is engineer-friendly, which is to say that everything presented is scientifically plausible. Also, the "adult content" is pretty soft, this isn't porn.
Hey, read the free chapter.
(reviewed within a month of purchase)

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