The Great Divide

THE GREATER COSMIC UNIVERSE Lunar year 783, the 'Milky way' or 'Earth Sector' had, since the demise of Earth itself, and with the exception of the very early developmental stage of life on Jupiter's moon 'Europa', consisted of no naturally inhabitable planets. Several Earth colonisations had however been established, with terra-forming bases on the surface of Mars and a few atmospheric bases on Lunar One, nearer to the inner skirt of the Earth Sector. Further to the South were the Moon bases, Lunars Two, Three and centrally the largest of these, Lunar Four. Over many years and after many setbacks, the Earth's human race had been one of the more accomplished in their exploration of the Cosmos, they had colonised many barren planets and moons far outside the Earth Sector and their people had migrated to several other worlds where they had successfully integrated with the congenital occupants to live side by side in friendship and peace. There had been one or two minor incidents but these had soon been quelled by the authorities of all concerned. With exhaustive exploration by several advanced species throughout their own Universes, all areas of known space had long since merged to form 'The Greater Cosmic Universe' thoroughly charted through the distant regions known as 'The Great Divide' and onto the outermost perimeter known as 'The Dark Zone'. A few fortunate explorers had returned alive from The Dark Zone, to record a bleak, formidable, phantom area of space, where only the brave, or foolhardy, had ventured, to report an impenetrable barrier at its outer rim, totally enclosing the Cosmos. This then was the current limit of exploration, and the extent of the Greater Cosmic Universe. After several eons of intergalactic wars, the 'Confederation of Planets' had been formed to secure alliances and eventually bring about a somewhat uneasy peace within the Cosmos. The federation grew and re-formed as 'Inter-Planetary Security' (later known as IPS) which in time, secured greater stability. Human influence within the Cosmic Universe had been a great factor behind the introduction of the Inter-Planetary Security system and many major positions within IPS had been given to the descendants of the lost planet Earth. Peace then reigned throughout the Cosmos, and, in Lunar year 510, in celebration of 200 years of peace amongst both the inner and outer planetary sectors, Inter-Planetary Security ordered total disarmament of all major weapons. Only 30 kilowatt SBC, (spectral beam combining), electric fibre laser small arms and several, now ancient, aircraft and military vehicles equipped with the since obsolete, 30 kilowatts to 100kilowatts SBC fibre lasers, were allowed to be kept as museum pieces, or for training and display purposes. SBC fibre lasers were made up by combining multiple light beams of differing fibre wave lengths into one box producing a much more powerful single light ray. The later laser weapons still used by IPS were a distinct advancement of those earlier lasers, much more portable with less heat retention and better energy efficiency. Now, 273 years on, more than their most powerful lasers would be needed, as a far greater threat than anyone could ever have imagined, converged upon this Greater Cosmic Universe, threatening not only their peace, but also their sanity. The only thing that stood between them and this evil that had now invaded their space, was a weapon covertly developed by IPS to combat any unseen trouble that might have come from the few terrorist factions still at work within the outer planetary regions. This bio-genetic weapon had been developed to combat alien or human foes, but could it deal with the evil which would now have such a devastating impact upon their existence? Although he didn't know it yet, Squadron Leader Peiter Leven, would play a major role in IPS's unfolding plan, and what he was about to learn would change his life forever.