Battlecruiser Alamo: Tales from the Vault

by Richard Tongue

 “Grandstanding for the crowd,” Curtis said, looking around for a communicator. “Burton, this is Lieutenant Curtis, commanding the Marine contingent.” Dietrich raised an eyebrow at Curtis' assumption of command, but said nothing. “It can't work, Burton. Give this up now.”

   “You think your superiors on Sentinel Station would leave any of us alive if we did?”

   Dietrich looked at Curtis, and quietly said, “He might have a point. Executions for the senior figures, the rest sent into security detention. Work camps, more than likely. Maybe out on the Rim.”

   “I'll give you exactly two minutes to surrender, Curtis. Then we start turning down the oxygen. You won't die, but I can't guarantee there won't be any lasting damage. Burton out.”

   “Bastard'll guarantee brain damage to make sure we can't contradict his story,” Dietrich said. “Any thoughts, Lieutenant, or are we going for a glorious last stand?”

   “There's got to be a way.” He paused, then said, “Wait a minute. Operations will have an emergency airlock.”

   “And there's one just down the corridor,” Dietrich replied. “They'll see you coming.”

   “Doesn't matter, not if you and the rest of the troops are giving them something else to think about. Don't try and advance, just keep them pinned down with all the suppressive fire you can manage.”

   “Will do,” Dietrich said, waving at the remnants of the squad. “We're not loaded too well with ammunition, sir. This could get ugly pretty damned quick.”

   “From where I'm sitting, it already is. Be ready.”

   Racing over to the airlock, Curtis slid into the old-fashioned suit. He glanced at the life support pack and left it where it hung. He wouldn't be outside the base for long enough for it to matter, and he needed to keep himself as light as possible. Even if everything went perfectly, this was going to be tough.

   Seconds later, he was standing in the airlock, activating the emergency override, gunfire from the corridor as Dietrich and his men began their doomed last attack, knowing that they were outnumbered, that Burton and his friends only needed to turn a control to bring the battle to an end. The outer hatch opened, revealing a ladder making its way down to the gleaming surface beneath, and a narrow ledge making its way along the outside of the dome, reaching across to the second airlock a hundred meters beyond.

   Pistol in hand, Curtis began to edge his way towards his goal. One misstep would send him falling to the surface, and even if he lived through it without damage to his suit, the people he had left behind would die for his failure. He cursed as he saw his target airlock start to open, a puff of air escaping into the cold Martian sky, and raised his gun to cover the hatch, firing a quick shot to force the stranger to retreat.

   That had been a dumb move, and he belatedly realized his mistake. Nimbly moving across the ledge, he braced himself for the anticipated attack, the enemy gunman ready to spring at him from his sanctuary in the airlock. Only four bullets were left in his pistol. He didn't have the ammunition to spare for any more wild, desperate shots. Each would have to find its mark, or he didn't have a chance.

   Bracing himself, he leapt out, away from the side of the dome, his hands reaching for an overhanging antenna, swinging himself back towards the airlock. A bullet flew past him, close enough to tear a rip in his ill-fitting suit, but he ignored the decompression alarm, instead concentrating on crashing into his target, sending the figure sprawling. One quick shot silenced him, and Curtis threw the emergency controls, flooding oxygen into the airlock as the outer hatch slammed shut.

   He burst through the door into Operations, firing on instinct at the nearest guard, the Marines outside using the brief interruption to gain ground, moving to the door. Quickly looking inside, he saw Pierce and Norton against the wall, Burton standing by them with a pistol in his hand. Curtis raised his gun, one bullet left, and leveled it at the politician.

   “Drop it,” he said. “Give it up. You've lost.”

   “Not yet,” Burton replied.

   “You're really going to kill them?”

   Burton glanced at the door, the remaining rebels wavering, uncertain. He turned back to Curtis, fixing him with a steely gaze.

   “I'll do what I have to do. We've been betrayed once too often. Our people are orphans of Earth, and...”

   Before he could finish, Curtis fired, the shot catching Burton in the chest. He had a bare moment to look down, realizing it was over, and with a thin smile, tossed his gun to the floor, following it seconds later as blood gushed from his body. Stepping forward as Dietrich and his men entered the room, Curtis leaned beside the politician, a sad frown on his face.

   “Don't let them win,” Burton whispered with his final breath. “Don't let them...”

   “How did you know he wouldn't shoot?” Norton asked, as the Marines entered the room. “He had every chance...”

   “He wasn't going to shoot you,” Curtis replied, shaking his head. “He's the good guy. Good guys don't kill people in cold blood. I think we watched the same movies when we were kids.” Turning to Dietrich with a sigh, he said, “Can you handle the rest, Corporal? I think I should head down to Communications and see if I can put that mess back together.”

   “Not a problem, sir,” Dietrich said. Looking around the room, he asked, “Never mind the communications suite. Who's going to fix all of this?”

   “Way above my pay grade, Corporal. Thank God.”

  IV

   Sentinel Station was a jewel in the sky, a trillionaire's playground from the dying days of the Hegemony, intended as the final haven for those escaping the doomed regime on Earth. They'd hollowed out Phobos, set it rotating, and terraformed the interior, spending enough wealth to feed untold millions of people. Ultimately, the Republic had taken it over, turned it into their greatest military outpost, after the betrayed garrison had surrendered without even a fight.

   Taking a deep breath of the clean, rich air, Curtis walked out of the Admiral's office, Pierce waiting outside, sitting by a fast-flowing stream filled with leaping fish, most of them extinct back on Earth. He looked up at the young officer as he approached, gesturing at the new rank insignia on his shoulders.

   “I see congratulations are in order, Commander. Does this mean what I think it means?”

   “After a fashion,” Curtis replied. “They're giving me a ship. Polaris, as soon as she finishes her refit. Two weeks from now.” With a thin smile, he continued, “Officially, I'm on leave. Unofficially, I'm meant to spend it in an office here, going over the preliminary paperwork.”

   “Rank has its demands as well as its privileges.”

   “Rank has nothing to do with it,” Curtis replied, sitting next to the priest. “Admiral Hunt cut my orders himself, on instructions from the Control Committee. And the President himself, I understand. We're being sent out to the Rim, and I very much get the impression that we're not going to be coming back home any time soon.” Holding up a datapad, he added, “Norton's been reactivated. Deck Chief. And Sergeant Dietrich has been named as commander of my Marine force. I guess they're putting all of the bad eggs in one basket.”

   “Bad eggs? You stopped a revolution...”

   “And all information related to it is being suppressed. Rising Dawn is being turned into a penal colony, and the first prisoners are the current population. Life sentences, to make sure they never talk. The ringleaders were all executed this morning.” Looking down at his feet, he added, “We're just a collection of loose ends, Sherman. Nothing more or less than that. Maybe Burton was right.”

   “You got what you wanted, though. A ship of your own. And it sounds like you'll be able to keep it for as long as you want.”

   Nodding, Curtis replied, “There is that. I just wanted it to be a reward, not a punishment. It seems unfair to the others, as well.” Turning to him, he asked, “What about you?”

   With a shrug, Pierce replied, “I honestly don't know. The Cardinal
has informed me that Port Lowell no longer requires my services, and they're dropping broad hints about some sort of trip to the frontier. Ministering to the settlers on some remote outpost, a frontier planet.”

   “You still in the Reserve?” Curtis asked.

   “Warrant Officer.”

   “Then what about another offer.” Gesturing at the door, he continued, “Hunt knows that he owes me pretty big, and I'm fairly sure that any reasonable requests I make will be granted quickly enough. Why don't you sign back on for another tour.”

   “My oaths were for life, Commander.”

   “And they prevent you from serving as Ship's Chaplain?”

   Raising an eyebrow, Pierce replied, “That had not occurred to me. Think they'd go for it?”

   “Hell, Cardinal Ortega would probably be glad to get you out of his rapidly thinning hair.”

   “So I get to play Friar Tuck to your Robin Hood?”

   “Something like that.”

   Pierce looked out across the artificial wilderness again, and after a long moment, nodded. “If you think you can swing it, sign me up.”

   Placing his hand on his shoulder, Curtis replied, “Sherman, I think this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

   “Just don't inflict old movie quotes on me too often, and we'll get along.”

  The Road To Alamo

   I suppose it all started with Isaac Asimov. Not my interest in Science Fiction – that was Star Trek novels. (Not the series, interestingly; my first real exposure of Star Trek was the books, not the shows.) Where it began was a series of three books I found in a second-hand bookshop sometime in the antediluvian days of my youth – the Early Asimov. Now, it must be admitted that the bulk of the stories in this collection are terrible. Many of them were written in Asimov's late teens, and it shows, but what was really significant to me was that each story came with an introduction, chronicling his progress as a writer, and his struggles to break into the pulp magazines of the day.

   I think that's when I decided that I wanted to write for a living, and write science-fiction, specifically. I was fortunate enough to grow up during a period of comparative plenty in the second-hand book scene, shops loaded with old paperbacks, and I must have bought and read hundreds, thousands of them over my teen years. I'd go on holiday with a stack of a dozen books, and anything other than burying myself in tales of adventure. Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Sturgeon, Bradbury. Niven and Pournelle, Dickson and Chandler. Beam Piper. Looking back, a masterclass in how to write, and one that I still depend on to this day.

   At the same time, I should mention another book that remains a colossal inspiration to this day – 'Spacecraft 2000 – 2100', a collection of space art with accompanying text to describe a future history, an exploration of local interstellar space. That book is still sitting next to me today, and I've recently bought it for the third time. If there is a single book that has driven me as a writer, that's the one.

   I actually can't remember when I first sat down to write a story. Probably sometime in my teens. I have vague memories of writing a short story in school that ripped off the ending of A New Hope, and I think I actually submitted some Star Trek fanfic around the same time as homework. I do remember reading 'Early Asimov' for about the hundredth time in '96, and deciding that I too would break into science fiction. I wrote a trio of short stories focused around a character named Thorin Redwood, and submitted them to Interzone. Who sent my back a very nice letter and a trio of back issues, which given the content of those stories, showed phenomenal patience. (These are lost to the mists of time, though I do remember at some point posting them on a friend's website.)

   That was that, at least for a while. School became College, and then the OD&DITIES saga began. Aside from reading old science-fiction and fantasy novels, I was – and still am, really – a gamer, and spent an awful lot of time running doomed D&D campaigns and playing Warhammer. (I don't think I managed a stable group until my twenties, amusingly…) I'd picked up a load of old RPG magazines on eBay, sometime in my first year of college, and when I was supposed to be studying, I was reading those instead. (I actually did surprisingly well at college – university would be another story, but I'll get to that.)

   And so the thought occurred to me that I could set up my own fanzine, running it online. OD&DITIES was born with a trio of issues in late 1998, and as a tribune to the archival power of the internet, you can still find those copies online to this day. Over the next couple of years, I managed a dozen issues in total, production values rising from a collection of HTML pages to a nicely-produced PDF, complete with interior and cover art.

   The critical point here is something anyone who has run a fanzine will know. I produced almost all of the content myself. There were a good number of articles submitted, but at least half of each issue was written by me, usually under a collection of pseudonyms to camouflage that fact. As a result, this became my first published work, even if I did it myself, and that was my first exposure to the wonderful world of writing. I recently found a half-finished science-fiction novel I wrote in those years, and it was odd to see some traces of material I've used since then – a few names, a few lines of dialogue. Your subconscious remembers everything, no matter how much you would rather it didn't.

   All of this faded away when I got to university. Suddenly I was too busy for all the old hobbies, and my science-fiction books went unread, my games largely unplayed. I did a little gaming, but I had a new pastime – saving the world. (Yes, I was one of those students.) Again, when I should have been studying, I was instead spending my time as a political activist, bouncing around the major parties like a grenade with the pin taken out. I won't say that it wasn't a lot of fun, and in retrospect, I don't regret it, though there were many years when I did. I ended up with a not-impressive degree in War Studies and History.

   And it was at that point I started self-publishing, in the long-forgotten year of 2003. I can complement myself as being a trend-setter, though in retrospect, I was insane. Gaming was in a brief boom, and I figured I could publish a roleplaying magazine online, produced just as I had produced OD&DITIES, perhaps write a few sourcebooks. I had a little money saved up, a small inheritance (low four figures, if I remember correctly.) Enough to give me a start.

   That was four computers ago, and I can't remember all the details – but I do remember that it was an embarrassing flop. I actually don't think there was anything wrong with the magazines, but there were no online distributors in those days, so I was reliant on word-of-mouth advertising and a website that nobody visited. I didn't even manage double-digit sales. Quickly it became clear that this wasn't going to be a get-rich-quick scheme. More a get-broke-quick scheme, so I was forced to take a step into darkness. I had to get a job.

   I know that more than a few of the people reading these knew me in those days, so I won't go into exhaustive details about the hijinks and craziness involved in how I managed to find employment, and regrettably the numerous entertaining stories of my eight years in an office must for know go untold. Largely because I don't want to be sued. Nevertheless, there are some aspects of that time that are important, and I'll say this here and now – that job made me the writer I am today, and it gave me the skills I needed to make this work.

   I ended up being employed as a Media Summarizer. Essentially, my job was to read articles in newspapers and turn them into paragraph-length summaries. Oddly, it turned out that I was rather good at this; I have photographic short-term memory, and even back then I typed very quickly, and constant practice meant that I only got faster as time went on. The job involved working nights, which is gruesome at the best of times. (Don't try this at home, kids.)

   What it meant was that I had to learn to write quickly and clearly, and for long periods of time. On a normal night, I'd be rattling off hundreds of these summaries. (I once managed a hundred in an hour to meet a critical deadline…) You had to be conc
ise, you had to be accurate, you had to be quick. And I could listen to music – or later, podcasts – at my desk, which turned out to be invaluable.

   Let me say here what I consider to be the most important skill of any writer, something that you cannot succeed without. A strong work ethic. You're going to be sitting at the computer for hours a day, and you're going to have to carry on writing when sometimes you don't want to. (There are reasons, occasionally, and something that you have to learn is when you are finding it difficult to work because you are tired, and when you are finding it difficult because the book just isn't working.) I entered my job something of a dilettante – I left it able to sit down and focus, to carry on writing for hours at a time, thousands of words in an hour.

   The other unexpected bonus was the commute. Suddenly I was traveling for two, three hours a day to get to and from work, and my science-fiction books could come back to the fore. I'd read one a day, back and forth, sometimes riding an extra couple of stops to finish. As soon as the Kindle came out, I became an avid user, though I still kept bringing my battered old paperbacks. Amazon and eBay meant that it was easier than ever to find the old books, though there's nothing quite like rummaging in a used bookshop, even today.

   Eight years passed, and periodically the urge to write returned. I'd always been a space nut, and entertained the idea – which to an extent I still have today – of carving out a niche as a space historian. So came 'One False Step', my first published book, written on a long holiday, one taken with the express intention of getting away from it all for a couple of weeks to write. Forty thousand words, covering spaceflights that never were – and if anyone is interested, it's up for sale on Amazon right now. Because I took a huge step as soon as it was finished to my satisfaction. I returned to the world of self-publishing.

   For months, I'd haunted writers' forums, spent hours pouring over blogs about self-publishing, and finally decided to take the plunge myself. At last I hit the button, and 'One False Step' was released to an unsuspecting public, sometime in the middle of 2011. It bounced. Though to be fair, I'd rather expected that it wouldn't fly that high – in its category, it did very well, but it was very much a niche interest and I knew it. Nevertheless, it was a start.