The Voyage Home

by D. J. Holmes

“Here we are,” Kevin said as he stopped in front of a smaller alcove. “This is designed for the corvette. But we adapted it for you.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said as she looked up. She had been lost in her thoughts. Now she was staring at an interface helmet. Even better, it wasn’t just any old interface helmet. It was an Elder one. “Where...” She began to ask.

  “Over the centuries we have managed to sneak a few ships into the Sol system and salvage some of the damaged ship sections from the battle of Earth,” Kevin said, answering Sarah’s question before she could finish it. “I think my mother was planning on using it to test on a hybrid, if any ever made it to Hope V. I’m not sure it will work. No one has tested it. Though our scientists have studied it closely, it appears to be safe.”

  “Hhmmm,” Sarah said dubiously, as she reached out and touched the helmet. It looked ok. But it could do her a lot of damage if it was broken. It would be a risk. Though hopefully a small one, Sarah said to herself as she grinned inwardly. Suddenly, she thought she might be able to give Kevin and the other cadets a run for their money. “All right, let’s try it.”

  Sitting down on the pilot’s seat, Sarah looked up, waiting for the helmet to descend. When nothing happened, she looked at Kevin and raised an eyebrow.

  “You need to connect to the simulator computer with your neural implant and initiate the helmet,” Kevin said.

  “Of course,” Sarah said as her cheeks reddened slightly. On Destiny, she was always connected to Alexandra, she just needed to think to give an order. She was still getting used to how things worked on Hope V.

  Once she gave the order, the interface helmet descended. Gritting her teeth, Sarah prepared herself for a jolt of pain. Instead, the spike from the helmet seamlessly slotted into the back of her skull. She was transported away from the simulation room and into an Elder frigate. Through its sensors, she could see she was sitting in orbit above a planet. She recognized it right away. Earth.

  Next, she checked the ship’s weapons, energy screen and maneuvering thrusters. They were all standard Elder specifications. Hope V’s scientists seemed to know their stuff. There were just two things missing. She needed a weapons expert and someone to control the point defenses. With a mental order, she gave control of the point defenses over to the simulation computer. It asked her to pick the level of efficiency the computer would have as it used the defenses. Sarah tried to get the computer to match Alexandra’s efficiency. It came back saying such an efficiency was not permitted in simulations. Sarah smiled at that. The people who had designed the simulation obviously hadn’t met an Elder artificial intelligence who had been let off her leash. Setting the efficiency as high as it would go, Sarah opened the eye slots on the interface helmet.

  Kevin was in the process of turning his back to her. He was obviously about to go join whatever crew he was in to take her on. “Not so fast,” Sarah said. “I need a gunner. You’re it.”

  “What?” Kevin said looking back at her. “I thought I would be flying against you.”

  “You are training to be a tactical officer are you not?” Sarah asked. She already knew the answer. As they had walked to the simulation room, she had checked his file. He was the best gunner in his cadre of cadets.

  “Yes,” Kevin answered.

  “Are you not any good then?” Sarah quickly followed up.

  “Of course,” Kevin insisted, raising his chin.

  “Then I need you. The other cadets can do without you for now. If I’m going to show your fledging fleet what combat is really like, then I need a gunner,” Sarah explained. “Besides, you’ll get a much closer view of just what combat is really like.”

  “I guess,” Kevin said slowly.

  “What’s the matter? Were you looking forward to being the one to blow me into space debris?” Sarah guessed.

  “Maybe,” Kevin said as he moved to the tactical seat. A grin spread across his face. “I guess I’ll have to settle for trying to beat my friends instead.”

  “Excellent,” Sarah replied. Having Kevin as her gunner wouldn’t be anything like having Divar, but there as something they could do to improve how well they worked together. “We’ll form a mini battle meld so that we can fight better together,” she suggested.

  “Eh... that’s not really allowed,” Kevin said. Sarah couldn’t see his face as it was now surrounded by a three hundred and sixty holo projection of what the Elder ship’s sensors were seeing, but his voice sounded strange.

  “Nonsense,” Sarah said. “Every other bridge crew we’ll be fighting in the simulation will form a battle meld, won’t they?”

  “Well, yes,” Kevin said. “But’s that’s different.”

  “Not at all,” Sarah replied. “If we’re going to have a fighting chance we need to be able to know each other’s thoughts. I’m used to working with an artificial intelligence that knows me better than I do myself. We need to do this to make the simulation as real as possible.”

  “I understand, but I still don’t think it is a good idea,” Kevin responded.

  “Well I do,” Sarah said firmly. “You were the one who invited me to this simulation. If you want me to participate, this is what I need.”

  “But, that’s not how things are done here,” Kevin replied.

  Sarah began to lose her patience. “Look, if you want me to train you and the others how to fight the Elders, then this is what we’re going to have to do. I can’t fight this ship like an Elder does without your help. If you don’t do this then we can’t properly prepare the fleet, today, or any other day in the future.”

  “I... ah, I think I understand,” Kevin said hesitantly.

  His voice still sounded strange but as Sarah reached out to his mind with hers, he slowly gave in and formed the meld... As she moved her mind closer to his, she felt him flinch slightly. Pushing on, she forced her mind even closer to his. At first his defenses tried to push her back, but slowly he relented and their minds met.

  It felt just like when she had first entered the collaboration. She could see Kevin’s mind as a small tight ball of feelings and emotions. It almost felt intrusive to be able to so clearly and easily see into a person’s mind. In the collaboration, the feeling had quickly passed as more and more minds had entered it.

  With Kevin, the opposite happened. The sense of peering into the inner depths of Kevin’s mind intensified. Then their minds began to circle one another. As Sarah looked, she saw aspects of his character she hadn’t picked up on as they talked. He was more sensitive than he let on. Yet there was a fierce determination to excel. He wanted to lead a warship when it finally came to confront the Elders. It was his single passion. Sarah mentally nodded in approval. She recognized his drive as a reflection of her own desire to defeat the Elders.

  As their minds swirled around each other she saw other things. She saw images from his past. Along with the memories came emotions and thoughts. The images passed too quickly for her to really grasp them all, but she thought she saw him fighting in his first simulated battle. She sensed his grit and determination with that image. Another image was of a conversation between him and his great grandmother. Other images looked to be from his childhood. They continued for several seconds, seemingly getting further and further into his past.

  Then they stopped. Once again Sarah found herself staring at Kevin’s mind. Suddenly, she realized that she saw him in a whole new light. She understood his character far better than anyone else she had ever met. He had flaws, they were now clear. But, she could see he was good. He was dependable, trustworthy.

  As if Sarah had blinked, she suddenly found herself looking at another mind. It only took her a second to realize it was hers. Only it seemed distorted. As if she was looking at it through a warped mirror. She seemed more stern and fierce than she thought she was. Yet there was also a warm fuzziness around her mind. Above all, there was a sense of accomplishment. She seemed far surer of herself. For a moment Sarah was confused, then it dawned on her. She was looking at herself th
rough Kevin’s eyes. She was seeing herself as he saw her.

  As soon as she realized what she was looking at, her image changed again. Now she was looking at her body. Again, it seemed slightly different. She seemed taller and thinner than she thought. More strikingly, her breast seemed bigger and more prominent and her legs more toned. Sarah blushed, she knew she was seeing her body through Kevin’s eyes. She didn’t realize the Hope Fiver had looked at her that way.

  Relief washed over her as her vision returned to where she was just looking at Kevin’s mind. It felt familiar now, it was even soothing to be so close to him. The feeling didn’t last long, when it dawned on her that Kevin had probably just experienced the same thing she had, but in reverse, she blushed even more deeply. Sarah didn’t think she had any really embarrassing thoughts about him that she didn’t want him to know. Yet knowing that he had probably seen a lot about her made her feel uneasy. It had been bad enough when just Alexandra knew her deepest thoughts and feelings.

  Then, Kevin’s mind rushed away from hers. It got smaller and smaller until it disappeared. As if she had blinked again, her mental vision returned to the Elder frigate. She was looking down on Earth. Though, now something was different. In the back of her mind, she could sense Kevin. He was a constant presence. His emotions were under control and all but impossible to sift through. What was clear though, was that he was almost as confused as she was.

  Chapter 39

  “What just happened?” Sarah asked Kevin through their neural link in alarm. She had a sneaking suspicion, she had experienced something similar before. But she didn’t understand what was going on.

  “You... you mean you don’t know?” Kevin asked. Sarah could feel a bubble of rage building in the back of her mind, where she could sense Kevin. “You practically demanded I meld with you.”

  “Yes, a battle meld,” Sarah said, concerned by Kevin’s anger. “Like you have no doubt done a thousand times. I have processed the files on battle melds. It was not supposed to be like that.”

  “A collaboration between two people is rarely ever done. It’s taboo,” Kevin answered. “I thought you knew that. Battle melds and collaborations are meant to be done between at least ten people. If there are any less, there is a risk of imprinting. That is why they are never done.”

  “Imprinting,” Sarah repeated with a groan. She knew what that meant. In truth, she had already known what had happened. The connection she now felt with Kevin was proof enough. “Why did you go ahead with it?”

  “I thought you knew what you were doing. I thought it was necessary in order for us to fight together,” Kevin said. Sarah could feel his stubbornness as he defended himself. “I did it to help the fleet’s training.”

  Sarah was startled by Kevin’s words. Even though she had just sensed his determination to confront the elders. Willingly imprinting with someone was a huge sacrifice to make. Though she didn’t know exactly how it worked between humans, if it was anything like what had happened between her and Alexandra, Kevin had just given away a huge chunk of his privacy. He had known what would happen, yet he had done it anyway. He was willing to pay any personal cost to free Earth. “I’m so sorry,” Sarah said. “I was so foolish. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I thought it was something normal.”

  Sarah sought a file on imprinting from Hope V’s main databanks. Within a couple of seconds, she had processed it. “Oh,” she said out loud. Then her cheeks reddened. With her face covered by the interface helmet, she usually would have been ok, but she was sure Kevin could sense her embarrassment.

  “What is it?” he asked, confirming her suspicion.

  “I just processed a file on imprinting,” Sarah said. “I didn’t realize it was only something married couples do.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, also out loud.

  His voice trailed off and in her mind, Sarah could feel his sense of loss. “I’m so sorry,” Sarah repeated. It was rare for even married couples to imprint on one another. According to her file it meant they would struggle to love anyone else. For better or worse, imprinting bound two people together for life. She had basically taken away Kevin’s chance of getting married. For all she knew, he may already have been dating someone.

  The one glimmer of hope was that the file had said that only two people in love had ever imprinted, at least as far as the researcher who wrote the file knew. The imprinting process was said to enhance the love two people felt for each other. Sarah didn’t know what it would do for her and Kevin, but as she examined her feelings for him, she didn’t feel any strong romantic desires.

  Though he wouldn’t hurt you like Ranack, Sarah said to herself. A soon as she said it she blushed again. Not just from the thought of being with Kevin, but from the fact that a part of her found the idea pleasant. It was true, she had peered deeply into Kevin’s character. He wouldn’t hurt her, she was sure of that. But where were her other feeling coming from? Was it her or the imprinting? Suddenly, Sarah realized that what she had just done had complicated her life exponentially.

  “I think we need to go and talk about this,” Kevin said to her. Either he was sensing her confusion, or he was going through the same thing.

  Sarah was about to agree, when a countdown appeared over Earth. The simulation was about to begin. “Maybe this is what we need,” Sarah said as she felt herself get excited at the prospect of going up against a human warship. “Something to take our minds off what just happened. Plus, we may as well see how a two-person battle meld works.”

  “I guess,” Kevin said. His excitement didn’t exactly rise to meet Sarah’s, but she could sense that he was happy to focus on something else.

  “Ok then,” Sarah said. Then, turning her mind away from Kevin, she sought out the battle simulation computer. She wanted to make a few changes to her frigate. When a person responded to her query by requesting to speak with her, Sarah was surprised. She had thought a computer was overseeing the simulation.

  “My name is Randal. What do you need?” a voice in her head asked.

  “I want to make some modifications to my ship,” Sarah responded. She then sent the upgrades she wanted to make.

  “These changes considerably improve your ship’s capabilities, it wouldn’t be a fair simulation to allow them,” Randal replied a few moments later.

  “They are modifications I have made to Destiny. There is no new technology involved, just a heck of a lot of gold. If the Elders want to, and they may very well want to if we beat their fleet around Earth, they can modify their ships to make them just as powerful. These changes will make the simulation more realistic. Plus, nothing is ever fair in war.”

  “Hold on,” Randal said. It took him a full ten seconds to reply to her. “Director Simmons has approved your changes.”

  “Oh great,” Sarah thought to Kevin. “It appears your great grandmother is watching the simulation.”

  “If she is watching, chances are almost everyone involved in the fleet is as well,” Kevin thought. “This simulation will be the first real test of how our ships do against someone who knows how to handle an Elder warship.”

  Sarah mentally groaned. She didn’t want any more attention from the Hope Fivers. There was nothing for it though. She still intended to do her best. “Right, let’s forget about them and get ready,” she said. Following her own advice, she reached out to the small knot of feelings at the back of her mind that represented Kevin. Sensing she was coming, he was already open and waiting for her. As their minds touched, Sarah felt a swirl of Kevin’s emotions and thoughts.

  Using techniques Alexandra had taught her, she dampened them to the point where she could focus on flying her ship, though she was still very much aware of what Kevin was thinking and doing. “This is going to be weird,” she thought to him. “Especially for you. I have experienced something like this before. Let’s just see what we can do.”

  “Right,” Kevin thought back. He sounded strained. He was probably struggling to stay focused.

  Send
ing power to her frigate’s engines, Sarah moved out of orbit. If human warships were coming to attack her. She wanted space to maneuver. She

  released several drones into space.

  “I’m going to do some evasive maneuvers,” she said to Kevin. “See if you can hit them with the lasers as we go.”

  “I know,” Kevin replied.

  Sarah mentally nodded to herself. She could sense Kevin preparing the lasers. If she could sense what he was planning, he could sense her plans as well. Without warning, she threw her ship into a series of tight evasive maneuvers. “Now,” she thought when the first opening occurred. She needn’t have bothered. Kevin had already opened fire. Two of the drones were destroyed. In quick succession, he fired several more beams as openings appeared. Soon all but one of the drones was gone. Sarah could sense what Kevin wanted to do with the last one. Dutifully, she lined up the particle lance, a second later it was gone.

  “I think we’re ready,” Kevin thought to her. “You are good. And this battle meld is far better than what I am used to. It’s as if we’re working as one.”