by Joshua Guess
With a little work on our part, it became more than capable.
Even so, it had taken twenty years of terraforming to get things right. Add to that the ridiculously difficult job of rebuilding physical DNA molecules of things like chickens and corn from digital records, and it becomes clear why the exiles had to survive on modified fungi, algae, and lab-grown meat.
All told, Hera represented tens of thousands of man-hours. It was the first true off-world settlement founded by human beings.
On any other day I would appreciate the achievement. At that moment, I was just thankful for the eggs.
Jordan explained what the foods were as I gobbled them down. I’d had eggs before, though not scrambled as these were, but the toast was new. Jordan expressed doubt that the stuff spread on it was actual butter, but my experience didn’t extend as far as dairy products so I had no context with which to judge.
The bacon was lab-grown, which was fine with me. I had been reassured by many, many scientists that the first thing humanity had done with the technology was perfect bacon.
It was over too fast for me, but by the time I drained the last drops of orange juice I was getting impatient glances from my aide. I let him fuss over my plain uniform for a minute, stood calmly as he made sure my hair wasn’t mussed and that my face was free of crumbs.
Then I was on my way.
Most of the structures on Ceres were below the surface. The dwarf planet had changed immensely in the past century. The thin crust of rock still served as its outer shell, but the subsurface ocean of ice had been changed. Much of the volume was still taken up by water, though most of what’s there now has been replenished from comets and other chunks of ice dancing through the void.
The vast network of tunnels and pods weaving beneath the surface serve as a home to a huge fraction of the exile population. I made my way toward the surface as quickly as possible, but changed direction about forty feet from it.
Ceres is my home, but it’s also a huge fuel depot. It was chosen for that purpose. Break down water into hydrogen and oxygen, and suddenly you have rocket fuel. Once humanity worked out the kinks in how to make fusion work, that same water could be sifted for deuterium.
Even though my home world is basically a gas station several hundred kilometers across, we’re still judicious in how we use that fuel. Rather than use shuttles, most travel between Ceres and the huge bulks of Ronin and Neruda was handled by taking a Ballistic.
I stepped into the Ballistic’s pod, taking one of the twenty or so seats and waited patiently for the rest to fill up. A recorded voice reminded us to buckle in and to remain seated. Ten seconds later the pod began to move, the high whine of electromagnetic propulsion filling the small capsule.
The trip was an ordinary part of life out here. Even the non-pilots got used to it quickly, so for me it should have been beyond banal. It wasn’t, though. I’ve never been able to explain why, but any time I’m in space, I feel this wonderful sense of being small. It’s as if I’m a mote drifting across something vast and beautiful.
I wasn’t scared that the pod would crash. Computers on Ceres synced with every ship and satellite, calculating with picosecond accuracy exactly how much force to impart to get us to our destination.
Ronin loomed large through the thick glass porthole filling the front of the capsule. Though we had been launched from the tube at a bit over five hundred meters per second, our relative velocity was much smaller. Compared to the vast battleship, we only moved twenty or thirty meters per second. That was easily within the capture system’s operational range.
Docking only took a few minutes, mostly due to the magnetic tethers needing to slow us down and draw us in. A green light flashed to life over the airlock, joined by a faint hiss of air.
I followed the crowd through the exit, ready to have the most important meeting of my life.
Three
The room was large, as far as the term could be used when talking about spacecraft. The Ronin was much bigger than any space-faring vessel in human history, made possible through robot mining and construction as well as the massive 3D fabricators that together removed most of the human labor from the process.
The story of humankind has always been an unstable balance between having the will to do a thing, the resources to make it possible, and a profit margin wide enough to justify it. Until the Exile, that is. Before the invasion, Ceres had fit comfortably into the historical math. It was simply that the technology reverse-engineered from the crashed alien vehicle added an exponent to the equation.
With that boost, we suddenly mastered fusion. Warp drive as well, but the ability to move between stars wasn’t nearly as important as the more immediate plans. With cheap and almost limitless power granted by fusion energy, the ridiculously hard job of providing a constant supply to Lofstrom loops was solved. Without the need for heavy rocket boosters, the people of Earth got creative.
Why does that matter here? Because when humanity took stock of their suddenly improved situation, they also looked back on the hellish century behind them. The obliteration of a huge chunk of the population had a similar effect on the impulse for off-world colonization as World War II did on the desire for standing armies, but to a much greater degree. I think someone even wrote a paper examining the correlation between the two.
With the arrival of the alien ship, Ceres became a symbol to the people of Earth. No longer just an interstellar craft—if something the size of a small moon could be called just anything—but a mobile colony. Plans were changed, improved, and expanded. Ceres became a project the human race attacked with an almost religious zeal.
It grew into a combination of lifeboat, colony, and seed ship. Tens of thousands of the best and brightest the world had to offer spent half a decade preparing for the journey. The young among them learned advanced robotics, engineering, and anything else that might come in handy. There were biologists, geneticists of numerous flavors, and experts in every conceivable field.
The Neruda and Ronin were being constructed on the surface of Ceres when the invasion came. By then the expedition was in the final stage of preparation. Only a few weeks had remained until launch. The people in charge of the Ceres project on Earth, in what might have been the greatest single example of foresight of all time, activated an emergency protocol.
Though it happened decades before my birth, I know those events as well as someone who lived them. I’ve seen the recordings of the alien fleet appearing in the sky over the world that had been humanity’s cradle, the fabric of space rippling around the dozens of ships as they grew into hundreds. Less than sixty seconds from that first sighting, the massive warp engines of Ceres spun to life. The visual records show the range of reactions, from uncomprehending shock to outright fury.
The lifeboat had been activated by the passengers of the sinking ship called Earth, not giving the escaping colonists a chance to decline.
I sat in a comfortable chair across from two men and three women who looked no older than me, but who had lived through that day personally. We faced each other across a space that would have made the Apollo astronauts gape. The knowledge that the deck my foot slowly tapped against spent billions of years as space junk before a robot scooped it up and made it into something carried a weight I couldn’t escape. A sort of mental gravity which gave the interview a surreal quality as I tried to pay attention.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I forced myself back into the present. “What was the question?”
Olivia Kitur gave me a tight smile. “Nervous, Mr. Cori? I wouldn’t have expected that from a pilot with your experience.”
Kitur’s dark skin suffered the harsh lights of the Ronin well, not being washed out and made to look sickly as did many others. Though I had a hard time imagining a scenario capable of making the woman seem anything less than frighteningly capable. She had been the elected head of the UEE my entire life. This meeting brought my total number of face-to-face conversations with her up to three.
“I’m not nervous, ma’am,” I said. “Just distracted.”
Kitur leaned back in her chair, fingers loosely woven together across her stomach. “Given how seriously you’ve petitioned your superiors for a chance at the Home Run, I would think you might take this more seriously, Mr. Cori.”
I met her gaze, which held no anger or contempt. Aside from the numerous psychological evaluations I had to endure, the computer in my head and constant testing which was a part of my daily life meant the woman had an encyclopedic understanding of me. She knew I wasn’t stupid, or without drive. Pilots without ambition were basically worthless.
“You don’t think I’m uninterested,” I said, moving my gaze toward the large screen on one side of the room. The thin monitor was doing its best impression of a window, showing a view of the void beyond the wall indistinguishable from the real thing. “You just want to see my reaction to the accusation. You’re wondering whether I’m worried you’ll bring up the fight, and if that will kill my shot at the run. You’re also a little curious, given the fact that my genetics and experience make being nervous almost impossible, why I’m distracted.”
The other four people in the room might have disappeared for all they mattered at that moment. Two were the captains of the Ronin and Neruda, the others the respective heads of the Research and Practical Applications divisions of the science departments.
Kitur watched me with her impassive but razor-sharp gaze. I could almost feel that look peeling apart my body language.
“Why don’t you tell me about the fight, then?” She asked. “Since you seem to think that matters more than your qualifications or interest in my questions.”
This time it was me who smiled. Rather than play games, I decided to be blunt.
“If I’m being honest, I was bored,” I said. “Your questions up until now have been designed to lull me into boredom. The computer in my head tells me your last question was to ask what the Home Run means to me. You don’t actually need to hear me say it, because every aspect of my life is recorded. You know boredom is one of my only weak spots. You aren’t interested in asking me about my qualifications, either, because you know them all.”
I paused to give her a chance to interrupt, deny, or have whatever reaction might float Kitur’s particular boat. She simply nodded for me to continue.
“You wanted to catch me off guard,” I said. “You wanted me to drift away on the tide of bureaucratic nonsense so you could gauge my reaction to you asking about the fight.”
I sighed. “It’s one of those things, you know? I grew up having everything I do captured in audio and video files, analyzed, and debated. It’s always been just a part of life to me, completely natural. So it makes sense you’d want to know about the little span of time without that record.”
So I told them.
The last part of the incident had been unusual enough on its own; upon returning from a scouting mission with Garrett Rubey, another Blue, I’d emerged from my damaged and smoking ship and slugged him in the face hard enough to crack his helmet and knock him on his ass. I then spent the ten seconds it took the flight crew to reach us mercilessly pummeling every inch of him I could reach.
By itself this was passing interesting. We genetically-enhanced types are generally very close and rarely have more than mild rebukes for each other. The incident would have been forgotten in a few days but for the fact that neither of us would speak about it to our superiors or anyone else. Our steadfast refusal to explain—though I had confided in Jordan, who was my best friend—earned me punishment and made people very suspicious of Garrett.
Jordan had given Olivia Kitur the entire story. She just wanted to see if I’d be honest about it.
“You wouldn’t know it from the stories that have grown up around the whole thing, but it actually wasn’t that exciting,” I said. “Garrett and I jumped into our assigned star system, and things went bad really fast. Our long-range observations noted the solar storms the star was putting out, but didn’t have any means to see the black rock drifting just in front of where our jump point should have been.”
Kitur, who like everyone in the Exile community wore several different hats, was an accomplished manifold physicist. They’re the people who do the math to figure out how the warp drives we use to bend and fold space will react to all the shit floating around out there that might kill us.
“The asteroid was too small for long-range visuals to pick up, but it had enough mass to disrupt our warp field. When our bubble brushed against its gravity well, the field destabilized and we ended up less than a light-minute from the star.”
I took a breath. Not feeling any better about what I was about to say, I took another. “We were far enough away that the radiation didn’t kill us when the damn sun threw a discharge the size of Venus in our general direction, but it was enough to knock out everything but the backup systems on our ships. Our NICs went into safe mode, which meant we were on our own. No computers in our brains to help.”
I frowned. “Garrett and I followed procedure and booted the old-school radios. We coordinated our ships vocally, used the mechanical systems to manually reach a more stable position while we waited for the ships to reboot.” I shook my head slightly at the memory. “I’d never used the backup propulsion system outside of training sims.”
I steeled myself to continue. Jordan relaying the story was word of mouth even considering his close relationship with me. Saying it myself meant consequences.
“While we drifted, waiting for the reboot, Garrett and I talked over the radio. It’s more accurate to say he talked and I occasionally gave a short reply. He was furious about the near-miss. I think it was adrenaline and shock more than anything. He went on about how we—Blues, I mean—were just disposable toys for the rest of the UEE. How we didn’t matter enough to even warrant survey before warping into the system.”
Kitur cleared her throat. “Do you think so?”
I eyed her askance and continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I don’t know if something I said set him off, or maybe something I didn’t say, but Garrett took off. I think his jumbled brain just wanted to get away, the instinct to be safe and elsewhere overwhelming everything else. I tried talking to him on the radio, then followed. Our ships are amazing tech, but their complexity means it takes a while for them to get going again. Same with our NICs. I chased him the old-fashioned way, navigating by eye and using my propellant in bursts.”
I was aware of everyone breathing in the room. In much the same way my mind couldn’t help noting the many ways the ship around me was a different beast than its smaller forebears, I couldn’t avoid hearing the gap between me and the five people arrayed before me. Their breathing varied but fell within a standard range of breaths per minute, somewhere between ten and twenty. The rise and fall of my own chest was more shallow and less frequent, owing to a lot of complicated gene surgery reducing my oxygen needs while also increasing my body’s capacity to retain it. While we were alike in most ways, that subtle but bedrock difference truly hit home for the first time.
“About thirty seconds into the chase, my ship was hit by a rock. It wouldn’t have happened if we had remained where we were. I yelled at Garrett over the radio, and luckily he came to his senses enough to come back. He helped me get home, but the whole trip back I was fuming. I knew if I reported him, he was done as a pilot. I also knew his reaction was a product of the moment, an unpredictable response to nearly getting killed in an accident no one could have seen coming.”
“So you decked him,” Kitur said.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Were you not worried Mr. Rubey might crack again? That he might endanger another pilot?”
I shook my head. “No. The fact Garrett turned around without hesitation when I was in danger convinced me. He had a scare, probably the worst in his life. We might have been designed to be better pilots, but we’re still human. We don’t lose our compass often, but it isn’t impossible. I was a
ngry enough to break his bones, but Garrett came through for me when it mattered.”
Kitur nodded. “Yes, he did. Knowing the consequences of telling your story, how will you feel about Mr. Garrett being removed from flight duty?”
I shrugged. “I won’t be happy about it, but then I’ll be in the brig. Worrying about Garrett will be low on my list of priorities.”
Kitur’s eyebrows shot up. “The brig? I don’t understand.”
I raised my hands, palms up. “We were given the choice to be pilots, and we signed a contract. Every one of us knows what the rules are and what the consequences for breaking them is. Garrett broke protocol and it put me in greater danger, but that doesn’t mean I think he should be drummed out for it. So if you want to remove him from duty, you’ll have to do the same for me. And just so we can move past all the verbal sparring, yeah, I know I’m manipulating you. We can just be honest about that.”
Kitur frowned, real emotion on her face for the first time. “True. Losing one pilot would be difficult enough, but two…”
I nodded. “I get it. I’m not giving you many options. It would be bad precedent for you to give into what is essentially extortion, so I’ve got a solution.”
Kitur raised an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”
“Keep us both, and let Garrett know if he fucks up again, you’ll punish me. People have a funny way of not caring about themselves when their blood is up, but if they know someone else will pay the price it makes them pause.”
Kitur smiled at me again, this time much wider. “It seems like a fair compromise, though you must realize I won’t be bluffing.”