The Voyage Home

by D. J. Holmes

  “Almost,” Sarah thought back with a grin. They were almost operating as one. They weren’t quite as in-sync as she and Alexandra were when they fought together, but it was close. “Are you familiar with this simulation?” she asked. The timer was saying it was three minutes away from beginning.

  “Possibly,” Kevin answered. “It looks like the standard cadet initiation sim. One destroyer is sent to defeat a single Elder frigate that is protecting Earth. I’ve never been the Elder frigate before. Usually it doesn’t end well. Even a crew of new cadets can handle a frigate.”

  “Well let’s see,” Sarah said. She sent orders to her ship’s computer. A series of drones were launched into space, then she turned her ship, which she was calling Destiny II, back towards Earth. Carefully, Sarah slotted her frigate into a low, very slow orbit around the moon. Five of the six stealth drones she had launched entered orbit around Earth. They then formed a line around the planet’s equator, allowing Sarah to form a series of laser COM links with each drone. At a signal from Sarah, the fifth drone line emitted a small amount of electromagnetic energy. It wasn’t much, Destiny II’s sensors could barely even detect it, but Sarah hoped the more advanced sensors on the human destroyer would easily detect it and think she was trying to hide from them around the curvature of the Earth’s surface. The final stealth drone she had launched stayed close to Destiny II, it was just far enough away to poke its head around the moon and watch for any incoming ships.

  “If they come in stealthily, our drone won’t be able to detect them, at least not until they are really close,” Kevin warned.

  “I know,” Sarah thought back. “I’m betting that whoever is commanding the destroyer will be a tad overconfident.”

  Kevin didn’t respond, but Sarah could sense he thought she might be right. For several minutes, they waited as nothing happened. Sarah tried to stay focused. She was excited to be able to do something she loved. The last few days had been draining. Yet, despite the fact she was about to enter a battle, she couldn’t help herself. Slowly she reached towards the small knot of emotions in the back of her mind. She was curious as to how much she could sense about Kevin. As soon as she thought he could detect her interest, she pulled back embarrassed. Though it didn’t stop her trying again a minute later. This time she knew he had caught her. Pulling back, she scolded herself. She needed to concentrate.

  Thankfully, her stealth drone drew her attention. It had detected something. Linking into its sensor data, Sarah saw the destroyer. It was charging into the system, seemingly without a care in the world. She watched it for several minutes, then, as it drew closer to Earth it looked like it detected Sarah’s drone pretending to be Destiny II.

  “They’re taking the bait,” Sarah said as her sensor drone detected energy releases from the destroyer. “They are massdriver shots, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Kevin answered. “They’re using Earth’s gravity to slingshot them around the planet towards your drone.”

  “Perfect,” Sarah replied. She calculated the likely speed of the mass driver rounds. When the time was right, she sent a signal to the drone mimicking Destiny II through the laser link. On her sensors, it looked like one of the mass driver rounds had hit their target. They detected a small explosion from the other side of Earth, then it appeared like a ship had fired up its engines and was trying to escape.

  “They’re going for it,” Kevin said, his emotions were intensifying. To Sarah, his mind felt like what she imagined a predator was like just before it pounced on its prey. She guessed she felt the same way to Kevin.

  She eased Destiny II out of her orbit. Just as the destroyer passed the moon, Destiny II’s nose lined up on it. Sarah didn’t need to give a command. Kevin fired the particle lance as soon as he locked onto his target.

  Sarah gunned Destiny II’s engines. To her, the energy shield on the destroyer seemed immensely strong. It had deflected the particle lance strike, though Destiny II’s sensors were telling her it had been seriously depleted. As Kevin poured laser fire towards the destroyer, it took several seconds for its crew to react. That was all they needed. As laser beam after beam impacted the destroyer, its energy screen gave up. After the first two beams impacted the destroyer’s hull, Sarah pivoted Destiny II, Kevin then launched eight anti-matter missiles towards their target. Pivoting back to allow Kevin to resume his fire with the laser cannons, Sarah began evasive maneuvers. The destroyer was finally firing back. Soon space around Destiny II was full of laser beams, tachyon pulses, and mass driver rounds. Sarah prioritized the mass driver rounds, a strike from one of them and Destiny II was done for. Thankfully, they were only travelling at 0.8c and they were the easiest to dodge. The sheer weight of fire was impossible to avoid completely and soon Destiny II’s energy screen began to be depleted as it tried to deflect the energy being fired at it.

  The destroyer was fairing worse though. Kevin was peppering its hull with laser beams. He was destroying maneuvering thrusters, weapons and point defense nodes. Then, just twenty seconds after the particle lance had struck the destroyer, Destiny II’s anti-matter missiles came into point defense range.

  The destroyer’s point defenses were far superior to Destiny II’s, yet Kevin had already damaged many of them. On top of that, the destroyer was trying to dodge Kevin’s laser fire while shooting down the missiles. It failed to do both. Two missiles penetrated its defenses and blew the destroyer into atoms.

  “Whooo hooo,” Kevin shouted as the massive explosion rocked the destroyer. Sarah could feel him doing some mental fist pumps. “We did it!” he practically shouted into Sarah’s mind.

  “What did you expect?” Sarah asked coyly. She had known they would win the second their particle lance had landed on the destroyer. “You have me as your pilot.”

  “I know,” Kevin said. “But I still didn’t think…”

  He was cut off mid-sentence. The simulation had reset. Destiny II was now back in her position in orbit around Earth. Sarah took a moment to look around and then spoke. “I guess someone wants us to run another simulation.”

  Kevin laughed. “I suspect my grandmother isn’t pleased. Those destroyers are meant to be able to handle an Elder cruiser. You just destroyed it with a frigate.”

  “Well it’s a lesson that needs to be learnt. Strategy and skill can beat technology,” Sarah thought back.

  “It seems it can,” Kevin agreed.

  “We’ll try something different this time,” Sarah said. “We’ll confront whatever the simulation sends at us head on. That will give a fairer picture of how one of your destroyers lines up against an Elder warship.

  “Ok,” Kevin replied, though he seemed dubious.

  “Let’s just see how it goes,” Sarah said.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Two destroyers appeared from nowhere less than a light second away from Destiny II and fired all their energy weapons. Sarah barely managed to dodge the two particle lance beams that came at her. One grazed Destiny II’s energy screen, reducing its efficiency to eighty percent.

  Boosting Destiny II’s engines, Sarah accelerated towards the two destroyers. They had some powerful weapons, but her best bet was still to close the distance. She might be able to dodge their fire for a while, but she doubted the computer controlling Destiny II’s point defenses could handle the twenty anti-matter missiles the destroyers were likely to fire at her. She had to get too close for them to use their missiles.

  “Fire at the lead ship when you get a chance,” Sarah said to Kevin. Then she switched her full attention to dodging the incoming fire. There was too much of it for her to try and line up Kevin’s weapons as well.

  As the battle intensified, Sarah used all the skills she had just to stay alive. Her focus narrowed to just the space directly in front of Destiny II. As laser beams, missiles, mass driver rounds, tachyon pulses and particle lance beams were detected by Destiny II’s sensors, she jinked and dodged as many as she could. Thankfully she had closed the distance to the point where
dodging the missiles the point defenses didn’t shoot down was possible. A very small part of her mind was amazed at how quickly she was reacting. The combination of the nanites that had worked on her mind and her new neural implant had made her reflexes and reactions even faster. The thought quickly passed however, she didn’t have time to think about anything but dodging.

  Then, out of nowhere, a particle lance struck the side of Destiny II. There was a brief flash and then Sarah found herself being assaulted by a bright light. She quickly realized that the interface helmet was ascending away from her head. Throwing up her hands, she shielded her eyes from the simulation room’s lights.

  Lowering them after a few seconds, she found Kevin staring at her. Sarah knew the look. It was very similar to the one Divar had given her a couple of times.

  “Impossible,” a voice said into her mind. “She must have cheated somehow.”

  Sarah recognized it as the man who had been overseeing the simulation, Randal.

  “She didn’t,” Kevin’s said fiercely.

  Sarah had thought Randal was just speaking to her, not everyone in the simulation room. When she realized, her anger grew too. Before she spoke though, she calmed herself. She didn’t want to make any enemies who might decide to keep a close eye on her. Not if she was going to escape.

  “The simulation was fair,” she said. “I don’t understand what there is to complain about. We won the first battle through superior tactics. The defeat doesn’t reflect the superiority of your technology. The second battle does, yours ships easily defeated us.”

  “Are you mocking me?” Randal said.

  “What?” Sarah asked, confused.

  “Look at the sim results,” Kevin prompted.

  Sarah pulled up the file in her mind. She gasped when she saw them. She had been engaged with the two destroyers for five minutes. It had felt like less than a quarter of that time. In those five minutes Kevin had managed to get one anti-matter missile to hit the lead destroyer, severely weakening its energy screen. He had then battered it down and scored several laser beam hits to the destroyer’s hull before Destiny II had been destroyed.

  “I...” Sarah started to say. Then she changed tack as she looked into Kevin’s eyes. She felt the same kind of awe for him she sensed he had for her. “You were amazing. I didn’t think you would have been able to do half of that.”

  “There’s no way you two did that without cheating,” Randal barked, disrupting the moment Sarah was sharing with Kevin. “The speed and reflexes you demonstrated and the level of coordination between both of you is impossible. You must have cheated.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Kevin said. “We worked so well together because we imprinted on one another before the simulation.”

  “You what?” Randal shouted.

  Before Sarah could explain or Randal could say any more, Sarah felt his mind disappear. Instead it was replaced by Director Simmons. “My office, now,” was all she said.

  Chapter 40

  On the way to Director Simmons’ office, Sarah and Kevin passed more than forty people who were going about their business on Hope V. To Sarah, it felt like every one of them was staring at her. She hoped it was because they had seen what she and Kevin had accomplished in the simulation. She suspected it was because they had imprinted on one another. As a result, she had been blushing the whole way.

  Now they were sitting outside Simmons’ office. Her secretary was sitting behind a small desk staring at them intently. It wasn’t helping Sarah’s cheeks to return to normal. “Don’t worry,” Kevin said to her through their implants. “She will be cross, but there’s nothing she can do.”

  “I doubt that,” Sarah thought back. “She can end your career for one.”

  “Oh,” Kevin replied. “I hadn’t thought of that.” His words were accompanied by a pang of worry. “She wouldn’t, would she?”

  “She’s your great grandmother,” Sarah said. “Maybe she will just be angry with you. Or maybe she won’t trust you to fight a warship now. You are bound to me and I am an unknown entity. Despite all the kindness your great grandmother has shown me since I arrived, I know she doesn’t fully trust me.”

  “Well,” Kevin said as he raised his chin. “I’ll have a word or two to say about that. I won’t give up my chosen career so easily. And now that we have imprinted, I can vouch for you.”

  “Let’s hope that works,” Sarah replied. “I’m sorry by the way.”

  “I know,” Kevin answered. “If I couldn’t sense it, I would be livid. But I know it was a genuine mistake. I was the fool.”

  “You weren’t...” Sarah began to protest.

  Before she could, Simmons’ receptionist cut her off. “You may go in and take a seat. She is ready so see you now.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah replied out loud as she got up and made her way into Simmons’ office.

  Simmons didn’t turn to speak to them when they sat down. She was staring out her observation porthole at the rotating view of the nearby stars. Sarah tried to wait patiently. Just when she thought it was getting silly, she opened her mouth to speak. Kevin caught her attention by motioning his hand towards the ground ever so slightly. Though she had never seen him give the gesture before, she knew what he was signaling. She should remain quiet. As it got harder and harder to remain quiet, Sarah examined Simmons’ office. She studied the holo projections that decorated the wall. Some appeared to depict Simmons’ ancestors. Sarah could see the resemblance to Simmons and Kevin. Others were of warships, presumably of an earlier design to the ones she had fought for they looked more primitive. When she had exhausted the holo images as a source of distraction, she turned to the stars that she could see over Simmons chair. As she peered at them, time seemed to slow down to a snail’s pace.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Simmons finally spoke. “Well, at least you both know how to show respect. But that is about all I can say for you. In all my years, I have never heard of anything so foolish. You,” she said as she stared down Kevin, “should know better. You have grown up here, you know all about collaborations and imprinting. What on Earth where you thinking?

  “Maybe you weren’t thinking,” Simmons said before Kevin could get a word in. “Maybe that was it, was it? You saw a pretty girl and your reasoning went out the window?”

  Even if Sarah couldn’t sense Kevin’s mounting shame, she could see it on his face. She had to speak up for him. “It was my fault. I pressured him into it. I didn’t know what we were doing, I just wanted a gunner who could keep up with me.”

  “So that is your excuse is it Kevin? This young woman forced you into it. Did she have a blaster to your head?” Simmons pressed, not taking her eye from her great grandson.

  “I thought she knew what she was doing,” Kevin tried to explain. “I... I thought she needed to imprint with someone in order to fight alongside them. I knew what it meant if we imprinted. I did it because I thought it was what was best for the fleet.”

  “You see,” Sarah said. “It was my fault. I thought a two-person battle meld would be just that. I didn’t know about the imprinting.”

  “I should have known,” Simmons said as she turned her stare onto Sarah. “You always jump in without thinking, don’t you? Your story of how you got here is full of reckless decisions. You trusted Angrave and he nearly captured Destiny in the Aral system. Destiny was nearly destroyed because you were fooled by Ranack. You were willing to throw away the information you had on Elder technology because you had to confront your father as soon as you arrived in Washington. How can I ever trust you? You almost never think, you always rush in. Today is just another example to add to the list.”

  Sarah had no response. Simmons was right. She did rush in. Divar and Alexandra had scolded her for her rashness more than once.

  “And now you have spoilt both your and my great grandson’s chance at happiness,” Simmons continued. “We may be at war with the Elders. We have been for two thousand years. But that doesn’t mean pe
ople can’t be happy, can’t fall in love. I don’t know what this means for the both of you, but one thing is for sure, finding a husband or wife will be very difficult now. No one will want to court or marry someone who is imprinted with someone else.”

  “That’s a sacrifice I was willing to make,” Kevin said, jumping in. “Defeating the Elders is everything. You saw how we fought out there. We may have been rash, and it may have been a mistake. But it worked. We defeated a destroyer on our own and we managed to put up a fight against two of them.”

  “Your selflessness in admirable,” Simmons commented. Sarah thought she almost sounded sad. “I have been watching your progress. You are talented and you have shown great promise. But you are naive. In five or ten years you may not feel the same. Freeing Earth isn’t everything. It is our primary goal, yes. But we are individuals, we are allowed to have our own goals, our own desires. If everyone in the history of Hope V had dedicated their entire lives to freeing Earth, our society would have collapsed within the first two hundred years. Hope V isn’t just a research station, it is a nucleus of human culture. We have kept our traditions and our way of life going. Pursuing a family is a key aspect of that. One day you may come to think differently and you will regret what you have done today.”