Outcast

by Guerin Zand

  We then had to go through and do the same sort of organizational structuring for the business offices we would open on a few candidate planets. We decided we would start with Trinix as a test bed and later refine the organization before opening posts on other worlds. The manager of each land-based office would have to be from the Rangers as would the head of office security.

  Based on all of our discussions, we decided we’d need a minimum of 175 Rangers when we completed our initial selection. It was based on this number, and our decisions of where we needed Rangers, that we determined the skill set requirements for the initial selection. We had nearly 600 applications for Ranger selection. Unfortunately, of those 600, 275 were from the marines.

  We had to consider the marines for positions other than security. That probably wasn’t a bad thing. We could skip basic training for those marines since they would be more than qualified to protect themselves in bad situations. There were a couple of problems with this idea. Some of the marines might not be interested in other positions. Steve said he would talk to the 275 that applied and explain the situation to them. That way we could weed those marines out before we started the general selection process. The other problem was they would have to stop thinking like marines and learn to be more diplomatic.

  Of course, when I made that statement I got a lot of strange looks from the other three. I don’t know why everyone thought I couldn’t be diplomatic. I had been traveling to hundreds of different worlds over the years, and there were only two small groups of worlds that wanted to kill all humans, especially me. Both of those empires were already on the Collective quarantine list, so it wasn’t really my fault.

  To start the selection process we assigned each of us areas we would have final selection authority for. We brought Senri in to help Jackie to select pilot, navigator, and engineer applicants. Steve, of course, took care of the security personnel while he also worked on forming the private security force. I oversaw selecting the candidates for ship captains and site managers. Maria was left to select the rest of the candidates. Instead of going through the applicants separately, we went through the list one-by-one as a group. Quite often one us might dismiss a candidate while the others would see it differently. Although it took a while, I think the initial selection process went well.

  Once we had our initial list, Steve got with Roger and Katie to start the security reviews. We only lost about 1% of the candidates for security reasons. So, the next step was basic training for the civilians.

  Steve assigned a few of his marines to handle this. We were checking for a few things. The candidates had to be physically fit. Most of them had already been given the Bree basic physical upgrades, but some hadn’t. There were a group of humans that didn’t believe in the procedure due to religious or ethical objections. We agreed that wouldn’t be a requirement, but we weren’t going to waste the training on people who wouldn’t last either. Most of the physical training was easy. What wasn’t easy for a lot of them was learning to take orders and discipline. Steve’s marines fixed most of those issues. The ones they couldn’t set straight were dropped.

  We also put the marines who were going to serve as civilians through the ringer as well. We were concerned how they’d handle the more mundane jobs they might be delegated. For this task, we recruited some of the nerdiest of our group to order the marines around. They’d have to get them coffee, meals, clean up after them, and all sorts of rather humiliating tasks. We lost a few of them, but not many.

  After the candidates had made it through the hazing process, we sat them all down as individuals and told them what position they were being considered for. It was at this point we had the largest drop rate. Some simply weren’t interested in the positions as we described them. Others were a bit insulted that they weren’t considered for something more important. The first group, in many cases, we were sorry to see go. The second group, we were glad to be rid of. We still had over 300 of the original 600 applicants left after this. That was a lot more than the 175 Rangers we thought we’d need.

  To get to this point had taken us over two years. First contact had been moved back from the original schedule by several years. One of the main reasons for the delay was the situation on Ganymede. There was a lot of political maneuvering taking place trying to form some sort of comprehensive system government. To give you an example of how ridiculous politics could be, you needed to look no farther than the almost fifteen months they spent coming up with a naming convention. Using the word Earth for anything was objected to by residents of the system who did not live on Earth. Human, although applying to all equally, was considered to represent a race, or species, and not a location. Finally, they decided to refer to the system, people, and government organizations as Terran.

  Now, everybody knows that Terra is just Latin for Earth, so you have to wonder what the difference was. Politicians, people far more skilled in the art of bullshit than even I, would respond that Terran was a word whereas Earthan wasn’t. The definition for Terran already existed, and it referred to a person, place, or thing originating from Earth. To avoid showing a bias to those born and living on Earth, the word Terra was not allowed to be used as a substitute for Earth in any form of communication or official document. Of course, this just sparked another big argument as to what to call people from Earth. It went back and forth between Earther and Earthling until Earthling was finally decided on. Still, a lot of people found this name somewhat demeaning or childish. Now they just had to come up with the right terminology for everyone else. Martians vs Marlings? I could go on, but I think you get the point.

  All this political nonsense did give the Ranger program a little more time to establish itself. We had the final, and most difficult training to get through yet. It was time to train the candidates for their individual jobs. For some, this was not a big task. For others, we were going to need almost two years. We started shuttling trainees to Bree stations where they would attend the various learning centers as required. We had already broken out the cargo ship crews for special training on the Earth ship.

  Although we only had four ships currently, the Collective was already starting to work with Diane on the construction requirements for the five Earth designed ships we had agreed on. They were also working on the new Zand class cruisers which my crew would need some training on as well. We would need 100 crew members in the end, at least, and we only had 200 applicants that had made it that far. I was hoping we’d have more than enough so we could switch crews in and out of service to give them all breaks at some point. If in the end, we didn’t have enough after final Ranger selection, we’d have to look at others for temporary crew. We’d train all the crews on these four ASTN ships first. When the Earth designed cargo ships became available, we would rotate crews through the training on those ships. The Earth ships were a totally different beast, but the basics of piloting and navigation were still the same.

  Surprisingly, Sammy volunteered to help train our flight crews. He, along with Jackie, Cindy, and Senri, were the primary instructors. Sammy chose some of his Collective training crews to work with the humans when they got to the point of actual flight operations. They would work side-by-side with the humans to teach them the ins and outs of space travel. It turned out that it was actually a big help to Sammy in training his younger shuttle crews. They all looked forward to the break in their normal training regimen. Steve joined the crew of the Vengeance as we headed out to Milly’s station to start our training on the Zand class cruisers. Diane was going to meet us there as well.

  Chapter 28

  Ryvius

  As I mentioned, Senri was busy with crew training when Milly notified me that the Zand class cruisers were just about complete. This meant I was going to be in charge of piloting the Vengeance out to Milly’s station where we’d start training on the new starships. Sure, I’d piloted her around before on my own when Senri was away, or otherwise occupied, but I never actually docked it on one of the Bree ships or stations. Sen
ri and I thought it would be best I didn’t tell anyone that. It would be more fun that way. There was an instruction manual available somewhere. What’s the worst that could happen?

  We’d not only learn how to operate the new starships, but we’d be taking them out for their first test flights. Diane would be joining us on the test flights to ensure the Earth designed star drive was integrated with the Collective systems correctly, and to analyze the drive’s performance. The only changes the Collective engineers had made to Diane’s new star drive was to adapt it to the Collective power plant, add the drive controller logic into the Collective designed flight control system, and to decrease the overall size of the drive. Since no Collective technology was used to downsize the drive, Diane would be able to bring the updated drive design back to Earth when we were finished with our testing.

  For this trip, the crew size would be fairly small. It was just me, Maria, Steve, Prima, Huiliang, and Gamma. Next to me, Maria had the most experience operating a shuttle. Steve had some experience he had picked up while traveling with Jackie, but he was still relatively inexperienced. Huiliang had been through the classroom training but had no actual flight time logged. She was accepted into the Rangers and had been through all the training with the rest of the candidates up to this point. Since she had requested to join my crew, before we formed the Rangers, I decided that it would be best for her to go through flight training with the rest of us on the new cruisers.

  We were going to make a short stop at Ganymede to drop off some medical supplies before heading out to the station. I decided to let Steve pilot that leg of the journey to gain a little more experience. Maria and I would join him in the control center to assist him if needed. It would be his first time to pilot a shuttle out from a main ship’s docking port. As I may have mentioned before, time zones were a bitch when it came to traveling in space. We had to leave the Earth ship, we really needed to come up with a better name for this Bree main ship if you asked me, in the middle of the night in order to arrive on Ganymede during their daytime operations schedule. Traveling from Ganymede to Milly’s station, after dropping off the supplies, would get us there sometime in the early morning, station time.

  Steve did fine on his leg of the journey. He wasn’t anywhere near as good as Senri, but neither was I. The next leg of the journey was going to be up to me. The stations were massive. Their interior volume equal to that of a small solar system. Traffic around such a massive station was impossible to navigate without allowing the ship computers to take control. Even picking the entry point was a difficult operation.

  I pulled up the station's image on the viewer and searched for the module where we would be staying for the next several months of training. I highlighted the module and let the navigation system compute the exit point for our transit portal. We had to wait for our destination to be transmitted to the station's traffic controllers. They would make the final decision on our exact exit location and time for arrival. It only took a couple of seconds for our shipboard systems to sync up with the station controllers. We were then given the exit location for us to use in the computation needed to open the transit portal with our ship’s drive. We were given a five-minute window for making the transit. If we did not make that window we’d have to start all over and determine then next exit location and time window.

  The viewer display in front of me acknowledged the computations were complete. I informed the crew, most of whom were in the control center probably waiting to see me fuck it all up, we’d be making the transition in one minute. At that point, I initiated the precomputed flight plan to bring us to the correct heading and speed that was required of us at the destination location. I crossed my fingers and waited for the portal transition. I guess I got it all right since we weren’t instantly greeted by some irate space traffic controller. I smiled and raised my hands to the onlooking crowd as if it was a piece of cake. No problem. Now I just had to dock in the correct spaceport on the station without killing anyone. I would be fine with a few scratches to the hull. I was trading this ship in anyways.

  Traffic control contacted us, well they tried to. “Shuttle 04-2983243723-2718, you’re cleared to dock at spaceport 03-00031469-03.”

  I didn’t reply. These aliens were just being dicks. Well, I could be a dick too. The repeated the message and still I ignored them. The crew in the control center started to give me funny looks but I waived them off.

  “Sorry, shuttle Vengeance, you’re cleared to dock at spaceport 03-00031469-03.” At least this controller was smart enough to realize that I could be a bigger dick than him and used the CORRECT designation for our shuttle.

  Finally, I responded. “Got that. Give me a second to figure out just which spaceport that is.” The station had hundreds of spaceports. You normally wanted to dock in the closest port to the module you were planning on visiting. If you didn’t, you could end up spending quite a bit of time traveling through the station's public transit system. A lot more time than it actually took to get from Ganymede to this station.

  “Your shuttle’s controller will figure that out for you if you simply engage the auto-dock feature.”

  “I know that control. I just like to know where I’m going before I actually get there if you don’t mind.” I shook my head. The display in front of me highlighted the spaceport the controller had designated. I confirmed it was the closest one to the module that was our destination. I didn’t trust these asshole aliens to not send me to one on the other side of the station just to fuck with me. The who was a bigger dick contest wasn’t over until we docked. I knew that much.

  “Whatever floats your shuttle.” The controller was obviously trying to be funny.

  “Say what, control?”

  “Whatever floats your shuttle. Isn’t that the proper human phrase?”

  “It’s ‘Whatever floats your boat’ control. Nice try though. Mind if I take it in on manual control?”

  “Sure, why not. Give me a second so I can relay this to the station's entertainment network. I’m sure it will set a morning ratings record.”

  “Whatever, control. Initiating manual approach.”

  “Really, Dad? Everyone already knows you’re an asshole. Do you have to kill us trying to prove the obvious?”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, daughter. I’ve seen Senri do this before, so how hard can it be. Trust me and hold my beer.” I smiled a big smile and the rest of the crowd broke out in laughter.

  “Vengeance, this is control. We’ve sent you the vectors for a manual approach. Good luck.”

  As I started to program the manual approach vectors we heard the controller’s next comment, one I don’t think he meant to say over a hot mic. “Asshole!”

  “I heard that, dipshit! I’ll take your vectors under advisement. You might want to warn all the other ships not to do anything stupid. We’ll try not to break anything, but I’m not making any promises.”

  I programmed an alternate set of approach vectors into the ships navigation system. My vectors weren’t that different from the ones I’d been sent. I just added a few extra zigs and zags to piss off the controllers.

  “Shuttle Vengeance, your off vector.”

  “Not my vectors, control. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I got this.”

  “Shuttle Vengeance, your shuttle is not responding to control overrides.”

  “Yea. It doesn’t like being told what to do by a bunch of assholes. Just sit back and relax. Your constant nagging is only going to make me nervous, and when I’m nervous, I make mistakes.”

  That was the last we heard from control. No, we didn’t die. We docked safely without even a scratch. Even though I tweaked the vectors a bit, we still hit every waypoint at the exact time and speed as the vectors they had issued.

  “Control, this is Vengeance. Docking successful. You can all start breathing again, or whatever you were doing before. We’ll catch you on the way out.”

  “Understood Vengeance. Would you mind departing on
someone else’s shift?”

  “Seriously? Are you going to tell me this wasn’t the most fun you’ve had all day?”

  “Do you have any idea the amount of paperwork I’m going to have to do thanks to your little stunt, Vengeance?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have called me asshole, control. If you want, you can just send the paperwork to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yea. Enjoy your stay on station.”

  That was the end of our conversation. I could never live on one of these stations. Imagine billions of people, all with no sense of humor whatsoever. At least there were a lot of intoxicating beverages on the station to help with the boredom. We all gathered up our luggage. Steve and I just had our go bags while the women had several bags each. No matter how many times we told them that they could get whatever they needed on the station, they still had that primal female urge to overpack. The only exception was Gamma. She only packed her bunny onesie for sleeping and a couple of stuffed animals. I knew it was only a matter of time before genetics kicked in and she would start behaving like the rest of the women.

  We exited through the cargo bay. Milly was waiting for us as we entered the spaceport. Her head was shaking back and forth while her eyes rolled into the back of her head. It looked like she was having some sort of a seizure. I walked up to her and placed my hands on the side of her face to steady her lips for a nice kiss.

  “Hey, babe. Miss me?” I gave her my best and infamous bad boy smile and waggled my eyebrows a few times. She tried not to laugh but she couldn’t help herself. Instead, she slapped me upside the top of my head.