Starfarer's Dream (Kinsella Universe Book 4)
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Starfarer’s Dream
Starfarer’s Dream
Gina Marie Wylie
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Starfarer’s Dream
Copyright © 2008, 2012 Gina Marie Wylie
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1480284181
ISBN-13: 978-1480284180
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Starfarer’s Dream
CONTENTS
1
Sailings
1
2
Malfs
24
3
Zinder One
44
4
Why Am I Alive and Everyone Else is Dead?
63
5
New Texas
85
6
Starfarer’s Dream
106
7
Welcome to New Helgoland
129
8
It’s Time to Go Home
146
9
Earth
165
10
Delay in Route
180
11
The Board
191
12
Aftermath
215
13
Investigations
233
14
Picket Force
262
15
New Cairo
288
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Starfarer’s Dream
Chapter 1 -- Sailings
I
Terry Morrison stared out at the Gagarin School ship basin, at the shining silver globes dotting the water, glinting bright in the late morning sun. He'd seen this sight nearly fifteen hundred times in the four years since he'd arrived on Helvetia, fresh from Earth, and it had never once failed to deeply impress him. Helvetia was forty-two light years from home -- a long way to go for a college education. All to receive a college education and a commission as an ensign in the Federation Fleet.
And now he stood here at the culmination of four years work, a ship bag over one shoulder, and a single pip that graced each collar point of his engineering-blue shipsuit. Those round disks were the reward for four years of extraordinarily hard work -- work that had, at times, seemed an insurmountable mountain placed in his way, by those determined he should fail.
Outwardly he looked pretty much like the medium height intense young man who’d come here so many years ago -- his hair was still sandy blonde, his eyes were blue, he was still thin. That was all on the outside; on the inside he was a completely different person than the young man who’d come here so many years before.
Ahead of him, one of the small electric runabouts pulled to a stop and the Portie driver nodded to him. "Heading out to the basin, sir?"
Terry nodded and the man smiled and waved him to a seat. "Which ship, sir? The Guam?"
"Roger that, mister," Terry told him, sliding aboard the rear seat, putting his ship bag between his legs.
"Four hours to ship tight, sir. You're cutting it a little close."
"A busy morning, mister,” Terry replied.
Inside his ship bag was a HDD with a copy of his records. Aboard Guam he'd hand them to the Bureau of Personnel chief in the ship's office and they'd be read. Even now, two hours after he’d completed both of the important engineering watchkeeping certificate exams, Terry still had trouble believing the results.
The runabout was already moving, hurrying along the quay, turning onto one of the broad, long causeways that led between the ships. Four hours to ship tight, and another hour to be tugged out to the launch zone. Then Guam would lift, a cargo of Fleet personnel from the Gagarin School and the Fleet base here on Helvetia, bound halfway around the Rim to a dozen different bases and stations.
* * *
An hour later, Terry turned sideways in a corridor to let yet another crewman pass him in the narrow space. You'd think, Terry thought, that a passenger ship would have all the cubic in the universe. He glanced at the label on the next hatch in the inner bulkhead. Berthing Level Juliet, compartment November-19. The next one was his and when he got there, the hatch was open. He stepped inside to learn that while the door might have been open, the welcome mat was definitely not out.
Two women were sitting at the small table in the center of the compartment talking to each other. Another young man, the same age as the rest of them, was lounging on the lower level of one of the bunks, reading a textbook on his comp.
"Look what the cat dragged in! It's 'Mouse' Morrison!" one of the two women said, laughing at him. Candace Graham; she wasn’t one of Terry's favorite people. Candace sported the same single pip on her shipsuit as the rest of them; her shipsuit was sensor department brown. Candace was blonde and pretty -- too bad she kept her nose pointed straight in the air when it came to someone like Terry, a dirty-foot from Earth.
The other woman, called universally “Tokyo Rose,” Rosa Rosenblum, glanced up at Terry before turning to Candace. Rosa was wearing a dark blue, a navigator’s shipsuit.
"Eight weeks to Gandalf, Candy. If you look like you do right now for the next two months, the doc will be feeding you laxatives 'til the cows come home."
Rosa was five two, a nearly full-blood Japanese. As much as anyone was full-blooded anything more than nine hundred years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Rosa's parents had been born in Tokyo, but had moved to New Texas a few years before her birth. Mankind had rather blurred the lines between races and countries in the last millennium.
"He's not on the list for Gandalf and that's the last stop of the run," Candy informed the room. "Once he gets off, the rest of us should have more space." Candace waved her hand dismissively at Terry.
Terry saw the young man on the bunk look up, and then return his attention to his computer screen. Larry Wells. Terry didn't know him well, but he'd seen him around. The Gagarin School's Class of 2445 consisted of twelve hundred and four graduating students; it wasn't hard to at least recognize a classmate. Larry was also wearing a sensor brown shipsuit.
Terry gestured at the one upper bunk that looked the least mussed. "Is that the open bunk?"
"Roger that," Rosa answered simply.
Terry stowed his ship bag in the locker provided, turned and left the compartment, ignoring his three roommates. He asked the ship’s directory directions to the library and sat down in one of the carrels. Only two other cubes were occupied. Terry ignored the other people, preferring to pull up the ship's plans and her engineering diagrams.
After Terry left the berthing compartment he missed Rosa look at Candace coldly. "Give the dirty-foot a break. We all graduated; we're all Fleet now. That's the only thing that counts from here on."
Candace snorted in derision. "He graduated eleven hundred and ninety-eighth out of twelve hundred and four! He should have stayed home and let someone with a real chance have the slot!"
Rosa kept her voice patient. "Candace, he graduated just like you did. Six Rim Runners, Candace, did worse than he did. But they graduated, just like the rest of us. We're all in Fleet Aloft now, Candace. You need to learn what that means."
Again Candace sniffed. "Just because your parents were Fleet, your grandparents were Fleet, doesn't give you a leg up."
From his bunk Larry Wells spoke for the first time. "Candy, shut your mouth! I'm tired of listening to you! I have my syllabus to work on. You might want to think about working on yours. Commander Grunewald didn't strike me as the sort of officer who cuts new ensigns any slack.”
* * *
Terry was still in the library hours later when a chime sounded. "Now seventy minutes to lift! Now seventy min
utes to lift! Crew to Flight Quarters, passengers to their staterooms! Ten minutes to ship tight!" The message repeated and Terry stood and retraced his steps back to his berthing compartment.
Without a word he entered and laid down in the bunk and buckled in. The others were all standing and talking, ignoring him. Terry closed his eyes. It had been like this since his first day at Gagarin. He had never been anything like an extrovert, but four years at the Gagarin School had reduced him to an introverted introvert.
Fleet Academy, back on Earth, reserved a full half of its three thousand annual slots for Rim Runners. As a “reciprocal gesture” the Gagarin School on Helvetia reserved exactly two of twelve hundred and fifty slots for Earth natives, dirty-feet in Rim Runner parlance. The Rim Academy, on Fleet World, nearly seventy light years across the Federation from Helvetia, permitted exactly two reciprocals as well -- but the student body at the Rim Academy was greater than the other two schools combined, eight thousand young men and women were trained there every year.
At the Fleet Academy back on Earth, the teachers were some of the finest serving officers in the universe. At the Rim Academy, the teachers were some of the finest officers, mostly retired, in the universe. Not that the Gagarin School wasn't good as well -- just not as good as the other two.
From Terry’s first day at Gagarin some of the Rim Runners had begrudged him his slot. When his academic deficiencies became apparent, it had gone from grudge to hate. He'd been told a thousand times, by one of his fellow students or another, to resign so that someone qualified could take his place. He'd survived his first year by superhuman catch-up. A day was supposed to be six or eight hours of class with four to six hours of homework. Terry had studied eight, ten and twelve hours a day and frequently more. He'd spent weekends and holidays boning up; working hard to overcome the incredibly poor schooling he'd had up until then -- even if on Earth that schooling had been considered top notch.
Terry got no satisfaction from the fact that the other Earth-born student lasted less than a week. Terry passed his classes, but was dead last in every subject except engineering. There, he'd managed to do halfway well.
He was well aware of where he'd graduated in his class. But the one thing that counted more than anything else to him, the only thing that mattered to him at all, was his light blue shipsuit and the single pip on his collar points. That was what it had been about from the beginning and nothing the others could say or do could take it away from him. What happened from now on was up to him.
A while later he was awoken by the others climbing into their bunks. "So retro," Candace complained. “Like it would matter whether or not we were strapped in and there was a malf."
"You never know," Rosa murmured, "so we do it."
A few minutes later Guam lifted; Terry had his comp watching the feed from the bridge, curious as to what the officers of the transport were like. He'd tried to switch to the feed from Engineering, but found it blocked. Well, it was the department commander's option.
Guam was a fast transport, one of a class of ships that had had a long and venerable history. Right now Guam was lifting with two hundred and fifty-six new ensigns, nine hundred forty other Fleet and Port people. In the eighteen weeks until they reached the end of the line at Gandalf, they would make twelve stops, where, depending on the size of the Fleet base at a particular destination, between twenty and thirty of the new ensigns would be ferried down, and anyone being transferred, ferried back to the Guam.
The assignment officer back at Gagarin had been apologetic. "We have a request for a propulsion engineer at Agincourt. There's a frigate inbound from Earth; she’s going to be permanently assigned there. Fleet is putting in a Class III base on a rock in the system as there is no suitable moon around Agincourt itself."
Terry had nodded, listening attentively.
"Normally we don't like to send new ensigns out as singletons; it's good to have someone else your own rank to talk to. Frigate Sword Bearer will be coming off a yearlong deployment, so there are no ensigns left. They are losing a junior lieutenant, who's taking a marriage year aground -- but since Agincourt will be their new base, they won’t be gallivanting very far for a while.
"It's not going to be a big base: it will be pretty small potatoes for a long time. On the other hand, considering your record, you should fit right in. The frigate captain is a good head -- I knew him a few years ago when he was your age." The assignments officer had grinned. "You and he are a lot alike: risk takers, hard chargers, the both of you."
Terry hadn't said anything, just nodded, positive that the BuPers officer had him confused with someone else.
So yes, he was going to Gandalf with the rest of those in his compartment. Just that at Gandalf he would transship to a cruiser going on further to Agincourt, along with a Fleet rear admiral who would become the new base commander there.
* * *
A day after they lifted, Terry stopped in front of a hatch, brushed a few imaginary specks from his shipsuit, took a deep breath and knocked on the hatch.
"Enter, damn it!" The voice on the other side was very gruff.
Terry opened the hatch, took two steps forward and saluted. "Ensign Terry Morrison, Commander Douglas. If you have a moment, sir, I'd like to talk to you."
"I have a moment and we're already talking." The gruff officer waved a hand at Terry. "So talk."
"Commander, I am one of the supernumerary officers, en route to Agincourt via Gandalf. Sir, I would like to be assigned an engineering watch."
The commander was tall and angular, a thrusting lantern jaw, and well advanced into male pattern baldness. "Oh, you would?" his voice was filled with sarcasm, a mild Scot’s lilt to it.
"Yes, Commander."
"And tell me, Mr. Snotty, who is on his way to join his virgin cruise -- do you have either of the watch-standing certificates for engineering?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
"Barely passed?" the commander said with a snort.
"No, sir. I received adequate marks." It still astonished Terry. He had no intention of trumpeting his exam scores.
"You understand that certificate exams are so much BS?"
"Sir, I understand being a power engineer. My father is one as well, and I have worked with him, off and on, since I was twelve, sir. I have a civilian power watch-standing certificate and a civilian Lead Tech certificate as well."
"Where did you come by your certificates?" the chief engineer asked, still gruff as ever. He was, though, punching up information on his comp.
"Earth, sir. My father worked first in Mexico, then in Japan. My civilian certificates are Japanese."
Some certificates are harder to get than others. The Japanese were very thorough about theirs. Most importantly, they were the first country to have nuclear weapons employed against them and then there had been major nuclear accidents in Russia, China and Korea, plus Japan had a number of malfs of their own. The Japanese were fanatics when it came to nuclear power safety -- absolute fanatics.
The engineering department head lifted his eyes from his comp to meet Terry's and said wryly, "Mister, I should have such adequate marks on my watch-standing certificates.
"It is my understanding that all ensigns have an assigned syllabus to complete on their first little journey into the black unknown," the Chief Engineer told him, still sarcastic. Even so, the edge was off his voice and he regarded Terry with no expression on his face, the disdain from before gone.
"Sir, the course work amounts to less than forty hours a week. After Gagarin, that is a vacation."
The other continued to stare at Terry, before jerking his head up and down. "You are dismissed, Ensign. I will check with the captain; I'm not up on all the regs in a situation like this."
Terry punched the sky when he was out in the corridor.
Two hours later Terry's phone beeped.
"Ensign Morrison?"
Terry allowed that he was.
"This is Lieutenant Anvari, the third engineer. Chief Do
uglas told me that you were to stand watch with my crew. We are on mid-watch for now. Please report to me a few minutes before the watch starts."
"Aye, aye, sir!"
There was, Terry thought, absolutely nothing in the universe better than this!
II
David Zinder stood looking out the observation deck window, trying to pretend this was all old hat. At sixteen, going on seventeen, he could, he thought, very nearly pull it off. But the fact was that this was the second time in his life he'd seen real starships.
The observation deck looked out over the ship basin of the Canary Island Spaceport: where real starships landed -- at least the ones that landed. David grinned to himself. It was a difference in point of view. On Earth, you looked upwards from a gravity well of eleven and a quarter kilometers per second. Work was work, but it didn't matter if you lifted kilograms to orbit one at a time or a million at a time. Since Benko-Chang ships literally couldn't tell the difference, most Earth-based ships lifted from the ground.
Rim Runners, on the other hand, lived and worked in gravity fields that varied from nonexistent to several multiples of Earth's. Rim Runner ships were mission oriented and like Rim Runners themselves, did pretty much as they pleased.
Thus it was that about half the ships that called at Earth couldn't enter the atmosphere; passengers and cargo rode shuttles to and from high orbit where such ships gingerly put their feet into the gravity well of the planet.
The truth was that David was far more excited at the prospect of a shuttle-to-orbit flight than he would have been lifting in one of the giant starships that bobbed in the water in front of him. On the other side of the concourse were the ground-to-orbit shuttles; they looked no different than any other aircraft in the twenty-fifth century. In fact, they were no different. But the view they provided was infinitely better than any starship ever built. Shuttles had windows: starships had only video cameras and video screens.