It Ain't Over

by Robert M Kerns

  “Roger that,” Sasha said.

  “Thank you for the heads up. Cole out.”

  The speakers chirped again as the comms call ended.

  Twenty minutes later, they approached the shipyard, and the shipyard directed them to a hangar separate from the main section of the shipyard. After Sasha’s call, Cole felt a twitch between his shoulder blades. The two dropships followed him into the hangar in perfect formation—which made Cole smile—and once the dropship’s systems reported pressure in the hangar bay, Cole saw the personnel hatch open to admit Sev and five people wearing Tristan’s Gate SDF ship-suit uniforms. Cole now felt certain something was not right.

  Cole shut down the dropships and activated the maintenance codes that would allow the shipyard’s people to move them as needed, and he stood from the pilot’s console, slapping the control to lower the boarding ramp as he passed it. His two fellow pilots met him at the foot of his boarding ramp, and it was only after they were half-way to the ‘welcoming committee’ that Cole realized his pilots had adopted a chevron formation with him on point…one step behind and to either side of him.

  Of all the many things running through his mind for what was about to happen, Cole was not prepared in the slightest when the woman in SDF uniform standing in front of and closest to Sev called out, “Atten-SHUN!,” at Cole’s approach, and all five snapped into a rigid stance and performed a parade-ground-perfect salute. Cole blinked, his mind locked. He knew how people used to respond to such things from watching ancient documentaries with his grandfather and since, but he had no idea if that was still appropriate.

  Cole’s eyes flicked to Sev, and he saw an almost-contained grin trying to curl the man’s lips.

  “I’m sorry,” Cole said, “but I’m not sure as to the proper response. Thank you and as you were?”

  The five SDF people seemed to accept that, the senior-most dropping his salute with which prompted the other four to drop their salutes.

  “Sev,” Cole said, his eyes locked on Sev’s, “I think we need to talk. Do you have someone here who can ferry my pilots over to the station? They’re overdue to start liberty.”

  The woman beside Sev turned to the man at her right side, saying, “Petty Officer, can you see these men to the station and get them on file?”

  “Aye, ma’am,” the man said.

  Cole wanted to ask them right there what in all the stars was going on, but he held his tongue and nodded to his pilots, who left with the petty officer.

  Sev waited until the two pilots and the petty officer left. Then, he smiled, saying, “Cole, let’s go to my office. We can talk there.”

  Cole took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, Sev. We can talk right here. I’ve had a twitch between my shoulder blades ever since I landed, and I’m about two seconds from telling Srexx he can have fun.”

  Sev understood Cole’s last statement for the threat it was and nodded. “Look. We’re so swamped right now, I had to go to the system leadership to get them to release the military yards to make your dropships. They agreed but wanted Haven as reserve SDF. Julianna and I discussed it and thought you’d be okay.”

  Cole sighed. Yeah…not giving Julianna one of Srexx’s implants with its quantum comms had been a mistake.

  “I’m not wild about surprises, Sev…and I’m not much of a government drone, either. I go where I want when I want and do what I want. I’m not one to ask a whole lot of permission.”

  “You step in and defend people who can’t defend themselves?” Sev asked.

  “You know I do. Hell, man…that’s how I picked up my first thousand crew. They almost begged me to take them after I’d pulled them out of whatever nastiness they’d gotten themselves into.”

  Sev shrugged. “Then, I don’t see what the big deal is. The terms Julianna and I arranged were that you had to agree for you and your people to be activated; Tristan’s Gate can’t just call you up like regular reservists. They weren’t too happy about that, but Julianna held firm.”

  “Fine,” Cole said, sighing. “I’ll accept it for now, but I didn’t ask for this. They shouldn’t count on me for any long-term planning.” Cole turned to the woman standing at Sev’s shoulder. “Forgive me for not observing proper social niceties. I don’t take surprises well. I’m Cole.”

  The woman nodded. “Lieutenant Commander Brianna Vance. I’m to be your liaison with SDF Command.”

  “Vance?” Cole asked, putting forth effort to maintain a straight face. “This wouldn’t happen to be Uncle Sev, would it?”

  “No, sir,” Brianna said. “He’s Dad.”

  “So, what does an SDF liaison do?” Cole asked. “What are your orders?”

  “I’m to make myself useful to you while being on hand to assist you with any SDF-related matters that may arise.”

  Cole nodded. That may have been what she was told or what she was told to say. He’d have Srexx discuss the matter with SDF’s computers to find out what was going on before they shipped out for Aurelius.

  “Well, Lieutenant Commander, I don’t know what your dad has mentioned, but things are moving a little fast for us right now. We’ll have to sort this out in a week or so. Right now, I need to get back to Haven.”

  “Of course, sir,” Brianna said. “We have a shuttle waiting.”

  “Your dropships will be retrofitted with the stealth coatings and emissions reduction by the end of the week,” Sev said, as he fell in beside Cole. “It would be sooner, but I’m running triple shifts to finish the other three dropships you need.”

  “I thought those dropships can carry up to two-hundred-fifty soldiers plus all their gear,” Cole said. “Why in all the stars do I need five of them?”

  Sev stopped and looked at Cole. “You haven’t spoken with Emily yet, have you?”

  Cole stared at the mass of people before him. They were in one warehouse Julianna had purchased for Haven Enterprises, back when she was overseeing the salvage of the Aurelian frigate’s wreck and the freighter Beauchamp…because the station had no other space large enough for everyone. The only other time Cole had seen a mass of people so large was the one time he’d had the entire crew muster on the flight deck, and he wasn’t sure but what this group was larger.

  “What is this?” Cole asked, turning to Emily. “Who are all these people?”

  Emily shrugged. “Well…word got out that the Lone Marine was hiring. This is the result.”

  Cole turned to look back across the crowd and said a few words one shouldn’t say in polite company. He turned back to Emily. “Emily…I wanted you to hire ground forces people. Doesn’t Harlon know the people he needs for Aurelius?”

  “Oh, he does, but you also told me and Dad you wanted to hire us for ‘build something that lasts’ jobs. I figured you wouldn’t mind a few extras who happen to have cross-training in fields you need.”

  “Really?” Cole asked. “What kind of cross-training do you think I need?”

  Emily smiled. “Every person in this room has both military experience and time doing zero-g construction…and demolition.”

  “So, I guess this means you and your father have accepted my job offers?”

  Emily’s smile shifted to a grin. “You could say that.”

  “Where’s Harlon?”

  “He’s trying to explain to his grandfather why you won’t hire him.”

  Cole blinked. “His grandfather…isn’t that Jeb Hanson?”

  “Yep. Harlon made the mistake of mentioning what we’ll be doing next over dinner the other night, and ever since, Jeb’s been all gung-ho to sign on. He takes a very dim view of what the Provisional Parliament did to his good friend’s daughter and her family, and he wants his pound of flesh.”

  Cole sighed. “I have the impression that Jeb can be a hothead.”

  “You have no idea, Cole. You really don’t.”

  “That right there disqualifies him. I don’t want hotheads on my crew…too many mistakes.” Cole sighed again. “Okay. I’ll get the Kiksaliks and
some ship’s crew over here, and you can work through all of them. Everyone with Marine experience who passes the interview gets an immediate appointment to the ground forces element aboard Haven. If they don’t pass the interview, they’re out…no second chances.” Cole’s voice trailed off as he shook his head. “This is insane. All this because they heard I was hiring?”

  “What can I say?” Emily said, shrugging herself. “You’re building a reputation.”

  It turned out not to be so simple as sending over the Kiksaliks with members of the ship’s crew. The Kiksaliks took one look at the milling mass of people and refused to enter the warehouse. To solve the issue, Cole rented an office complex for two weeks. The complex had a hundred offices, and Cole put one Kiksalik, one member of the ship’s crew to conduct the interview, and an Igthon and Ghrexel from the ship’s crew in each office. The Igthon and Ghrexel acted as security on the off chance someone didn’t pass their interview and contested the result. Cole rotated personnel every four hours.

  After six days, they’d worked through the whole group. Out of 16,834 applications, there were 239 rejections…meaning 16,595 passed. Cole filled out the ship’s complement, what he called his aircrew, and the ground forces element, and he still had a rather impressive amount of people left over. Cole spent almost eighty-three million credits in sign-on bonuses alone.

  In the end, Cole called a general command conference aboard Haven. All fifty-seven captains from the ships that came with Haven from Oriolis were in attendance, along with Sasha, Sev, Harlon, and Julianna.

  “I called this conference to make sure everyone is on the same page and to get a few things started while Sasha, Harlon, and I go handle something. As of today, Sev Vance has put in his notice at the shipyard and will transition to the Director of System Infrastructure for Haven Enterprises. Once Haven returns, we will shift all our personnel to Beta Magellan, where we’ll build a system infrastructure centered on a shipyard and mining facilities. Sev, please find and hire a reputable company that can build a station in Beta Magellan. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. I’m thinking residential space for fifteen thousand with massive docking facilities and massive manufacturing decks. Leave the manufacturing decks vacant. We’ll be installing recyclers and fabricators ourselves; I don’t want random construction people seeing them. The station will be our staging area that will go away once we’re capable of building our own station; don’t let them put it anywhere that would be prime real estate for what we want to build.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sev said, nodding once.

  “Julianna, find me personnel transports. We need to ferry the six thousand three hundred thirty-three people I don’t need on Haven to Beta Magellan somehow…once we find someplace for them to live. You know what? Work with Sev, and see if the company we contract to build the station wants to use any of them for labor. They have their own crews, but if throwing more people at it gets our temporary station online sooner…well…we have a surplus of people. That is not to say I consider any of them expendable; I want to be clear on that point.”

  “What will we be doing?” The senior commander of the former Aurelian Navy ships asked.

  Cole smiled. “Some of you will be running escort for personnel transports. The rest will be making very sure no one enters Beta Magellan that we don’t want to enter Beta Magellan. Eventually, we’ll be scrapping your ships for new construction…but I expect each one of you to save a section of the bridge bulkhead for name plaques on the new ships.”

  “You should be aware, Cole,” Sev said, “that it’s still going to be a while before several of the ships are ready for duty. The cruisers, especially; you shot them up pretty bad.”

  “They were trying to kill me and my people at the time,” Cole said. “I’m not expecting miracles. What I’m saying is the kind of thing that takes months if not years.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Sev said. “We should be able to have your station online and ready to accept those fabricators and recyclers by the middle of next year. At that point, we can begin construction of the shipyard; now, that will probably take a year, but I’ll see what I can do to streamline things a bit. I know how much you want your air wing.”

  Cole grinned. “Sure, but that’s not all I want. Haven should have proper screening elements, don’t you think? And let’s not forget that Beta Magellan will need its own system defense force. Oh…and before I forget, the headquarters for Coleson Interstellar Engineering will join us in Beta Magellan. My father and grandfather believed the rate of innovation within the Solar Republic to be on the decline and thought the next great advancements would come from the Human expansion zones; they wanted CIE to be positioned to both foster and profit from the new centers of innovation when they developed. But that’s more of a long-long-long-term thing, rather than something that needs to be at the forefront of anyone’s mind.”

  “Why would CIE move their headquarters to Beta Magellan?” the senior commander from the former Aurelian Navy ships asked.

  Sasha, Sev, Harlon, and Julianna all shared a grin but kept their silence. Cole took a deep breath and said, “I’ve always introduced myself as Cole. My full birth name is Bartholomew James Coleson. My father was Jack Coleson, and as of a few days ago, I became the CEO of Coleson Interstellar Engineering when I claimed the Coleson Trust in Zurich.”

  The former naval officers’ eyes grew wide.

  “Okay,” Cole said. “Is there anything else?”

  No one said a word.

  “Very well.” Cole stood and scanned the faces around the table. “Julianna and Sev are in charge until I return. If you need anything, see them. Let’s get started, people.”

  At 19:44 on the 24th of October, Haven requested clearance to depart from Station Control. They were granted immediate clearance, and all near-station traffic was ordered into a holding pattern. Haven undocked and, the moment she cleared near-station space, ramped up to half-lightspeed on a course for the system periphery. A little over fifteen hours later, Haven vanished from Tristan’s Gate.

  Chapter Fifty

  System Periphery

  Aurelius System

  29 October 2999

  Cole, Sasha, and Mazzi stood in the center of the bridge, staring at the tactical plot of the system. The hologram hovering above the decking showed all contacts in sensor range, which seemed at least as far as the star…some 52 AUs away.

  “I don’t get it,” Mazzi said at last. “Shouldn’t there be more ships?”

  “I would have thought so,” Sasha said. “With everything they’re doing in the outer regions of the Commonwealth, I didn’t expect them to leave the home system so uncovered. A light cruiser, two destroyers, and four frigates seems to be their standard jump gate picket; at least, the three jump gates we can see only have those ships each. I was expecting Aurelius to be the most militarized system we’ve seen so far.”

  “We’re at full stealth, right?” Cole asked.

  “Yes,” Wixil said from the weapons station. “All decks have reported that they are rigged for stealth.”

  Cole chuckled. “Sasha, how set are you on confronting the Provisional Parliament?”

  “I want my parents back,” Sasha replied. “I’m indifferent to the so-called Provisional Parliament. Why do you ask?”

  “Given what we did at Iota Ceti, part of me says we should try to slip down to the planet, retrieve your parents, and depart with no one the wiser. Unless they have a substantial fleet on the far side of the system, I’m not seeing anything that could take us in a straight-up fight.”

  “If we get discovered before we have my parents, though,” Sasha said, “their lives could be counted in minutes…if not seconds.”

  “It’s your call,” Cole said. “We’ll do this however you say.”

  Sasha took a deep breath and released it as a sigh. After several more moments, she said, “Let’s stealth to the planet and see if Srexx can locate my parents. We’ll go from there once we know more.”


  It was late on the 31st when Haven slipped in close to Calliope, Aurelius’s third moon. Like all of Aurelius’s moons, Calliope was tidally locked between the planet’s gravity and that of the star, with the planet spinning on its axis ‘beneath’ it and its two fellows. The other two moons bore colonies and various industrial or commercial facilities, but as of yet, Calliope possessed none of that.

  “Well, Srexx? Can you access anything?”

  “Cole,” the AI said through the bridge speakers, “the latency is atrocious.”

  “Really? What is it?”

  “Two and a half seconds.”

  Cole blinked. “Is that one-way or round trip?”

  “Round trip.”

  Cole sighed. “Srexx, buddy…do you realize if you were operating on our communications technology the latency to the planet from here would be upwards of six minutes?”

  Silence.

  “I…I feel sorry for you and your datacenters, Cole. No computer should have to wait so long for data.”

  Cole fought his sudden urge to grin. “So, are you finding anything?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve found many things. For instance, General Lindrick departed the system two days ago with the bulk of the forces that would have been here. I have yet to find any record of where they were headed. From what I can discern, the Provisional Parliament is little more than a puppet for General Lindrick, along with someone named Admiral Edom Sedmon.”

  “Say again, Srexx?” Sasha asked, halfway rising out the command chair. “Admiral Sedmon is part of this?”

  “Based on the data I am accessing, Admiral Edom Sedmon yips when Lindrick says, ‘Bark.’”

  “That…that can’t be right. Admiral Sedmon is one of the most respected and decorated officers of the past five decades, maybe longer.”