Ep.#14 - The Weak and the Innocent (The Frontiers Saga)

by Ryk Brown

  “JOSH!” Loki yelled over the comms.

  “Hey, you want this thing tested or not?” he said as he did a snap roll to the left, rolling one and a half revolutions before stopping his roll and initiating his departure turn. By now, his smile was ear to ear. “Guess I’m not gonna blow up after all,” he added, chuckling to himself. “You know, it still doesn’t have the acceleration that the old Falcon had.”

  “It’s not supposed to,” Deliza explained.

  “Hardly seems right to call it super then, doesn’t it.” Josh looked at his displays. “Orbital intercept in twenty seconds.”

  “Go ahead and put yourself on a course for Porto Santo,” Loki advised. “It should be coming up on the horizon.”

  “Got it,” he replied, calling up Porto Santo as his jump destination. “Hey, this interface is pretty slick, did I tell you that?”

  “It was your idea, remember?” Deliza reminded him.

  “That explains it.” Josh could imagine her rolling her eyes and commenting about his character to Loki. “Yes, I am,” he added.

  “You are what?” Loki asked.

  “Nothing. Got Porto Santo dialed in, coming to course now,” he reported as he adjusted his course to meet the one specified by the jump navigation computer. He reduced his throttles to zero just before the course indicator turned green. “Green lines,” he reported. A moment later the ‘Jump Ready’ indicator illuminated. “Jump is ready. Hey, this thing is faster than you, Lok,” he declared as he activated the jump sequencer. “Jumping in three……two…”

  The Super Falcon’s canopy turned opaque.

  “…one……jumping.”

  The ship began to shake violently as it came out of its jump. The canopy cleared, revealing a clear blue sky above him and a vast ocean below.

  “Damn,” he exclaimed. “Bumpy ass ride!”

  “Is there a problem?” Deliza wondered.

  “Negative,” Josh insisted. “I think the winds ain’t what they were forecasted, that’s all.” He glanced down at his flight displays. “Airspeed is falling, mach twenty and falling. Altitude is twelve thousand meters and falling. Pulling the nose up to slow her down a bit. Hey, next time, remind me to start from further out and come in more like mach five or something. Any mach in the single digits will do, I suspect.”

  “I’m pretty sure that the flight parameters said something about mach two as your jump-in speed.” Loki reminded him.

  “Flight parameters are for normal pilots,” Josh teased. “Not gonna find out what she can do if we fly her by the numbers, now are we?”

  The shaking began to smooth out, until it finally became just small bounces and shakes. “Mach ten, ten thousand meters. Mach eight, six, four, two…… subsonic,” he finally announced, a wave of relief washing over him. “Hey, Deliza! You can tell your guys to rest easy. It appears they didn’t forget to tighten anything. Hell, if she can take that much shakin’ she can take anything.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Deliza replied over the comms.

  “Still doesn’t qualify as Super though,” he mumbled. “Porto Santo is about one hundred out. Speed is down to eight hundred KPH, altitude four thousand meters. Looks like I’m on a really long final.” Josh fiddled with the controls, rolling the Super Falcon left and right, checking her responsiveness to control inputs. “You know, your guys smoothed out her handling nicely. She feels pretty good at this speed. I’m still falling like a rock, but that’s okay.” He checked his displays again. “Four hundred, three thousand, and eighty out.” He twisted the control stick slightly, first left and then right. “Rudders feel weak, though. I think you were right about it needing more surface area.”

  Josh looked around outside, enjoying the view as his ship continued to descend toward the main runway at Porto Santo airbase. “You know, we could have jumped in a lot closer.”

  “Especially if you would’ve jumped in at mach two, like we asked,” Loki replied.

  “I can see the runway now,” Josh reported. “I’m a little high, though.”

  “But I see you’re making up for it by being a little fast, so…”

  “That’s what air brakes and flaps are for,” Josh insisted. “Dirtying her up,” he said as he deployed them both. “Speed is coming down, and so is my altitude.”

  “You might want to add some power so you don’t slam into the runway, Josh,” Loki suggested. “Remember, you don’t have lift fans on this one.”

  “I know that,” Josh replied. His expression said something else entirely as he eased his throttle forward a bit. He strained to see over the forward console as the runway numbers disappeared under his nose. “We’re gonna need some forward facing cameras under the nose,” Josh said. “With my nose up this high, I can’t see shit.”

  “The new cockpit design will make up for that,” Deliza assured him.

  “Over the numbers,” Josh reported as his ship began to buffet.

  “You’re still a little fast, Josh,” Loki warned.

  “Any slower and I’ll stall,” Josh insisted. “I’m already picking up a lot of buffeting here.” Josh braced himself as he watched his altitude above the ground indicator rapidly approach zero. “And…… Ug!” he grunted, as the ship hit the runway rather hard. His nose quickly came down, and his forward gear hit hard as well. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Activating auto-braking.” Josh could feel the ship slowing as the automated braking system tried to slow the Super Falcon. “Half my runway is gone,” Josh warned. “I’m still pretty fast.”

  “Did you land long?” Loki wondered.

  “Hell, no. Right on the marks. I don’t think these brakes are…” A red warning light came on. “Uh, I think I may have broke something on that landing. My brakes are overheating, and I’m running out of fucking runway.” Josh slammed his throttle all the way forward and deactivated his braking system, all in one motion. “Screw this, I’m taking off!” he announced as the Super Falcon began to accelerate down the runway. “I am still running out of runway,” he warned, “and I do not have enough airspeed to rotate!”

  “Dial up an escape jump!” Loki instructed. “Select one hundred kilometers!”

  “Is that going to give me enough…”

  “Just do it!” Loki ordered.

  “Fuck, tell everyone to duck!” Josh exclaimed. He quickly rotated the distance selector wheel on his flight control stick so that one hundred kilometers showed as the selected distance to jump. “Snap jump!” he announced as he closed his eyes tight and pressed the button on his control stick.

  The canopy became opaque only a split second before the flash. When he came out of the jump, Josh found his ship at three thousand meters above the ocean and falling, without enough airspeed to maintain straight and level flight. He immediately pushed his nose down, with his thrust levers already at maximum, allowing both his thrust and the pull of the Earth’s gravity to accelerate him more quickly. The ocean came rushing up toward him, the ripples turning into waves, their crests clearly distinguishable as he dove toward them.

  “Pull up! Pull up!” Loki ordered after finally reestablishing contact after the jump.

  “Not yet,” Josh replied, watching his airspeed tape climb. He started easing his nose up, little by little, so as not to over-stress the airframe that had just been torn apart and put back together in less than a week. His muscles tightened and his eyes squinted as he leaned his head back into his flight seat, waiting for his ship’s belly to impact with the waves below.

  But it did not.

  “Whoa, yeah!” Josh cheered as the Super Falcon leveled off only a few meters above the cresting waves. “Level flight and accelerating! Good call, Loki!” Josh quickly dialed up ‘high orbit’ as his jump destination and waited for both jump lines and jump-ready indicators to turn green before jumping.

 
A wave of relief washed over him as the canopy cleared to reveal the familiar sight of a star field in front of him. “All right, boys and girls. What’s next?”

  “Bring it home, Josh,” Loki instructed.

  “Already?”

  “Yup. The engineers will make a few more modifications, and then install an upgraded weapons package on her for her next test flight.”

  “But we’ve barely flown her,” Josh insisted.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Deliza replied. “The admiral wants a weapons test as soon as possible. I think that’s how the admiral wants to make the Falcon ‘Super’.”

  “Works for me,” Josh said, as he initiated a turn to head back to the Karuzara asteroid.

  * * *

  “Talk to me, Kamenetskiy,” Captain Roselle said as he entered the Jar-Benakh’s briefing room.

  “FTL systems have been thoroughly inspected, Captain. I believe it is now safe to use them, should you so desire.”

  “You believe?” Roselle said as he took his seat at the table with everyone else.

  “I am sure?”

  “You don’t sound sure,” the captain replied.

  “I am certain, sir. The FTL systems are safe to use.”

  “Great. So we can fly, we can shoot, we’ve got shields, and we can travel faster-than-light. Now, if we just had enough crew to do them all at once, we’d be set.”

  “Not exactly,” Commander Ellison corrected. “A comm-drone from command jumped in a few minutes ago. There’s a Jung battle group on their way here from 82 Eridani and they’re only two weeks out.”

  “Then we’d better get ready to fight,” the captain said. “I’d love to see the look on their faces when one of their own ships opens up on them.”

  “Not going to happen, I’m afraid,” the commander commented, handing his data pad to the captain.

  Roselle read the message. “Are they fucking joking?”

  Vladimir looked expectantly from the commander to the captain, and to the others at the table, wondering what the message was.

  “They want to pull half our cores and turn them into antimatter mines to knock the Jung out of FTL so they can take them down before they arrive,” the captain announced to the rest of them.

  “It does make sense, Captain,” Commander Ellison admitted.

  “Yeah, I know it does,” Captain Roselle reluctantly agreed. “It doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”

  “Captain, with only half our cores, we will not be able to run shields, weapons, and FTL systems at the same time,” Vladimir warned.

  “Not your problem,” the captain told him.

  “What?”

  “The communiqué included orders for you as well,” Commander Ellison told Vladimir. “You are to pull the eleven cores and bring them back to Karuzara as soon as possible. Several cargo shuttles will be arriving in a few hours.”

  “But, there is still so much to do, so much to learn,” Vladimir argued.

  “Look, Lieutenant Commander, you got us up and running and on our way. You did good, son,” Captain Roselle assured him. “Captain Nash managed to scrape up another fifty Tannans to come and help us out. They’re not all as qualified as we’d like, but they’re warm bodies and they want to help. We’ll be fine,” he assured them. “We’ll be without half our damned cores, but we’ll be fine. Just make sure our cores don’t go to waste. Make sure those mines work.”

  * * *

  “I thought this room might be more appropriate for the interview,” Admiral Dumar said as he led Kata Mun and her porta-cam operator, Karahl, into the massive chamber.

  “Whoa,” Kata exclaimed, her eyes wide and her mouth falling open. One whole wall was transparent, looking directly out into space. The Earth could be seen along the lower left corner, with her moon in the upper right corner in the distance. Beyond them both was Sol, shining ever brightly.

  Karahl kept his porta-cam aimed at Admiral Dumar, as the admiral extended his right arm, waving it in a graceful arc from front to back as he spoke. “It’s the only actual ‘window to space’ in the entire facility. We call it, ‘the gallery’.”

  Kata strolled out into the center of the room, turning around slowly as she walked to get a full view of the room. There were ten rows of seats opposite the window, each of them raised two steps higher than the one before, giving every seat in the room a clear view of the outside. “It’s perfect,” she agreed. “What’s it for?”

  “In every ship on which humans serve for long periods of time, there is always an area such as this. Some have a window, others use a large view screen linked to external cameras. People need to see outside every so often. They need to be reminded that their existence is not confined to the windowless corridors and compartments within.”

  “Where did you get such a large window in the first place?”

  “Actually, the materials used to create it came from the excavation of the kilometer-long corridor leading to this chamber, which, originally, was a small cave on the outside of this asteroid.”

  “I noticed there are several large caverns with simulated outdoor spaces within this base as well,” Kata commented. “Were those built for the same reason as this chamber?”

  “Yes and no. Both are meant to expose the staff to something beyond the interior spaces, but this room does something unique. It shows us the vastness and the majesty of the environment that we work in. More importantly, the view of Earth reminds us of what we are here to protect.”

  “But that is just one planet,” Kata pointed out. “Isn’t the Alliance made up of many worlds?”

  “Yes, but the Earth is unique. It is the birthplace of us all. It is the center of the entire, human-inhabited portion of our galaxy. It is a symbol that reminds us that we are all linked. Regardless of where we were born or raised, or where we currently reside. As long as it survives,” he explained, pointing to the planet below, “there is still hope that we can all co-exist, peacefully.”

  Kata nodded in understanding.

  “Shall we sit?” the admiral suggested, gesturing to the two chairs that had been perfectly placed in front of the window facing back inward.

  “Thank you,” Kata replied as they took their seats.

  Karahl moved around to the middle of the front row of seats, taking his porta-cam off his shoulder, while keeping it trained on both Kata and the admiral. He pressed a button on the side of the porta-cam, and the bottom opened up, allowing a stand to unfold into a tripod. He lowered the porta-cam onto the floor, made a few adjustments, then nodded to Kata that he was ready to continue recording.

  “Admiral, this probably is unimportant in the grand scheme of everything, but I just have to ask… Why spend months jumping an asteroid a thousand light years, when a ship, or even several ships, would have been easier?”

  “Logistics and opportunity,” Admiral Dumar replied. “We already had this base within the asteroid, although it was considerably less complex at the time. In addition, the people of Earth needed a base of operations, one where they could service their ships, or even build new ones. The asteroid was already ours to use as we saw fit, and there was plenty of its interior that we could mine for the raw materials needed for not only its construction, but also for the fabrication of equipment, weapons, parts…all manner of things. Then, when Prince Casimir noticed that an opportune alignment was approaching, it just seemed pre-destined.”

  “Interesting that you should bring that up,” Kata said. “I was reviewing the history of events since the Aurora was originally flung out into space. It almost seems like a string of fortunate events and circumstances.”

  “Some call it destiny, some call it fate, others call it ‘dumb luck’.”

  “What do you call them?”

  “Opportunities.”

 
“What about the legend of Na-Tan?”

  “Myths and legends,” he said dismissively.

  “You don’t think it is an amazing coincidence?” Kata wondered. “That the man who suddenly appeared, against what most would agree are astronomical odds, bears the same name as the legend predicts?”

  “He could’ve had any other name, and those that wanted to believe him to be the Na-Tan of legend would have done so,” Dumar argued.

  “Yet, Captain Scott not only allowed them to believe he was the Na-Tan of legend, but in some ways he even helped perpetuate their belief.”

  “It was a tactical decision on his part. However, in his defense, I must point out that a woman named Jalea was the one responsible for feeding the fires of their beliefs, and without the foreknowledge or the consent of Captain Scott.”

  “Of course. I’m just curious as to why he allowed it to happen.”

  “Perhaps that would be a question better asked of Captain Scott?”

  “Of course.” Kata paused, glancing down at the list of discussion topics on her data pad. She took a deep breath, and then looked back up at him. “Admiral, many of the inhabitants of the very worlds the Alliance have liberated feel that the Alliance had no right to interfere with the running of their worlds. They feel their worlds have been attacked without justification, and that innocent people have been killed. Many consider these attacks to be acts of war against their people, and not ones of liberation. How would you respond to these accusations?”

  Admiral Dumar took a deep breath and sighed. “It is always difficult to justify acts of aggression, especially when such acts result in the loss of life, be they innocent or not. However, the Jung occupation of worlds within twenty light years of Sol represents a significant threat to the security of Earth. Steps had to be taken to mitigate that threat, especially in the wake of the Jung’s repeated attempts to not only capture and control the Earth, and its people, but also to destroy it once they realized they could not control it.”