by Dave Bara
“Thank you, Commander,” I said quietly to her back as she disappeared through the door.
On High Station and Aboard the Outrigger Cordoba
Three hours later I was showered, packed, and out of my cabin, taking my gear to the shuttle port to stow it in advance of loading onto the outrigger for the trip to High Station Candle. I left a message for Commander Kierkopf on the station net, but the com relayed that she had already departed the station. For where, it didn’t say.
I resolved to look her up the next time I came to High Station, and then decided to use my remaining hour before I left to make a last call home.
The longwave in the private call covey took unusually long to connect. No doubt military traffic was taking bandwidth priority over commercial calls with the launch of Starbound imminent. I got my father’s office at the Admiralty after about ten seconds of blank screen. Madrey Margretson answered the call.
“Hello, Madrey,” I said.
“I thought you might call today,” she said, smiling warmly. “Your father’s in a conference again, but I’ll ring him. I’m sure he’ll take your call.”
“Thank you,” I said, then waited as the Admiralty banner replaced Madrey’s image on the screen. Scant seconds later it was gone and my father came on the channel from his office.
“Hello, son,” he said. “Just an hour or so away now, I see.” I couldn’t really read him well, but he looked as if something was troubling him yet again. It was a look I’d seen on his face many times since I had joined the navy, if not so frequently when I was growing up. I supposed he had hidden the stress of his position to his family that whole time.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’m off on an outrigger to Candle. Just thirty-two passengers and plenty of spare legroom. Should be more than enough time to read up on Impulse’s longscope and her specs,” I said. It wasn’t really what I wanted to talk about, but I was making polite conversation, as I believed an officer should do.
“Don’t hit the books too hard, son. This may be your last real leisure time for at least six months,” he said back, also making conversation before getting down to the point. Assuming there was one, this time.
“I’ll probably take that advice,” I said, trying to act like I wasn’t concerned about my first deep-space mission, one that had gotten considerably more complicated in the last few days.
“Next time you’re in range, be sure and call home, or to Government House,” he said. “I’ll be leaving this office in the next week, and Jonathon Wesley will be assuming the role of Grand Admiral of the Union Navy.”
He was telling me in not so many words that he would be out of the military decision-making process shortly. I took this as an attempt to reassure me that he would still be running Quantar’s civilian government as Commander in Chief. It didn’t work. It was clear that the safety net I had relied on during my training days as a cadet was gone. It was also clear that this is what the powers that be wanted. I had to grow up fast, and from now on I’d be dealing with Admiral Wesley.
“I’ll be sure not to make that mistake, sir,” I said. A long silence fell over us both then. I stood there staring at my father’s image while he looked back at me. What went unspoken was our mutual fear that this could be the last time we saw each other. I could tell from his face that he was worried about me, his last son, heading off to parts unknown. The reality also sunk in for me that I was heading out on my first deep-space mission, directly into a battle zone. He finally broke the silence between us.
“Is this channel secure?” he asked. I verified my Union Navy security code.
“It is now,” I said.
“Good. One other thing, son. Serosian sent a message directly to the Admiralty and Admiral Wesley was good enough to forward it to me,” he said. “It seems the Historians have analyzed the telemetry from the Impulse incident and confirmed that the frequency of the Hoagland Wave that hit the ship couldn’t be anything but artificial. In fact it’s completely outside the natural spectrum, but it also didn’t match with anything in the existing Imperial catalog. In short, it’s a chimera.”
I tried to appear confident, mostly to reassure him.
“So it’s as we suspected,” I said. “Any other good news?” I asked, trying to joke but getting no response. The awkward silence descended again and it seemed clear it was time to sign off.
“One last question, sir. When will the government be announcing news of the Impulse incident to the public?” I said.
“Not for a while, son. We have to see how this second mission to Levant turns out, and so much of that is about you,” he replied. I had nothing to say to that, and again the silence fell.
“I’ve got to catch my shuttle, sir,” I said. He looked at me for a long time, but as usual, I couldn’t read his face or his emotions.
“Good luck, son,” he finally said. I waved back at him.
“Thank you, sir. Goodbye,” I said, then signed off the secure channel. Before I could cut the line completely I was switched back to Madrey’s channel and her face reappeared on my display.
“Young man,” she said to me. “You do us all proud out there, you hear me?”
“I hear you, madam,” I said, even though I knew she had no idea what my father and Wesley were asking of me.
“Good luck, Peter.”
I smiled back at her. “Thank you, Madrey,” I replied. Then I cut the channel and hustled out of the covey to my waiting shuttle.
An hour later and I was on my way to Candle aboard the outrigger Cordoba. She was a new class of ship for interplanetary space travel and the fastest civilian ship in service. The outriggers were used mostly for transporting business passengers between High Station Quantar and Candle, which was the outlying station where most imports arrived first. Anything that got me to Candle quicker was fine with me, and Cordoba seemed like just the ticket.
I shared a double berth with George Layton. John Marker took up the double behind us all by himself. He had obviously continued his drinking from our previous adventure and was sound asleep and snoring inside of ten minutes after we detached from High Station.
It would be good to have friends I knew with me. Our relationships would obviously have to change due to the nature of our new mission, but even a familiar face or two in the Great Dark would be helpful.
I liked Layton. He was easy to talk to, with an outgoing personality. We chatted about various aspects of our new mission, about how things would change due to serving on Impulse instead of Starbound and the like. I pondered how much to tell him about my orders from Wesley, or about the Impulse incident, or even about my encounter with Dobrina Kierkopf. I decided that protecting him from my private complications was the honorable thing to do, for now. Inevitably though, the conversation turned to personal matters.
“So where did you grow up anyway?” I asked. We’d been working together for two years and I realized that I didn’t know where he was from, a gap perhaps from being a bit too focused on my own training at the Academy.
“At KendalFalk, on the Northern Continent. Not far from your family’s North Palace,” Layton said.
“I know it, though I can’t say I know it well,” I replied. “Since my mother passed away we haven’t spent much time at the North Palace. In fact I can’t remember the last time we were there.”
“When you were sixteen,” said Layton matter-of-factly.
“What? How do you know?” He shrugged.
“You don’t remember?” he said.
“Honestly, George, no,” I said. He looked put off by that.
“We played against each other in a soccer match when you were in the juniors with New Briz Blues. I was with Shepperton Caledonian,” he said.
“Really? I remember those matches! Summer of ’72, right?”
“Right.”
“What position did you play?” I asked.
; “Left back,” he said. That got me thinking.
“I was right wing in our starting eleven!” I said. “We must have played against each other!” Layton sighed.
“You don’t even remember, do you?” he said.
I got defensive. “What, did I do something bad?” I was worried I had.
“Bad for me, yeah,” he replied. Now he didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
“What? Tell me!” I insisted. He sighed again and seemed to resign himself to telling me the story.
“You were sticking out on the right wing,” he started, “and since I’m kind of stocky and all, I was able to keep pushing you farther and farther out, cutting off your crosses, that kind of stuff. I was walking back up on a goal kick and one of my mates complimented me, and I said, ‘It’s easy, he always goes outside.’ Well, you must have heard me ’cause next time you got the ball you went inside and I was left holding my jock strap while you cut into the box and crossed to one of your strikers for the first goal. After that your confidence shot way up and I couldn’t handle you. Your side won 4-1, I think, and you scored the third. Caledonian cut me the next day.”
I looked at Layton, rather embarrassed.
“Oh. So that was you?” I said.
“Yeah, Peter. That was me.”
“Sorry,” I said. He elbowed me in mock anger.
“You finished my soccer career early and I joined the navy. The next spring you quit when everyone had you picked for a first team place with the Blues. Why’d you do it?” he asked.
“You mean quit soccer? Same as you. I wanted to join the navy and see the stars,” I said.
“You gave up a pro soccer career.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I did. And I’ve never regretted it.” And I meant that, too. I left out the part about wanting to follow in my brother’s footsteps, about stepping up to my adult responsibilities. I wanted to change topics badly and get off my almost-soccer career.
“So tell me about your family,” I said. He leaned back and folded his hands together.
“There’s just my parents, me, and my little sister, Lynne,” he said.
“You never told me you had a sister,” I said casually.
He smiled at me. “Damn straight! She’s only seventeen and she joins the navy next year—I wanted to keep her away from you.”
I was surprised at his comment. “Really? Why?” I said.
“You have an influence on the ladies, Peter, whether you know it or not. And I’m her big brother and I need to protect her.”
“From me?” He elbowed me playfully again.
“Yes, damn well from you! You really don’t know the effect you have on women!”
I looked out the window. “Apparently I don’t,” I said, my thoughts drifting to Dobrina Kierkopf. “But I’ll be sure and try out this mythical superpower on Lynne Layton when you introduce us.”
“Fat chance of that ever happening!” he said. Again I changed the subject.
“So what’s home like?” I asked.
“We live on a big ranch in the Caderlands. Two thousand head of cattle and five thousand pigs. My father exports beef and pork to the big southern cities, New Bournemouth, Q-City, New Briz, all of them,” he said. “And off-planet as well, mostly to Candle.”
“To Candle?” I asked, out of curiosity.
“Well not to Candle really. Candle is just the way port. To the new colonies, the High Stations, Carinthia, even the newly rediscovered First Empire worlds, when we find them. It’s exciting times for my father. Exciting if you’re a businessman, anyway.”
I nodded and then things went silent between us. I thought again about Wesley’s orders and what they might mean for my friends. Nothing good came to mind.
“They say she’s cursed, you know,” Layton said out of the blue. The statement caught me completely off guard.
“I’m sorry, did you say cursed? Are you talking about Impulse?” Layton nodded. “I didn’t know that you knew about the attack.” He shrugged again.
“That’s been the scuttlebutt on the longwave nets for days. Apparently the Carinthians are a superstitious lot. As soon as they got in range of Candle the IM’s started flying through the ansible network. The story’s been suppressed on the newsnets, but it’s well enough known amongst the merchants. When they arrived at Candle the crew filled the bars. Said they’d never seen anything like it. Now they think she’s cursed,” Layton said.
“Great,” I said, “that’s just what we need. A superstitious lot of Germans onboard ready to flash their crosses and spell their hexes at the first sign of trouble.” I was actually thinking about whether this development would make my assignment tougher or easier to carry out, if the need arose.
The conversation ended there and Layton talked me into playing some virtual games to kill the time. After I beat him on a tactical scenario game, a shoot-’em-up, and a soccer game, he gave up and decided to nap. I shut off my own light and crossed my arms, trying to sleep, fearing it wouldn’t come.
The massive mitt of John Marker woke me up just a few minutes before we docked at Candle. To my surprise, I found I had finally drifted off.
“Didn’t want you to miss your first glimpse of a Lightship, boys, cursed or not,” he said to Layton and me.
“Thanks, John,” I said, then activated my viewers to get my first look at Impulse. The outrigger had her longcams focused on the leeward wing of the station, “downwind” from the jump point. There were multiple merchant ships attached to the docking ports like puppies suckling their mothers. As we continued to circle the giant station just a bit faster than the spin of Candle herself, the outline of Impulse came into view, stern first, then creeping along her central axis, silver-and-chrome-colored splendor emerging into the distant light of Q-prime.
A few moments more and I could see the dark charcoal smears, no doubt where she had taken the hit from the Hoagland Wave, and the ragged rips in her side. I wondered about the crew that had lost their lives aboard her. I wondered what they had gone through, if they had suffered. It made me that much more resolved to complete my mission any way I could.
Otherwise, she looked as magnificent as our own Starbound, hanging like a glistening jewel against the black velvet of space. Marker squeezed his head in between Layton and me and broke my rapture at my new assignment, looking in at the view I had on my screen and smiling. Then he gripped me and Layton by the shoulders and gave us a friendly shake.
“Now that, my friends,” he said, “is a Lightship.”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
On High Station Candle
I stepped off the docking ramp of the outrigger and onto the deck of High Station Candle for the first time, Marker and Layton to either side of me. I was greeted by a young Carinthian staff ensign from Impulse herself, who snapped to attention and greeted me formally.
“Commander Cochrane, I’m Ensign Claus Poulsen, your assistant ’scopeman and attaché,” he said in a moderate Teutonic accent. “Welcome to the Unified Space Navy.”
“At ease, Poulsen,” I said, offering my hand. He shook it with a smile. Poulsen was young, maybe nineteen, and didn’t look like he shaved much. His skin was white with a firm pinkish tone, ginger hair stuck out from under his cap, and there was a bit of plumpness to his face. I guessed he wasn’t of pure Germanic descent like most of the Carinthian officers. And he looked vaguely familiar.
Poulsen clicked his fingers and two ratings even younger than him quickly came up and gathered my bags from me.
“I’ll keep my shoulder bag, Ensign. What’s with all the attention?” I asked.
“Captain Zander has ordered you to meet with him at your first chance, sir. I’m to see to it,” said Poulsen.
“What about my bags?”
“They’ll be brought up directly to your suite,” he said. I turned and smiled at my companion
s.
“Suite?” I said, surprised. Poulsen smiled again.
“I wouldn’t get too excited, sir. You have your own bath, a bed with storage, some bookcases and a desk with two guest chairs. It’s not exactly the LaandersPlatz in New Vee,” he said. I smiled at the reference to the Carinthian capital city’s finest hotel.
“Doesn’t have to be, Ensign, doesn’t have to be,” I said. Frankly, I was excited just at the thought of something other than a standard junior officer’s berth. Poulsen motioned for us to begin walking and I followed him down the access corridor and onto the promenade of Candle, Marker and Layton trailing.
“What about my men here?” I asked. Poulsen nodded.
“All taken care of, sir,” he said. “Lieutenant Layton has a junior officer’s berth one deck down from you. Corporal Marker is set up with the marine detachment on the hangar deck, sir.”
I stopped. “No need to delay them on my account, Ensign,” I said. He quickly waved another rating over and he came and got Layton’s bag. Marker wouldn’t have it.
“Just show me the way,” he said in his gruff accent. The rating waved the two men off in a different direction. I nodded for them to follow.
“We’ll catch up as soon as I have time,” I said. With that they both popped off salutes and headed off down a long corridor.
“Service port,” said Poulsen. “We’ll be going down the Promenade. I think the captain wants to show off his ship to you, sir.”
“Lead the way, Ensign.” With that, we were off.
Candle had an abundance of viewing ports, and as we walked I had occasion to examine the asteroid that gave the station her name. Candle was a yellow and orange sulfur-scarred rock, pockmarked with craters, with the station carved out of one end. It was efficient, no doubt, but also very ugly.
As we continued on, Impulse became visible, hanging in space at the end of a long crystal and metal spider-legged tunnel. She was enormous.