The Long Road to Gaia

by Timothy Ellis

  "Acknowledge," said Jon. "Guns, get us pointed. Helm, bring us around so all batteries can fire."

  There were two versions of "Aye sir", one after the other. The ship turned, and all turrets aligned on the middle of the jump point.

  The fleet waited. The gunners had their fingers on the triggers. Everyone else seemed to hold their breathe.

  A red dot appeared on the HUD, quickly followed by a lot of them.

  The fleet fired almost immediately. The German fleet began firing at almost the same time.

  "What have we got?" bellowed Jon.

  "Eight Battleships," yelled Helm. "Twelve Cruisers behind them."

  "How the hell do they have eight Battleships?" demanded the Captain.

  No-one answered. No-one knew.

  "Fighters and bombers jumping in behind them as well sir. They must have a Carrier on the other side."

  I stopped time again.

  The Germans had the most mass, but they were jumping in, so only their forward turrets could fire. The Americans on the other hand, had every turret firing at them.

  Nineteen appeared next to me when I called.

  "Good question I thought," I said. "Is there an answer?"

  "The Germans have been building ships in secret for decades," she answered.

  "Germans in general?"

  "No. Business groups pretending not to support the Nazis have been funding ship building behind everyone else's back. This has been coming for a long time. How have you not seen this?"

  "I haven’t been looking. My focus is specific, and it’s a long way from here. I've no real interest in what the rest of humanity has been up to."

  "Perhaps you should have."

  It was a thought. But one I wasn’t sure was actually productive in terms of my mission.

  "What do you reckon about the outcome here?"

  "They are pretty even. Germans have more and bigger ships, but the Americans have the edge in firepower, and training. Also experience, since they've been dealing with a pirate problem for quite some time."

  "Well we better let them have at it."

  She nodded, and vanished.

  I restarted time.

  Boston shuddered, as a full broadside from one of the Battleships hit her shields.

  "Move us!" yelled Jon and his Captain at the same time.

  The ship dropped below the line quickly, and most of the next broadside aimed at them missed. But the shots which hit, took their shields down.

  "Evasive!" ordered Jon, and the ship changed position again.

  Boston shuddered much more violently this time, even though only a few shots hit them.

  "Hull breach!" yelled someone.

  The doors were all airtight, and all of them were closed, so only the compartments opened to space had casualties.

  Boston hadn't stopped firing, but now, only slightly more than half of her guns fired.

  The next hit blew down their recovering shields again, and the compartment above the bridge was destroyed. Debris crashed through the floor, and crushed the Captain. The air blew out through the ceiling for a few seconds, before the hull sealant systems were able to seal the hole. Boston lost position in the line, and found herself closing in on the center of the battle.

  Major, now Captain Jon Hunter, surveyed the wreckage of the Bridge. Coms was also gone, as were half the gunnery positions and the engineering station.

  The Lieutenant at Helm was still moving the ship around, still trying to keep them clear of the main shots directed at them. It was a guessing game, and he had average luck.

  Boston staggered under the next hit, throwing Jon right out of his chair. He picked himself up, idly noting the blood dripping down the left side of his face. He pulled himself over to the Helm, which still worked, although the ship wasn’t answering very well now.

  "What's left?" he asked Helm.

  "Nothing sir. We can move with main engines, but that’s about it. Going forward is about our only real option right now."

  "Enemy?"

  "Holding the line sir. They've all turned to bring all guns to bare. It’s a slugfest. Both sides are taking a lot of damage."

  He paused, looking at the nav map.

  "No wait," he went on. "The Missouri is turning to retreat. So are the rest of our first line. Um. Those still here that is. Oh hell."

  "What?"

  "The Battleship opposite her is moving to prevent Missouri from leaving."

  "Can we intercept her?"

  The man looked hard at Jon, and swallowed heavily.

  "Yes sir."

  "Ramming speed," Jon ordered.

  I've always wondered what that was. Ships have fixed speed. They cruise at one speed, they have a top speed above it. But nothing is actually defined as ramming speed. There is no extra above top speed to ram with. Ramming speed was full speed. So why use special words. 'Ram the bastard' would have made more sense. So much to learn yet about Humans.

  Boston turned slowly as she began picking up speed.

  "Perhaps today is a good day to die," muttered Jon, as he reseated himself. "Ka-Plaa!"

  The German Battleship was too late seeing the threat, and Boston, now up near full speed, rammed her about a third of the way down her length. The Battleships shields were so low, Boston went through them with only minor damage.

  Both ships blew.

  I wound back time and looked at what happened slowly.

  As I thought, Boston hit the Battleship, and cleaved straight through her forward power room, which supplied the energy to her forward guns. The power plants had exploded.

  I sighed heavily. Another dead Jon Hunter. But this one had died a warrior, and a hero. Only no-one knew.

  I let the battle conclude.

  The Americans were able to disengage all their Battleships, half their Cruisers, and a third of their fighters and bombers. Very few of the larger ships were undamaged. Missouri was the worst hit, and had escaped purely because of the actions of Boston.

  The Carriers were undamaged, as were their escort, having been ordered to withdraw the moment the number and size of the German fleet had been realized.

  The Americans fell back into Bermuda, where they formed up with the Canadian fleet. They sent a hurry up to the British, and began trying to repair their damage in preparation for the next battle.

  The Germans didn’t go far. They'd also been bloodied, and losing one of their Battleships to an inferior ship hadn't gone down well, and had made a significant mess of the down jump area. The Carriers waited in Cuba to jump in when the jump point had been made safe, but it was going to take several days to happen. As far as I could tell, it would give the British time to join in.

  One appeared next to me.

  "Stop wasting time Thirteen. You're needed in the meeting, not buggering around here."

  She vanished before I could say anything.

  I pondered the debris field, and the Hunter family.

  Galactica had lost forty three scout ships in the centuries it took her to reach the end of the galactic arm. Six of those had killed Hunters. Another twenty three of them had killed someone from their extended family of cousins and second and third cousins. Two of them had been named Jonathon Hunter. Now a third Jon was dead. The first had been the only one to die of old age. Space was a harsh place. Jonathon hadn't been an often used name in the Hunter family, but since leaving Earth, it sure was lethal to those who had it.

  It made you wonder why the family used the name at all. Then again, there had also been fifteen named Jonathan, and none of them had died violently or unexpectedly.

  It occurs that the spelling difference might be someone like One playing silly buggers with the family. Making them make a typo when filling in the birth name, for the ones on a one way trip to eternity. Maybe I'm just becoming too cynical about One though.

  I wondered what the next Jonathon would be like, and how he'd die. It was a depressing thought.

  Twelve appeared, grabbed me by the arm, and shif
ted us back to the meeting.

  No-one said a thing, and we picked up where I’d left off.

  Four

  "War's over," announced Nineteen.

  Five rolled his eyes and appealed to One silently. But One was actually interested, and instead of waving away Nineteen, she waved her to sit. Five sighed. I think we're all spending too much time in human form, since it seems all of us are picking up their mannerisms. Scary thought.

  "Who won?" asked Six.

  "Those who weren't involved," answered Nineteen with a grin.

  "Ha-ha," said Twelve. "What actually happened?"

  "The American fleet was reinforced by the Canadian fleet, adding two more Battleships, three Cruisers, and a handful of smaller ships to the fleet. The Germans were too slow cleaning the jump point of the first battle, and the British caught up, adding another five Battleships and a dozen Cruisers, plus a Carrier and support ships. The Americans also had enough time for basic repairs. So when the Germans jumped into Bermuda, they were outgunned."

  Nineteen looked at me.

  "You'd have enjoyed the battle Thirteen. It was a bigger slugfest than the one you did see."

  No, I think not. Battles were not really my thing. I know some of my peers considered battles among mundanes to be entertainment, but I didn’t. I'm not sure why Nineteen counted me in their number.

  She paused slightly to see my reaction, and when I didn’t give one, she went on.

  "This time it was the German's who withdrew. They lost two thirds of their fleet, and the remainder escaped only because the jump lane was too heavy with debris for the Americans to risk going after them immediately. All the same, the Allied fleet lost almost half its number as well."

  There were smiles around the table. Nothing like big losses in a battle to get your bloodlust up. Except we didn’t have blood in the conventional sense. I felt sick.

  "At the same time, the French, Italian, and Spanish fleet received reinforcements from the Russians and Chinese, and they pushed back the German fleet still in Barnard's Star."

  I sighed. War was war, but I found I really didn’t want to hear about it. But it seemed I was the odd one out.

  "The Earth-side fleet had a harder time than the top arm fleet in pushing the Germans back, so they met in Deutschland at about the same time, in spite of the top arm fleet having further to go. The final battle there, destroyed the remaining German ships, and they surrendered. The Nazi government fell, and most of the leaders were executed by their own people."

  "Nice," said Nine, grinning.

  "What was the fallout?" I asked.

  One nodded as well. Seemed this was her main interest.

  "The Germans lost their status as a sector, and became a sub-sector of Earth sector. They were forbidden to build any ship larger than a Cruiser class, with strict limits on how many could be built, and the size of guns which could be put on them. No Pocket Battleships were going to be allowed."

  "So pretty much the same result as the end of World War 2," interrupted Four.

  "Close. But there was one significant difference."

  Nineteen paused, inserting an air of expectation, maybe thinking someone would guess. No-one tried.

  "The Germans recognized themselves that the Nazi mentality had a significant hold over a proportion of the population, and this would never change. So they chose the planet with the highest proportion of Nazi voters on it, declared the system to be the Fourth Reich, and forcibly exiled all known Nazis on their other worlds there, while encouraging anyone who supported them to move there as well. Laws were passed making being a Nazi illegal, punishable by exile. But it's not just Germans. Now there is a place specifically for those with the Nazi mindset, they are moving there from all over Human space, or being exiled there. The Earth Torus for example, is forcefully moving tens of thousands of known Nazis. The Nazis themselves are starting to freak out about it, since the whole blond blue eyes thing they pride themselves on is under threat from those who don’t look like them, only think like them. Some shakeout to come there I think."

  "Probably overdue," said Eight.

  "The French, Italians, and Spanish declared independence and formed their own sectors, as promised. Until Earth sector can build a new fleet, they are maintaining a blockade force in Victoria. But I can't see this lasting for very long. The top arm fleet has already begun the journey back to their own space."

  "So peace in our time?" muttered Two.

  Nineteen laughed.

  "Not even close. The divisions between Earth sector and the others seem wider than ever before, and nothing seems to have been solved as far as the Arabs are concerned. Although the top of the spine sectors do seem to have come together more."

  "I think you'll find the same thing happens in the Arab systems," said Six. "The extremists will be blamed for the huge loss of life, and each system will go back to being its own faction again."

  "It's started already."

  "How are the sectors feeling?" asked Three.

  "Earth sector has taken a huge hit, and may never recover to be more than the token homeland that once was. I doubt they will be a force again for another hundred years. The core-ward sectors all gained, especially those getting their independence at last. The last vestiges of Earth sector being superior, died with their fleet. The Canadians did reasonably well out of coming to the Americans aid. The British also, although they are now quietly starting to upgrade their tech, having taken a bit more damage than they'd have liked. Sci-Fi sector got a bit spooked, and is now talking to the British about buying one of their older Battleships. The Australians don’t appear to have noticed the war much at all. Benefit of distance I guess."

  "And the Americans?" asked One.

  "Freaked out."

  Just about everyone laughed. I frowned. A freaked out American sector was not in anyone's best interests as far as I could see. It had happened before, and no-one was happy with the fallout from what followed. Nineteen went on.

  "Their Cruiser class proved to be vulnerable to heavier weapons, so there are already calls for a new Cruiser class to be built, able to take much heavier fire and still continue to fight. But there is significant opposition to the cost. My guess is they will also concentrate on improving tech, and at some point, we'll see a big upgrade of their fleet. For now though, the Americans are hyper-aware of what the other sectors can do to them, and they're going to strengthen their sector defenses."

  "So," said One. "They’ve all had a wake up call."

  "You could put it that way," responded Nineteen.

  "Good."

  One put a lot of emphasis on that one word, making me even more sure the whole thing had been engineered by her.

  "Thankyou Nineteen, you can go now."

  One looked down the table at the rest of us, and Nineteen, now dismissed, vanished.

  I wasn’t happy, but there wasn’t anything I could do.

  2605

  "So," said Twelve. "This is the one."

  "This is the one," I repeated. "Or so I'm told. He doesn’t look like much."

  "What do you expect at eight standard Earth years old?"

  "Not this."

  This was indeed an eight year old boy. He was playing, for want of a better word, with a mish mash of technology, some of which was so old, it really shouldn't have been able to be interfaced together at all.

  He was engrossed in a space combat game. Oddly, a name-sake of his had played the exact same game at the exact same age. This kid was better at it though.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's see how much I can manipulate this game of his."

  Turned out, I could both change it and influence it. I made his immediate mission a lot harder than it was, and watched him flounder around trying to counter a better enemy than he thought.

  "He is good Thirteen."

  "He’ll be a lot better once I'm done with him."

  I kept throwing curve balls at him until he tired, and went to bed.

  I started planning
what programs to get him to play, in what order, and what I needed to use each one to teach him.

  "Enjoy," said Twelve with a laugh, and vanished.

  2606

  Two Cruisers were lobbing shots at each other at long range. Neither was doing much damage to the other.

  Neither of them knew just how much danger they were heading into.

  I stood in space, waving a flag, which once upon a time, meant 'you are standing into danger'. Alas, neither ship could see me.

  "What are you doing Thirteen?" asked Twelve.

  "Nothing," I responded, somewhat embarrassed to have been seen enjoying myself.

  "Shall we get down to business?"

  "Why?"

  Twelve was stumped. He floundered around for a good reason. I laughed at him.

  "Get a grip, Thirteen."

  My hands reached for his throat. It wasn’t the grip he'd been talking about. He vanished to appear again out of range.

  "Quit fooling around."

  I kept laughing. I'd been on this gig for six hundred and thirty seven years, and truth to tell, there hadn't been a lot of good laughs. It was time I made a few.

  Jon, much to his parent's dismay, had been watching zombie flat screens lately. They made a change from his usual science fiction.

  I held up my arms, and shuffled forward towards Twelve, all the colour draining out of me.

  Twelve vanished again, and came back with One.

  I changed direction and kept going towards him.

  One pulled out a machete.

  "Spoilsport," I said to her, and resumed my normal colouring.

  The Machete vanished, but One remained.

  "We have a job to do here, Thirteen."

  I looked towards the two Cruisers. One was chasing the other into the system, and both were lobbing pot shots at each other from long range. Both of them were now taking a beating from local space conditions.

  As we watched, the lead ship took a solid hit, its shields shredded, and it was very swiftly torn apart.

  The other ship kept on going, avoiding the debris of its target. Shortly after, it made the null zone in the middle of the system.