by M. D. Cooper
They wrapped up only minutes before the Senzee docking control crew came onboard to remove the antimatter storage lock.
“Remember,” the crew chief admonished before he left. “No running your antimatter pion engine within fifty AU of the star, or within one AU of any Class 3 station. With all the shit going on after that little war in the Bollam’s System, people think that the rules don’t apply anymore. Be assured, they do apply here—especially to the likes of you.”
Jessica shared a sidelong look with Trevor as the dock crew left the ship.
“Especially to the likes of you,” she glowered with mock ferocity. Trevor tried to hold back a laugh, but a snicker got through, then a chuckle. A moment later, Jessica joined in.
Thompson shot them both a dark look before sealing the main bay door. “Don’t you two have somewhere to be? Like fucking in a cabin or something?”
Jessica stopped laughing, as did Trevor. They both knew they were developing feelings for one another, but neither was entirely certain where it was going. Jessica wasn’t comfortable dragging him into whatever life they were going to have for the next few years as they hunted down Finaeus, and she knew that Trevor was keen enough that he could tell the crew of Sabrina was keeping things from him.
“Perhaps we’ve had our fill of that for the day,” Trevor said with a wink at Jessica.
Trevor replied.
As they walked down the corridor and Jessica saw that a door to a hold was still open. She grabbed Trevor’s hand and stopped him, looking up into his dark, serious eyes.
“Yeah? Well, maybe I can work up another feeling that you might like more,” Jessica said as she pulled his head down toward hers while pushing him back through the open hold door.
GRADUATION
STELLAR DATE: 04.03.8933 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Orion Guard Parade Grounds, Fargo
REGION: Kiera, Rega System, Orion Freedom Alliance
Kent smiled and shook the commandant’s hand as he took his pins and commission papers. He was a lieutenant now, newly minted, and ready to fulfill his duties. He turned to look over the crowd and saw Sam’s face in the sea of blue uniforms.
Their four-month journey on the Tremont had started a friendship, which lasted through boot camp and beyond. By some miracle, they had been deployed to platoons within the same company and often saw one another during their first tour.
Neither was certain what their relationship really meant—they enjoyed spending time together, and their common background growing up on Herschel always provided something they could share.
When Sam received a message from his parents that they never wanted to speak to him again, they held one another for a long time. Later, when they did finally reply to one of his messages—simply to hope he was well—the two men embraced again, much longer than necessary.
Sam had supported Kent in the same way through the repeated calls from his parents, begging him to come home, attempting to use guilt over troubles at the farm to change his mind regarding his future.
From time-to-time, their friendship had taken on a sexual nature—though, until meeting Sam, Kent had never been particularly attracted to men, but neither had he found women as arousing as his other male friends had. Sam, he learned, had always been more drawn to men than women.
Sadly, they had only managed one brief rendezvous since Kent had joined officer candidate school, an interval caused as much by OCS’s brutal schedule as Sam’s deployment to Juka.
Kent had contacted his former company CO and asked for Sam to be granted leave to attend his graduation. The commander acquiesced. It was he, after all, who had suggested that Kent enter OCS in the first place.
Kent started and looked around, realizing he had paused on the stage’s steps with what had to be a moronic expression on his face. He finished his descent and took his seat with the other graduates, watching as the last students received their commissions.
Sam laughed at their nickname for Shrike Company’s commander.
Sam smiled back.
Kent laughed,
Given their thirty-year term of service, it was probable that they would eventually be assigned far from one another, but starting in the same battalion was an auspicious beginning.
Kent looked up at the commandant, who had finished handing out the new officer’s commissions, and was introducing their commencement speaker—Admiral Turnbacker, the CO of the 1017th fleet.
he said to Sam.
The admiral gave a rousing speech, peppered with personal anecdotes and stories of harrowing battles and narrow victories. Kent felt the words stir a deep pride within him. He reveled in it and could see that his fellow graduates did as well.
Admiral Turnbacker finished it with an admonishment to always put the Guard first, above all others. They were the protectors of the human race, the ones that would see all humanity ushered into a bold future, safe from the destructive power of the Transcend.
Kent was surprised by Sam’s words.
Kent laughed at Sam’s reference to the fanciful tales of evil beings made of energy and destruction who lived at the center of the galaxy.
His words were accompanied by a mental image that Kent found more than a little enticing.
NEW CANAAN
STELLAR DATE: 04.07.8933 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar Dark Layer, Near the New Canaan System
After so much time, and so many disappointments, Tanis worried that their first view of the New Canaan System w
ould be anticlimactic.
She remembered settling into her stasis pod back in the Sol System nearly five thousand years ago, expecting to wake once as a part of a skeleton crew rotation, and then again when they arrived at New Eden.
Two stellar systems. That was all she had ever expected to see in her entire life, two systems: Sol and New Eden.
She chuckled at her younger self’s naiveté.
She ticked them off on her fingers and realized that she had visited ten star systems—New Canaan would be her eleventh. Of course, in the ninetieth century, her tally was a pittance. Many children had probably seen more than eleven systems.
She fervently hoped that her count would stop with New Canaan. Eleven was an auspicious number if such a thing existed. However, not auspicious enough, a small fear inside her said, to keep the count from increasing.
Though things had ended smoothly as she could have hoped with the Transcend, there would be more dealings with them, and Tanis was certain a trip to Airtha lay somewhere in her future.
She pushed those thoughts aside and looked down at Cary who stood at her side, arms stretched above her head, a tiny hand clasped within hers and the other in Joe’s. Tanis could hardly believe she was already three years old.
The forward-facing view in the bow lounge, which was still one of their family’s favorite places on the ship, was black; the endless true void of the dark layer stretching ahead of them. A holodisplay above the window showed a countdown to the exit from the dark layer—and their first view of their future home.
Most of the people present were the ram-scoop technicians and their families, the few—aside from Tanis and Joe—who knew about the small lounge on the bow of the ship. The anticipation in the air was palpable as the minutes slipped into seconds, and then, when the display reached ten, everyone in the lounge began to count down in unison.
“…five, four, three, two, one,” Tanis joined in, smiling at Cary, who counted along with great enthusiasm, only recently having learned that numbers could be counted in two directions.
“Zero!” Tanis, Joe, and Cary cried out with everyone in the lounge—probably with everyone on the entire ship, as the endless black of the dark layer was instantly replaced with the relative brilliance of interstellar space.
Tanis took in the view with a smile that threatened to split her face in half.
Ahead of them lay a point of light that was their star, dubbed Canaan Prime. Beyond the star was the brilliant light of the M25 cluster, known as The Cradle in Transcend Space—the shape it had when viewed from other nearby systems.
The cluster contained thousands of stars and several small nebulae, all of which made for a stellar backdrop far more beautiful than any Tanis had ever witnessed before.
“Mommy, it’s so pretty,” Cary exclaimed, pulling her hands free from her parent’s and running to the window. “I’ve never seen so many stars!”
Tanis shared a smile with Joe before replying to her daughter.
“This is the first natural starlight you’ve ever seen,” Tanis said. “There are no holoprojectors, no pictures here. The light touching you was born inside of stars—every last bit of it.”
“Really?” Cary asked, twisting around to look at her parents. “I’m being tushed by stars?”
Joe stepped forward and put his hand on Cary’s head, stroking it gently. “Yes, you are, dear. We all are. That star straight ahead,” Joe touched the window and a marker appeared, highlighting Canaan Prime against all the other points of light, “that is where our new home is, a new world for us to live on and where you’ll grow up.”
Cary looked up at her father and pouted. “I don’t want a new home. I like our house by the lake. Why do we have to move?”
“Don’t worry little girl, it won’t be for a while yet—and we’ll let you help pick where we go. Maybe we’ll find a better lake, and you can help build the new house.”
“No. You can move! I’m staying on the ’Trepid.”
Tanis leaned over and scooped Cary into her arms. “Don’t worry. It will be a family decision. But I think you’ll want to go see the world, at least. Maybe we can have two houses. One there and keep our cabin here on the Intrepid.”
Cary frowned, processing the idea of having two houses. “Maybe,” was all that got past her pout.
Three years had passed since she had become governor of the New Canaan colony mission; so far, no one had stepped forward to take the reins from her. Not that she expected anyone to—the colony charter stated that the governor-at-landing would remain in power for ten years to ensure a smooth startup.
The charter’s definition of governor-at-landing was whoever was in charge when the ship passed through the colony star’s heliopause. At the Intrepid’s current velocity, Tanis would gain that designation in about five minutes.
Angela said with a chuckle.
Angela’s thoughts were affirming, though honest,
Tanis agreed with her AI, and best friend’s, assessment. Although the agreement with the Transcend government did not include access to the Intrepid’s picotech, nor their stasis shield technology, the time would come when they would demand it.
For all they tried to paint their society as the bastion of peace and prosperity that all humanity should aspire to, Tanis could read between the lines. The Transcend was on a war footing. Whoever else was out there, it was someone they feared.
She didn’t have enough data for a full assessment, as yet—neither did Bob—but she suspected that it was not just the Orion Guard—a group Sera had told her about before she left for Airtha—that the Transcend opposed. If it were, she was certain that they could crush that one foe.
No, there was something else in the darkness of space that the Transcend was on guard against.
Joe replied.
Tanis gave him a smile over their daughter’s head and laughed as Cary began asking the names of every star she could see. Luckily, the Transcend had provided them with an index of all the stars in the M25 cluster. Joe and Tanis took turns providing the names to their daughter.
Tanis could just imagine Priscilla, one of Bob’s two human avatars, on her plinth in the bridge’s foyer, smiling mischievously in her large, empty room.
She needed to talk to Amanda and Priscilla about their plans, once the ship reached its destination. Their initial contract was to function as human bridges into the mind of Bob, the Intrepid’s massive, multi-nodal AI. Early in the ship’s construction, it had become too distracting for Bob to deal with humans, and too overwhelming for most humans to have him speak into their minds.
Much like humans used many machines as their avatars and surrogates, so Bob used humans as his. Initially, the idea had disturbed Tanis a little, but Amanda and Priscilla had maintained their
distinct personalities and had even colored Bob’s to an extent.
She knew they loved their jobs and would likely never wish to leave Bob, but she still needed to share her plans with them and give them options.
“I’d best get to the bridge,” Tanis said as she passed Cary to Joe. “Looks like there’s a beacon saying no entry. Probably just something for other folks—especially since they’ve forbidden us from trading with anyone.”
“Go on,” Joe replied before placing a kiss on her cheek. “We’re good down here.”
* * * * *
The bridge crew was alert and at their stations. Captain Andrews, Terrance Enfield, and Admiral Sanderson stood at the central holotank, frowning as they studied the message scrolling past.
“Meant for us?” Tanis asked as she approached.
“I can’t see how,” Admiral Sanderson said, his eyes showing more anger than she would have expected. He was always terse, but anger was not his style. “There’s no way even these snakes could think that we’d come this far and not take the system.”
“We dropped a probe into the dark layer,” Captain Andrews added. “The interdiction beacons are there, too.”
Tanis shook her head. “Well, why should anything be easy?”
“At least no one is shooting at us,” Amanda said from a nearby console, a statement which elicited groans from several nearby crewmembers.
“New signal coming in,” the scan officer announced. “Oh…and it comes with ships!”
Scan updated on the main holotank and Tanis saw that three ships had appeared around the Intrepid, one ahead and two flanking. The flanking ships were fifty thousand kilometers on either side, maneuvering to match vector, while the ship at the fore was closer, only ten thousand kilometers distant.