“It is important that every citizen in the Union see our great achievements,” he declared.
Unlike the traditions of generations past, Putti didn’t seek a ceremony that called upon the gods to protect the vessel, nor did he care to cast blessings of safety and good fortune on the crew. He wasn’t even interested in a naming ritual. Rather, his focus was on using the event as a means of gaining publicity and attracting votes. “It must be a day of grand celebration. We will broadcast it live to the world!”
The ship was huge by Union standards. It had to be built in orbit because, had it been constructed on Earth, such a large and unwieldy craft would simply shake itself apart on takeoff. Passengers and crew were ferried to and from the ship on shuttles.
To maximize viewership and cement a positive impression in the minds of voters, Putti sought a carnival-like spectacle. One aide had suggested that the affair take place in orbit, but Putti quickly vetoed the idea. He gave enthusiastic support when another proposed having the event take place on a stage placed in front of a Fleet launch site.
The event was timed to match the launch of a newly upgraded scout ship. The president beamed as the crowd oohed and aahed at the appropriate moment. He generously shared the stage with his supporters, and a stream of politicians took to the dais and spoke of how the ship symbolized the power and success of the Union. Each talked of the battles they had personally waged against the doubters—who also happened to be their political opponents—so this day of triumph could come to pass.
Some lauded the amazing technology that had made it all happen, though they kept this part brief, as none were confident of the specifics. And they finished by praising the voters for their foresight and intelligence in electing such effective and visionary leaders.
Near the end of the fanfare, Brady Sheldon and a woman introduced as Dr. Jessica Tallette were presented to the crowd. The politician charged with this task praised the new crystal technology developed at the behest of the Union. This introduction was necessary because it was followed by an image, projected to the world, of the Juice look-alike as she carried the four-gen onto the shuttle. She stopped to smile and wave, held the four-gen carrying case high in the air, waited for the crowd to cheer and wave back, and then stepped aboard the shuttle and disappeared from view.
As soon as the shuttle hatch was sealed, she handed Defecto to a Fleet crew member. She then removed her wig, wiped off the makeup, and returned to being Ensign Cait Young. She placed Juice’s com in a courier pouch for its return to its rightful owner, and retrieved her own.
* * *
Victoria Wellstone attended the commissioning ceremony. She stood in the crowd, and waited through the long and wretched event because she wanted to see everything with her own eyes. The speeches dragged on, and she wondered why the people standing around her considered this to be a sensible use of their time. She didn’t quite appreciate the allure that “free fun and food” held for the masses.
With the ceremony mercifully drawing to a close, she watched like an eagle tracking its prey as Juice and the four-gen clambered aboard the shuttle. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when the craft launched without mishap and flew straight and true until it disappeared from sight.
* * *
Cheryl welcomed the shuttle and its passengers to the Alliance. “Nice job, Ensign,” she said as Cait stepped aboard. “I watched the event, and you even had me convinced.”
“Thank you, Captain.” The crew member’s arms were piled high with equipment, and she bit her lip as she concentrated on balancing her load. “We should have the four-gen ready for testing soon.” She inched down the passage as she made her way to the operations bay.
Jack followed Cait and stopped to face Cheryl. “First Officer Jack Sparrow reporting for duty, ma’am.” He gave her a smart salute.
“Welcome aboard, Commander,” Cheryl said, eyeing the two large packs at his feet. “You’re this way.” She led him down a passage and stopped three doors short of the command bridge. “Here’s your home. My quarters are next door. And that one’s the command muster.” She pointed to the door closest to the command bridge.
Jack slung the two packs off his shoulders and onto the floor of his cabin. He immediately returned to the shuttle and moments later emerged hefting two more packs. One was a traditional Fleet issue designed to carry his clothes and personal items. The second was smaller and seemed to shimmer as he walked by her.
“Traveling a little heavy, are we?” she said as he ducked into his cabin.
He leaned back so his head poked into the passageway. “Before the fact, it always feels heavy. Once the action starts, I find myself wishing I’d brought more.”
Back in his cabin, he stowed his two large DSA toy-master packs under his bunk and wedged the smaller ghost pack between them. He left the Fleet pack sitting on top of his bed.
Cait installed the four-gen without incident. She didn’t know it was a flawed crystal, and since she’d never worked with a four-gen, she had no foreknowledge of signs that would indicate any shortcomings. When it powered up, the crystal confirmed that its internal operations were functioning properly.
Defecto, though flawed, was still a powerful unit. It had the combined capability of twenty three-gens, and all of that potential was trained at Crystal Fab to excel at ship operations. Defecto integrated smoothly with the ship systems and proved quite effective at running the equipment and operations throughout.
The Alliance was designed for a standard crew of nineteen and could comfortably carry an additional eight passengers. With the arrival of the shuttle, they were at their full mission’s complement of seven people, including Cheryl and Jack. Cheryl had decided that it didn’t make sense to put any more people at risk while waiting for the Kardish to reveal their intentions, and this skeleton crew was all there would be for the shakedown maneuvers. After the shuttle undocked from the Alliance and departed for Earth, the crew was summoned to the command muster. The entire ship’s population fit around the small conference table.
“Welcome, everybody,” said Cheryl. “Let me start by repeating what I told you individually when I recruited you. This is a high-risk, high-profile mission. Each of you was chosen for the abilities you offer in support of our assignment.” She looked at certain individuals as she continued. “At this table we have advanced skills in communications, diplomacy, technology, and combat. We may need to draw on all of these skills, perhaps on short notice.
“As I explained before, high-risk means this mission can go bad. There might be injury or even loss of life. You may have noticed there’s no medic at the table. I couldn’t rationalize risking yet another life on the chance that it might save one of ours.”
None of the crew members broke eye contact, giving Cheryl added confidence in the people she’d chosen. They all were mentally and emotionally prepared and appeared anxious to learn more about the details of the operation.
“As I’m sure you’ve deduced, this is more than a shakedown cruise. We’re a team of seven who together have the skills to operate this ship in an almost normal fashion.”
There was some nervous laughter in response to this admission. Cheryl nodded to let them know it was appropriate for them to express their feelings in this setting.
“Our mission is simple. We are to proceed through ship testing procedures as developed by Fleet, and in the process, we serve as bait for the Kardish. They’ve taken some provocative actions toward the Union in recent months, and we’re here to give them the opportunity to reveal their intentions. We will go about our business as usual and see if they choose to continue down a path to confrontation. It’s a game of waiting. From my experience, that’s a game of high stress.”
Cheryl looked at Cait. “We’re working shorthanded, but we do have a new crystal to help us run the ship. Cait, what’s the status in operations?”
“We lit up the four-gen about two hours ago,” Cait said. “The crystal’s internal chec
ks show that it’s operating normally, so we’ve transitioned now to checking out the ship. This crystal is amazing.” She looked around the table as she spoke, her enthusiasm clear. “It’s already run a full diagnostic on the four benches and the subsystems they manage.”
Since the ship was new to everyone at the table, Cheryl spoke up. “So that’s the navigation, engineering, security, and communications benches on the command bridge.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Cait. “The crystal found something like a hundred glitches in the first few minutes and was able to resolve most of them by itself. There’s still a long way to go, but we’re making good progress already.”
“Does the crystal show any signs of consciousness or self-awareness?” Cheryl asked.
“No, ma’am,” said Cait, shaking her head slowly. Her creased brow hinted that the question was not something she’d expected.
Cheryl was relieved to hear this. Without its own identity, there would be no concerns of duplicity or ulterior motives. She had long since concluded that the idea of negotiating with a crystal if it disagreed with instructions, and having to second guess a crystal’s motives and execution, wasn’t a reasonable proposition in a Fleet ship command structure.
Everyone returned to their stations, and Cheryl commanded the Alliance to assume a mirror-image orbit with the Kardish vessel. The two ships would chase each other around the planet, with Earth always positioned right between them. Having a planet-sized shield would provide a sense of comfort to the crew, she reasoned. But it was largely a psychological benefit. Either ship was capable of catching the other with only modest effort.
In the first hours, when it was at its most vulnerable, this arrangement did offer breathing room to the Alliance. If the Kardish were to make a move to approach, it would require that they break a years-long pattern. If that happened, it would be a clear signal that the game was afoot. Cheryl would use what time she had available to ready the crew for a showdown.
Fleet’s shakedown protocol for a new ship had two stages. The first was to test the individual capabilities of the ship one by one. Everything was checked, from propulsion, power, and navigation, to communications, life support, and waste disposal. When faults or flaws were uncovered, the crew made repairs and the unit was retested.
Fleet provided a comprehensive plan to guide the group in setting priorities and testing subsystems in a methodical fashion. Not surprisingly, the plan was discarded almost immediately as the mad scramble of reality took over. Priority for tweaks and fixes was determined by whatever wasn’t working when the crew needed to use it.
Defecto proved to be a great asset in this effort, helping them develop a pattern where, if it couldn’t fix a problem on its own, the crystal would identify the source of the trouble and dispatch the appropriate person to effect repairs. Everyone was kept hopping for hours as they worked to address glitches in all corners of the ship.
Over the course of the first day, the pace progressed from frantic to hectic to busy. The debugging of individual subsystems neared completion, and to everyone’s relief, the shakedown protocol moved to the second stage. This was the testing of the ship itself as an integral unit. After a well-deserved but brief period of sleep, Cheryl directed the crew to practice as a team as they put the ship through a series of ever more challenging maneuvers.
It was a remarkable vessel. But when limited to maintaining a fixed orbit, it was all but impossible to flex the ship’s muscle. Cheryl invented exercises for the crew, but she couldn’t continue this charade for more than another day without raising suspicion by observers familiar with shakedown procedures. Normally, the ship would be taking laps around the moon by now.
* * *
Jack used this time to get to know the crew members on a more personal level. His objective was to inventory the skills and capabilities that might be available to him from the group beyond what he could read in their Fleet file. He approached this task in a manner that was curious behavior for a first officer. He would visit a ship’s station, take food orders from the individual, return to the galley and prepare the meal, and then personally deliver it. Everyone knew that the galley was automated, and there were bots that could deliver food. But Jack understood that this activity gave him a reason to sit and chat in a relaxed and nonthreatening setting.
He started with Cait down in the operations bay. While they ate, he told a couple of stories and then transitioned into asking questions. He discovered that Cait loved her job and used her free time to learn as much as she could about the dozens of machines and devices located in the bowels of the ship. She was certain she could start up, run, and repair just about anything on the Alliance.
As they chatted, Jack was thrilled to learn that Cait had proficiency with a range of close-quarters weapons. Years ago, she had a dated a guy who loved projected-image fighting games, and she’d learned to play them as a way of spending time with him. The guy was long gone, but she had grown addicted to the adrenaline rush from the fast-paced contests of skill. She’d recently begun practicing her weapons talents at a live range and was excited when she discovered that her simulated-world skills carried surprisingly well into real life.
Jack’s next visit was to Yang at the navigation bench. Yang was quiet, humble, and enthralled with high-tech anything. After they ate, Jack asked Yang for a demonstration of the nav bench capabilities.
“Can you show me how many ships are in Earth orbit at this moment?” Jack asked.
An image popped up above the nav bench showing exactly what he’d requested. The navigator glanced at a data summary next to it. “Forty two,” he said.
Jack did his best to present the navigation exercises as random thoughts. “Let’s do a scan for ships moving between the Earth and moon. What can you tell me?”
Yang tapped the bench. “There’s ten ships headed from the moon toward Earth. I see three cargo ships and the same number of cruise liners. And a couple each of Union ships and private vessels.”
“What about outbound?” asked Jack.
“Pretty much the same headed toward the moon,” said the navigator, his fingers moving quickly and eyes scanning the displays.
“Tell me what you can about the last cargo convoy to leave Earth. Give me specifics.”
“Not much to say. Four big tankers being pulled by a tug. A small vessel is trailing behind.”
“Tell me something about that vessel.”
The navigator brought up an image. “It looks like a Union scout. It’s moving a little faster than the convoy, but the difference is small. I can’t tell if they’re following along or trying to catch it.”
Jack was relieved to hear this. They were on mission silence, and it was comforting to know his partner was in place and on plan.
“Hey,” said Yang. “The Kardish vessel registers as a ship carrying people.” He moved his hands on the bench to explore this in more detail.
“Whoa, back off on that,” said Jack. “Let’s not give them any reason to pay attention to us.”
Chapter 16
Sid was in the scout’s exercise room, kicking and punching a rolled-up mat hung from a beam. Juice was next to him, running on a treadmill. They pushed their bodies and burned up calories, both deep in their private worlds when Criss called.
“The Kardish vessel is accelerating,” he said with clear urgency. “May I request that you return to the bridge?”
Grabbing towels, they both scurried forward on the scout. Sid engaged his seat restraints and motioned Juice to do so as well.
He touched the operations bench and sat back to study the projected image, wiping his face with the towel. Juice’s seat gave her a clear view as well. The image showed Earth in the center, with a tiny Alliance floating on one side and a larger Kardish vessel located on the other.
“What’s the excitement?” asked Juice. “I could draw a straight line from the Alliance, through Earth, and hit the Kardish.”
“They’re accelerating,” said Sid, pointi
ng at the Kardish vessel. “They haven’t made a move like this since their arrival. This isn’t coincidence. At their present rate of effort, they’ll catch the Alliance in about four hours.”
“Should we fly to the rescue?” Juice asked.
Ignoring her, Sid said, “Criss, I’m cutting our engines. I don’t want to get any farther away from Earth.” It immediately grew quiet as the thrum of the engines ceased.
“You know we will continue trailing the convoy and moving away from Earth,” said Criss. “Stopping our engines doesn’t make us stop moving. It just means we’re not getting closer to the freighters.”
“Understood,” said Sid, staring at the image. “Criss, do the Kardish have any technology where they can grab and transport the crystal with some sort of energy beam?”
“I have no knowledge that such a technology is possible and have seen no evidence of anything like you suggest in the millions of hours of record I have examined. They always use a small craft to ferry crystals up to their ship and to return raw flake back to Earth. There has been no other kind of transportation activity recorded.”
“Given what’s going on now,” said Sid, “do you still believe that they’ll use one of those craft to send a boarding party to the Alliance?”
“That remains the most likely option based on the information I have. A boarding party enables them to verify what they are getting. They will be the ones who remove the crystal from its housing. They can see it and hold it. They can return to their ship assured of their success.”
“It’s not clear to me how our being out here is helping,” said Juice.
“I’m not sure I know either, Juice,” admitted Sid. “I work by intuition, and I’ve learned to trust it. Let’s watch this play out and see if and how we can help.”
The wait was torture. It was like time had slowed, and they watched helplessly as the Kardish vessel drew closer to the Alliance.
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