by Guerin Zand
“I have a pretty good idea.”
“And what do you think? Is she crazy?”
“No, she’s not crazy. What’s bothering you?”
“Have you talked to her since we had our little chat?”
“Oh, that’s what you’re talking about. I can’t tell you what to do, Guerin. You need to trust your own instincts on that. I think Lori trusts you to do the right thing, and you know I do as well. It has to be your decision.”
“Thanks for the help, Milly.”
Milly reached across the desk and put her hand over mine. “You’ve never needed my help, Guerin. We’ve always been the ones that needed your help.”
“That’s not true, Milly. Just because you haven’t been able to help me in the past, doesn’t mean I didn’t need your help. At least back on Earth, I had my team to turn to, but now I just feel alone.”
“You’re not alone. You have a lot of friends, and you have your daughters, Guerin. I don’t understand why you feel this way.”
“But I don’t belong anywhere. Everywhere I go I’m just visiting. Like dinner tonight. I’m just visiting Earth. It’s not my home anymore, and I don’t feel at home anywhere else. No one understands how I feel, hell you just said so yourself. When Anna was alive, I felt I belonged somewhere. She understood me, but that’s gone. You have your own life and so does Maria really. It won’t be long before Gamma has her own life as well.”
“I thought you were happy with Gamma in your life. What’s changed?”
“Nothing. I’m happy when I’m around her. With me always running these errands for you people, she’ll probably spend more time with Maria and Prima than me. And what if something were to happen to me? I have to make plans for that. What about her education? I’ll probably be packing her off for Bree U, or whatever, in a few years.”
“So, what are you planning on doing about all of that, Guerin?”
“I was thinking I’d take her with me until something happens, or it’s time to pack her off for school.”
“You plan on living on the shuttle?”
“Well, see, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I really need a proper starship, not just one of those shuttles.”
“Oh dear God! Not that again.”
“Yes, that again. Why don’t you hear me out first before you shoot down the idea?”
“Ok. What’s your great idea?”
I pulled up the rough design I had done the other night on the viewer and started to show Milly what I had in mind. Milly started flipping through the rough sketches and the notes I had made. Occasionally she’d look up at me with a raised eyebrow and shake her head. Then she’d go back to reviewing my design of the Zand class starship. I know naming the class of ship after myself was a little bit on the vain side, but what the hell. I had to call it something, right? At first, I thought about naming it like the Russians used to name their military aircraft. You know, using the first few letters of the design company, like a Mig-29 or Su-27, but the Zan-1 didn’t sound right.
Finally, Milly moved the display off to the side and looked at me with one of those Milly looks. She was smiling a bit and trying to hold back her laughter.
“Are you serious? This isn’t one of your jokes?”
“I’m totally serious. It wouldn’t be that difficult. It’s based on the shuttle design, and uses all the same main parts, so don’t tell me that it would be that hard. Look.” I pulled up the detailed, well actually not that detailed, but more of a rough drawing. “You could basically start with a standard shuttle hull, powerplant, and life support systems. Just extend it up front by adding the nose cone with the bridge, Captain’s quarters, new galley, mess halls, and lounge. Add the wings and other aerodynamic surfaces here. Modify the tail section a bit. It already has the plasma thrust engines. I just made it look a lot cooler. Then we redesign the interior a bit as I laid out here.” I flipped to another drawing. “And voilà, we have a bitchin starship that I can call home.”
“If that’s the case, what’s wrong with a standard shuttle? You don’t need to be able to fly it in an atmosphere and all that other nonsense.”
“You Bree have no sense of style or imagination. Why don’t I just start wearing onesies while I’m at it? The whole ‘Dress to Impress’ concept just flies right over your heads, doesn’t it? I’m talking about a luxury yacht and you’re talking about a tugboat. You can’t score space babes in a tugboat, and you definitely aren’t going to impress new races when you first meet them in a something that looks like one of those big Australian beer cans. Remember how underwhelmed I was when I saw your shuttles for the first time?”
“But all of this nonsense has nothing to do with the function of the actual ship.”
“And the other night, my performance in bed had nothing to do with the function I was performing either. Still, you complained about it, didn’t you?”
I got her with that one. You could see she was struggling with a response and having no luck.
“You know using the plasma drives close to a planet’s surface can be dangerous, don’t you?”
“Yes, but we don’t have to use it close to the surface. Sometimes though, it might just be useful depending on the circumstances.”
Milly’s head was still just shaking back and forth.
“Ok, but you know we’re not going to arm a ship with, what did you call them, blasters. What would you need those for?”
“What if I came out of a transit portal and there was a big old asteroid coming straight at me?”
“You could maneuver around it.”
“But what if it was so close and I didn’t have time? I only had time to hit the blaster button.”
“And then you have the same mass of rock hitting you in smaller chunks, Guerin.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
Milly stopped shaking her head long enough to raise an eyebrow.
“Real funny, Milly. Maybe if you bothered to read the blaster design notes you’d see it would need to be capable of ‘vaporizing’ a small moon or large asteroid. I could fly right through ‘vapor’, so I’m not stupid! And blaster is just a generic term. They could be lasers, masers, gasers, xasers, phasers, photon torpedoes, plasma cannons, or whatever.”
“And ‘whatever’ is exactly what we would never give you.”
“That’s fine. Just leave the tubes empty for now but add the necessary conduits so I can retrofit it on my own. I can probably get something from Earth or some other world. I’m sure Senri can help me with that.”
“A wood-fired pizza oven?”
“At first, I thought that was probably a bit problematic, but after I thought about it for a while, I don’t think it should be an issue.”
“Why not?”
“If you geniuses can have black-holes, or whatever you use for power plants on board, then a simple little wood-fired pizza oven shouldn’t be difficult at all in comparison. Hell, even us monkeys figured out a long time ago how to control fire. We can help out with that one if your engineers find it a bit too difficult.”
“Now you’re just being insulting.”
“And you’re not? Look, this would probably be a fun little project for some of your children’s kindergarten science project. It should only take a few weeks to manufacture onboard one of your stations. Christ! You build main ships on those stations. How much room would this little project require?”
“How am I going to sell this to the Council, Guerin?”
“I don’t know? How do you get me to do all the things I don’t want to do?”
“That’s not even funny.”
“I thought it was. Seriously, Milly, I didn’t want to have to bring this up, but you asked me to save the world, and I saved the world. You asked me to save the solar system, and I saved the solar system. Next, I’ll probably end up saving the universe, and what have I ever asked for in return? Nothing. I don’t think this is too much to ask for compared to me saving the universe, do you?”
; “If, and I mean IF, I can swing this, will you take the assignment with Steve?”
“If, and I mean IF, you swing it, then yes. This starship will be my home. A place I can raise my daughter and work from. Like the Winnebago of starships. And you can feel free to copy my design. I’m sure it’s going to be a big hit. You might actually want to make two to start with.”
“Why?”
“Well, Steve will probably want one when he sees mine. Of course, he’ll probably want to customize the floor plan to suit his needs. I definitely want to work with the design team on the final layout for mine.”
“Is that it, Guerin? Anything else on your wish list?”
“Well, there might be a little something I’ll be wishing for later tonight.” I smiled my best bad boy smile.
“So, this whole little sob story about not belonging anywhere was just to get me to feel sorry for you and agree to this silly request?”
“Milly, I’m truly hurt that you’d think I’d manipulate you in that way. That’s the sort of shit I’d pull on Julie, not you.”
“Your such an asshole, Guerin Zand.”
“Would you love me if I wasn’t?”
Chapter 26
A Short Visit Home
Milly and I spent several hours with Steve and Jackie discussing exactly what this project would require. It became very clear to me within minutes of talking to the others that they had given very little thought to what actually needed to be done. According to Milly, they were relying on Steve and me to come up with the details. That was fine, but I pointed out that we at least needed to know what the goal of this little endeavor was to start with. Their answer was the goal was to introduce humans to the unaligned worlds and vice versa. I had already made contact with several hundred of these different races over the years. In their opinion, I was the best candidate for first contact missions seeing as how I hadn’t really pissed off the governments of any of the worlds I’d visited. Well, that is if you didn’t count Claorin, Milly pointed out. I didn’t bother correcting Milly, but they weren’t really pissed off at me, they just didn’t want me hanging around their system. I also didn’t bother to inform them that my usual first contact speech went something like, “Wassup?”
I explained to the group that I thought the best way to get started would be to open a few businesses on these worlds, starting with Trinix, where I had some friends in the shipping business. We were going to need money to start with. I asked for Isabelle and my former accountants to be involved. We needed to purchase a minimum of five cargo haulers and start training pilots and crews ASAP. I’d contact my old friend, and fellow pirate, Sestan, to handle the ship purchases and Senri would handle the pilot training. We would probably need to select a few business types from the pool of humans we had to choose from. They would go and spend time, starting immediately, learning about how business worked in the ASTN. We’d let Isabelle and my old accountants handle their introduction to ASTN rules, regulations, and monetary systems before shipping them off. I figured they’d have enough time before official first contact to learn the ropes and set up an office on Trinix.
I suggested that Steve and I should address the humans that had been recruited for his marines and this project. We needed to give them the choice, in the case of the marine recruits, whether to return to Earth and be absorbed into their defense forces, or join our project. That would mean resigning as marines. We would need a private security force, and we needed to make it clear to all the volunteers that this project was not backed by the Earth system government. We would be on our own out there. If any of them got in trouble, they’d have to deal with it on their own. That made Steve bring up the issue of a selection process.
This was going to be an elite group and we couldn’t afford loose cannons or idiots. I wanted to say that leaves me out, but I refrained when they all gave me the same look. The military recruits had already been through a rigorous training program for selection, but that training was military only. The other civilian volunteers were mainly chosen based on critical skill assessments. They’d all have to be screened for security, skill sets, psychological requirements, and personality. They would have to act as ambassadors and intel officers no matter what their basic assignment was.
Steve likened the group to the Army’s Green Berets and suggested that Roger and Katie help in the selection process. We were going to have to trust each other implicitly, our lives may very well depend on that. They’d all have to be trained in multiple disciplines, regardless of what skill set they were recruited for, since shit happens. Steve said he would take on the responsibility to come up with the training and screening requirements. Final selection would be decided by the OS, original spacers. That would be me, Roger, Katie, Steve, and Diane. We decided to table any more specific discussions on this until we met with the other three OS. Steve estimated that of the 1000+ volunteers we had, we’d be lucky to have 400 after final selection if that.
I rounded up the family, Maria, Gamma, and Prima, for the trip to Earth. Since Prima was living with us full time she was officially part of the family now. Gamma called her Nana and I think Prima really liked that. Prima’s love life was still a work in progress, but Maria and I weren’t giving up. Even Gamma was doing her little bit to help.
We met up with Milly, Steve, and Jackie on board the Vengeance. Things between Jackie and I hadn’t really changed since I blew up at her at the bar. If we were all going to be working together that would have to change. We made the transition to Ganymede orbit where we picked up Mei, and then opened another portal to Earth orbit. I had Senri open a portal in a secluded area in a small park near Jjukkumi alley where we hopefully wouldn’t be noticed. Roger, Katie, and Diane were already there waiting for us. We all headed off to find the restaurant Lihwa and I had visited centuries earlier.
I had been a bit worried taking two alien looking beings down to Earth with us. Senri was Chendek, and although fairly human looking, their eyes had a golden tint to them and their ears were rather oddly shaped. Prima looked quite human except for her ears as well. They had a bit of a point to them, not full-on Vulcan or anything like that, but still different enough to stand out in a crowd. My fears were soon put to rest when I noticed the weird body mods that many of the younger Korean people had. I hadn’t really been keeping up with the latest fads with the younger generations, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised based on the way things were going when I left Earth.
Even when the aliens first recruited me, the kids of the day thought looking like carnival geeks was cool. I always had a hard time not laughing when I’d run into one of these young people back then. They thought this sort of expression made them unique. It highlighted their individuality and creativity. I wanted to point out to them that they all looked alike and were nothing more than a bunch of peer-pressured conforming lemmings. I didn’t though. Those little snowflakes had problems with the truth. When the truth stared them straight in the face, it was not uncommon for them to break out into tears or some form of childish temper tantrum.
A lot of adults back then were concerned that this was a sign that the world would soon come to an end, but that didn’t happen. We had a generation of mostly useless idiots, sure, but when they reproduced, their children rebelled by growing up totally normal. The same thing had happened to the hippies of the 60’s. Their kids grew up to be preppies in their high school and college years. When they were old enough to vote they turned into Republicans. These things were cyclic. Like they always say, the pendulum only swings so far in one direction before it swings back towards the other extreme.
Not much had really changed in this little part of Seoul. Sure, there were holographic advertisements instead of neon signs and LCD billboards, but the restaurants themselves in the area were still the same old type of mom and pop shops. They still brought out the metal bowls of Jjukkumi and placed them over an old-fashioned gas burner for you to cook the meal to your own preference. We put the vegans at a separate table where th
ey could enjoy a vegan version of the dish with tofu instead of baby octopus. Gamma, of course, sat with us meat eaters.
Spicy is not the right word to describe the heat of jjukkumi. Hellfire is probably more accurate. An ample supply of Soju is needed to help put out the fire. Sure, adding alcohol to a burning inferno doesn’t seem to be the logical solution, but trust me, it works. After watching Lihwa’s recording, I had become nostalgic about our one date when we had come here. I had never been back in the centuries that passed since then. She wanted me to get to know her daughter Mei better. She’d hoped that we would become friends and I wanted to honor her request if I could. I felt guilty after watching that recording.
Gamma seemed to enjoy this new dish. The heat didn’t seem to bother her as much as it did me. Maybe it was something genetic that was passed down from her mother. Lihwa was from Chengdu, a city in China’s Sichuan province.
“Do you know why we came here tonight, Gamma?” I looked down at my youngest daughter as I wiped the mess off her face with a napkin. She shook her head.
“This is where your mother and I had dinner a long time ago. We both had a lot of fun that night and I thought you’d like to know more about your mother. Mei”, I pointed across the table. “Is your half sister, and her daughter Huiliang sitting next to her is your niece.”
“What’s a niece?”
“It’s what we call the daughter of your sister or brother.” I then had to explain how Mei was not my daughter, but still her sister, and how Maria was not related to Mei or Huiliang, but still her sister. She said that made no sense and I agreed.
“I’m curious why you invited me for dinner, Guerin? Was it just to meet Gamma?”
“No, I mean, I wanted you to meet her, Mei, but that wasn’t the only reason. I watched the recording Lihwa left for me. She wanted me to get to know you and she hoped we’d become friends. I wanted to try and do what she wanted.”
“Can I ask what else she said in the recording?”