“Proceed on new heading,” Matt ordered and almost imperceptibly the ship moved out of its original trajectory. Very slowly Saturn began to move up to the top of the windows and was soon lost overhead.
“Increase speed to one-fifth,” Matt said and then fired the engines. They were once again pressed against their seats by the steady acceleration of the almost silent engines. They sat quietly, just riding for a long thirty minutes.
“Moving out of planetary plane,” Murphy finally reported. “Heading to Skawp home world confirmed.”
“Plot course...reverse screen on monitor.” Again Saturn filled the forward screen and was shrinking much faster than it had grown. From this point their sun beyond was no more than a bright star.
It took nearly five hours of constant acceleration to reach one-fifth the speed of light, and they immediately confirmed their heading and began acceleration to one-third, which would take nearly a week. Then, after a complete systems check, they would begin the acceleration to one half and almost an entire month of constant acceleration.
The month past quickly, though there was little to see and less to do, but after all they were newlyweds and so kept very entertained in the privacy of their rooms. When they finally reached one-half the speed of light, the ship was moving through space at nearly three hundred and fifty million miles an hour, though even at this speed the stars in the field of view appeared completely stationary. The engines cut off in what was to the crew, the middle of the night, Greenwich Mean Time, but both Matt and Ellyn woke immediately.
Matt climbed quietly from the single bed he shared with Ellyn, since they were both unwilling as yet to sleep apart. Ellyn, her hair in delightful disarray, mumbled softly and immediately rolled over. Matt met his copilot in the cockpit. Murphy turned and smiled at his friend’s unruly hair.
“Rough night?” he asked but Matt just grinned. Ellyn was growing pleasantly bolder in the bedroom with each passing night, and Matt did everything he could to reinforce her budding confidence…but he wasn’t talking.
“I need coffee,” was all the Major said before they got to work.
They spent the next three days doing another round of complete systems checks before they were finally satisfied that the engines were performing optimally. However, before they fired the engines again, they also completed a complete diagnostic on all of the ship’s systems, most notably life support. They were now moving quickly away from the only planet nearby that could support human life. But even though the engines were cut they still continued on at a constant speed while Matt and Murphy checked and rechecked the systems.
When they were finally satisfied that everything was functioning normally, they fired the engines and began their journey to seventy-five percent of the speed of light. Five hundred million miles an hour! It would take eight times the amount of energy they’d used thus far and nearly four months to reach their target speed. The energy increased exponentially along with their mass, but inside the ship, everything appeared to be normal. They felt the same; their weight remained the same and their perception of time remained the same.
The only evidence any of them had of their great speed was a slight increase in sinus pressure that only Matt and Æthelgifu felt. The other two seemed immune. Nor did any of them notice anything different about time, though both of the American men knew by theory that time was slowing down for them. To them inside the ship, the trip would take just under three years to complete, but back on Earth, where time was unaffected by their speed, approximately four hundred years would pass by, and another four hundred years on their return trip. It was a daunting notion, strange and incomprehensible, but in the here and now the speed appeared to have no affect on them at all.
§
Six months later the excitement and novelty of their space travel had long since worn off. They quickly fell into a routine, rotating shifts so that either Matt or Murphy was always awake and on duty to check the instruments and the engines. Thankfully up to this point the Skawp ship performed flawlessly, but if they were to survive it would have to continue to do so. They were a very, very long way from home. Rotating shifts as they did allowed for at least a few hours of privacy for the two couples, which was essential on a long voyage on a small ship. While they were awake, the four of them found time to eat, watch movies, or listen to the endless supply of music stored within the ship’s computers. Fortunately, both couples got along well, growing closer to their prospective partners as they traveled through the heavens. All of them were respectful and easygoing, though it was soon very apparent that Æthelgifu was far more driven to study and learn than was Ellyn.
Matt was not truly concerned about Ellyn’s sporadic interest in her studies. Despite her lack of focus, her education was still progressing at a remarkable pace. They studied Spanish every evening and she’d become addicted to reading, music, and lately had taken to exercising. All in all they enjoyed being together and cherished their time alone. They were very much still the newlyweds.
Murphy and Giffu were more introspective in their daily lives and their relationship, mostly because Æthelgifu worked on her tablet to the point of distraction. She studied mathematics, science and of all things philosophy when they were alone and only read fiction, or watched movies when the others were up and about. She exercised as little as possible, and Murphy had to force her off the computer at times. She was however, a dutiful lover, never refusing any of Murphy’s advances, though she made very few of her own. As time slipped by, the two settled into a comfortable existence and neither had any complaints.
When their closed environment became too much for them, Matt allowed time on the VRA, or Virtual Reality Array. Integrated to the computer system, a specially designed set of goggles allowed them to experience the wide open spaces of Earth. There were dozens of programs designed to give the greatest feelings of freedom and contentment. Walks along the beach and hikes through the mountains were everyone’s favorites. Time on the VRA however, was strictly monitored and enforced very stringently since it was well documented that the virtual world was highly addictive. Interactive programs were forbidden and left behind for that very reason. Every program in the database was carefully designed to mimic the wide open glory of nature for the sole purpose of combating cabin fever.
Though it took nearly a year to reach their top speed of .92 percent the speed of light, the ship continued to perform flawlessly. Now however, at the speeds they were traveling, the ship’s computers handled all of the flying, and there was precious little work to keep either Matt or Murphy busy. They continued to check the ship’s systems now and again, and to double check their course and heading, all of which the computers did on their own continuously. So the men had nearly as much free time as the ladies. They spent much of that time exercising, studying, playing cards or simple video games. The days and weeks passed quickly, with no real external pressure on any of them, and they all got to know one another very, very well. As it went, Matt ended up enjoying studying with Æthelgifu, who was much more dedicated than his own wife, and Murphy was at ease with Ellyn, sharing many of her tastes in music, books and movies.
All of the cross companionship did nothing to hinder either couples devotion to their partners more intimate needs. Everyone was very sensitive to the need for privacy, which was considerable since they were only awake together a total of about eight hours out of every twenty-four. Boredom was never a real issue and the computers filled the hours with both education and entertainment. For the most part they were all enjoying the trip and each other. Once a month, Matt allowed them all to enjoy the freedom of weightlessness which was exhilarating. They frolicked and played throughout the ship like children, chasing and grabbing, but if the touching became too general Æthelgifu always spoke up, and ended the fun. She did not mind the masculine attention from Matt, or that Murphy showed much the same attention for Ellyn, but she would not allow any open foolishness, and held a very dim view of it. She seemed to instinctively realize
that there was a line that the four of them could not cross or they would hurl themselves down the road of complete degeneracy or worse.
It helped that on their fourteenth month aboard; the Lady Ellyn came into the cockpit while Matt was checking their course. She slipped her arms around his wide shoulders and nuzzled his neck for a moment. Matt smiled and reached up and stroked her hair.
“Have they gone to bed?” He asked referring to Murphy and his wife.
“Ummm,” Ellyn mumbled, her kisses moving up from his neck to his ear.
“Give me a minute,” Matt said, growing distracted. “I’ll be right with you,” he told her, happy for her affection which had been very robust these past few weeks.
“Ye’ve already done right by me,” Ellyn answered and playfully bit on his earlobe.
Matt tried to concentrate on the heading, but it was getting tougher by the minute.
“What?”
“Ye’ve already done right by me,” Ellyn repeated and Matt swiveled in his seat to look closely at his wife.
“What…what do you mean?”
Ellyn frowned and gently slapped him on the arm. “Why it means ye’ve gottin’ me with child Matthew Thane.”
Matt’s mouth fell open and Ellyn laughed at the look of terror on his face.
“Ye to be a father,” she told him and reached out and pulled his hand to her belly. He kept it there a long minute, but her midsection was still flat and showed no signs of the pregnancy yet. After a bit, his hand traveled to her breast and they celebrated together right there in the cockpit.
To the men the pregnancy was a tragedy of titanic proportions, but the women took it in stride. Each had brought along the secret herbs and medicines of the day which were known to discourage the female body from conceiving, but both knew that nothing could completely stop the natural acts of God.
“How’s she doing?” Matt asked after Æthelgifu examined her friend.
“Verily well...two months along methinks,” she answered with a smile, amused by the inevitable nervous energy shown by all men. She noticed his worried look and shook her head, though what she knew of midwiving was limited.
“She be a strong young woman...good hips,” she added by way of comfort. “Twill be fine.”
But neither Matt nor Murphy could be put at ease so simply. Both were aware of the dangers of childbirth. Matt was far more knowledgeable than his friend, having experienced the births of his previous two children, but such knowledge did not comfort him one iota. Both Shelly and little Matt had the luxury of being born in a hospital, with an entire staff dedicated to their safety and their mother’s. Everyone immediately agreed that the next few months could be well spent learning about the subject in detail, so Matt begged off Spanish and architecture, and Murphy electrical engineering, to learn about babies and where they come from. As it so happens, over the next six months, they each learned a great deal, as did Ellyn and Giffu since the computer systems stored all the knowledge known to man, and the subject of human birth was no exception. But of course, the more they learned, the more nervous the men grew as the special day moved ever closer. By the end of the third trimester all of them were on edge, men and women alike, but they were also very excited, none more so than Ellyn, who grew so large she was sure she would pop at any moment. In fact, those last days she begged to have the gravity turned down regularly so that she could get around more easily and Matt, the caring husband that he was, capitulated, but only after receiving promises from them all to increase their exercise load after the birth.
The special day actually came along in the middle of Matt and Ellyn’s night, as babies often do, but for all their worry, Ellyn was the end result of millions of years of evolution, her body specifically designed for having babies, which she did quite well after only six hours of labor. She gave birth to a strapping baby boy, who near as they could tell weighed in the vicinity of eight pounds, and was twenty inches long. He had a thick head of black hair like his father and screamed out his fright and frustrations to his smiling, crying and happy crewmates.
“We’ll call him Oldalf Matthew Thane,” Ellyn announced, taking the babe into her arms and putting him to her breast for the first time. His crying stopped instantly and Ellyn sighed contentedly, oblivious to the look of horror on her husband’s face.
“You can always call him junior,” Murphy suggested and slapped Matt on the back. Ellyn looked up at them and smiled, completely missing the joke. She was still wet with sweat, but happy and utterly exhausted like never before in her young life. She fell asleep with little Oldalf still suckling, leaving no room for discussion about the boy’s name.
From the moment of his birth, little Oldalf was a great joy to all of them. He was truly a space baby, and learned to get around in zero gravity before he could crawl, which he did early enough in the weaker gravity of the ship, and he was walking before he was a year old. Everyone delighted in playing with and watching their youngest crewmember grow and learn. It was just a few weeks past his first birthday when the proximity warning began to flash and the ship did a slow turn until its engines were forward. They began to fire periodically to slow the ship down. The process would take almost four months, only a third of the time it took to get them to top speed, and at the end they would be on the outskirts of the Skawp system...hopefully.
“I am terribly afeared,” Ellyn admitted quietly to Matt one day, as they readied for bed. Oldalf was already sleeping, tucked warmly in his hammock which swung above the foot of their bed. “I dunna want to take our child t’war,” she said falling back into the speech patterns of her youth. Over the years both women had lost much of their English flavor, beginning instead to speak more like their husbands and their true tutors, the computers. The exception, however, was when they were overly excited or mad and then they tended to revert to the language with which they were most familiar.
Matt nodded his head, sharing her fears and glanced over at little Oldalf. It was tempting just to leave; there were dozens of habitable worlds listed in the Skawp’s database, but enticing as it might be to run away and hide, the Skawps would eventually find them…and find Earth. His memories were still overflowing with images of human destruction and death. It was far more than he could bear.
“It has to be done,” he whispered back with finality, expecting that to be the end of it. But when Æthelgifu broached the same subject a few days later, and suggested they just go back to the safety of Earth, both men knew their partner’s education was severely lacking when it came to the Skawps. They set the computers up to teach the two English ladies a little history lesson, which for them, just happened to take place in the future. They set the footage to appear on the large screen in the living quarters, but neither man could sit long and watch the grisly scenes, so instead they took baby Oldalf down to the exercise room where they played with him in relative quiet.
The scenes that played were the worst of the first days, when billions of people died and the Earth was full of rotting corpses. On the screen, bodies by the thousands were being buried with large bulldozers, while others were piled high and burned. It was a horrible scene straight from the world of nightmares. The histories continued through those first grim years, and then later, when the Skawps attacked directly. There was a surprisingly large amount of footage of the aliens attacking and killing human soldiers, but there were also some scenes of Skawps getting blown to bits, or riddled with gunshots. The footage continued all the way up to the last days at NORAD when the Skawps had them completely surrounded. The film was long and thorough, and by the time the women moved to the lower level to join their husbands they were both very pale, eyes wide with horror. They had no conception of the scale of the death and destruction; after all they were relative innocents to even the full brutality of humanity against humanity, having missed the horrors of the Second World War.
“So many,” Giffu said softly and then began to weep. She stumbled into Matt’s arms since he was closest, while the Lady Ellyn
stood completely immobile utterly stunned.
“What you don’t get through video,” Murphy told them quietly, “is the smell. For nearly two years I could not get clean, could not rid the stench from my nostrils, no matter what I tried. It was the worst.
“My first wife Cindy,” Matt added, disengaging himself from Giffu, who promptly went to her own husband, while Matt walked up to his current wife, “and my children Shelley and Matt Jr. all died the same week, long before we knew we were under attack from the Skawps. All the women, girls and young boys died in those first terrible days. We didn’t learn until later that the first attack was meant to kill us all, and only alien ignorance about our biological systems saved the males past puberty. It was a big mistake and cost the Skawps dearly. I don’t know exactly how many we killed, but it was millions, but they kept coming and attacking like they didn’t care how many they lost, just so long as in the end they killed us all.”
“That day is still coming,” Murphy said quietly. “When we finally get back to Earth we will only have six hundred years before the attack. Well, this time we attack first.”
Both women nodded their heads, agreeing completely. Whatever danger they would face, they would face it together, for all mankind.
The next few months of deceleration were filled with fear, tension, and worry. The men checked and rechecked their course and heading against the computer maps, afraid the ship had brought them far out into space and near nothing at all. They checked and rechecked the nuclear weapons, and did countless diagnostic tests on the bombs delivery systems. They studied the Skawp planet in detail. It was a planet slightly larger than Earth, and positioned much closer to its red dwarf sun. There were three small moons circling the Skawp home world and one large moon. The surface was nearly all land mass, with a half dozen small oceans, each completely isolated from the others.
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