by Robert Culp
“All personnel and materiel are aboard. We have moved away from the starport and are on our way to a higher orbit awaiting our departure window. Which we have requested, but not yet received. Given our planned distance from the starport it should come almost immediately.”
I’m tempted to flout tradition and just make way straight for Rigg’s Station without the scheduled departure time. But one never knows when one will need those one has offended. “Give them a call again. Please share my opinion that we're ready to get underway, all we’re waiting for is them to say, ‘Go.’”
“Yes, ma’am.” She makes her way over to a holoCom at her workstation. I hear her side of the conversation with the SPA. Moments later, she says to me, “Ma’am, we have been granted clearance to depart at our discretion.” Without waiting for me to say anything she turns to the pilot on shift, “Mr. Howard, you should have the course to Rigg’s Station already. As soon as we are clear to Transit, make your speed Transit four.” Good, she doesn’t feel the need to involve me when she knows the mission and my intent.
“Transit four to Rigg’s, aye.” Shawna has entered the bridge and is now standing beside him, watching over his shoulder. I’m sure he’s already been vouched for by Celeste, I suppose she wants independent verification. He may meet Prophecy standards but he hasn't met Landers standards. Yet.
I’m going to give the poor man a bit of a reprieve. “Commander Landers.”
“Yes Captain?” she answers without looking at me.
“Have you implemented a cross training program for my pilots?”
“Ma’am?” She turns. I have her full attention now.
“I want all small craft pilots—to include you—certified to fly every small craft we have aboard.”
“Roger that, ma’am. All the fighter pilots are rated as shuttle pilots. If I’m not mistaken, we've discussed this.”
“Indeed we have. And the shuttle pilots?”
“With respect, ma’am. There’s more to flying a fighter than operating the controls.”
“True, I don’t mean for everyone to be battle ready; although if you’re in need of a goal, that’s a laudable one. But if it becomes necessary to ferry fighters around in a non-tactical environment, I don’t want to hear you say you’re waiting for pilots to get back.”
“Understood, ma’am. To answer your question, I have drafted such a cross-training plan. And not to be impertinent, but—again—we discussed this earlier.”
“Very well, and while I have the utmost faith in Messrs. Howard, Mittendorf and Baumgartner, I would like one or two understudies for piloting Prophecy. Again, to include yourself should you so desire.”
“That plan is in place, ma’am. Again, as we’ve discussed.”
“As long as we’re discussing training,” Celeste chimes in, “I’d like for someone to start training Chief Sergeant Okkam and his leadership in the SoniArmor configurations.”
“Task Corporal Goodfellow with that,” I suggest. “He was my trooper leader on Gallagher and later Cutlass. You have the bridge, XO.” I surrender the chair to her. “Oh, and the acceptable terms are ‘marauder’ and ‘wraith,’ not ‘SoniArmor.’ Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” she answers as I step through the door. She accepts the admonishment without blinking an eye. “Captain is off the bridge,” I hear as I depart.
In my office I start wading through the massive amount of administrivia that seems to come with command of a starship. I draft a message to Uncle Angus through his contact. As a general rule, he’s not particularly interested in my day to day activities, but it has been several months and I feel the need to at least let him know the high points and that I miss and love him. Once I have the file closed I send it to the Communications Officer with the request that it be put in the queue for non-essential traffic to be beamed LONGCOM towards Earth.
CHAPTER FOUR
Typically coming out of Transit at Rigg’s is not a big deal. Usually we expect to see a dozen freighters, a few scout ships, and maybe even one or two military ships. Now is clearly not a usual time. Hundreds of ships fill the sky around Rigg’s Station. The station has long-term docks similar to the one we spent weeks attached to at Neptune but none of them have large ships berthed. Instead, those spaces are filled with short-haul cargo ships. Looking at the sky buzzing with ships, I can feel my jaw go slack. Is something wrong? Is there a war going on I don’t know about?
“Captain,” the communication officer says as she turns to face me, “Rigg’s SPA welcomes us and directs that we assume a distant orbit which I have relayed to the pilot. A cargo ship, Pack Mule, is loaded with our provisions and will rendezvous with us. All of our materiel should be transferred within twenty-four hours.” We don’t really need anything aside from the armor that should be coming from Goliath. But for a long trip like the one we have planned, it just makes sense to leave with full food and water tanks. And we do have some people that asked for transport from Neptune to Rigg’s. There was no reason for us to not bring them. We also noticed a few shortages and oversights on the trip so we called ahead to arrange for those.
“Very well,” I look around the bridge, it’s Athena’s watch. Well, it could always be her watch; she doesn’t need to sleep. “Athena, if you would oversee the cross loading, please.”
“Of course, Captain,” she says as she departs to begin the importation process.
The cross loading completes in eighteen hours. Given the caliber of people aboard Prophecy and the relationship dynamics they have built, everything is now either aboard Prophecy or on its way to Rigg’s aboard Pack Mule. Ordinarily, the extra time would be given to the crew for shore leave. We haven’t been denied permission to visit the station, but we haven’t been encouraged to either. I suspect that the place is almost bursting at the seams.
Which suits me just fine. The sooner we get underway; the sooner we get down to the humdrum routine that is interstellar travel. Once we got underway from Neptune, I tasked Chief Jenkins and the fabrication shop with studying the marauder and wraith suits aboard for Chief Sergeant Okkam’s sleepy-eyed killers. Both elements, troopers and engineers, develop a deep understanding of the maintenance requirements of the armor systems and the needs of the infantry soldier depending on it.
Rikk and I did come to an agreement on the beacon. It can either be command activated by the trooper or—using a heavily encrypted transmission—remotely activated by the leader. Our philosophy being that if the trooper knows he will die if someone doesn’t recover him or if the squad is actively looking for him—or her—then the omnidirectional beacon is a good idea. But I had to concede that a beacon just yelling, “Hey, whoever you are, come get me,” is not tactically sound. On a more positive note, he and the troopers are quickly learning to use the armor. The shipment from my facility on Goliath will provide every trooper a set before they have to go into a fight. Well, ideally there won’t be any need, but that’s not exactly realistic. Rikk assures me that the use and maintenance of the armor will figure heavily in the training schedule once we are in Transit.
I have also tasked my physics department—team is a better word—with applying the wraith technology to a fighter and a shuttle. The fighter because it can be much more effective if it can avoid targeting sensors and the shuttle so it can drop an infantry detachment into an unprotected location, what they like to call a “Hot LZ.” Or retrieve someone in a world of trouble.
The trip to Ardurandes is uneventful, with one possible exception. We’ve been in Transit for two weeks. I’m reviewing reports in my office and come across a hand written note buried in a proposed duty roster. The note says simply,
You made a poor decision. I will reclaim my property. –JG
With a trembling hand I throw it into my waste bin and get back to work. Ten minutes later I pull the note out of the bin. Do you really think you can scare me? I tear it in half and stop myself from tearing it into smaller pieces. That was stupid, Sonia. This has to be examined. I sit at
my holoCom and call my Security center.
“Yes, ma’am?” the desk officer says.
“I understand that I’m about to make an unusual request, but do we have any forensics capability aboard?” the officer looks up as someone leans in over her shoulder.
“Lieutenant Carstairs, Captain. May I ask you to elaborate on that a bit, please?”
“I found something in my office, a hand written note, that shouldn’t be aboard, much less here.”
“Is that it?” the desk officer asks. “In your hand, there?”
“Yes,” I say. "Should I put it in a bag or something?"
“That won’t be necessary, ma'am,” the lieutenant says. “I’ll send someone to collect it at once. Just set it down and keep the pieces together.”
We arrive at Ardurandes, which is a feat in and of itself. The planet is considered off limits as the ancestral home of the Collins clan. Before he became Darkor, Lord Collins apparently made friends with the indigenous population. It took the UPS and Academy most of the time we were waiting at Neptune, but the government of Ardurandes eventually welcomed Marsha to live out the rest of her life on their planet. We all had mixed feelings about her leaving, but in the end she was quite happy to get out of the tank.
And Commander Turner was happy to reclaim her aquarium as storage space. We quickly got underway to Trelnar.
CHAPTER FIVE
By the fourth week in Transit the physics team tells me they have a working solution for a stealth ship. That's the good news. The bad is that all the Security team can tell me about the note is the brand of paper is the third most common in the sector and there is nothing special about the ink. No one recognizes the handwriting.
“If you want, ma’am,” Lieutenant Carstairs tells me, “we can gather handwriting samples of everyone aboard for comparison.”
“I can tell by your tone it would be a tedious process,” I say. “And possibly a waste of time.” I drum my fingers on my desktop. “No, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by that. The most likely explanation is someone aboard put the note in my office. Your security sweep has cleared everyone who has unrestricted access. The least likely is that he somehow materialized it in here without us knowing about it. An interesting physics problem and security threat, but I’m not sure how we can defend ourselves against it. Go on about your affairs, Lieutenant. I think we’ve run this trail as far as it will go.”
“Aye ma’am.”
By the eighth week, the physics team has a prototype ready to test. I commend them on rapid efforts, but the sad news is we still have eighteen weeks in Transit and I refuse to bring the ship out of Transit just to test their theories. Bringing a ship out of then back in to Transit is as tedious as it is expensive and there needs to be a very good reason for doing so. Both teams, physics and engineering, tell me that the system is safe and at worst the small ship would explode. I’ve gone over the notes and calculations. I doubt that it will explode, but I have to agree that the fears are justified. But if something does go south, if we’re in orbit over a “contemporary” world, we may have access to better hospital facilities than we do here. If we have a pilot with burns over 80% of his or her body, Doctor Brabdo tells me the best we could do would be to put them in TMOD until we got to a real hospital.
In week ten I call all of the department heads to the conference room to discuss Trelnar. Athena stands at the head of the table. Without waiting for the sidebar conversations to die, she dims the lights and begins her briefing. "The information I’m about to give you is derived from the planetary almanac. This information is from the initial contact team and is fifty years old. The almanac classifies Trelnar as a class D world consisting of three major continents named Kuck’ad, Baquba, and Asalem. The highest technology level was at that time Tech Level G by Atlas standards, which means they’ve gone through something similar to an industrial revolution. By now there may still be some steam power, but most of their energy needs will—probably—be met by petroleum-generated electricity and/or coal. They could probably be higher—by which I mean nuclear fission—if they could unify in some way. But they appear to all be monarchies or regional corporatocracies trying to outdo the other. So unification in the intervening decades is unlikely. The atmosphere is thin by our standards, but breathable for the two billion people population. There is, unfortunately but not surprisingly, no starport and it is very generous to call what they do have a spaceport. There are three large orbital stations, probably scientific in nature, and two small moons. According to the sector almanac Trelnar is a small forest world known for very hot summers and comparatively mild winters. Huge Bara forests span the continents; over two thousand cataloged species of plant life, most of them unique to this world, are found on Trelnar. The primary exports between nation-states are an edible—and according to the database quite delicious—mushroom and several hundred spices. And of course, Bara and all of the products made from that highly useful wood. While the different nation-states do vie for ‘top producer' status on the world the one thing they appear to share is religion. Somehow, all ‘civilized’ folk on this world practice a faith they call Baq’sa’Raq. They claim it is ancient and was handed down to the first king to initiate a peace treaty. The religion forbids violence and holds as sacred a document called The Thirteen Codes of Law. The priesthood is charged with enforcing the laws. And they are not always pleasant about doing so. I’m curious how they do that with the violence restriction, but I recommend we not find out. The library goes out of its way to say Trelnar is not a theocracy as the priesthood—on a global scale—enforces but does not legislate law. To me, the distinction is meaningless. What are your questions?”
“I heard you say,” Chief Sergeant Okkam says. “That they have basically just discovered commercial means of generating electricity, correct?”
“Within the last century, most likely."
“And they already have multiple space stations? So they’ve discovered space travel?”
“Correct.”
“Am I the only one that thinks that’s a little soon?”
“Good catch, Chief Sarge,” Dr. Helmut Klein, our chief sociologist, says. “Typically, we’d expect a nation-state, left to its own devices, to take a minimum of two hundred years for that transition.” He puffs his pipe, the smoke briefly reminding me of Angus, I wonder how he’s doing?
Rikk strokes his chin, “That leads me to believe they were not ‘left to their own devices,’ to borrow your phrase.”
“That is the most likely explanation,” Athena says. “I would go farther and state that an unknown party—or parties—not only gave them the technology, but also supplied the materiel with which to construct the stations. Which obviously happened after our survey team departed, at most fifty years ago.”
“And the money to finance such an undertaking,” adds Dr. Klein “And those things aren’t cheap,” he gestures at the screen with his pipe.
“And there are three, correct Athena?”
“Correct, Captain.”
“Three space stations, three major continents...”
“More than likely,” Helmut says, “three different governments.”
“All dancing to the same puppet master,” Celeste looks at me pointedly. “The diplomatic question becomes how will the other two respond to our dealing with one?”
“And given our limited information,” Dr. Klein says. “We have no way of knowing—at this time—if any of their value systems come close to ours.”
“That’s not exactly accurate,” Athena says. “I've read the Thirteen Codes of Law. It could be any one of the three.”
“What I just heard,” Rikk sets down his coffee cup. “Is our best bet is to side with the religious fanatic.”
“Worse,” Helmut puffs on his pipe. "The zealot. The one who would rather die than violate one of the Codes.”
“The puppet master,” I say hoping to steer the conversation into less dismal waters. “Any guesses?”
; Klein looks at the ceiling for a while. “The Areans have the means and motives. They would certainly like to have a farm world growing their future terrorists.”
“Out here?” Celeste asks him. “Those would be some long arms and very tenuous connections.”
“Granted,” Klein says. “Can you pull up a sector map, please?” Athena changes the display she has been using for her presentation. A not-to-scale image appears. All department heads lean forward to study it.
Chief Jenkins says it first: “Malor.”
When we do break out of Transit at Trelnar we are very surprised to see that there is a starship in orbit. “Athena,” I ask, “have individual translators been loaded with the known local languages?”
“Malorian and Araba are the only known languages in this sector for which we have programs, Captain,” she answers. “If we intend to make contact that will limit our opportunities. It is however an opportunity to develop translation protocols for the other primary languages, Kuck and Baq.”
“Which would essentially require us to do a ‘first contact’ mission all over again. And I’m opposed to that unless absolutely necessary.” I remember the one I did on Night Searcher oh so long ago. It was successful, but it was not without its hurdles. Tensions are escalating between Malor and Atlas and by extension any society—or entity—allied with Atlas. Such as this ship. Some say war is inevitable, I just hope it isn’t started by something Prophecy does.
“Captain, we are being hailed,” the comms officer announces. “I’ll patch it to you, the library computer identifies it as Malorian.” Damnit!
“Unidentified vessel, this is Outpost Polaris. Please identify yourself and state your intentions.”
“Outpost Polaris this is Prophecy. Captain Sonia MacTaggert speaking. We are on a mission of exploration and have no offensive intentions. May we assume a parking orbit, please?”