by Jerry Aubin
Zax jumped up and pushed his tray away in disgust. He had expected some form of reaction from Kalare, but she instead stared at him blankly and this only agitated him further. “Now please shut up about your paranoid delusions and enjoy your breakfast—I have to wait until lunch for food since we’re doing a Transit this morning!”
As he turned and stormed away, Zax worried about the twenty demerits he would receive for not clearing his tray off the table. He quickly disregarded any concern since getting immediately out of range of that nutjob was worth ten times as many. Guilt eventually intruded his thoughts as Zax calmed down and mentally replayed his strong reaction to Kalare, but he pushed any deep remorse aside knowing that eighteen hours with an empty stomach had played a role. Something about Kalare’s comments nagged at him, though, as he headed back to the Zeta berth. The unease stuck with him all morning while he worked.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
What happens if it’s not empty?
Reveille on the third morning after the white dwarf battle found Zax in a daze. Nav had concluded that the Ship required a half dozen FTL Transits to get from the white dwarf system to within scouting range of the suspected Class M planet. The Captain wanted all possible speed and had commanded three Transits per day rather than sticking to one per week as was typical in non-battle situations.
This punishing schedule taxed everyone on board. No one understood the biological mechanism behind it, but the early users of FTL discovered the human mind can only tolerate a limited number of Transits within a given period of time. The Captain’s current pace resulted in nothing more serious than an unpleasant mental funk, but if pushed too much further the malaise would degrade into full-blown psychosis for a significant percentage of the population. The blurred mental acuity was compounded for Zax by a lack of solid food. He had survived exclusively on nutripellets to keep his stomach ammunition-free.
The continuous FTL fog caused Zax to forget about the impending Cull until he was on his way to the shower and walked past a cadet who was chosen from Zeta. The boy’s sobs trailed off as the Marines led him out of the berth with blasters at his back—a scene Zax knew was being repeated across the Ship as Crew and civilians alike were marched in various states of duress to the cryostorage holds. He understood the Ship needed to conserve resources and maintain consistent population levels by sending low performers into cryosleep, but it was never easy to witness.
Zax pushed thoughts about the Cull aside and continued towards the shower excited by the prospect of taking an extra hot one (twenty demerits) to try and clear his head. He turned the corner and overheard a conversation between two cadets as they passed going in the opposite direction.
“I can’t believe there’s no hot water again today!” said the boy.
“Yeah,” replied his female friend, “tenth time in the last two months by my count. I wonder how that compares to how often the Captain is forced to take a cold shower?”
The boy snorted. “As if that ever happens.”
“Dammit,” muttered Zax as he turned and trailed them back to the berth. He wanted no part of a cold shower, so he skipped it altogether (fifty demerits) and got dressed instead. He also bypassed the mess hall since he had decided to skip breakfast. There were no FTL jumps scheduled, but Zax knew there was a decent chance the planet was already inhabited by an overwhelming alien force and they might have to bolt on short notice.
The first task on Zax’s schedule that day was to lead a lesson for a group of nine-year-olds from Gamma Cadre. Unlike Cyrus and many other Crew he had dealt with through the years, Zax embraced his instructor duties and eagerly anticipated his chance to deliver a primer on astronavigation. He experienced a pang of grief as he recalled learning this same material from Sayer, but Zax quickly pushed memories of the dead instructor aside. Not quick enough, however, to prevent a frustrating momentary diversion back to Kalare’s observations about the oddities surrounding the white dwarf battle’s aftermath.
Nav was a subject Zax always enjoyed, and he was excited to use the previous few days’ worth of activity as the basis for discussion. The Ship’s civilians remained in the dark as always, but the Captain had informed all of the Crew about the potential for Landfall. Zax expected the Gammas would be as eager about it as everyone else, and when he entered the lesson room the Gammas were indeed buzzing. They quieted as he jumped into the lesson.
“Room—kill the lights and run holo Z1212-2364.” At Zax’s command, the room went dark and a hologram of the Ship and the white dwarf battlefield was projected above the Gammas. “Three days ago the Ship orbited a white dwarf and deployed a tanker to harvest fuel. We encountered an alien fighter, and, as part of the ensuing battle, we were forced to do an emergency FTL evasion. During the midpoint of the evasion, while waiting for the Ship to be readied for the second jump, Scan identified the signature of a potential class M planet. Nav developed the solution you see here which we have subsequently executed.”
The projector cycled through the six FTL jumps which had brought the Ship to its current location. The trainees in Gamma were still young and non-cynical enough that their eyes lit up in response to the beauty of some images. Many let loose an audible “Oooh” at one in particular—a massive gas giant which shone a deep purple with rings of varying shades of the same. Even though the Ship had inserted into its system ten million kilometers away, the purple planet was so massive it filled the space above their heads when displayed at the proper scale relative to the Ship.
“Can any of you tell me how far we’ve traveled since we left the white dwarf?” Zax was pleased when half of the Gammas raised their hands. The question was a tricky one, and it was great that so many young cadets were brave enough to attempt it. He nodded at a girl in the front row to his immediate left.
“The white dwarf is approximately 5,400 light years away, sir,” said the girl.
Zax was impressed. “The right answer is 5,275, but your guess is exactly what I would have said if asked this question. I see many heads nodding in agreement, but please explain to the rest of your classmates where your number came from.”
“Sir—the Ship’s FTL Transits are typically between 450 and 900 light years. Since we’re doing three jumps per day, I assume the Captain is in a rush to get to our destination and is pushing us to the upper limit. Six jumps multiplied by 900 light years per jump equals 5,400.”
“Spot on explanation. Ten credits for you. New question for the class. Why is 900 light years the upper limit for our Transits?” Zax pointed to a boy who was sitting towards the back of the room.
“Sir—because that is the maximum distance the FTL engine can move the Ship.”
“Wrong. Twenty demerits. Who’s next?” Zax looked around, but his assessment of twice as many demerits for a wrong answer as compared to the credits he rewarded for a correct one had scared away the kids who were guessing. It left the original girl as the only hand still raised, and Zax nodded in her direction once again.
“Sir—the FTL engine can actually push the ship a lot farther than 900 light years. The reason we cap it at that limit is because it is the distance where our sensors can tell us what we need to know about where the Transit will land.”
Zax grinned. “Someone has clearly been doing extra reading in her spare time. Well done, cadet—one hundred credits.” Zax believed in rewarding folks who risked being wrong in the face of a substantial penalty, so he bumped up the credit reward for her correct answer. It left the room abuzz with excitement, though one boy in the front row seemed puzzled and raised his hand.
“Sir—I’m totally confused. The Captain announced last night we’ve been pushing so hard these past few days because our sensors found a possible class M planet. If our sensors can see far enough away to establish a planet is likely to be habitable, why can’t we just jump straight to it?”
“Ten credits for a great question.” The best lessons were two-way interactions, so rewarding questions was as important for an instructor as givin
g credit for answers. Zax walked over and stood in front of the boy. “Let’s figure out the answer together by using an analogy. Assume I brought you to a recreation compartment blindfolded and told you to jump into a swimming pool—would you do it?”
“Of course, sir. I love to swim!”
Zax smiled again. “I do too. So what if I told you I had been swimming in the same pool the day before and had seen a giant rock on the bottom which would break your legs if you jumped in and landed on it. The rock, though, was on the other side of the pool when I was there. Would you still be willing to jump in with your blindfold on?”
The boy hesitated for a sec but then answered. “Yes, sir. If you were there yesterday and the rock was on the other side of the pool, then why should I care?”
“Exactly. You’re still willing to jump despite the danger I’ve identified because you’re confident it won’t affect you—right?” The boy nodded in agreement and Zax continued. “So, let’s extend the example to answer your question. The Crew working Scan can use the Ship’s sensors to evaluate the ‘pool’ of a target star system which is thousands of light years away and can accurately identify the billions of asteroids, comets, etc. which are large enough to pose a danger to the Ship if we jumped on top of one. Room—give me holo Z1212-1057.”
The original hologram stopped, but nothing new was displayed. Zax repeated the command and still nothing. Zax sighed. “Well—it appears we have a training room malfunction yet again. I was going to show you sensor data where all of the celestial bodies in a star system have had their paths projected. I should request a flashlight for this room so next time I can just use shadow puppets to illustrate my lessons instead.”
The Gammas laughed and Zax continued. “So far things are matching up with my pool example. Where the big difference comes in, though, is in the timescale involved. When I talked about the rock in the swimming pool, I was able to tell you I was just there yesterday, and you assumed a rock isn’t going to somehow move across the pool in the span of one day. Well, when we are scanning a system from thousands of light years away, what we are seeing is not what the system looks like right now, but what the system looked like thousands of years ago when the light creating the images we are viewing originated from it. The people on ancient Earth believed we could never travel faster than light, but compared to what happens when we use our FTL engine light might as well be standing still.”
Zax took a deep breath as he prepared to drive home the main point. “The Scan AI can do a great job of extrapolating orbital paths to predict where everything in a system should be today, but every additional light-year of distance adds another year’s worth of random chance to the prediction. Let’s say a comet hits a minuscule space rock and has its orbit altered infinitesimally right after we predicted its future location. A minor change in location would not make too much difference ten years later. A hundred years out and we start incurring greater risk about where the comet might actually be, but it is still manageable. A thousand years, though still doable, is right at the upper boundary of the safe range. You do too many jumps farther than 900 light years and pretty soon you will find yourself jumping right into a space rock you had originally predicted would be clear on the other side of the system.”
Zax scanned the room to make sure his explanation was hitting the mark. A thorough knowledge of the limitations of FTL travel was a critical requirement for cadets in this age group, and it was a lesson instructors were told to work into their plans whenever possible. Zax returned his gaze to the boy who had asked the original question.
“So, now I want you to answer your own question. Why can’t we just jump straight to a system we see on our scanners if the system is almost 6,000 light years away?”
The boy fidgeted in his seat and Zax imagined the gears grinding in his head. He was about to assess demerits for not having the answer when the boy finally opened his mouth.
“Sir—the scanners can show us where we want to go, but they can’t show us what exactly the system looks like right now because the images we see are from light which has been traveling for thousands of years. Jumping into a system from too far away might destroy the Ship if we end up colliding with some big space rock which is in a far different place than we had predicted based on our original scan.”
“Well done. I was prepared to give you ten credits if you got the answer right, but you were a little slow so I’m only going to give you five. I’ll give you a chance to earn the other five, though at the risk of losing the fifteen I’ve already given you.” Zax grinned as the boy gulped at the realization he remained in the hot seat. “Before our last Transit we rescanned the target system and confirmed it was both habitable and empty. That is what prompted the Captain to announce we hope to be making Landfall soon. We didn’t jump straight to the target planet though—why not?”
The young boy spurted out his answer immediately. “Sir, the reason is the same. We were 900 light years away before our last jump, so the scan showed what the system looked like 900 years ago. Even though we could jump into the system safely with regards to knowing where all of the space rocks should be, we have no idea if the planet might have been colonized at some point in the last thousand years. We might jump into the system only to discover some alien race has built a massive military base. Instead of jumping the Ship straight to the planet, we jumped to a different system a couple light years away and will send scout ships to check it out. When they come back with scanner data which proves it’s still empty, then we can do our final Transit.”
Zax applauded. “You’ve earned your five credits, but one last question. What happens if it’s not empty?”
“Well,” said the boy, “I guess the Captain has to decide whether we run or we fight.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Don't do anything stupid in Marine Country.
Zax reported to Flight Ops after an enjoyable morning spent talking the Gammas through various Nav topics. His duty shift started shortly before three scout craft were scheduled to rendezvous with the Ship, and Zax was immediately swamped with preparations for their return. Within mins of sitting down at his console and slipping on his subvoc, Zax was contacted by the Flight Boss on a private channel.
“Threat—I’m hoping this planet is still as empty as it appeared a thousand years ago, but there’s a good chance it might not be. The Ship’s experience has shown most spacefaring lifeforms seek out a similar set of planetary characteristics as we do. This means there’s a good chance we’ll encounter aliens here. If we run into any hostiles, I need you to be on top of your game—OK?”
“Aye-aye, Boss.”
Zax didn’t need the reminder as he was already obsessed about how to make sure the Flight Boss never regretted promoting him into the Threat chair. Zax switched to the public Flight Ops channel for what he said next.
“Boss—I’ve got three FTL blooms. The signatures are most likely our scouts, but give me thirty secs while their Transits complete and I will confirm or correct.”
“Thanks, Threat. Weps—I want all of our defenses ready to go in case those are not our boys, or someone tries to tag along with them. Flight—get the CAP in a defensive formation aligned on those three inbounds.”
Zax raised his head when the Boss issued a command to the Flight chair. Kalare sat in the Flight trainee seat and smiled at him in an attempt to catch his eye. He had studiously avoided her since their discussion about the newsvid and saw no reason to drop that strategy. He focused back on his console as the fighters in the Combat Air Patrol arranged themselves around the inbounds. A short time later he confirmed the three signatures were indeed the Ship’s scouts and announced the information.
“Boss—I’ve confirmed those are our three birds.”
“Acknowledged.” The Boss stood up. “Flight—I want eyeballs on all three ships. Make sure the fighters keep their weapons hot until they visually confirm the all clear. Comms—let me know as soon as you are five-by-five with the scouts and can vali
date their rendezvous passwords. Threat—tell me the instant you see anything out of the ordinary about those three craft or anything else anywhere near us.”
Being this careful with an operation typically triggered complaints from Cyrus about the Boss’s paranoia. The big idiot, as expected, had been selected for the Cull and most likely was already in cryosleep. He’d either get defrosted at some point in the future when he was selected for a Landfall, or he’d rot for the next 5,000 years alongside all of the other future colonists waiting their turn. In either event, Zax would never cross paths with him again.
The scouts successfully responded to all verification challenges a few mins later. Comms patched the voice of the lead pilot into both Flight Ops and the Bridge for everyone to hear.
“We did not encounter any spacecraft, but we’ve got signs of intelligent lifeforms in two different locations on the planet. The locations are within 200 klicks of each other on the northern continent. Location One appears to be the older of the two habitations, although it is sparsely populated. Location Two is where the majority of the activity is centered, and there are one hundred thousand lifeforms present. We didn’t want to get too close and risk being discovered, but we were able to identify agricultural activity taking place at Location Two. We’ve got scan results from all three craft and will be prepared for a full debrief immediately upon landing.”
The Captain’s voice come across the channel next. “Good work, everyone. I want the Crew from the three scout craft to meet me in my conference room in thirty mins. Flight Boss—I want you there as well.”
“Aye-aye, Ma’am.” With that, the Boss cut the open channel and turned to address everyone in the Flight Ops compartment. “You heard the Captain. Mini-Boss is taking over for now. Land those scouts ASAP and keep a full fighter squadron on CAP with another squadron on Alert Two until we figure out next steps.” The Boss stood up and walked out of the compartment as he said, “Threat and Mini-Flight—walk with me.”