Frontiers 07 - The Expanse

by Ryk Brown

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I knew what was happening back in the core with the plague and all. Civilization was collapsing. Humanity was dying. Those that had somehow escaped infection were fleeing in droves.” Mister Percival paused a moment and sighed. “I guess I wanted to believe that, somehow, it was all going to be all right, that civilization would manage to survive and continue to march forward, albeit at a more careful pace.”

  “It seems only natural for one to hope for the best,” Cameron agreed.

  “Hope, perhaps. But I knew better. Even though we were far from the last ones to leave the fringe, the writing was on the wall, so to speak.” Mister Percival sighed again.

  Cameron appeared somewhat confused by Mister Percival’s choice of words.

  “Maybe it was all for the best.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe humanity needed to experience such a catastrophe in order to get us to change our ways.”

  “What ways do you speak of?” Cameron wondered.

  “We are a reckless species, arrogant and self-centered, refusing to accept our own fragile nature until death stares us in the face. We want power without limitation, wealth beyond need, and freedom without consequence or responsibility. We also want someone else to blame when something goes wrong.”

  “I don’t know about all of that,” Cameron objected politely, “but that last one sounds about right. Have you considered that perhaps humanity has changed over the last thousand years?”

  “Humanity had not changed in the thousands of years before the plague, even in the face of countless atrocities. Why would I expect them to have done so now?”

  “Anything is possible.”

  “Humans all have one thing in common above all others,” Mister Percival declared, “the will to survive. To this end, we have the amazing ability to justify whatever we must do to achieve this goal. It is the blessing and the curse of the Homo sapiens—the proverbial double-edged sword, if you will.”

  “Yes, but that instinct and ability extends beyond ourselves to include the survival of those we care about: family, friends, even one’s nation or entire species.”

  Mister Percival paused for a moment, looking at Cameron with considerable thought. “An excellent point, Commander. If only that were true of the majority of us.”

  “You made a comment before,” Cameron said as they continued their stroll down the corridor on their way to engineering, “that ‘maybe it was all for the best.’ What did you mean by that?”

  “Many people throughout history have espoused such views, believing that mankind had upset the natural balance of things by exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth. Several radical groups even advocated a culling of the herd, claiming the need to drastically reduce the population in order to once again regain that balance.”

  “But if humanity is incapable of changing, as you say, wouldn’t that only be a temporary solution?”

  “Ah yes, the most common argument. If we can’t fix it, let’s not do anything at all.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I realize that, Commander. Nevertheless, it was the common argument of the day. Did you know that there were even a few extremist groups that tried to orchestrate such events in the past?”

  “No, I did not,” Cameron admitted. “There is so much about pre-plague Earth history that most of us do not yet know.”

  “Was it not all contained within the Data Ark that your captain spoke of?”

  “Yes, of course, but there is so much information in the Ark. They formed a committee to oversee the distribution of the data to the world. Early on, it was decided that releasing everything in an uncontrolled fashion might prove dangerous. There was a lot of technology in there that the people of Earth just weren’t yet ready for. More importantly, some of the old Earth religions were in such opposition to their current versions… Can you imagine what trouble that might cause?”

  “Surely, factual historical events posed no threat,” Mister Percival said with a frown.

  “It depends. For example, the people of my Earth do not see any race as inferior to another. We see differences, yes. We still tend to mingle with those more like us than not, but we don’t look down upon those differences; we embrace them. The knowledge that at one point in humanity’s history racism not only existed, but there was actual slavery based on those concepts, was considered a dangerous concept to be released back into the general public.”

  “So you think some elements of humanity’s past are better forgotten?”

  Cameron considered the question as they headed down the ramp from the flight level to the engineering deck in the aft section of the ship. “In most cases, no. In fact, in the end, the history of racism and slavery was made public. However, I do agree that such things should be considered. Blindly revealing all knowledge of the past is just irresponsible.”

  “Some might call it being honest,” Mister Percival argued.

  “Perhaps,” Cameron admitted. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Once we discovered the Jung threat, all efforts were concentrated on developing technologies to get us back into space in order to defend ourselves. Since then, very little of Earth’s pre-plague history has been revealed.”

  “Many preach that one must know history to prevent repeating the same mistakes,” Mister Percival said.

  “That’s what the captain says. He studied history in college.”

  “A good discipline to be versed in when commanding a ship of war.”

  Cameron noticed Vladimir talking to a Corinairan technician as they passed the first reactor compartment. “Lieutenant Commander,” she called to him as she motioned for Mister Percival to enter the compartment ahead of her.

  “Mister Percival,” Vladimir greeted, “Commander. How is the tour going?”

  “Most interesting,” Mister Percival responded.

  “Lieutenant Commander Kamenetskiy, if you would be so kind as to show Mister Percival around engineering, I have a few things to attend to.”

  “But, I was…”

  “Call me when you have completed your tour of engineering, Mister Percival,” Cameron said.

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  Cameron turned back toward Vladimir. “Lieutenant Commander,” she stated as she walked past him, pausing to add in a low voice, “remember your list.”

  “Sir,” Vladimir responded, gritting his teeth at being saddled with the strange, old survivor. “Mister Percival, where would you like to start?”

  “Here is fine. Is this your reactor?”

  “It is one of four reactors,” Vladimir stated proudly. If there was one thing Vladimir loved to talk about, it was the ship’s systems, even with a thousand-year-old man.

  “Seems a bit large for a fusion reactor.”

  “They are antimatter reactors,” Vladimir corrected.

  “Really? And you have four of them?” Mister Percival looked over the reactor. “I have heard of antimatter reactors. They were the latest thing in shipboard power generation in my day. But they were only being used by the military at the time.”

  “It is the same now. There are many fusion reactors being built on Earth. I believe that when we left, more than half the world’s energy was being produced by fusion plants. Our sub-light warships use fusion reactors as well. The Aurora is the first new ship to utilize antimatter reactors.”

  “And it takes all four of them to run this ship?”

  “The ship can run on one reactor, but it is normally run on a balance of two reactors.”

  “Then why the other two?”

  “For redundancy and to power our FTL systems,” Vladimir explained.

  “Seems like overkill to me.”

  “We also have a pair of smaller fusion reactors as backups,” Vladimir added.

  “Now that is overkill.” Mister Percival looked about. “Is there someplace we could sit for a few moments? I’m feeling a bit fatigued from all this walking.”

 
“Of course, there is an office right over there.” Vladimir led the old man into the office, pulling out a chair for him to sit.

  “Would you like some water?”

  “Perhaps. I could use a snack as well, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I am always ready to eat,” Vladimir agreed with a smile as he activated his comm-set. “Galley, Cheng. Send two fruit trays and two bottles of water to the office in reactor compartment one.”

  “So, you are Russian?” Mister Percival said.

  “Yes, sir. Born and raised just outside of Moscow.”

  “I’ve never met a Russian before.”

  “Really?” Vladimir said with obvious surprise. “I thought they were everywhere on Earth during your time.”

  “I was born and raised in Stillwell.”

  “Where is that?”

  “It’s a small city on the main continent on Cetus, the fourth planet in the Tau Ceti system. I’ve never been to Earth, but from what I remember, a large segment of the Earth’s Russian population migrated to the Russian national settlements in the 70 Ophiuchi system.”

  “Yes, I heard that as well,” Vladimir said. “I have always wondered if they survived the plague.” Vladimir leaned back in his chair, daydreaming. “I cannot imagine an entire planet of Russians. It would be amazing.”

  “I’m sure it would be,” Mister Percival admitted. “I never got there myself. I took a job in the Sigma Draconis system as soon as I got out of the service. There was a new settlement starting up there, mostly Norwegians and such from Earth. There was a lot of money to be made there.”

  “It is hard to imagine. You speak of moving between the stars as we would speak of moving between continents.”

  “But you move between the stars,” Mister Percival said.

  “Yes, we do, but not the people of Earth. We only found out that we had once colonized other star systems a hundred years ago. We’ve only been back in space for about thirty years.”

  “I, on the other hand, cannot imagine humanity being restricted to a single planet.”

  “How many worlds had been colonized?” Vladimir wondered.

  “I couldn’t tell you for sure,” Mister Percival admitted. “There was always some expedition setting off to colonize another world out in the fringe or farther. Every group that didn’t like the way things were on their world would find a way to raise the capital needed to buy a colonization package and hire some ship to haul them out into space.”

  “What about those started by Earth?” Vladimir asked. “I know of the five core worlds, the biggest ones. But I’ve only heard of a few of the fringe worlds.”

  “Yes, the fringe worlds. Those are the ones that were the most exciting. They were beyond the control of the core governments. They were the new frontier, so to speak. Imagine stepping onto a clean, relatively unspoiled world with nothing but what you could carry, and being able to stake claim to whatever chunk of land you could find. That was the dream.”

  Vladimir smiled. “A very nice dream.”

  “But it was a very hard life for most,” Mister Percival added. “Many did not survive.”

  “Yes, I can imagine.”

  “I don’t think you can. It’s not like on Earth. Most of these worlds weren’t intended for humans to live on, nor were they made for growing Earth crops. Most fringe worlds were dependent on regular shipments of basic supplies from the core worlds and from Earth just to survive. It took the core settlements nearly two centuries to become self-sustaining, and they had massive support infrastructure from their sponsoring nations back on Earth. I can’t imagine what the expeditions that went deeper out into space went through. I suspect most of them are long dead.”

  “Lieutenant Commander,” the crewman announced as he stepped through the door carrying two small trays of diced fruit and two bottles of water.

  “Thank you, crewman,” Vladimir stated, taking the order from him and handing one to Mister Percival. He turned his attention back to Mister Percival. “Tell me more about the fringe worlds.”

  * * *

  “I’ve got three contacts deep in the system,” Loki reported.

  “Are they Jung?”

  “I have no idea. We’re still eight light hours from the edge of the system. We’re too far away to get any details. They’re just thermal contacts that are in motion at this point.”

  “So they’re moving,” Josh said from the front seat of the Falcon. “Where are they moving to?”

  “Two of them appear to be positioned farther out in the system,” Loki explained. “The third one looks like it’s on its way out of the system.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Not without watching them for a while to get more course and speed data. Even then, the information is probably about twelve to fifteen hours old.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I say we sit for a few minutes to verify their trajectories as well as the trajectories of everything in the system before we plot our course. Then we jump in a little deeper and start our run.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Josh agreed. “So, what did you think of Major Prechitt?”

  “Seems like a good CAG.”

  “Please, you don’t even know what a good CAG is,” Josh sneered.

  “And you do?”

  “Haven’t a clue nor a care.”

  Loki looked up from his console. “Well you should, especially if we’re going to be under his command every time we fly this ship.”

  “It’s just a formality, as I see it,” Josh assured him. “The captain’s still our boss, Prechitt’s as well for that matter. He can’t pull us from our primary duty to fly this thing without the captain’s say so. So if you ask me, it’s still the captain that’s giving us the orders, even if they’re being passed through the CAG.”

  “You know, it wouldn’t take long for them to teach someone else how to fly the Falcon,” Loki said. “It’s not like there aren’t plenty of pilots on board.”

  “Yeah, but we’re only a few days from Earth. Why would they bother?”

  “At which point the Earth Defense Force will take possession of the Aurora and probably all of the spacecraft aboard. In a few days, we might very well be out of a job, my friend.”

  “The captain will look out for us,” Josh said.

  “I think you’re placing too much faith in his power, Josh. He may be the captain now, but once we get back to Earth, he has to answer to Fleet Command.”

  Josh was beginning to become concerned. The thought of what would happen to them when they arrived at Earth had crossed his mind, but the scenarios that played out in his mind were far more favorable than those Loki was painting. “So what do you think they’ll do with us? I mean, all of us as in those of us that are not from Earth.”

  “Best case, maybe they’ll put us up until they get another jump-enabled ship built that can take us home. But that could take years.”

  “And the worst case?” Josh asked.

  “They treat us with distrust and suspicion, detaining us and subjecting us to endless interrogations to learn as much as possible about the Pentaurus cluster.”

  “You’re just being paranoid,” Josh protested. “They ain’t gonna lock us up and interrogate us.”

  “I admit it sounds paranoid,” Loki agreed, “but people facing imminent invasion tend to be that way, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, you could be right.” Josh pondered the situation a moment. “Wait, isn’t the captain connected or something? Isn’t his father the president of something?”

  “He was a senator for a very powerful continent. He was running for president when the Aurora left Earth.”

  “Well, maybe he got elected,” Josh postulated. “That would be good for us, right?”

  “Probably, yes,” Loki agreed. “I’m sending you a course plot.”

  Josh looked down at his center console, examining the plot. “That’s cutting it pretty close, isn’t it?”

  “If we’re going to
get close enough to get good images of the planet’s surface, we need to get close.”

  “Yeah, but that’s between the planet and her moons.”

  “If we come in on that trajectory, the sun will be on our backside from the planet, so we’ll stay cold.”

  “How come we never had to pass this close before?”

  “It’s because of the planet’s position on its orbit of the star,” Loki explained, “that, and the position of the other planets. It’s either that course, or we have to wait a few more hours to start.”

  “If we do that, we might miss our rendezvous with the Aurora, and I do not want to go jumping across the core sector all alone.”

  “Didn’t you once talk about stealing this ship and going off to points unknown?”

  “That was just talk, Loki, and I was talking about jumping around the Pentaurus sector, not someplace completely unfamiliar.” Josh altered the interceptor’s course, bringing it to the heading indicated on the course plot. “Coming on to course heading. Let’s get this over with.”

  “Transferring flight control to auto-nav system,” Loki announced. “Jumping in three seconds.”

  * * *

  “Captain?” Jessica called from the hatch to the ready room.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve pretty much finished up with the Jasper’s logs,” she told him as she entered the compartment, closing the hatch behind her.

  “And?”

  “It’s not pretty, just as we suspected.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Nathan said, gesturing for her to take a seat. For once, Jessica sat in one of the chairs instead of making herself comfortable on his couch. That’s when Nathan realized she wasn’t kidding.

  “To be honest, it seems like this expedition was doomed from the start. First, the ship wasn’t really designed for this long of a haul. They outfitted her with additional propellant and such, and set up a rotation schedule for the crew to come out of stasis less often to conserve resources, all the standard stuff that you would expect them to do to stretch their range. But the plain fact of the matter was that the ship was already old and worn out when Dubnyk bought her on the black market. If the expedition had actually applied for a permit, they would have been denied solely on the inadequacies of the Jasper as the transport vehicle. Even the cargo containers they used were not rated for transporting consumables. They didn’t have enough radiation shielding. The only new component on that whole ship was her fusion reactor. Luckily for the passengers, the stasis containers were properly rated. But none of that is what caused the expedition to fail.”