We had just completed our second skip and were plotting the third when Citizen Wasim Mumbai declared, “Captain, we have another ship that has just skipped into our sensor sphere.”
Space was so vast that on the surface this might sound like an incredible coincidence, and it would be anyplace other than on a commonly used space lane. The truth is, traveling well-known space lanes meant choosing obvious and therefore common gravitational sources to focus the Lens on. This meant that there were certain spheres of space where you had a higher likelihood than others of encountering other ships.
No, the biggest surprise for me wasn’t that we had found another ship, the biggest surprise was that this was, apparently, a commonly used space Lane.
“Who is it, Wasim?” the Captain asked.
“She’s at the edge of our sensor scan, Captain, but from her energy signature I think it’s the Mahindra.”
The Captain responded to Monica’s questioning look, “The Mahindra is captained by Jia Stardrift. She’s an acquaintance but not necessarily a friend.
“Hail the Mahindra, Maria,” he said.
After a moment the image of a rugged -looking female opened up on the screen.
“Hello Jia,” the Captain said. “Any word on Mount Sinai?”
“What are you trying to do, Acamar? Set up an alibi? If I had my guess you probably already know everything that’s going on there.”
“Jia, I’m not going to take the time to try convincing you of anything, but I really do need to know. What’s the status of Mount Sinai?”
“I don’t know what the current status is, but I can tell when trouble is brewing and I got the hell out of there. If you want to know more go see for yourself.”
“Cut the connection,” the Captain said to Maria.
Turning to Monica he said, “I don’t think we can learn any more from her.”
“But she is confirming there’s a problem,” said Monica.
Without responding the Captain turned to astrogation, “Felix, how long until we can skip?”
“I’m gonna need 10 more minutes, Captain.”
“Let’s keep on it, people,” the Captain said to the bridge at large. “I’ve got a feeling that time is of the essence.”
As the captain was turning around to walk back to his seat his eyes locked with mine. His intense gaze invited no questions.
ΔΔΔ
It was two skips later that we encountered another ship. Two ships, actually.
I was asleep in my cabin but I had set the computer to wake me if an incident occurred.
I raced to the bridge and only belatedly realized that I’d mixed my uniform with some nonregulation pants. There was probably an irony in the fact that I was beginning to assimilate into the ships complement, but I really didn’t have the time to explore it right now.
I really thought I’d made good time but when I arrived the Captain and Monica were already at their posts. Apparently the ships had been identified and a conversation with the woman that led both had just started.
“… So we’re not sure who made it out,” the image on the screen said. “We tried to hang around long enough to get a fix on who was doing the attacking but then we had to bug out too.”
“Kendra, I’m incredibly happy that you got your ships free.”
When the woman on the screen didn’t smile or respond the captain continued, “Were any of your people on the ground when…”
Kendra simply nodded.
“They were good ones, Alyster. Some of the best.”
“Is there any chance…? Is there any chance that they survived?” asked the captain.
“I suppose there’s always a chance but I’m not one for false hope.”
“Kendra, I’m sorry for your people but I have to ask… Do you know what happened to Consuelo?”
“I’m sorry Alyster, but no I don’t know. I know her ship, La Familia Unida, was in orbit when the attack started but I barely had time to worry about my own.”
It turns out that Mount Sinai had been a crowded outpost that had grown into a colony that had grown into a small sized city. The planet it was located on didn’t even have a name.
From what was being said someone had attacked the city via kinetic bombardment. The kinetic slugs had originated far out in the system and had come barreling down through the gravity well at incredible speed and overwhelming numbers. Some orbiting ships had detected them in time to dodge; others were too slow or too unlucky and were destroyed along with almost an entire continent on the planet.
It was wanton mass destruction on a scale unknown in modern times. One of the reasons that kinetic missiles were never used on ships in orbit was the danger of missing and hitting the planet below. This kind of bombardment of planetary cities had been proscribed for centuries; those common-law rules were handed down from the days even before the Empire was founded. No sane person would violate those proscriptions. No crew would put up with the Captain that did. No planet would harbor or resupply a ship that had done so.
It was unthinkable.
Our bridge was silent and everyone was in shock including, it seemed, the Captain.
“Alyster, there’s something else I need to tell you,” said Kendra.
“As I said we stuck around trying to get identification on the attacking ships, and there were a number of them. Half of them kept right on accelerating through the system taking out as many ships as they could on their one pass. The other half had huge deceleration curves and were moving in, we think, to board some the damaged ships and overtake the ones limping away. We were running for our lives but we still managed to identify one ship…”
With that, the Captain and everyone else on the bridge was staring intently at the screen as she said…
“One of the ships was the Imperial cruiser, I.D.F. Tribute.”
Chapter seventeen
ENSIGN JACOBY NICOLAY
Congratulations! It’s Twins!
The next two days were intense.
Not only were the Citizens and crew not talking to me, they wouldn’t even make eye contact. I hadn’t felt this ostracized since my early days at The Academy.
“We need to talk,” Monica startled me as I walked out of my cabin. It was early morning on the day we would reach Mount Sinai, or what was left of it.
“About what?” I said somewhat stupidly.
“I’d rather not talk in public. Can we use your cabin?”
I turned around, opened the hatch and walked back in. Without stopping I beckoned to a chair in my living area. I took a seat on the opposite side of the coffee table.
“So what is it…?” I began.
“I think you know, more or less, what we need to discuss. The only question is if you realize how serious the situation is…?” she left her statement dangling.
I looked her in the eyes and realized that over the last month or so I hadn’t made much eye contact with this woman. That sort of surprised me because she was attractive enough that I couldn’t help but keep an eye on her when she was around, but I guess I might have been avoiding one-on-one conversations like this.
“Oh, I don’t think you have to worry about that,” I said. “We’re outside of Imperial space, on a ship captained by a man who doesn’t abide by fleet regulations, heading into the most destructive battleground in recorded history. I think I have a pretty good grasp on how serious the situation is.”
“No, you really don’t.”
She held my gaze and never looked away; her confidence was intimidating. But I was feeling pretty assured myself, there was no way anybody could chalk up the actions of the ship and our Captain as just the excesses of a privileged life. I knew I was on solid ground when it came to fleet regulations and the best interest of the Empire. And I told her so.
“Are you really sure about that?” she said. “Yeah ok, the fleet regulations, maybe… But the best interests of the Empire? How can you possibly know what’s in the best interest of the Empire?”
“Because, I’m a Citizen… I serve at the Emperor’s pleasure. I follow orders. That’s what’s in the best interest of the Empire.”
“Like the Citizens on the I.D.F. Tribute who were just following orders when they took the surface off half a planet and killed God knows how many people? Are you really telling me that this can possibly be in the best interest of the Empire?”
I didn’t answer. I wanted to say that we hadn’t arrived yet, that we didn’t even know if it was really true; but I don’t think either one of us really had any doubts. I still had my righteous indignation though, so I swallowed hard and tried to figure out what to say.
It didn’t help that I’d suddenly acquired a massive headache.
“Look Jac,” she continued before I could open my mouth. “There are a number of people on the ship that like you. They’re just not sure they can trust you.”
“Trust me?” I’ve served with them longer than you have!”
“Yes, but I’ve been away from The Academy a lot longer than you have and besides… they know I have good reason to be grateful to the Captain and hate… certain aspects of the Empire.”
Yeah, and they probably know you’re sleeping with our Captain too.
“Face it Jac, you’re not the most outgoing or friendly person on the ship. Even so, a lot of people think you can overcome the Imperial conditioning you’ve been put through. The problem is, you’ve kind of run out of time to assimilate; you’re in a situation where we need to know if we can count on you.”
“I’ve always done my duty!” I protested. “What more is it that you want to count on me for? Do you want me to betray the Empire? Do you want me to become a pirate or a traitor? That’s not going to happen,” I said even though I couldn’t really believe it of them.
“No, no one is going to ask you to renounce the Empire, but that doesn’t mean that every single thing about it is good. Tell me, are there things about the Empire that concern you? Are there things that you think could stand to be corrected? Perhaps things, if you let yourself dwell on them, which might concern you enough to actually worry about the Empire’s future? Are you really going to try to make me believe that the only threats to the Empire are external?”
I felt blindsided. Throughout childhood, The Academy, and my short career I had always worked hard to sublimate the inconsistencies. The instructors had drilled that into us; that accepting things we didn’t understand was the epitome of duty and loyalty. Now, someone was suggesting that it wasn’t enough. Someone was suggesting that there was a higher calling after all.
I was still very conflicted, but I also had a realization that left me uncomfortable. I wanted to please this woman. No, maybe please was the wrong word… I wanted her respect.
“Monica, I do want what’s best for the Empire and I can think outside of the box but I don’t know how anything I’ve seen on this ship can be construed as an improvement. I am a loyal person but I need to know my loyalties are being put in the right place.”
We were both silent for a long moment. Finally she said, “Do you know what your personnel file says about you?”
“You looked at my file?”
“Of course, as First Officer I’ve looked at all of the Citizens files. That shouldn’t surprise you.”
She was right; I should have known that. I had just never put any thought into it and maybe I wasn’t so comfortable with this particular woman seeing my entire record, warts and all.
“Well, would you like to know?” she prodded.
“Yes, actually I would.”
“A lot of it was quite complementary, actually. There was an evaluation by your Senior Advisor at The Academy, however, that you probably should be aware of. To paraphrase, it pointed out certain flaws in your character. The first being a stubborn streak that has caused you no end of trouble and earned you many enemies, and the second was the fact that you were too loyal.”
“Too loyal? That’s an oxymoron. How can a person be too loyal? Besides, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”
“That depends upon who is doing the evaluating. You see Jac, your psych evaluations say your loyalty is not to any individual – you are quite unusual in that respect. If you had shown those same strong loyalty traits to an individual, any individual, the Empire would never trust you. They wouldn’t be able to take a chance that a commanding officer or a lover might become more important to you than the Empire itself. No, your loyalty is to the Empire alone and you were evaluated as reluctant to bond with individuals. To the higher-ups in the Empire that could make you a perfect soldier.”
I immediately thought of my relationship with Valys… and realized I had studiously avoided placing that kind of faith in anyone since.
She went on, “If it were only that it would be a positive for them, but when you combine it with your ethics and morality scores it caused them concern.
“As a matter of fact those same ethics and morality scores are the only reason we’re having this conversation right now. You see Jac; there are a lot of things the Empire asks its Citizens to do that aren’t ethical or moral. Have you not seen that for yourself?”
“I’m sorry Monica, I’m confused. If they know I’m totally loyal to the Empire as you say, it seems they would be confident I could be used as a mindless robot, only doing as I’m told and never questioning anything. I would think the Empire would value that.”
She got an ironic look on her face and let those words sink in. I really didn’t want to think about the implications.
After an awkward moment I said, “So, you’re saying this is why I was assigned to the Halcyon; I was a reject for higher Imperial service and punished?”
“Oh, no. You were the rare raw material they were looking for. When you went through your Deep Core psychological conditioning they did everything they could to burn out that morality and ethics and reinforce your hesitation to bond with any individual. They are convinced you became the perfect tool. That’s why you were assigned to the Halcyon.”
Could what she was saying possibly be true? The Empire molded, okay indoctrinated, all of its Citizens (that was common knowledge) but had they actually played with my mind?
This was a lot to take in and I still had no idea why she was telling me this. I was, however, starting to realize that she had been right... I think this conversation was much more serious than I’d thought it was going to be.
ΔΔΔ
We skipped into the Mount Sinai system later that afternoon.
The D Watch plus myself, the Captain, and Monica were on the bridge.
There was an extra crewman helping to man the sensor suite. He was in a constant hushed conversation going back and forth between his station and the auxiliary bridge where I knew they would be analyzing the same sensor readings.
“Captain, we have a preliminary scan,” said Citizen Durand without being asked.
When he was sure he had the Captain’s attention he continued, “The planet itself is under full cloud cover. Thermal readings are much higher than normal. The readings are consistent with a massive kinetic bombardment and the beginnings of a nuclear winter.
“As for the surrounding space there’s an unusually high amount of rubble orbiting the planet. Preliminary scans indicate it is the remains of a number of ships, but we’re not reading any energy signatures. We will need to get in closer to run scans behind the planet’s shadow. We also need more time to evaluate the rest of the outer system, but at the moment it looks like we’re alone.”
“Take us in, Jared,” said the Captain. “Make our acceleration double the standard intersystem protocol.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Durand, look for survivors. There may not be any active energy generation going on but there could be powered compartments or escape capsules. Focus your search on the ones in low orbit first; they’ll be in the most danger of imminent reentry. Then keep expanding it outwards.”
“How far out do you want to search, Captain?”
“I’
m guessing the battle happened two and a half days ago,” the Captain responded. “Extrapolate how far out a blast might’ve ejected debris and then double that volume for your search.”
Monica said softly to the Captain in a voice I almost didn’t hear, “Shouldn’t you delegate the search and rescue to a secondary team, Alyster?”
After a moment of consternation the Captain said aloud, “Durand, keep your primary team focused on our defensive status, delegate search and rescue to a secondary team. And while I’m thinking about it, have a third team start putting together a list of what ships died here.”
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