by B. C. James
“Captain,” Pierce said, “I would like to meet with you when you get a free moment. I have a lot of questions.”
Sharp nodded and turned away so Pierce wouldn’t see his frown. He was hoping to avoid Pierce as much as possible now that they were back on the Rojo. Something about the man made him uneasy. Part of him wished Pierce had stayed frozen. He would’ve been easier to deal with that way.
“Okay, Captain,” Sharp said as he walked away. “When I get a free moment.”
5
Rojo
Ensign Morales greeted Sharp warmly as he stepped onto the bridge. “Glad you’re back in one piece, Sir,” she teased.
He shot a smile toward where she sat at the helm console. He was glad to be home.
“Welcome back, Cap,” Commander Cormac said, standing up from the command seat.
“It’s good to be back,” he said. “I think I’ve had my fill of excitement for this trip.”
He sat down in his chair, basking in its comfortable familiarity. “Commander, release the docking clamps from the Endurance, and retract the docking boom,” he ordered. Cormac nodded as he turned his chair toward the front of the bridge, “Ensign, attach a beacon to the Endurance’s hull. That’ll make it easier for the recovery ship to locate her. After we’re clear, lay in a course for Chariko Station.”
“Aye, Cap,” she replied.
“Captain,” Cormac called as she punched the controls on the side console. “The docking ring won’t release.”
Sharp turned to her. “What’s the problem, Commander?” he asked impatiently. “Are the controls responding?”
She pecked away at her console. “The commands are getting through to the docking clamps, and they’re trying to release, but they seem to be stuck. It might be a problem on the Endurance’s side, Sir.”
He leaned back in his chair and pressed his aching head against the soft cushion. He closed his eyes as he flicked open the comm. “Briggs, report to the docking boom. The clamps aren’t releasing, see what the hell’s going on with them.”
“Aye, Cap,” Briggs voice came back. “On my way.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Grab our EVA suits from the Endurance while you’re down there. Those things aren’t cheap.” In his anticipation of getting back to the Rojo he had forgotten all about the gear they had left behind.
“Roger, Sir.”
“Thanks, Ensign. Make it quick. The sooner we’re back underway, the better.”
Sharp turned to Cormac. “How’s our timetable?” he asked.
“We burned about eight hours on our little detour. That drops us down to around twelve hours ahead of schedule.”
“Alright, not too bad. Let me know when I should start worrying.”
“Will do, Captain,” she replied.
Sharp stood up. “I’m going to stop by my quarters for a quick shower then I’ll check in on our new passengers. Cormac, you have the bridge.”
“Aye, Sir,” she said as she eyed the vacant command chair, grinning.
***
Arnold had done an adequate job of clearing out the spare crew quarters. The displaced cargo was lazily stacked along the central corridor walls. The three spare rooms held two colonists each, and the men had graciously let the women take them. Arnold set the rest of the group up in the galley with some spare cots, and that’s where Sharp found him and Captain Pierce. When he entered, they were in the far corner sharing a hushed conversation, their backs toward him. The conversation ended abruptly when they noticed him enter. Sharp poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. Arnold and Pierce walked over and took a seat next to him.
“Lieutenant, how did the med checks go? Everyone in good Health?” Sharp questioned.
“Yep, everybody’s tiptop,” Arnold answered.
“Good. Kinda cramped in here isn’t it, Lieutenant?” Sharp asked, looking around at the cots lining the floor.
“Yes, but there’s no other place for them,” Arnold replied, rolling his eyes.
“Isn’t there? Have Briggs double up with Franklin, Morales double up with Cormac, and I’ll double up with you, Arnold. That will leave three empty cabins for our guests.”
Arnold grimaced. “I’d rather bunk with Morales,” he whispered under his breath.
Sharp ignored him and turned to Pierce. “You and your first officer will have my quarters, Captain.”
A smile cracked Pierce’s lips as Sharp spoke, but faded quickly, returning to its stoic facade. “Thank you, Captain Sharp. I am honored.”
“The least I can do is try and make you comfortable after what you’ve been through. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling. Drifting through space in cryostasis for five centuries. Waking up to find that everything you know is gone or changed. Your mission a failure.”
Pierce’s eyes shot up to meet Sharp’s as he spoke the last sentence, and he immediately regretted using the word failure. He quickly changed the subject. “Have you and your people had a chance to eat?”
“Yes. Lieutenant Arnold showed us how to use the food dispensers. I hope we will not be too much of a burden on your food supply.”
“We’ll be fine. Thankfully, food storage is one of the few places we haven’t had to make cutbacks in order to stay competitive. One of the perks of being an independent vessel is getting to decide where to scrimp. More than a few corporate crews have slowly starved to death when they lost long-range comms and propulsion.”
“It’s nice to know you care about us,” Arnold chuckled.
“Cutbacks?” Pierce questioned. “What sort of cutbacks?”
“Well, the reason we can fit your crew into spare quarters is that this ship was originally designed for a crew of eighteen, but to stay profitable, I’ve had to cut back to just the six of us now. We’ve had to automate a lot of the ship’s systems to accommodate the lack of crew”
“Hell,” Arnold interjected. “You’d probably fully automate the ship and get rid of us all if you could.”
Sharp glared at him. Maybe just you, he wanted to say but held his tongue.
“And why do you not fully automate?” Pierce asked.
Sharp turned back to Pierce. “Luckily for Lieutenant Arnold here, interstellar law mandates that all cargo ships must have sufficient crew to operate manually if the computers go down.”
Arnold leaned back in his chair, intertwining his fingers behind his head. “Yeah, but now the corporate shipping companies are trying to subvert the law by building what they call ‘unmanned freight drones’ instead of cargo ships.”
“Yeah,” Sharp continued. “The Independent Shipping Union is trying to get the loophole closed, but the corporate shipping industry is fighting the legislation pretty hard. It’s making it extremely difficult for independents like us to make a living.”
“What happens if the Union fails to close the loophole?” Pierce asked. “What will you do?”
“You could go back to the military, Sharp,” Arnold said with a sarcastic grin.
Suppressing his urge to smack the smug look off of Arnold’s face, Sharp instead shot him a menacing glance to shut him up. “I guess we’d try and find work as a transport vessel,” he answered Pierce. “Any ships carrying passengers are still required to have a human crew aboard, but if the shipping corporations have their way, there won’t be enough of those jobs for all the out of work shipping crews.”
The trio fell quiet for a moment, thinking about the subject.
Arnold broke the silence. “Why aren’t we underway yet?” he asked.
Sharp looked up and saw Pierce’s eyes dart away from him. “The docking ring is malfunctioning. It won’t release from the Endurance.”
Arnold chuckled. “This old hunk a junk is falling apart.”
“I’ve got Briggs out there taking a look at it,” Sharp said, ignoring the jab at his ship.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Pierce asked with a smile.
Sharp considered the offer for a moment. Something about Pierce’s smi
le seemed insincere, but anything that would get them underway sooner was fine by him. “Maybe you could have one of your people give Briggs a hand. They might be able to help him out if the problem is on the Endurance’s side. He isn’t that familiar with your technology.”
Pierce nodded. “Commander Thompson,” he called, waving the Lieutenant over from across the room.
“Yes, Sir?” Thompson replied.
“I want you to go assist Ensign Briggs. He is down in the airlock.”
Thompson answered with a slow nod and left the room.
Sharp noted that Pierce hadn’t told him what he was supposed to be helping Briggs with, but the thought left him as Pierce turned back to him.
“Captain Sharp, since we do not seem to be going anywhere at the moment, do you think you might give me a tour of your ship? I would like to see how far space travel technology has evolved since I went into cryostasis.”
“Sure…” Sharp said reluctantly. He wasn’t thrilled about spending more time with Pierce. The man made him uneasy, but he also wanted to keep an eye on him until they were underway. Pierce’s strange behavior back on the Endurance had alerted his instincts, and now the fact that the docking ring was malfunctioning wasn’t sitting right with him. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in coincidences, he just didn’t trust them.
“Lieutenant Arnold, see to the cabin reassignments,” Sharp ordered before he stood and led Pierce out of the galley.
***
Sharp eyed the haphazard stacks of cargo containers cluttering the walls as he and Pierce walked up the central corridor. Arnold had neglected to tie them down in any way. He made a mental note to have the Lieutenant secure them before they got underway. With no inertial dampening, the containers would become lethal projectiles with any abrupt movement of the Pescado Rojo.
“Were you a military man, Captain?” Pierce asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Yes… I… uh… retired,” Sharp stammered. Not wanting to delve too deeply into his past, he quickly changed the subject. “These are the crew quarters.” He gestured toward the doorways between the chaotic stacks of containers. “I guess Arnold has already shown them to you.” There was a pause as he tried to think of something else to say. “How about you, Captain Pierce? Were you in Earth’s military,” he finally asked as they continued toward the bridge.
Pierce chuckled at how Sharp had phrased the question. “I am in one of Earth’s militaries,” he answered. “I am in the United States Air Force. Well, that is I was in the Air Force. I suppose it probably does not exist any longer.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Sharp replied. “Earth was still divided into national factions at the time you left. You’re right, the Air Force isn’t around anymore. At least not as it existed in your time. As far as I know, Earth’s militaries evolved into the United Sol Defense Force after they colonized the system. But don’t quote me on that. I only have a basic knowledge of Sol government history.”
“Sol government?” Pierce questioned. “Does Earth not govern the other systems that have been colonized?”
“No, not for a while. Although, they seem to think they should still be in charge. Every few decades or so, they petition the confederation for the return of their original colonies, claiming them as their rightful territory because Earth sent the first settlers there.”
“So what military were you a part of, Captain?” Pierce asked.
Sharp frowned. “I was a Captain in the Orion Confederation Fleet.”
“What system is that from?”
“Well, not any system actually. Each star system is considered to be a sovereign power, with their own government and defense force, but they only handle the affairs and defense within their own system. The OCF, on the other hand, handles interstellar matters between systems and is under the command of The Orion Confederation. The Orion Confederation is a union made up of most of the independent colonized systems.”
Captain Pierce stared at him with a puzzled look, seemingly overwhelmed by the barrage of new acronyms and organizations involved in the future of interstellar politics.
Sharp decided to start at the beginning, hoping it would be easier for Pierce to absorb. “It all began around four hundred years ago when the place you were headed, the Alpha Centauri system, declared independence from Earth. It had been several generations since the colonists had settled their new worlds, and they were no longer dependent on Earth. So, they felt they should be free from Earth rule. There wasn’t much Earth could do about the declaration because of the distances involved. With the current state of space travel technology at the time, it would have taken them decades to send a force to put down the rebellion. So, Earth acquiesced out of necessity, and it started a domino effect of other systems declaring independence.”
“So it was a bloodless rebellion?” Pierce asked.
“At first yes, the blood came later. Earth never got over losing its colonies. As space travel became more advanced, the distances between stars became less of an obstacle, and several wars were fought with Earth as they tried to reclaim the independent systems. After years of fighting, the independent colonies formed an alliance and were able to push back Earth’s invasion forces. That alliance eventually became The Orion Confederation.”
“So Earth lost the war?” Pierce questioned with a concerned look.
“Essentially, yes. They lost their claim over the independent colonies, but they retained control over the Sol system. Earth seems to feel they are still the most important system due to being the origin of human life and the original planet, but their power and influence have waned over the centuries. Many new systems have overshadowed Sol in terms of resources and strength. The Orion Confederation was set up to keep these more powerful systems in line and prevent them from banding together to conquer the less powerful systems. No matter their wealth or power, each system is granted one seat on The Orion Council. The Council controls things such as interstellar trade agreements, galactic law, and standardized currency. The OCF is the Council’s muscle, but they are mostly a peacekeeping force. They keep trade routes open, stop pirates, and keep the systems in check, but they have no power inside a sovereign system’s space besides that. The OCF only deals with the laws and problems that are intersystem concerns. Internal conflicts are handled by the system’s own independent governing body and defense force.”
“Hmm, that is a lot to take in,” Pierce said. “I suppose I have a lot of history to catch up on.”
Pierce fell quiet for a moment, absorbing the information Sharp had dumped on him. As they approached the bridge, he spoke up. “Have you ever encountered extraterrestrials?”
“Ha,” Sharp chuckled. “Well, by definition most humans are extraterrestrials, being they were born off Earth. But as far as intelligent life forms other than humans, then no. Not in the small section of the galaxy that has been explored so far. Most of the planets we colonized contained multicellular life, such as plants and animals, but nothing approaching human levels of intelligence.”
Sharp led them onto the bridge. Cormac and Morales shook Pierce’s hand as Sharp introduced him.
“How fast can she go?” Pierce asked Morales after she was introduced as the pilot.
“About a hundred and twenty-two times the speed of light, theoretically,” she answered, smiling. “But I’ve only had her up to around a hundred times light speed.”
Pierce asked many questions as he looked around the bridge, in awe of technology that Sharp considered dated and obsolete. He was like a pilot amazed by a jet engine when all he’d ever known was a propeller.
Pierce was silent as Sharp led him back past the crew cabins and toward the medical bay. “Do you have a doctor on board?” he spoke up as they stepped through the doorway.
“No, don’t need one,” Sharp replied. “Didn’t Lieutenant Arnold have you use the med pods?”
“Yes, he did, but he was not overly forthcoming with information. He had us in and out of here so quickly, there
was no time for questions. Are they more than just medical scanners?”
“Quite a bit more, actually. These machines here are fully automated medical pods,” Sharp said, pointing to two enclosed beds. He unlatched the cover on one, a warm glow illuminated the interior as he lifted the canopy. Inside was an examination table with a thin mattress covered in white plastic film and a small pillow at the top.
“How does it work?” Pierce asked curiously, his eyes intent on the machine.
“If someone is injured or sick, you lay them down on the bed and close the lid,” Sharp explained. “The device scans them for injuries and recommends a course of action for treatment. Then it will carry out that treatment.”
“Interesting,” Pierce said, running his fingers along the smooth curved white lid. “What can it treat?”
“It can fix almost any physical injury,” Sharp explained. “From a broken bone to a heart attack. It can synthesize new tissue to replace damaged areas and administer pharmaceuticals to treat illness.”
“Truly amazing,” Pierce mused. “Why do you have two of them?”
“Redundancy,” Sharp smiled. “In case one isn’t working, or multiple people are injured.”
“Can you show me how to use them?”
Sharp stepped toward the doorway. He wasn’t much for explaining things, and Pierce’s incessant questions were starting to wear on him. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to learn how to use them before we get to Chariko Station. Let’s finish our tour.”
Sharp led him out of the med bay then through the doorway that led into the central cargo corridor. An array of hatches and ladders led off into the massive rectangular cargo modules that encircled the ship’s central axis. Sharp opened the nearest door to show Pierce the module’s interior. Pierce looked down its length, amazed at the size of the bay as Sharp explained to him the modular storage system and how each module could separate from the ship to be delivered as a self-contained unit or could be loaded and unloaded in situ.