Impulse

by Dave Bara

  “And the proper response is sending the Grand Admiral’s son to save the Impulse mission,” I stated.

  “Yes,” my father said. He leaned in toward me with his massive frame, the way he always did when he was making an important point. “We have to face the fact that this Union is not strong, Peter. The Feilberg family of Carinthia and ours were at the axis of the old conflicts which led to the civil war and the collapse of the Corporate Empire. We can’t risk that happening again. Remember, it was a century and a half of darkness before the Earth Historians came to Quantar and Carinthia. If they hadn’t brought longwave technology and the Hoagland Drive we’d still be without a peace treaty.”

  “I know my history, Father,” I said, rather more pointedly than I would have liked.

  “Then you know we can’t risk this new Union failing,” he said. “Your presence on Impulse will send the strongest possible signal that we intend to stay in the Union for the long term.”

  I mulled this over for a moment, and didn’t like what came to mind. “So I’m to be a political replacement, and the three years I’ve trained to serve on Starbound mean far less than my being seen as working with the Carinthians on their flagship,” I said.

  “Exactly,” said Wesley from the longwave screen. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but considering the situation, you’ll have to grow up much faster than you’d planned.”

  “I’m sorry as well, Peter,” said my father. “I know how much you were looking forward to serving with your friends.” That was true enough. But now it seemed fate had dealt me a different hand, one to a game I hadn’t even known I was playing.

  “What’s the current status of Impulse?” I asked, changing the subject again. At least I could find out what I was facing. Wesley responded.

  “Captain Zander has requested a minimum turnaround at Candle. He wants permission to go back to Levant and investigate the rogue HD waves,” he said. “Lucius Zander is a man of many virtues, but patience is not one of them. If his ship was attacked by a First Empire weapon, he will want to take that weapon out. The Unified Space Navy’s top priority is peaceful contact with the government of Levant and protecting the Lightship fleet. Zander is known as a passionate commander, if not a bit of a hothead. His actions once Impulse is back at Levant and he is in a combat situation are something we can’t control. That’s why the new detachment of Quantar officers is so important. Your team’s task will be to shadow him and if possible deter him from his efforts to confront any First Empire weapon.”

  “Our task?” I sat there in disbelief, my anger growing at the implications of Wesley’s words. “Exactly how are we to accomplish this task, sir?”

  “Any way you can, Lieutenant,” said Wesley. I looked to my father and then back to Wesley’s image on the display.

  “You’re asking us to mutiny,” I said. Wesley cut in sharp and angry.

  “We’re asking you to put your oath to the Union Navy above loyalty to your commanding officer,” he said. “I’m not pretending it will be easy, but we expect you to protect Impulse, even with your own lives if you have to make that decision. The three ships in the Lightship fleet are all that stand between the Union and the tyranny of the old empire. If Levant is still defended by First Empire technology then we must avoid a conflict, or for that matter even contact, with Imperial elements at any cost. Do you understand your orders, Lieutenant?”

  I looked to my father again. He was grim but silent.

  “I do, sir,” I said to Wesley.

  “Questions?” he prompted sharply. I shook my head.

  “Good,” Wesley said, preparing to bring the conference to a close. I interrupted before he could finish.

  “I’ll want some of my cadet instructors with me on this mission, people I’ve worked with and know that I can trust,” I said to Wesley. I may have been under new orders, but I still had cards to play. Wesley looked aggravated at me for interrupting him.

  “I’ll need names, Lieutenant,” he said back impatiently.

  “George Layton for one. John Marker for another,” I said, naming my best helm officer and marine corporal. “I’ll need a tech, Brice Devlin should do. Cort Drury from Propulsion, and Evangeline Goolagong as my Intel officer.”

  “Anyone else?” asked Wesley, obviously impressed with my forwardness.

  “Yes,” I said. “Jenny Hogan from Astrogation.”

  “No,” cut in my father.

  “But she’s the best we’ve got,” I insisted, and it was true. She also happened to be Wesley’s niece.

  “She may be,” said Wesley over the viewer. “But I’ve got someone else in mind for that job.” I wondered who he meant, but that didn’t stop me from pressing him.

  “So this mission is safe enough for the director’s son but not the supreme commander’s niece?” I said back to Wesley. He fumed in silence, turning different shades of red as he stared down at me from the oversized view screen, but I held my ground.

  “Granted,” he finally said. “I’ll fill the rest of the roster with experienced spacers, Lieutenant. You won’t want for good advice.” I nodded. There was really nothing more to say.

  “There is one more thing,” said my father. He slid a box across the table to me. I opened the top. Inside, swimming in royal blue velvet, were two lieutenant commander’s collar pins. “They belonged to your brother.”

  They’re giving me Derrick’s stars, I thought.

  “This assignment comes with a promotion,” said Wesley from the screen. “I know it’s a small consolation.” He was right about that. I shut the box again and stuck it in my pocket, then looked to each man in turn.

  “When do I leave?” I asked. It was Wesley who spoke again. It seemed very clear to me now who was in charge of this mission.

  “Effective at midnight tonight your commission is transferred from H.M.S. Starbound to H.M.S. Impulse. You have two hours to pack your gear and catch a shuttle to High Station Quantar, where you will have a forty-eight hour layover while you wait for transport. From there you will proceed to High Station Candle on the cloud rim and will report to the deck of Impulse, under the command of Captain Lucius Zander, at 0700 hours on twelve-dot-two-seven-dot-two-seven-six-eight. Do you understand your orders, Commander?” he said. It was the first time he had used my new rank.

  I roused myself from my funk and stood, snapping to attention. “I do, sir,” I said. He nodded his response.

  “Now I’ll leave the two of you to finish your visit in privacy,” he said. “Good luck to you, Commander Cochrane.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” I said. Wesley nodded to my father and then the screen went to black, superimposed with the seal of the Quantar Naval Linkworks. My father turned off the viewer with the click of a button.

  “I’m so sorry about all this, Peter,” he said as I sat back down, sinking heavily into the chair, the weight of all that had just happened hitting me hard.

  “No need to apologize, sir,” I replied.

  “I think there is,” he said. Silence came over both of us then. I thought about Natalie, about how young and beautiful she had been. I had reconciled myself to losing her to the service months ago once I knew her assignment, but not permanently. Then thoughts of Derrick came. It had been his death in a shuttle accident, training new cadets, that had shocked me out of my immature pursuit of a professional soccer career and driven my decision to join the Union Navy and the Lightship Program. I had fought hard to get in, and made it on my own merit, but my mission now seemed somehow incomplete. I fingered the box with my—no, Derrick’s—commander’s stars inside. I wondered if somehow I had failed him by not making it to Starbound.

  I fought off a wave of sadness as I looked at my father. We were both holding back tears as we sat in the quiet of the enormous office. I couldn’t imagine what he had felt, having lost his wife, my mother, to cancer such a short time after the Historians had ar
rived from Earth. And of course they had both the knowledge and technology that could have cured her, but contact had come too late. Then he had lost his oldest son, the one he had staked all of his hopes and dreams on, and he was left with only me. I wondered if I even came close to Derrick in his mind. By my own measure I didn’t. How could I? I had chosen the life of a second son, filled with sports and games and casual pursuits. Derrick had followed our father’s path from the day he was born: the duty of a duke’s son, the military and civil training, always focused on what was expected of him. I vowed in that moment, looking at my father, that I would do everything in my power to be the son that he wanted, the son that he needed to succeed him.

  Finally my father spoke and broke the silence. “These are difficult and complex times, Peter,” he said. “I was just thinking that before the Earthmen came with their technology and their science we led a much simpler life. Things changed so suddenly when I saw the Earth ships approaching Quantar. Our universe was smaller then, less complicated.”

  “Of course, sir,” I said, unsure how to react. He leaned back in his chair.

  “Those were good times, hopeful. Just you and Derrick and your mother and I. Now there’s only the two of us left,” he said, looking at me again. “I don’t want to lose you too.”

  “You won’t, sir. I promise,” I said. I meant it down to my core.

  My father accepted my promise silently, then he stood and came around the desk to hug me. He held on tightly for several moments before he let me go.

  “Good luck, son. You’re all I have now. I know you’ll make us all proud,” he said. I knew what he meant by all: all of the family, here or gone, and all the Cochranes of Quantar that had come before me. I took his offered hand and shook it.

  “I will do my best, sir,” I said, then broke the handshake. I acknowledged the conversation was over with a nod, picked up my cap and turned to leave. When I got to the office door I opened it and then stopped to look back at my father. He was sitting behind the desk again, gazing out of the window at the New Briz skyline. The sight of such a strong and forceful man reduced to such a state filled me with fear and anxiety. It’s all on me now, I thought.

  I stepped over the threshold without another word and shut the door behind me.

  On High Station

  Eight hours later, after a frantic packing session and a hypersonic plane ride from New Briz Airfield I was on High Station, in the quarters of Starbound’s assigned Earth Historian, Serosian. After throwing my bags onto my temporary bunk, I’d made my way here to be with my friend and mentor, hoping for some consolation and perhaps some wisdom from him as well.

  I had spent many hours in Serosian’s company during my three years of Academy training. He had taken me under his wing as his pet project upon my enlistment, for which I had always been grateful. I had known him a bit before—he had been Derrick’s mentor as well—but not in anything more than a passing way. It seemed that I had always been off on some soccer foray or a social expedition with my friends when he had come calling. Then one day he’d arrived at my father’s house with the worst possible news. We had talked that day, about what I don’t remember; I was too numb, in too much pain. But I did remember calling on him a few weeks later and telling him of my desire to enlist in the Lightship service. It was the best decision of my life.

  After that, there had been many long nights debating ethics and tactics, discussing military history, the battles during the Imperial Civil War and my struggles with my assignments, and relaxing, when I had time, with a game of chess. It was at the chess table that we found ourselves again today, pondering a game we would probably never finish.

  “Chess is like mathematics,” Serosian had once said. “Everything in the universe is an expression of physical laws, which ultimately break down to numbers.” I wasn’t sure I completely agreed with him. After all, how does one quantify or express emotions such as love, or for that matter, grief, in numerical terms? It was a question I had never asked and he would probably never choose to answer, even if he had one.

  He had often told me that chess was his way of testing young cadets, to see if they could think critically and logically, yet also remain open to intuition and more esoteric influences. I’d asked him once why he had chosen to mentor me, besides my obvious family connections. His answer was simple: I was the first cadet who had ever beaten him at the game.

  I pondered the formations on the board, my pieces always the white, his always the black. I had a bishop and four of his pawns, he a rook and three of my pawns. I wondered what the odds were of my winning, even if I did look to have a small advantage. From the positions on the board I put my chances at less than fifty-fifty.

  “You won’t win,” Serosian said from across the room as he poured himself another glass of wine. “In case you were wondering. In fact I make the odds only thirty-three percent you’ll manage a draw.” He recorked the wine bottle and made for his chair opposite me at the table, scanning the formations. “You’ve already made one critical tactical mistake,” he continued as he came back to our game.

  “Yes,” I replied, “that would be signing up for the naval service.” He laughed at that, surprisingly loud for a man who had such a quiet, if deep, voice. Looking at us one would probably have assumed we were more brothers than mentor and student. We shared the same dark hair and deep blue eyes, as well as a similar set to the jaw. Serosian appeared perhaps a decade older and was a head taller than I, and I stood a firm six-foot-two in height myself. I knew the appearance of my friend was not an accurate measure of his age, however. The anti-aging regimens of the Earthmen had not yet been shared with either Quantar or the Feilberg family of Carinthia, and I suspected Serosian was close to twenty years older than he looked.

  “I’ve been wondering about that choice,” he said in response to my verbal foray, then made an advancing move with a pawn. “You could have chosen any career you wanted. Diplomatic Corps, the Merchant Fleet, even professional soccer from what I remember.”

  I responded by moving one of my knights. “We’re a navy family, you know that. Derrick was an influence, of course. And besides all that, what career could offer me more than exploring deep space and rediscovering our lost heritage, a lost human empire?”

  “Not many, I’d venture,” he said, then made an attacking move with his queen. “I’ll have you checkmated in five moves.”

  I smiled. “Remember your telling me about how important intuition is?” I said, then took his king’s rook with my queen and put him in check. He frowned.

  “Well, it looks like this game could go on a bit longer than I anticipated,” he said. “No matter, we’ve other things to discuss.”

  “Yes we do,” I said, and took another drink of my wine. Serosian magnetized the tabletop with the click of a button and then flipped it over to conceal the chess set. I took another drink of my wine, a shiraz from the Caderlands, then set my glass down.

  “How are you feeling, Peter?” he asked. I contemplated his question for a moment. I wasn’t really sure what I felt, but I did think I owed him an answer.

  “Right now, numb,” I said.

  “The wine helps with that,” he replied.

  “Of course it does. But all day I’ve felt shock, anger, resignation, depression, more anger, the whole gamut.”

  “That’s only normal. Natalie was a special girl.”

  “These circumstances are anything but normal,” I replied. “First Derrick, now Natalie . . .” I looked down as my voice trailed off. “How many more times will I have to go through this?” I asked.

  He didn’t have a ready answer, so we sat together for a moment, each of us contemplating his glass of wine. “All I can say, Peter, is that space is a dangerous place. There will be pitfalls and failures and even disasters, but it is rare to lose two people so close to you in such a short time. You are unique in that.”

  “That
gives me no comfort,” I said, then turned a keener eye on my friend. He was as dark and unreadable as ever, the kind of man who never let anything slip out by accident.

  “If I can make a suggestion?” he said.

  “Please do.”

  “Perhaps it would help if you had a small memorial for Natalie before you left, with your close associates who knew her. Take some time to honor her and your love for her before you go.”

  “You know I don’t believe the same way you do, Serosian, the way the Church teaches,” I said.

  “You don’t have to have any specific beliefs to honor her and your loss, Peter. Just know in your heart that by your act you are honoring her memory.”

  I thought about that a moment, and couldn’t really find any objections to it. In fact, it seemed like a good idea. “I believe I’ll take your advice,” I said, “Get Marker, Layton, the rest of the crew reporting for Impulse involved. Hopefully they’ll all be here by tonight. But if I know Marker, he’ll want to honor her with more than a quiet memorial.”

  Serosian smiled. “Then perhaps you should do both.”

  “I don’t feel much like painting the station red right now,” I said. He cocked his head at me.

  “You’re young. It may be the last time in a long while you get to enjoy yourself. I recommend joining in, if you can manage it,” he said.

  I thought about it some more. Marker would undoubtedly want to drink heavily. In some ways, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. And I did have another full day before my shuttle to High Station Candle would arrive. I changed the subject without giving any final answer.

  “You invited me here to warn me, didn’t you?” I said. “About Impulse. About Captain Zander.” He nodded without saying anything for a moment, so I continued. “Do you know they’ve asked me to mutiny if I have to, to protect Impulse?” I said. He shook his head.