Perry Rhodan NEO: Volume 8 (English Edition) (eBook)

Bernd Perlies, Christian Montillon (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022
250 Seiten
J-Novel Pulp (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7924-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The brutal war in the Vega system races towards its epic conclusion as Rhodan throws himself straight into the hornet's nest. In a desperate gamble, he gives the Topsidans' military leader a promise he can't keep, hoping that either they'll buy it, or it will buy Thora enough time to sabotage the lizards' flagship. Will they escape with their lives, and will they do enough damage to turn the tides of the interstellar conflict?

Further help might arrive from unexpected sources as the scattered members of Rhodan's crew take their fates into their own hands and regroup. Stranded in the jungle, Kakuta, Morozova, and Deringhouse hatch a plan to hijack an enemy vessel and rejoin the fight.

Meanwhile, the Fantan continue to plunder Earth, but Pounder and Crest are ready to take decisive action. Will it be enough to drive away the invaders without causing untold damage to the utopian city of Terrania? One way or another, two wars are about to come to an explosive end...

Textauszug

1.

The Jump

San Francisco

July 30, 2036

The new day was no more than an orange-colored glow on the eastern horizon. The air was refreshingly chilly, and apart from the song of a few early birds, a wonderful silence prevailed.

Ivan Goratschin pushed his feet powerfully against the pedals one last time, taking him to the viewing point on the eastern peak of Mount Tamalpais. Breathing heavily, he pulled the brakes of his mountain bike—an old but very well looked after Canyon Extreme 2.8—and studied the navi-pod attached to the handlebars.

It was just after six. He had managed the route in a good two hours. That wasn’t quite the high performance he had achieved in years gone by, but he was no longer a young man.

Goratschin got off his bike, pulled a red water bottle from the back pocket of his windbreaker, and took a large swig. The isotonic energy drink he had filled the bottle with before starting on his mountain tour that morning tasted disgustingly sweet, like melted gummy bears. But it did the job.

The giant Russian took another swallow, rinsed his dry mouth with it, and spat it out again.

Not a young man anymore...

His lips pressed tightly together, he stuffed the bottle back into his back pocket. After that, he took a few steps towards the edge of the viewing point, climbed onto the seat of one of the benches there, and perched himself on the backrest. Then he waited.

The San Francisco Bay Area stretched out before him. A constant stream of headlamps was moving across the bay to his right—early commuters following the John T. Knox Freeway to cross the narrow Richmond-San Rafael Bridge that connected Richmond on the east bank with San Rafael on the west bank.

The place right next to the freeway, where once the searchlights of San Quentin State Prison had bathed everything in bright light, was now immersed in darkness. Goratschin knew from earlier trips he had taken here that there was nothing left of the infamous jail but ruins. When he asked someone what had happened, they told him that some madman had flown straight into the main building with a sport plane full of explosives about fifteen years ago. Apparently, he had wanted to “free the world of the scum” locked up there. The impact left a huge area of debris and a crater with a radius of about a hundred meters. However, the size of the political impact it had left behind was even greater.

While the sky to the east was becoming increasingly light as the new day slowly replaced the night, Goratschin allowed his eyes to wander across the scene before him. The lights of Larkspur, Corte Madera, and Mill Valley twinkled to the southeast amidst the greenish-brown hills of Marin County, from which Mount Tamalpais tapered out towards the water.

Down below him, looking towards Richardson Bay, a flat area to the side of San Francisco Bay, was the exclusive private clinic where Ivan Goratschin was currently staying. He lived there under a false name to make sure nobody could disturb his peaceful life...and so nobody could interrupt the process of healing he had to go through, which had not yet properly begun.

Goratschin rubbed his hands over the sweaty skin of his face, and then through his short, dark hair. The corners of his mouth tightened, and he had to blink several times to fight back the tears that were welling up. Crap. All this damned crap.

For almost thirty years he had lain in a coma! Thirty years! That was nearly ten years longer than he had gotten to live his life beforehand.

And then his awakening... A narrow medical cot in the middle of a huge room. The ceiling is dome-shaped and reminiscent of an observatory. In the middle, right above his head, a narrow opening rapidly grows bigger, the deep blue sky behind it, with individual clouds hanging in it like balls of cotton wool.

He can see a sphere in the sky. At first he thinks it’s the Moon, but then he realizes it’s glowing silver in the sunlight and is surrounded by a bright, glittering halo.

It’s a spaceship!

He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he is immediately certain that he’s right. And there’s more—it’s an enemy spaceship. It must be destroyed. And he, Ivan Goratschin, is the only one who is capable of doing that.

He concentrates his mind on the sphere, senses his gift come to life in him. Whatever he has been through, he has not lost his powers. Quite the opposite—they seem to be burning more powerfully than ever in his chest.

Seconds later, the spaceship disappears in a flaming inferno. And then darkness surrounds him again.

“Unconsciousness due to excess stress” is what they told him later. That was two weeks ago. Since then, Ivan Goratschin had to cope with some very bitter news.

After waking a second time, he found himself in a small, sparsely furnished room. A young blonde woman, whose clothes told him she had to be a nurse, was standing next to his bed with a small syringe in her right hand. With deft movements, she checked his vital functions, and before Goratschin could even ask a question, she had already left the room.

She was soon replaced by an elderly man, who was now standing in Goratschin’s line of vision. He had thinning hair, and his back was very hunched beneath his suit, which had seen better days. He moved closer to the Russian man’s bed, limping slightly as he walked, before lowering himself into the armchair next to the bed.

“My name is Homer G. Adams, and I assume you have a great many questions, Mr. Goratschin. I’m here to answer them for you as best I can.”

And that’s exactly what he did, in a calm voice, but at the same time with an honesty that did not spare the listener. Goratschin learned that he, Ivan, had been seriously injured during military action in 2007 in Afghanistan, and that he had fallen into a coma as a result. Ivan had no memory whatsoever of those events.

“Am I... Am I still in Afghanistan?” he had asked.

“No, you are back in the United States. In a suburb of San Francisco, to be precise.”

“What about my parents? Have they been informed? Can I see them?“

Adams had shaken his head sadly. “I’m sorry, that’s not possible.”

“Why not?“

“They both died many years ago.”

Hearing that was bitter for Goratschin.

“And Ivanovich, my brother? Where’s he?”

The elderly man had looked at him silently, and Goratschin understood immediately. That was the second bitter piece of news.

“How?” he asked, his voice getting caught in his throat.

“He died during a fire at his base. That was also...a few years ago.”

Sitting on the eastern peak of Mount Tamalpais, the first hesitant rays of the sun shining on him, Goratschin felt a tear run down his face. His parents, his beloved twin brother—all dead. He could still see the faces of his mother and father clearly in his mind’s eye, glowing with pride at their two magnificent sons, at the same time bravely suppressing their worry because life was not turning out the way they had dreamed it would.

Ivan and Ivanovich had still been children, barely six years old, when the family boarded a plane in Moscow after the fall of the Iron Curtain, heading for the USA. Back then, the two brothers were literally as close as twins could be—joined at the hip, unable to be healed by the Russian health care system.

Once they had arrived in the United States, a donation from a megachurch in Ohio paid for the operation that separated the conjoined brothers. A long scar along one side of Goratschin’s torso was still there, a witness to their plight to this very day.

Encouraged by so much goodness, the family had tried to build a new life in Los Angeles. But maybe they had picked the wrong city, maybe just the wrong neighborhood. One way or another, the Goratschins never really felt like they belonged in their new home country. This was not only true of the parents, but also of the twins.

Ivan and Ivanovich grew up as outsiders. Their giant-like, rough-looking appearance, which did not fit in with the tanned golden boy image of the West Coast, might have been one of the reasons for that. But some strange occurrences during their adolescence might also have played a role—cases of arson. And while nobody could prove those events had been caused by the young twins, many suspected as much, even years later.

And yet, the more their environment shut them out, the more Ivan and Ivanovich tried to be real dyed-in-the-wool patriots. When they finished high school, the two brothers signed up for the army to fight for peace, justice, and the American dream. Two years later, they stood voluntarily in the front row when fresh troops were being picked to be sent to crisis regions like Afghanistan and Iraq.

And there, in a Taliban-plagued shithole, my life decided to take an extended break, Ivan Goratschin thought bitterly. He balled his hands into fists and felt his powers start to activate. He quickly took a deep breath and tried to relax.

He had to be careful. Before he had fallen into a coma, he had had this unexplainable ability that allowed him to set material on fire pretty much under control. But that was decades ago. His ability to concentrate on a specific object and make it...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.5.2022
• Reihe/Serie: Perry Rhodan NEO (English Edition)
• Reihe/Serie: Perry Rhodan NEO (English Edition)
• Illustrationen: toi8
• Übersetzer: Philip Reuben, Lindsay-Jane Munro
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• Schlagworte: Aliens • classic sci fi • Interstellar Exploration • Politics • Pulp • Utopia
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7924-2 / 1718379242
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7924-4 / 9781718379244