Ariticle Six

by C. T. Christensen

  “Sir, all non-navel personnel have been cleared from the ship. Captain Helt has placed the remaining crew at strategic points with heavy fire-fighting capability. All through-hull openings except for heat sink vents have been closed.”

  Wills nodded and moved to his chair, indicating that CeCe should also be seated. He looked up at the screen that showed Helt at his post, “Captain, what is your final word on the lift ring?”

  “Sir, I believe my people have managed a workable repair. All data flow and surge tests indicate correct response patterns and power handling.”

  Helt shrugged his shoulders, “I think it will work okay.”

  That knot in Wills’ stomach got a little tighter even though he knew that Helt and his people had probably done a better job than was being advertised by the tired looking engineer.

  “Are we set for breakout?”

  Helt nodded, “I have isolated all ship’s systems not directly linked to the isolator drive to five of the original Weasel reactors.” Helt gave a tired smile, “I have to admit that the Silverman did most of the work. I’m beginning to like that thing.” He leaned back in his seat and rubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands, “I even asked it how the drive would handle a power decline instead of an abrupt shutdown. Basically, it said it didn’t know.”

  “Very good, Ellias; stay alert. Whatever it will be is almost done.”

  Some of the screens showed the view outside of the ship; the game field was jammed with Foresters and the civilian crew of the Weasel. Big fires burned around the edges of the field and in the streets of the town. The battery lights and therapy panels had not been enough and Foresters had taken to cutting down everything that would burn so they could maintain nonstop bonfires; it didn’t really matter, life on Forest was at its end. Wills just wished they were all further away; but, that too, might not matter.

  Wills and CeCe watched the red dot close on the point they had selected for breakout. The silence on the bridge of a ship that was pouring enough power to run a modern civilized planet into a hole in space was eerie to the point of sensory deprivation.

  Wills just stared at that dot, “With the weight you’ve lost, you could easily crack my altitude record now.”

  CeCe stared, too, “All I want right now is to sleep for a month on a sunny planet and as far from an isolator drive as I can get.”

  Wills smiled as he reached for the SHIP-WIDE panel, “Your leave is approved.”

  “Attention, this is the first officer; breakout now.”

  He lifted his hand from the panel and pointed it at Helt. Helt tapped one key.

  Two seconds--three seconds--four--

  Reactor feed alarms shattered the silence and lit every available screen.

  “WARNING - POWER FEED ERROR - DRIVE FREQUENCY STABIL--“

  Wills was falling and something was squeezing him through a hole he couldn’t see. What he did see was the console in front of him stretch into the distance toward a black circle. He lifted his arms to try to keep the console from being pulled away but he couldn’t reach it.

  Absolute silence returned as Helt cancelled the alarms. Wills gave a confused look to his outstretched arms and then just slumped in his chair and rubbed his eyes. When he could focus again, he looked up at the screens and saw sunlight slanting across the crowded game field from the southwest.

  The com system chimed to announce an incoming message. Wills and CeCe jerked their heads to look at each other in surprise. CeCe reached and tapped the key to accept the message.

  “…stationed at Mallcott. Our arrival at your planned breakout point is estimated to take one hour after breakout confirmation. REPEAT - Admiral Reynolds, this is Admiral Simon Baleman; I am commanding a composite fleet of forty-six cargo ships and fifteen Navel vessels stationed at Malcott. Our arrival…”

  Wills tapped some keys to route the message to the SHIP-WIDE system and external speakers. Then he slumped back into his chair again and let the tears run down his face.

  ##

  Wills, CeCe, and Helt stood at the top of the loading ramp and watched as three of Helt’s people guided the cargo floater past them and down the ramp. The large, sealed equipment box on it contained the Silverman Integrator.

  Wills looked back along the ramp up to the first cargo-deck; the massive ship above him was now a dead hulk with only batteries providing the last use of electrical power. He put a hand on Helt’s shoulder, “It seems a waste to leave this all behind.”

  “I know, Admiral; but most of the major systems are in need of extensive repairs. Even the Berlin reactors have advanced neutron etching in the initiator chambers.” He extended a gloved hand and patted a support column he was standing next to, “The ship is old, and we asked it to do something it was barely capable of doing. In the process, it suffered a great deal of damage.” He turned a switch on the support column, and the strut platform went dark. He turned back to Wills, smiled, and shrugged, “If they want it, they’ll know where it is.”

  The three of them descended the ramp. CeCe stopped a couple of meters from the edge and the others stopped near the edge to turn and give her a questioning look.

  “If you don’t mind, gentlemen; there is an old tradition that seems appropriate here.”

  Helt and Wills smiled, nodded, and stepped off the loading ramp to the ground. CeCe followed them off the ramp, bent over, and pressed the button behind a small panel. The ramp swung slowly upwards and closed.

  CeCe watched the ramp settle into its frame and listened to the lock bolts slide into place. When the sound had faded she lowered her head and seemed to slump a bit. She turned and started walking away, “There goes my first, and probably only, command.”

  Wills and Helt fell in alongside her and headed for the waiting floater. Marine Colonel Samantha LeBeau stood next to it with three members of her staff. Wills sealed the top of his borrowed Marine parka as he got further from the close cover of the Weasel’s overhang. The temperature had dropped below freezing several days ago and an erratic breeze made it worse.

  Colonel LeBeau and her people braced to attention and saluted as Wills approached. The three of them stopped in front of LeBeau and Wills returned the salute, “How are things going, Colonel?”

  The tall, hard faced Marine radiated the aura of someone that would be a mistake to meet in a dark alley. Just her manner of speech confirmed that crap was something she dished out but did not take.

  “Sir, I have been advised that all voluntary groups of Foresters have been evacuated. I now have full command of surface operations and have forty-two teams rounding up the more recalcitrant members of the indigenous population.”

  CeCe had been looking past the floater toward the town. The dim light of the distant Mallcott primary that now hung near the southern horizon made it easy to see a well-lit concentration of activity.

  She pointed at it, “What’s going on there, Colonel?”

  LeBeau didn’t turn, “Since the temperature has dropped, we have been able to use simple IR scanners to find groups of those that are disinclined to cooperate with the general effort. This particular case involves Joe and several of the town leaders that managed to turn their situational shock into total paranoia. My team just tossed in a stun grenade and then gave them all a jolt of snooze juice. Their next contact with reality will be on a warm, sunlit world.”

  “Do you think you will be successful in completely clearing the planet?” asked CeCe.

  The first sign of frustration crossed LeBeau’s face, “Captain, if I had to bet on it, I would say that will not happen. What are left at this moment are only the ones that are prepared to be confrontational. My experience in trying to dig out the toughest nuts tells me that there will be a few that are better at hiding and require levels of destructive extraction that Admiral Baleman has requested, in no uncertain terms, does not occur.

  “However,” she brightened, “there will be patrols on Forest for the next three to four months. As the real cold sets in and it becom
es obvious that there isn’t enough insulation on the planet to keep it out, scooping up the remnants should be fairly easy.”

  Wills watched the three Marine floaters lift away from the center of town. Two of them landed near the floater they were standing next to; the third headed for orbit.

  Wills reached out and shook the Colonel’s hand, “Thank you, Colonel; it looks like you’re doing a good job. These people are worth the effort. I got to know them quite well and I appreciate your efforts to get as many off as you can.”

  It was easy to see that Colonel LeBeau was not used to such personal and heartfelt expressions of gratitude; a smile almost managed to rearrange the lines in her face, “Thank you, Admiral; you may always count on me to get the job done. You may be assured that my booted foot will be the last living thing on the surface of this planet.”

  Helt stepped closer to them, “Admiral, the Silverman is loaded; time to leave.”

  LeBeau and her people saluted again as Wills, CeCe, and Helt mounted the steps into the floater. Wills dropped into a seat and watched the Weasel go by as they climbed steeply toward the orbiting cargo ship.

  Planet Earth - October 1, 2262 - 1340 hours (CST)

  Wills broke into a huge grin as he approached the top of the sweeping staircase that descended to the crater floor. Admiral Cicely Copeland turned from the conversation she was having with Planetary Secretary Jons Algon. When she saw him, she broke into a matching grin. The sloppy salutes and embrace that followed were not exactly what the Navy expected from its top officers, but no objections were raised.

  Wills couldn’t wipe the grin from his face as he held her hands and looked her over, “CeCe, you look wonderful; what’s it been now, two years?”

  “Just over two years now, Admiral.” She pointed at the third star on his collar, “I’m glad things have gotten moving on Archer lately.”

  “Well, with Forest out of the way, literally, business has exploded. I just had to hire my fifth aide. How are things going for you since you got your star?”

  “Quite well, sir; being your aide was perfect preparation for becoming Governor-General of Castelan.”

  A subtle throat clearing diverted their attention to others waiting to greet Wills. Admiral Helt was standing at the near end of a group of familiar faces.

  “Ellias, how are things going at the Academy Research School?”

  The grinning Helt firmly shook hands with Wills, “The Sprint-class ship that brought you here is our first practical result from the isolator research program. The Weasel-Forest thing lit a fire under the theorists, and we are at the beginning of a program to peel isolator drive technology like an onion.”

  Wills narrowed his eyes and got a serious expression on his face, “Has anyone made anything out of all of us seeing that stretching toward a black hole or whatever it was.”

  “Well, the current general opinion is that we weren’t being stretched toward a black hole but being pulled out of the isolator field. The dominate thinking is that the Silverman had to peel us out of a fading isolator field instead of just turning it off. I still get a kick at parties after everyone has had a few drinks when I bring that up and watch the theorists just look at each other and then start scribbling indecipherable formulas on every flat surface. Meanwhile, us engineering types figured out how to change velocity while in isolator drive and we now have Sprint ships.”

  Another audible indication of impatience interrupted the technical briefing, and Wills turned to greet the rest of the group. Stoker, Ames, Treelam, and Twisst were next in line.

  Wills warmly greeted them all, “So, Roland, I heard that you and your team had gone your separate ways; how did you manage to get them all back together?”

  Stoker stuck out a thumb in the direction of Helt, “Helt’s development of gravity compression warp of isolator fields has made many things possible. You used to be six months away from Earth when you were on Archer. Now you are three weeks away. The rest of us were closer, but this gathering would not have been practical without his work or the incident on Forest that triggered the research.”

  Wills had to nod in agreement with that.

  Victoria Treelam placed a hand on his arm, “Admiral, how is Hayes doing? Jonathon and I were hoping that he would be here with you.”

  Wills smiled at that memory, “When he arrived back at Archer, he found out that he was the highest ranking officer on the planet since I promoted him to Lieutenant Commander, at least until Billings got back in the Melinda and reported that Forest had vanished. It seems that Billings had gathered a small fleet at Sandalwood and New Braxton. The first of them arrived eight days after we left.” Wills broke into a big grin, “I’ve talked to several of the bridge officers of some of those ships since then and the stories of blank faced, stunned incredulity are invariably similar. Billings organized a mass resonator sweep of the entire system before he committed to the conclusion that Forest had been ‘…removed without trace by agencies unknown’ as he put it in his report.

  “Billings posted two Navy ships that were with him with orders to remain on station for as long as their supplies would allow and dismissed the civilian ships. By the time he got back to Archer, we were twelve days overdue and Hayes was having the Santana prepped for a return flight. It took another three months for word of our emergency message to reach Archer.”

  He put one arm each around Roland and Victoria’s shoulders, “Since then, he married his girlfriend and has a little girl that he named Eva. He is still doing scouting work but has one of the new Sprint variants. He was away on a mission when my transport arrived from Earth.”

  Another step down the line and he was facing Captain Amanda Kraigor.

  Wills returned her smiling salute, “Amanda, I thought you were doing survey work for CeCe?”

  “I was, and I am, sir, Admiral Helt needed people to fly his Sprint ships, and I now command the Sprint-class survey ship Runner. My first assignment is to transport you back to Archer and then report to Castelan.”

  Wills was happy to hear that, “I’m looking forward to it already.”

  While he had been talking to Amanda, he had seen the last two people in the group standing several meters away. There was something familiar--

  He turned toward them and got his first good look at them. His eyebrows went up when he recognized Doctor Bernard Jordan. The problem was that he didn’t recognize the woman he was standing next to. As he approached, he had the thought that Jordan had divorced Katrin. The woman next to him was as tall as Katrin--he must like them tall--but had long, shiny black hair, wore a small amount of makeup, a soft, formfitting blouse, and a knee-length pleated skirt that was the current fashion.

  He must have gotten tired of being chained to the bed and whipped every night.

  He held out his hand to greet Doctor Jordan, “Doctor, I didn’t expect you to be here.”

  Jordan looked up at the taller Wills, “Katrin and I have become humanity’s experts on xenopsychology and were on Earth for a series of lectures. When we heard that you and the rest of this group would be here for a reunion ceremony, we had to be part of it. So, here we are.”

  We?

  Wills shifted his eyes to the woman; intense, bright blue, smiling eyes looked back. An extended hand and a soft, unaccented soprano voice, “Good afternoon, Admiral; it’s been a long time.”

  Wills almost missed her hand as his mind franticly tried to deal with something that was just--wrong, “Ahh . . . Katrin?”

  Her smile shifted to a stern expression, “Did you like my Kamp Komandant, Admir-r-al?”

  It was several minutes before he regained a dignified composure. The others had arrived before him and already knew who she was, but his collapse started their laughter all over again.

  When he could talk again and had finished wiping the tears from his face, he looked at Katrin, “Why did you do that to us? It must have required a tremendous effort to maintain that facade, and you must have known that everyone on the planet was
speculating on how to arrange an accident for you.”

  She inclined her head and smiled, “I kept your mind off of other things. Besides, it was great fun watching people twitch and duck down other corridors in the ship or behind buildings in the towns when they saw me coming.”

  The extent of their psychological plot opened in Wills’ mind. He had always wondered how she could have a practice when she was probably more fearsome than a patient’s own internal demons.

  Secretary Algon and two of his aides stepped forward to the top of the stairway in a conspicuous manner.

  Wills caught the motion and led the group to join him, “Mister Secretary, I am honored to be here today and very grateful that you arranged this reunion.”

  Secretary Algon was a muscular former athlete from South Africa, very tall with startling green eyes, and dark skin. Shaking hands with him was a memorable experience. His voice was deep and smooth; a perfect match for his size.

  “Admiral, I regret that it was not possible for many of you to be here in time for the official dedication, but I was determined to meet the main players in one of the biggest events in human history. After all,” he swept his hand toward the center of the crater, “this is the direct result of your adventure. It was your report and Admiral Copeland’s speculation that has brought us to the end of this path and to the start of a new one.”

  With the focus now adeptly moved to the path that stretched before them to the crater’s center, they descended the one hundred wide steps to the sloping walkway that led to the newly constructed memorial.

  Wills had been told about the acoustic oddity within the crater; experiencing it caused a varying sense of peace and apprehension. It was like walking into a world far distant from the one only two hundred meters away. Only the slight sound of their footsteps intruded as the scarred and dented spherical hull of the Harrison-Lake Isolator loomed above them and filled their minds with what had happened here.