Ann Cooper arrived in her usual breezy manner, followed by her Sentinel team, Scott Morgan, and Kelly Peterson.
"Good morning, Captain Henderson, Captain Navarro. Thanks for coming in."
After introductions, Ann let Scott lead the discussion.
"We've made some changes since the Version Zero Sentinels Intrepid deployed, so I want to go over those first."
"We had some suggestions?" Henderson asked, wondering if her detailed recommendations had been for naught.
"Yes, Captain Henderson, we actually had a couple of the same ideas and have implemented those already."
"That's encouraging."
"Two major ones, really. First, the configuration data is now on a removable chip; it's basically the same memory chip you'd find on a Sleuth. So, should you have a hardware failure of some kind, as you almost did, Captain Henderson, you can swap the chip to the next unit in line and keep going."
"Excellent. That was something my team suggested."
"The second major change is with the RTG interface. FleetShips has added a control data line so the Sentinel can direct the power-up process and control the RTG itself."
"So, no more panels and switches?"
"No, ma'am, no more long sequences of opening and flipping and closing."
"That's very good."
Ann looked from one Captain to the other.
"We knew this process was going to be awkward at first, but there was a high priority on getting the units out. Now that we had some time to evolve the design, it should be much easier."
Navarro shifted in his seat. "That sounds very good to me. I read Captain Henderson's report, and these are the two items that most concerned me. Anything new about the deployment?"
"No, that remains as is, unless your crew figures out something better."
"Well, we'll manage."
Kelly fired up the flat monitor on the wall. "Now, about your stars…" She got up and moved to the screen.
"Since Intrepid left, we have developed information that indicates the enemy likely originates in the deep southern sky. If I had to throw a dart at a star, I'd say Alpha Mensae, but we don't know that yet. We do know that there is a facility about 25 light years out."
"That's a long way, Warrant Officer Peterson."
"It is, sir. But, here's the list for you." The screen lit up with the list of stars, distances, and travel times.
"Eight stars, Captain, almost a hundred days travel time."
"Long trip."
"Yes, Captain, it surely is. But I want you to know these stars are targeted based on a line from that facility to us, here."
"So, if they come sniffing around in this direction, we'll know about it?"
"That's the idea, yes."
"We're dropping the communications blackout for this trip," Ann added. "As we do with regular system visits, we'd like you to report as you leave each star."
"Fine by me. Anything else?"
"No, sir. That's all we had."
As they left FleetIntel, Joanne politely declined Navarro's invitation to lunch. She had a post-mission meeting with Cook, and then she'd be meeting Fiona Collins at The Drive for early drinks and a late dinner.
The Drive
Newport News, VA
Friday, October 7, 2078, 1830 EDT
This time Ben Price did not avoid the richly paneled dining room at The Drive, but rather installed himself in a small booth along the left-hand wall. Natalie arrived shortly after he did, and dropped into the seat across from him just as their young waiter arrived. She ordered a margarita, large, and Ben remained loyal to his Scotch: Dewar's, double, neat.
After the drinks were ordered, Ben looked at her for a moment. She was attractively dressed, carefully made-up, and her hair had clearly been trimmed and styled.
"You look great," he said, careful to sound complimentary but not surprised.
"I better. There's serious time and money in this hair and face tonight."
"Nat, you always look great."
"Price, if you're telling me I wasted my money —"
"No, no, no, you're an even better you than I expected."
"Smartass."
They shared a laugh at the exchange.
Ben caught her eye and held it for a second. "So, Natalie, is it still too early to tell?"
She smiled again, remembering their conversation in his office back in August. "No, Price, it's not. I —" She was interrupted by the arrival of the drinks.
"Dinner?" the waiter asked. Natalie and Ben matched their eyes, and she shook her head slightly.
Ben responded. "Later. I think we'll have a couple rounds first."
As the young waiter left, Ben raised his Scotch.
"So, what shall we drink to?"
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and raised her glass to his. "How about...possibilities?"
Ben smiled in response, and they each took a sip. Natalie took a moment to look around the dining room.
"I've never been in here. Is this where you and Henderson would sit?"
Ben thought he heard a trace of something more in her voice. A residual question, maybe, about his relationship with Joanne?
"Uh, no. We always sat in the last booth in the bar on the other side. It had a great view of the place. Perfect for people watching."
"You mean, as in making snarky private fun of the people around you?"
"I mean exactly that, and Henderson was a master! Collins, too. Good God, we laughed a lot." Ben took another sip, then set down his drink and looked at Natalie. "I'm very glad you're here, Nat."
"Yeah, me, too." She looked at him evenly with a small smile, not letting his eyes leave hers.
"You know what I've been through. I'm...well..."
"Not looking right now?" She was offering him an easy off-ramp, just in case he wasn't ready for her.
Ben paused a moment, wondering how to say what he felt without scaring her away.
"Not looking for anything superficial," he replied, staying right on course.
She looked down at the table and then back up at him. "I don't do superficial, Ben. I don't do casual." She squeezed the last word out as if it were an obscenity.
"Good, because I like you very much, Nat. I'd like to see if there could maybe be something more."
"Oh, there is, Ben, there definitely is."
He looked at her for several seconds, studying her face in the faux candlelight and wondering how he could possibly be so lucky as to have fallen into the orbit of this woman. He reached over and touched her hand. She grasped his in return.
"Thanks. But, just for the record, Miss Lieutenant Hayden —"
"Watch the 'Miss' business, buster!"
"For the record, ma'am, I would have been very glad to see you even without the, um, investments, you made today. I'll take you just like you were every day on the ship."
"Except the uniform, right? That would be weird."
He managed not to laugh, but her deadpan delivery was hard to resist.
"Yeah, except for the uniform."
"Well, I needed a trim, and when I mentioned I had a date tonight —"
"This is a date?"
"Hell yes, this is a date!" She looked around for a moment, then turned back to him. "Anyhow, for the record, when I told them that, and how long we'd been out, they offered to do a little makeover. I had fun."
They ordered another round, and as this evening's live band began to play, Ben moved over and sat next to her, his flimsy excuse being that he wanted to see the band. They passed on dinner and instead ordered an appetizer each, then cross-grazed through two sets by the band and one more round of drinks. They talked sporadically, sitting very close so they could hear over the music. Eventually, they tired of trying to out-decibel the electronics, paid the check with a generous tip and left.
The sun had set hours before, but it was a warm evening, typical for early October in Virginia. Instead of calling for a ride, they walked along a wide boulevard towards
Natalie's apartment. The hooded sidewalk lights gave enough illumination for them to see but didn't shed any extraneous light skyward, so the stars were easily visible. They talked about those stars, about people they had known, how they had felt about Inoria, and what might be happening next for them. They'd just experienced one of the longest trips Fleet had ever done, and now they had only three weeks off before going back out. Somewhere far away, most likely. Somewhere dangerous.
They made plans for lunch the next day at Shield's Tavern up in Williamsburg, a place Natalie loved. They both wanted to get away from the Fleet, to get back out into the 'real world,' as they called it.
They walked arm-in-arm for the last half mile. At Natalie's door, there was an awkward moment as she wondered what to say, or ask, but Ben just drew her close and lightly kissed her goodnight. Once she was safely inside, he turned and headed for his own place about a mile away.
Ben relished the walk home, each step filled with warm memories of the evening just past and the pleasant anticipation of more of the same tomorrow. Opening the door to his apartment, he saw it was still sparsely furnished, but instead of feeling empty because of what he had lost, it now seemed to offer space for something new.
Something new that might be truly beautiful.
Big Blue
Third Town South
Friday, October 7, 2078, 2100 UTC (Just after Sunrise, Sol 65)
The shadows were still long as the shuttle set down on a side-street just off the coastal thoroughfare that ran the entire length of the settlement. They had nicknamed that road 'The PCH' on their first visit, its placement and length recalling California's famous oceanside highway.
As Greg asked, they were delivering him to the house with the portrait he had seen the first day on Antares. Gabrielle and Jack Ballard were with him. Carol Hansen was with the technical intelligence team, who would be examining the battlefield later that same Sol.
The hatch opened, and they stepped out into the bright sunshine, white-suited and weighed down by the SLUGs and the higher gravity of Big Blue. Gabrielle and Sergeant Jackson looked around for a few moments as Ballard oriented himself to the picture on his internal visor. Finally, he pointed to the east and started walking. The Marines took positions on either side and behind, weapons at the ready, heads swiveling, watching for whatever might threaten their charges. They knew the chances of an armed alien encounter were nil. But Antares had detected small animals during the first exploration, and an attack by some toothy predator could not be excluded.
As they walked the two hundred meters to the house, Gabrielle looked from side to side, trying to absorb the feel of the place. It looks so normal, she thought, almost like a small town anywhere back home.
Greg studied the symbols on the buildings, photographing them as he went. After a dozen houses, he stopped and stood in the street, looking around. Gabrielle saw the symbols as well.
"Addresses?" she asked, her voice clear over the comm link.
Greg's suit moved, looking somewhat like a shrug.
"Maybe. I can't believe it could be that simple."
"I guess people will always need a system for identifying places and finding each other —" she started. Greg turned to Ballard.
"Jack, are there street addresses on Inor? I should remember, but I don't."
"Not exactly. There are street names, and they will say something like 'second door east of X street on Y.'"
"So, there is an address, but they express it less specifically than we do?" Gabrielle asked.
"Yeah, I guess that's close enough."
They resumed walking and came to an intersection with a small road that ran north and south. Gabrielle looked around.
"OK, here we are at the corner of A and B. How do I know where I am?"
They saw nothing that resembled street signs.
The aliens constructed their houses out of dark masonry material. The roofs appeared to be similar to the walls. To the casual observer, the houses were all alike, with roofs which slanted down to the front. The front of the houses had only a door, no windows. As they stood in the intersection, Sergeant Jackson pointed out that the houses were only on the east-west street. The smaller intersecting north-south road had no structures on it.
Gabrielle turned to Greg. "OK, maybe we don't care about which intersection this is? Maybe it's only the street with the houses that matters?"
That earned her another shrug from Greg, who then stepped off to the east.
The narrow hard-packed road felt familiar to Gabrielle. There were trees along the sides, which looked like oversized ferns, or some weird variation of a palm tree, but fuller and not nearly so tall. They didn't seem to have been planted in rows, but clearly, they gave shade to the houses and had been kept off the roads. A few smaller trees were growing haphazardly here and there, probably seeded by themselves after the residents died. Other vegetation seemed to be encroaching on the road, creeping outward from the edges. What would have been lawns back on Earth were covered with a low green cover that reminded Jack of clover.
Finally, Jack Ballard stopped and pointed to a house. "That's it."
Gabrielle and Greg stood on the road, trying to see the whole before getting into the details. They could not tell if the dark color was natural or some kind of paint. They walked around the side and found window openings that seemed to indicate a single floor. In the back, there were tall windows around a small courtyard which was covered by the roof. Jack took them around to the window through which they had photographed the portrait. It was still there, of course. They walked back around to the front. The door just stared back at them.
"So, Jack, how do we get in?"
"Dunno. We just flew the drones around."
Gabrielle suppressed a laugh as she watched Greg and Jack looking at each other. Clearly, each expected the other to know how to open the door.
"OK, guys, you have to be able to open the door, right?" They looked at her as if she was the alien. "So, figure it out. It can't be that hard. We know they had an opposable digit and three fingers. Can't be all that different."
"Yeah unless it's electronic and the power is off," Jack said, disgusted.
"Or voice activated," Greg added, equally annoyed. They pushed and pulled, top, bottom, left, right. Nothing.
It was Este's turn to be annoyed. "You're forgetting that we think this is mid-20th century tech. Electronic doors and voice recognition are probably beyond them at this point."
"Maybe it only opens from the inside?" Sergeant Jackson offered.
"Or, it's locked?" said one of the other Marines. Jack took a step back, trying to see what he might have missed.
"No hinges that we can see — no marks on the ground where it swung out." The door recessed slightly into the wall.
"Pocket door?" Gabrielle offered. Greg tried to slide it left and nothing happened, but when he pushed it right, it moved slightly. They all pushed together, and the door opened about a foot before stopping again. They moved it back-and-forth, and with each cycle, the door moved a little more until finally it gave up and slid fully open. As Jack looked up, he realized there was a cloud of rust and accumulated dirt around them.
"I hope to hell you guys can get that closed again," Gabrielle commented, laughing, as she followed the Marines inside. Jackson and his men searched the building, found no remains and nothing that looked threatening.
"I don't know for sure, Lieutenant Ballard, but it looks safe to us."
Ballard nodded to Jackson, who took his men back outside. He sent two to look 'around the block' while he reexamined the exterior of the house. He had the fourth keep watch on the street.
With the Marines gone, the team started their examination of the house.
"OK, we're in the entrance. The house is deeper than I thought," Gabrielle observed.
"Yeah, the windows look out on the courtyard." There were living spaces to the left and right. Greg went to the left, to the room with the portrait. Jack went to the right, lea
ving Gabrielle looking out on the courtyard.
"I don't believe it!" they heard Greg say on the comm radio.
"What is it?" Gabrielle asked.
"Come and see for yourself," Greg responded, a wonder in his voice.
Gabrielle entered the room and stopped in her tracks. On the wall opposite the portrait, not visible from the outside, was a bookcase. Shelves of bound volumes covered the entire wall.
"I never expected...to find so much. Who are these people?" Greg walked to the bookcase, excitedly looking up and down the collection. Gabrielle also looked at the shelves and noticed the markings on their edges. She touched Cordero on the shoulder.
"Greg, the shelves are labeled." She looked back at the portrait and saw something else on the wall. She gripped Cordero's shoulder tighter. "It gets better. Look at that." He turned to look where she was pointing.
"Is that a nameplate?" Ballard asked.
"Maybe," Greg answered, looking at the writing. Suddenly the recognition hit him, and his eyes grew wide. Pointing to the first part of the portrait label, he almost shouted: "Gabe, are those the same characters that are on the house?" She looked hard at the wall and then went back outside.
She came back shortly, breathless. "Yes, they are."
"Has to be a name," Cordero spoke in a voice that was almost a whisper.
"Yep."
"It's not supposed to be this easy," Ballard observed.
Cordero stood very still, scanning the shelves, absorbing the size of the library. He pulled out a camera and took a long video of the entire wall, with close-ups of the labels. There were at least fifty volumes, in a variety of sizes.
"Greg, we have to open one," Gabrielle said. She saw a wider shelf at about waist level in the center of the bookcase with no volumes on it. "There is a reading desk."
"OK, but which one?" Jack asked.
When Greg finally spoke, there was a distance in his voice.
"One of my earliest memories as a boy is the largest book on my grandfather's shelf. It was Webster's Unabridged Dictionary — a real printed version. It was like six inches thick, and maybe a hundred years old, and when he took it down, it was like he was opening a sacred text. I loved it when he let me just sit and read it." He closed his eyes, returning in his mind to a small dusty study now very far away. "I can still smell it, feel the pages in my hands, the print under my fingertips. So much knowledge, so many words, just there for the taking." He pointed to the shelf. "Any bets on what the biggest volume here is?"
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