As she walked into the room, Moamet Jones turned her way, and smiled. He waited for her to get closer, before he spoke. “Hello, Carolyn. I take it you will be going soon.”
Kestral nodded. “We’re all fuelled up. Next stop, New Paropolis.” She examined his chair and the cuff on his arm. “I guess you’ll be attached to that for awhile.”
“Yes,” he replied. “It will siphon off the antivirus my body produces, and use that raw material to synthesize more. In a few weeks, we’ll have enough antivirus to inoculate the entire Ranger force. A few weeks after that, the rest of the Galarchy.”
“Very good,” Kestral said.
“I certainly wish we had met under different circumstances,” he told her.
“I agree,” Kestral said evenly. “As it is, I don’t think I will ever fully believe that you had any interest in me at all.”
Kestral’s response clearly stung Jones. At first he stared at her in surprise and disbelief. Then his face fell, and he dropped his head. Finally he looked back up at her. “Why are you here, then?”
“Never let it be said that I’m without appreciation for the gravity of this mission.” Kestral laid a hand on his free arm. “Besides, your work on the sensor decoys saved the lives of my crew. I owe you for that. Thank you.”
Jones nodded. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Probably not. I don’t expect we’ll be travelling in the same circles.” She patted Jones’ arm kindly. Then she turned and headed for the door. “Have a good life, Moamet Jones.”
“And you, Carolyn Kestral.”
Kestral exited the room, pausing a moment beyond the door to collect her thoughts. Part of her had not wanted to leave like that. But she had not lied when she said that she could never fully believe his intentions towards her, not after this. She knew she would never want to see him again.
Finally resigned to it, she turned and headed for the exit to the outside, and her waiting ship.
As she rounded a corner, however, she unexpectedly found herself confronting a figure standing in the hallway. She pulled up short and regarded him.
“I was informed that you had visited the facility,” Admiral Serle stated softly.
“My compliments to your informants,” Kestral responded drily.
“Cut it out, Carolyn,” Serle snapped. “You don’t take that tone with me. I went to the wall for you, and you know it!”
“Maybe you should have gone through it, then.”
“Carolyn—”
“Don’t ‘Carolyn’ me!” Kestral shot back at him. “I’m not one of your pet cadets! If I can’t be a Ranger any more, then I won’t run your errands or bow to your will! I’m a civilian now, with all the rights of any Oan citizen. And that includes being able to tell you, and every other Ranger out there, to leave me the hell alone!”
“If I had left you the hell alone, do you think you’d be here to argue with me right now?” Serle countered. “No, you wouldn’t… because you’d be in a maximum security cell for life, assuming we hadn’t simply burned you alive the moment you contracted the berserker!”
“So I owe you for my precious, wonderful life now, do I?”
“You owe me nothing!” Serle snarled. “Nor do I owe you an apology. So maybe you should stop playing the injured little girl here, and grow up! Things don’t always work out the way you planned. You’re not the only one to be injured on duty, and lose a career. It’s not your fault that you can’t be a Ranger anymore.”
Kestral considered his words silently. Bit by bit, her expression softened, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. Finally, she sighed heavily and said, “And it’s not your fault, either. I know that. But having no one to blame doesn’t make it easier.”
“I know, Carolyn,” Serle said softly, nodding. “Believe me, if there was anything else I could do, I’d do it. I’ve already pulled every string I could, to make sure you could get out, buy a ship, and get a commercial license, without the berserker issue chasing everything away from you. If I could reinstate you, I’d do that, too. In a heartbeat.”
“But there are some things that the great Admiral Lin Serle can’t do,” Kestral whispered. “Not even for his protégé.”
“No,” he agreed sadly. “Not even for you.”
Kestral let out a deep sigh, and seemed to shrink a bit. A profound sadness enveloped her, and she dropped her head in contrition and resignation. There was silence between them.
Admiral Serle broke the silence by asking, “So you named her Mary, huh?”
Kestral brought her head up and looked at Serle, who had a cockeyed smile across his lips. After a moment, Kestral chuckled, despite herself, and finally smiled with him. Admiral Serle responded by gathering Kestral into his arms and giving her a bear hug. “Fly high, Carolyn Kestral.” He pulled back to look at her. “Captain Carolyn Kestral. And if you ever want to hang out with an old man, you know how to reach me.”
“I know how to reach you,” she nodded wistfully. “Goodbye, Lin.”
~
“There you are,” Mark said when Kestral stepped back aboard the Mary. “Angel’s back. We’re ready to go, whenever you are.”
“Not yet,” Kestral said.
Mark did a double-take. “I thought…”
“We don’t need to leave immediately,” Kestral explained. “It can wait for dawn. Give you a chance to get some sleep.”
“Oh,” Mark nodded, and grinned. “Well, if you insist…”
“I do,” Kestral said, reaching for a wall intercom and toggling it on. “Everyone, we leave at dawn tomorrow. Get a good night’s rest.” She turned back to Mark. “You all deserve it. And more. Good night, Mark.”
She smiled gratefully, then headed past him for her own quarters. Mark watched her go, and after a moment, he called after her: “Good night, Captain.” Then he secured the Mary’s hatch and, with a final smile directed at nothing and everything in particular, headed off for his own quarters.
~
The next morning was bright, cool, and crisp, with a greenish-blue sky almost empty of cloud. The shuttle from the Superman had departed late the night before, leaving the Mary alone on the other pad.
When Mark arrived on the bridge, Kestral was already there at the Captain’s station. “Good morning, Carolyn. Looks like a nice day to fly to New Paropolis, huh?”
“Yes, I’d say so,” Kestral smiled and nodded. “No rush, though. Our schedule is fairly open, so we won’t have to push it.”
“Ah, a nice, relaxing run. That’ll be an interesting change.” He grinned knowingly at Kestral, and took his seat at the pilot’s station. “Hey, boss, you up there yet?” he called into the intercom.
“Where else would I be?” came Sarander’s reply.
“You’re the married man, you tell me!” Mark and Kestral both heard Sarander’s laugh over the intercom. “Heat ‘em up… we’re traveling today!”
Mark busied himself with his control settings as they waited for the engines to warm up. After a few moments, he said without looking up, “You seem in a chipper mood this morning.” Kestral did not respond verbally, and after a moment, Mark turned about in his seat. Kestral looked up from her console, and she smiled down on him in a way that he was sure he hadn’t seen since they’d met. “I sensed some bad feelings between you and that Admiral, yesterday,” he ventured. “I take it you two worked something out last night?”
“Yes, we did,” Kestral replied. “Everything’s fine between us.”
“And what about Dr. Jones?”
Kestral’s smile faded just a bit. “Well… not everything works out the way we’d like. But that’s life.”
“That’s life,” Mark nodded. He saw a signal on his board that indicated that the Mary’s engines were hot, and he brought them up to speed. “Was the Superman yours?”
“What?”
“I mean, was that the ship you would’ve gotten as Captain? His ship?”
“Oh, no,” Kestral shook her head. “I was up for a light
battle cruiser. The Marimont.”
“Marimont?” Mark repeated. Kestral gave him a knowing smile. After a moment, he smiled back, and turned to his console. “Mary is ready to go.”
“Then, by all means,” Kestral said, “let’s get.”
Afterword: The Trek that never was
Anyone who saw the short-lived TV series Firefly will feel a touch of deja-vu upon reading Berserker, the original title of this novel (or possibly suspect outright plagiurism), but rest assured I am using an original premise and characters, created in 2001. I am also using my original intention, which was to make the setting of My Life, After Berserker similar enough to the Star Trek universe to be recognizable to almost anyone as a potential for a Trek series. And who knows? If this concept ever became successful in print form, it could easily be the blueprint for a new television series, movies, or other formats.
For my initial story, I resisted the urge to take this ex-military freighter captain and civilian crew on a galaxy-shattering save-the-universe first adventure (yes, I did develop such an idea before storytelling common sense made me ditch it). Instead, they go through a series of events that help to define Carolyn Kestral, and why she’s flying a small civilian freighter instead of a military starship for a living. Other characters are presented, but not fleshed out ad nauseam as is the penchant of so many stories and TV pilots... I wanted to save something for future stories, of which, there are potentially thousands. Hey, how much SF has been written about working stiff freighter crews going about their business and trying to avoid military campaigns, save-the-universe adventures and alien encounters?
Well, other than one I can think of.
~
As with most of my stories, this one was inspired by "what if?" ideas. In this case, the "what if" wasn’t mine, but Paramount’s.
Back when Star Trek: Voyager was looking squarely at the light at the end of the tunnel, Paramount was giving a lot of thought about how to continue the lucrative Star Trek franchise. They wanted a new series to carry on once Voyager had run its course. But they did not initially know what form their next series would be. Most of the Trek fans and faithful knew this, as well, and there were no shortage of ideas pouring in to Paramount’s offices about what the next Star Trek series should be.
Of course I had my ideas, too, being one of the faithful from the original series. Foremost in my mind was the fact that, after over 30 years, the Star Trek franchise had become dog-eared, tired, formula. Worse, it was becoming even more commercial and less interesting than ever, Paramount’s executives having reduced its episodes to bland sameness, diluted its messages with political correctness, and shamelessly courted the lucrative teen and young adult market by blatantly throwing babes in skin-tight outfits at them.
(To be fair, it should be noted that Paramount has had exactly this attitude towards Trek since 1966, and in fact, have never really understood what makes it successful in the first place. Given a complete lack of understanding about science fiction in general, and Trek in particular, they have simply thrown at it the same old gimmicks that have proven over the years to sell large quantities of records and laundry detergent. To date, and to their credit, I suppose, they’ve been very successful in selling records and laundry detergent.)
My take on the next series was that the Trek format had been too long obsessed with one element: Starfleet. Trek had followed their paramilitary-slash-exploration fleet everywhere, giving viewers an intimate look at what it meant to be in Starfleet’s ranks, from Academy to Admiralty. And after over 30 years, it was beginning to feel as if the only thing there was in the future was starships, plastic walls, grand adventures, epic battles and exotic aliens.
But there was one area barely touched on, in all of those years of Trek. Sure, there were always tantalizing hints of its existence, but the viewer was never exposed to it for long. I’m referring, of course, to Civilian Life. Yes, apparently some Federation citizens stayed at home, worked in mundane jobs, paid for groceries and walked their dogs! Civilians piloted personal ships and freighters, vacationed, and traded with people from other planets! And civilians were the ones who remained after Star Fleet was gone, living their lives as best they could.
Even Trek saw potential in this idea once: During the run of The Next Generation, an episode called "The Outrageous Okonna" presented a freighter pilot in an adventure that would have made a good pilot for a new series. I don’t know how much Paramount actually considered a spin-off for Okonna, and obviously nothing came of it. But the potential for exploring the civilian side of the Federation was there.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came the closest to portraying how the other half lived in a Federation universe. Still, it was set on a Starfleet-controlled space station, embroiled in life-threatening galactic conflicts, and the only civilians that were present were either passing through or selling wares... sort of like a shopping center within a military outpost. Not quite a view of civilian life... more like shopkeeper’s lives within hostile territory. Not quite the life of ordinary people.
I wanted to see the ordinary people. So I developed a Star Trek series idea of my own, with actually no intention of submitting it to Paramount for consideration—I knew they’d never even find my proposal, under the avalanche of material that was being submitted by fans every day—but hoping that it would be close to an idea that, if Paramount had any sense whatsoever, they would come up with on their own, or would glean from other proposals they did see.
Instead, we got Enterprise. More same-old same-old. (For the record, I have full recorded runs of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager at home. I stopped before Enterprise.) Enterprise just plain never had it, and it died the ignominious death of a series that even Star Trek fans wouldn’t watch. Oh, well.
~
As I said, I originally conceived Berserker to be set within the familiar Star Trek universe. However, before I wrote it, I knew that I needed a non-Trek setting for the story… after all, Paramount might never see it or show interest in it, but I still wanted to be able to present it to audiences if possible. So I set about creating a future universe that would have a similar feel to the Trek universe, but with notable differences.
To begin with, the concept of humanoid aliens all over the galaxy was one I discarded right away. It seemed to be a lot more likely that, as we explore space, we would find practically or literally no life that we could communicate, live or work with, but a lot of planets that we could live on, given some work to “terraform” them (a familiar concept in science fiction, and one which I decided did not need to be overly described in this story). So I populated my universe with humans on these different planets. I postulated that some planets would be tough to terraform, requiring the humans there to undergo some extent of genetic, chemical or physical alteration to be able to survive there. This gave me my “aliens,” actually altered humans, which also made more sense as far as their being able to communicate, breathe our air, eat our food, and function with humans.
And finally, I did create one alien race, the Raians. I gave little detail about them in this story, which was intentional… I wanted to convey the impression that a civilian might have about them, a strange race that clearly didn’t like us. I also gave them a reason to dislike us, namely, the idea that human “manifest destiny” and our ability to alter planets for our own use was a threatening concept to them.
This was intended to be a story about people, not technology, so I tried not go into serious detail about any of the other technological trappings involved in the story. I input just enough to make clear the pacing of the story. It can be difficult to justify human-scale time frames alongside the incredibly extended timeframe of spatial distances. Writers invented faster-than-light space ships to attempt to compensate for these issues… and to be honest, I believe this to be the greatest fiction in science fiction. (Okay, maybe the second after matter transporters, but the two are close.) However, as this was to be a Trek-style story, I used it anyw
ay, with the expectation that readers will forgive me my storytelling weakness this time.
All of this gave me a sci-fi setting that managed to stand on its own inside of modern conventions, with the added benefit of making more sense than the more “traditional” sci-fi setting populated with hordes of exotic aliens and weird planets, and the unlikelihood that humans would be able to visit them at all, much less to coexist with the many life forms they would meet. I had a unique setting that could provide a rich landscape for storytelling, and allow me to show readers the universe from an everyman’s point of view.
Then, to my surprise, came a new series by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Firefly was about an ex-military man who now captained a space freighter and a small band of mildly-dysfunctional people around the galaxy. When I first saw it, I had to laugh... other than the mildly dysfunctional crew part, there were so many similarities with my idea for the next Trek show that I almost felt Whedon and I were tapping into the same alternate universe!
Of course, Whedon went in a very different and original direction for his series, stretching the metaphor "the Final Frontier" to its practical limit (although not quite its breaking point) and giving it a post-civil-war American West look and feel. He also removed aliens from space, and populated it exclusively with humans on terraformed planets. It’s a concept that sounds strange at first, but which actually makes a lot of sense, and which works on screen... especially under Whedon’s control. Although he sometimes took the western motif a bit too far in my opinion (somehow the old west’s bad grammar doesn’t seem to work for me), overall it paints a wonderfully rich and well-fleshed-out picture. If you haven’t seen it (and Fox did a great job of hiding it from you), go get the DVD set and prepare for a treat.
It’s a shame that Firefly did not last on air, but considering it was the victim of the same lack of appreciation that has plagued science fiction TV for... well, forever... it’s no real surprise.
To put that another way, TV execs are well aware that the Trek franchise has pointedly avoided running new episodes on prime time Friday nights for over a decade, and the Trek franchise is now one of the longest running SF franchises in history. No SF show scheduled on Friday prime time has ever been successful on any network... even the SciFi Channel has trouble holding ratings of its premier shows on that night. Therefore, any TV exec that schedules a science fiction show for Friday prime time is purposely throwing it away.
The Kestral Voyages: My Life, After Berserker Page 19