by Michael Orr
Here in the lower decks, we employees make our way through posh interiors to parties and elegant dining and, for some, into one another’s beds. Or we sit in front of wall-sized windows and gaze into the infinite cosmos wonderingly.
I fully expected life here to be extraordinary, but when you add in the intrigue of cruising the galaxy, there’s no way to describe it to anyone who’s never been. And at day’s end, whether you’ve just left the sparkling wash of Korlah’s spongy beaches or spent a slipstream day basking in Asherah’s luxury, the thing to do is come to my Zodiac Lounge and dance like you mean it on the club’s orbiting rings.
Which brings me back to my ‘moment’...
This massive drop in club attendance terrifies me. I mean, what if nobody likes my show anymore? But Saia and Amber promise me this is normal. Even predictable. We all know space changes us, and this is one of the changes. Spend time out here and your thoughts turn inward. The party ends and you find yourself lost in thought about what it all means. We’re only halfway through the cruise and almost nobody’s dancing on the Asherah anymore. Nobody’s getting party-drunk. No one’s hookin’ up with a new partner. Or if they are, there’s something spiritual about it. More of a kundalini thing than just the novelty of a new so-and-so’s wares.
Eternity lives out here, and you can’t help but go deep. It’s definitely doing that to me.
The turning point comes while you’re staring out at endless fields of stars — or maybe a nebula like this one — and realizing you’re not looking at a cosmos; you’re looking at Time. Traveling from system to system is time travel. Reaching Orion means the Earth you knew is fourteen hundred years in the past. The glowing light I’m bathing in right now is fourteen hundred years in Earth’s future.
If we were to remove FTL from the equation, the universe would be moving on without me. Being unable to slipstream back to Earth would make me a temporal castaway — a time orphan, exiled from my own moment in history and everything I know.
Think about it. The last time I was on Earth looking up at Orion’s belt, the light I saw left this place when Vikings were about to discover Newfoundland and settling into France as Normans, the Chinese had only recently invented gunpowder and the Mayan civilization was going extinct. There hadn’t yet been crusades or witch trials or burnings at the stake, and the Moors still controlled Spain. Europe had yet to encounter algebra, the concept of zero and the philosophies of Aristotle. Even the black plague was almost a half-millennium away.
It’s only ’cuz of FTL that I’m able to get back to my life on Earth and pick up where I left off. If we were forced to obey ordinary physics, we wouldn’t get back to Earth at all except on sleeper ships. And if we did that, the soonest we’d get home would be seven thousand years from now. That essentially means I’m a transplant. My being here alters the universe’s linear timeline.
It’s easy enough to daydream about this back home, but out here in the thick of it the realization that you’ve crossed a sea of time rather than a sea of distance does things. It uproots you and sends you careening out of context into eras of history you were never meant to be part of. You peer back in the direction of Earth and wonder what it’s become in your millennium-and-a-half absence. What’re they doing right now?
And the damnedest thing is, by returning, you can never know. FTL will undo that whole expanse of time as if it never happened.
We’re messing with reality.
Here on the Asherah we’ve stepped outside of time. We’ve broken the primary, fundamental law of existence. Time’s arrow has to adjust itself to accommodate us, because I shouldn’t be able to lie here right now and watch this spectacle. This should be beyond my timeline, yet here I am. I’m a thief. I’ve stolen this experience from reality and forced the universe to write it off as a loss. I’ll return home and none of this will have happened except in my memories. I can’t think of clearer proof that we’re more than what we see in the mirror. If the physical universe won’t have any record of me being here fourteen hundred years in my own future, then I as a physical being shouldn’t carry such a memory with me.
But I will.
It makes me wonder if the Universe minds.
“Does god care? Is this a problem?”
Realizations like these are more felt than actually digested. They intrude upon the otherwise solid identity you’ve forged with your temporary body of flesh. You awaken to the reality that you continue throughout existence. Not so much that you’re eternal, but that you’re an intrinsic aspect of what is. The body is such a small, transitory part of that. Your consciousness stretches out far beyond it in all directions. You are vaster than anything your earthbound perspective can ever glimpse. You’re a child of Existence. The Earth and your lifetime on it are nothing against the fullness of what you really are.
For lack of any better way to describe it, Space is a universal religious experience had by everyone who comes here. It’s like having an out-of-body, near-death experience while still very much in your body and alive.
Do this with enough people and you alter the entire human race. Space travel is forcing us to grow up. And it probably should’ve happened generations ago.
“Welcome to stage one.”
“Out of how many?” Trish asked. Her counselor was an engaging Arabic woman with soft edges and a kindly aura about her that instantly put Trish at ease.
Bria smiled. “I don’t know of an end point. The more you come out here, the more you change.”
“I’m not sure that’s good for business,” her patient fretted. “I’m supposed t’be the life’a the party.”
“I wouldn’t worry.” Bria reached for a glass of water, noticing Trish do the same. “The club’ll always die down in week three. You shouldn’t have a problem keeping up your vibe for the first two. But when the change does hit, it’ll take you deeper each time. It’s cumulative. Just ask your deckmates; they’ll tell ya.”
“So, anything I should do?”
The counselor settled back in her chair, still holding her glass. “That’s between you and your soul. I recommend sitting quietly until your heartbeat slows, then asking your deeper self to guide you. Find out what that part of you wants t’do — drift or surf.”
“Not much in-between?”
“Not that I’ve seen. The nice thing is, your club is pretty much down for the rest’a the cruise, so you’ll have time ta find your way. And I’m always here.”
In-between ports of call, Trish found herself sitting against her bed gazing into infinite stretches of time and wondering about them into the wee hours.
Space was changing her. She was growing deeper, but somehow still hollow. Or maybe ‘emptier’ was a better way of putting it. There was less chatter. Less internal busy-ness.
But within all this, a yearning was building inside her. The vastness of space was calling, and it wasn’t about any particular civilization orbiting those tiny pinpricks of light. It was about all of them...the fact that there were so many. She was alone in the immensity of Existence, and her soul longed to be a more integral part of it.
How on Earth will I be able to explain any’a this to Renée?
17
* * *
SOMEWHERE – ALLIANCE SPACE – APR 8, 2371
Quite a production they were putting on as far as Loni was concerned. Bio-shielded alien freighters, uncharted stations, blind transfers...
She’d been paying attention to the goings on around her as they drew ever closer to the crusade, but there was little to learn. The freighter that liberated her from Earth spent four days slipstreaming before arriving at a depot in the middle of nowhere. Literally. It was just an orbital station floating in the empty cosmos, as far from any one star as another and nothing to orbit. This was where she and her fellow passengers debarked for processing, which included a battery of tests to verify no one was a government mole. After that, they were to be assigned to one of several long-range transports that would shuttle them to the next p
hase of their indoctrination.
“What brings ya t’the jihad?” her interrogator asked.
Loni recalled the day in question two weeks ago. “I was lost. Lookin’ for a way out. Just...somewhere ta belong. Earth doesn’t want me.”
He studied her closely, eyes flicking between the generic brown of her ethnically ‘mutt’ face and his holopanel, which was set to ‘privacy’.
“Wanna make Earth pay?” he offered.
“Naw. I don’ care. I’m past that. I just have nowhere else t’be.” She shrugged at the truth. “You guys offered me a place. I said ‘thanks’.”
“You know we’re not a mission,” he said. “We don’t house the poor or anything like that.”
“I know what you guys’re about.” Her voice held no interest. “I was told there were things you needed done. Ways I could be useful. That’s all I’m after.”
He matched her meager skills to a list of likely roles and moved her forward in the process, which meant more queues, more interviews, lots of waiting.
After another few days she was assigned to a departing group and boarded an alien transport with seventy other strays, all bound for somewhere so secret no one even spoke of a destination. As far as they knew, it could’ve been Charon’s ferry or a butcher ship bringing new meat to some man-eating race.
“Whatever.”
EARTHFLEET HQ – EARTH ORBIT – APR 19, 2371
Jerrett’s gut churned as his shuttle left the bay and sped out into permanent night. This was it.
Finally.
He’d been itching to get going since his trip to Alliance Central, and now here he was like a fresh cadet, butterflies and all.
“You a career cruiser man, Commander?” The shuttle pilot was a Sr. Flight Warrant Officer with plenty of years behind him. He spoke without looking over, giving Jerrett some personal space.
“Actually, I’ve been at HQ the last few years. Glad t’be gettin’ back t’the line.”
“I know a few guys who’d trade ya, sir.”
“Yeah, me too. I just like the feel of a ship.”
“Well, ya must’a done sump’m right. Posted to the flagship. That’s no small news.”
Jerrett shifted a little. He disliked being put on pedestals — especially generic ones. “They need staff just like anybody else.”
“Sure.” The pilot shrugged. “But the waiting list’s three klicks long. Gettin’ your name at the top’a that takes some doin’.”
“Well, I appreciate the confidence.”
The pilot nodded. “We’ll be comin’ up on ’er pretty quick. She’s on this side a’ daylight.”
Jerrett thought about how many times he’d stood at his office viewport gazing at whatever cruiser was docked with the station...always somebody else’s good fortune.
Not this time. He fished out a self-satisfied smirk. Getting posted as senior staff aboard Earth’s flagship was a bigger deal than the pilot knew. Even as the junior section head aboard, Jerrett still rated a seat in the captain’s wardroom — the shipboard version of a presidential cabinet. He’d be present at every meeting with the task force’s other skippers, giving him plenty of visibility and exposure.
No doubt they’ll want me ta prove myself straightaway. God only knows what that’ll entail.
His gut lurched again, but for no good reason. He’d had a month to prep for his new duties and knew the profiles of all his officers and NCOs. Had studied the ship’s other senior staff in detail.
But it’s all book knowledge, he admitted. He knew none of them personally, and now he was part of the family. Life in the military was all shotgun weddings.
“Here we are, Commander,” his chauffer announced — needlessly, since Jerrett was monitoring their progress with great interest. The glittering object ahead rapidly transformed into the imposing bulk of the Arctica.
He could already make out the royal blue trim splashing Arctica’s titanium-coated hull. Each one of those ‘small’ patches of blue covered the square hectares of several football fields. They were the only markings EarthFleet put on their ships.
“I’ve got clearance for a looksee, Commander. If ya’d like.”
“Sounds good t’me.” Jerrett wasn’t about to pass up a chance to look over his post. This monster would consume the next four to five years of his life, one six-month deployment at a time. And if he was inordinately lucky, he’d step up as XO at some point.
But, he checked himself, the math doesn’t add up.
Commander BenKotch had only just come aboard on the last deployment, and by the time he’d be ready to move into his own command one of the more senior section heads would take his place. By the numbers, Jerrett would have to climb his ladder by ship-hopping. Arctica, illustrious as she was, would be just another stepping stone.
The shuttle entered Arctica’s airspace and his pilot volleyed jargon back and forth with Actual. A few seconds later they sped close, coming to within a quarter klick of Arctica’s hull as the pilot maneuvered them around the loitering cruiser.
Jerrett knew the starboard side by heart from docking procedures, but his eyes drank in unfamiliar details as they swept across the bow and headed for the port side. From head-on he got a clear view of the staggering bow cannon — the fleet’s uber weapon.
The particle beam’s maw could house four full-size landing bays, and all of that real estate was dedicated to reducing an enemy to ash. No other class of ship boasted such a weapon. Only cruisers had the bulk required for a generator that size, and it took up a lot of space. Civvies were always surprised at how few men staffed such a massive ship until they understood how much of it was stuffed with machinery. That and maintenance bays for the flight wing.
Plus, every man in the fleet had his own quarters. Bunking was considered the barbarism of ancients. Earth had advanced too far for such archaic practices.
True to expectations, the port side of Arctica was identical to starboard, including the same two glowing centerline flight bays. And now that he’d put that curiosity to bed, he was ready for the sweep ’round the stern. Glowing posteriors warping away from HQ were a common sight from his office, but he’d always wanted to scale himself in comparison to engine nozzles a full kilometer in diameter.
The shuttle crested the final corner and there they were...the massive propulsion clusters that forced Arctica through space. The nozzles were nearly dead now as the ship loitered in high orbit, but they’d glow too bright for the naked eye when it was time to leave. He was looking forward to testing their acceleration against the inertial equalizers. Equalizers were more than a match for smaller ships, but how did they fare against something displacing more than a hundred and fifty million metric tons?
“What a ship,” spouted the SFWO, and Jerrett remembered himself.
“I never asked if you were a cruiser man.”
“I’m a ship man, sir,” the pilot smiled. “Anything that goes out inta the black.”
“If I had a glass I’d toast ta that, mister.”
The pilot answered him with a dignified grin and steered beneath the Arctica toward her belly bay.
A minute later, Jerrett stepped out onto Arctica’s mirrored black floor and basked in the glow of his triumphant return to fleet service.
“As ya were, guys,” he called to the nearby group of deckhands coming to attention. A few curious glances came his way and he congratulated himself on making potential allies. Only a confident, composed senior officer was comfortable enough around the guilds to be casual. An approachable leader made his men comfortable coming to him with the truth.
“Where’s the OOD?” he asked.
“In the head, sir,” said the senior noncom. “I’m standing in momentarily if you want me t’put you in the log.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t wanna get anyone on the wrong list,” Jerrett offered.
“Not a problem, sir. S.O.P. in home port.”
“Alright.” Jerrett recited his name and service number into the gunnery sergean
t’s compatch. “Any idea where I’ll find Commander BenKotch?”
“Sorry, sir.” The sergeant shook his head. “The commander spends most of ’is time upstairs.”
Jerrett stood fast and the man took his meaning. Gestured discreetly toward an exit where Jerrett hoped he’d find a direct lift to the bridge.
“Would you mind makin’ sure my gear gets stowed?”
“Already on it, Commander. Welcome aboard.”
“Much obliged, Gunny.” He headed for the promised lift and forced his jitters into remission.
Stepping off after a longer-than-expected ride, he asked permission to enter the bridge and reported to the deck officer.
“Lieutenant Commander Walls is CDO, sir. Cap’n’s planetside and the XO’s makin’ rounds.”
“Planetside? I was told he was stayin’ aboard for prep.”
“His daughter just went into labor, sir.”
“Ah.” Jerrett offered the appropriate smile, then ventured deeper into the bridge and took in the sight of a capital ship gearing up to deploy.
“Commander Nash...” a stout voice beckoned, and Jerrett found himself in the presence of his senior onboard peer.
“Commander Walls?” He shook the man’s hand. Walls was smallish, but with a powerful voice and an overly-firm grip. He seemed straight up.
“You heard about the Cap’n’s daughter?”
Jerrett nodded. “Good timing. Thoughtful of his grandkid t’see him off like this.”
Walls relaxed noticeably. “Well, good ta have ya aboard. Ben’s expecting you. He’ll be in Logistics by now. I’ll let ’im know you’re on yer way.”
Jerrett asked the deck officer for directions on the way out even though he knew his department was only one deck down in Arctica’s command superstructure.
How’s that for pecking order? he grinned on his way.
He peeked into his own office for the first time. “Commander BenKotch?”