by Linn Schwab
Pogo nodded. “‘Sunny white beaches, cool ocean breezes. A virtual paradise awaits.’”
Angelo snickered and slapped his palm on the tabletop. “What a joke! They make it sound like you’re going to be bivouacked on the beach, sipping tropical drinks in between battles. They don’t tell you you’re going to spend the rest of your life up in space, rattling around in one rickety old tin can after another. Boy, if any of us ever make it back to Earth, those people are going to have some serious explaining to do.”
“What do you mean, ‘if?’” Pogo asked. “Don’t people go back to Earth on a regular basis?”
“Nope,” Angelo answered. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“It’s something the recruiters tell everyone when they’re trying to convince them to volunteer. They say if you get out here and realize you can’t hack it, you can sign up for the next scheduled flight back to Earth. They say there’s a return ship scheduled to depart every thursday. Is that a lie, too?”
“Let me ask you something,” Angelo said. “Do you know of anyone who ever returned to Earth from here? Did you ever meet anyone, talk to anyone, or hear about anyone else who did?”
Pogo took a moment to search his memories. “No. Not that I can remember. But how can they claim there’s a ship scheduled to leave every thursday? If it’s not true, couldn’t that result in legal action?”
“If it’s not true, then yes,” Angelo agreed. “And you’d think someone would eventually find out about it, right? But the rub here is that it actually is true. The beautiful freighter, Marie Celeste, is scheduled to depart for Earth this thursday. And she was scheduled to leave last thursday too, and the one before that, and the one before that. You see where I’m going with this, my friend? Just because something is scheduled to happen doesn’t guarantee that it actually will. And if you ever happen to lay eyes on the Marie Celeste, the truth behind this little scheme of theirs will become even more apparent to you. There’s nothing left of her hull anymore but the keel and a few of her outer ribs.”
Pogo looked at him in astonishment. “Those bastards!” he complained. “They are out and out lying to people!”
“Yup! Makes you wonder which side they’re really on, doesn’t it? And it just gives them all the more reason to prevent us from ever coming home.”
Jay seemed intrigued by Angelo’s comment. “That’s an interesting observation,” he said. “There seem to be any number of explanations for why no one ever returns to Earth. What I’m wondering is if it’s merely happenstance, or if there is in fact some concerted effort to keep us all stranded out here.”
“It has to be intentional,” Angelo argued. “Why else would they lie about something like this?”
“Lying about our ability to return to Earth is not the same as actually preventing us from doing so. It could just be that they’re so desperate for recruits that they’ll say anything to persuade people to volunteer.” Jay’s thoughts turned to the issue of Admiral Sands, and whether or not he’d actually returned to Earth. “Pogo,” he said, “before you left Earth, were you familiar with the members of Command Central?”
“Yeah, I think there were seven members. Not sure if I remember all of their names, though. Maybe if I heard them I’d recognize them.”
“What about Admiral Cole Sands? Does that name sound familiar to you?”
Pogo shook his head. “No, that name doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Absolutely. There are no admirals in Command Central. And I’ve never heard the name Cole Sands before.”
Jay looked around at the members of his squadron. All of them seemed to be deep in thought. Thomas was the first to voice what he was thinking.
“So the admiral never returned to Earth. If they wouldn’t even let him come home, what chance do any of the rest of us have?”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Jay said.
“We saw the Alabama at Trafalgar,” Thomas argued. “That means the admiral is still out here, Jay.”
“Possibly. Or it could be that he just took a different ship so as not to deprive us of the Alabama’s firepower.”
Angelo laughed and shook his head. “All this speculation is silly. Jay, since you’re officially a captain now, why don’t you just ask Commander Ingman about it?”
“I’m not sure he’d tell me even if I did.”
“Well, here’s your chance to find out,” Thomas said. “Here comes Commander Ingman right now.” He gestured toward the nearest doorway. The commander was heading their way.
“Jay,” Commander Ingman said, “I’ve just been summoned to a meeting on the Alabama. Probably something to do with our upcoming mission. Since you’re my new senior pilot, I want you come along with me. Meet me on the flight deck at thirteen hundred hours. I’ll have a shuttle ferry us over.”
As Commander Ingman walked away, Angelo grinned and nodded at Jay. “Well, there you go, Captain,” he said. “Here’s your chance to find out what’s going on.”
PROCEEDINGS 058
The next order of business for Commander Eldridge was a brief explanatory session with Robin. Rather than pulling her away from the cafeteria, she decided to sit down with her at a table and order everyone else to leave the room. Once the cafeteria was empty and quiet, she took a seat across the table from Robin. She watched the young Sentinel wipe a few tears away, then explained the situation to her.
“Captain Starling,” she said, “I’ve scheduled your hearing to begin a few moments from now. Since your current state of health is somewhat compromised, I’ve decided to excuse you from the proceedings. You’re to remain here, in compliance with Major Richards’ instructions, throughout the duration of the session. The five remaining members of your unit will be present to answer questions from myself and my assistant. At the end of these proceedings, a decision will be made as to whether or not you’ll be stripped or your rank. The charge against you is that you needlessly endangered your crew, resulting in serious injury to one of them who currently remains in critical condition.”
Robin suddenly perked up a little. Remains in critical condition? “Sheri’s still alive?” she asked.
“She is,” Commander Eldridge informed her. “She’s been transferred to another facility which is better equipped to provide the treatment she needs.”
Robin was both relieved and concerned by the news. Relieved to hear Sheri was still alive, but concerned that she’d been taken to another facility. “Will I ever see her again?” she asked.
Commander Eldridge got to her feet. “That should not be your greatest concern right now,” she said. “If you end up being stripped of your rank, you may not see any of your girls again.”
* * * *
Classes were in session at ECHO academy. The empty hallways were quiet and still. Commander Phillips hated the silence, and the feeling of loneliness it evoked. She much preferred to walk these corridors when they were bustling with the youthful vitality of her students. But her students were all in their classrooms right now, filling their minds with equations and other abstractions that had little meaning in the natural world. So sad, she mused, that they have to go through all this. Wasting the days of their youth in dreary classrooms just so they can learn to defend their home. Better that they spend that time outdoors, enjoying the beauty of the natural world than to fritter away so much time and effort preparing themselves to die in space. It wasn’t the first time she’d dwelled on these thoughts, nor was it likely to be the last. But today she was faced with a new dilemma which easily eclipsed her previous concerns. It was a task she was not looking forward to, and would’ve gladly postponed forever if she could. But she couldn’t keep the poor girl waiting any longer. It was time to find out if her decision had wavered.
When the commander arrived at her office, a young girl was waiting for her there as expected, sitting in an upright wooden chair that made her appear even younger than her age. She was just tall enough that th
e soles of her shoes grazed the floor as she nervously swung her legs back and forth. At the all too tender age of ten, she was much too young for what lay ahead of her — at least in the eyes of Commander Phillips.
“You’re sure about this?” the commander asked her, hoping the girl might have changed her mind.
She nodded, but timidly averted her gaze. Clearly, there was still some reluctance in her.
“There’s no coming back,” the commander informed her, giving her one last chance to reconsider. The girl looked down at her feet in silence. It appeared that she was not going to be dissuaded.
“Very well,” the commander said. “There’s a shuttle waiting for you at the air strip. Don’t forget to take your new uniform with you. I sincerely hope this is what you really want. Dismissed.”
The girl reached down for a duffle bag lying on the floor beside her chair. She got to her feet, walked out of the office, and headed straight for ECHO air strip.
A warm breeze gently caressed her face as she walked across the grass–covered campus grounds. With all of the other girls still in class, there was no one along the way to see her off. The lawn where the girls often studied together was a lonely expanse of empty green. She glanced toward the nursery off in the distance, but all she could see were the trees that concealed it. Never in her life had she felt so alone. The feeling of solitude left her devastated, but she knew it was already too late to turn back.
The pavement of the air strip felt hot beneath her feet. She wasn’t exactly thrilled by the thought that this would be her last impression of Valhalla. The farther she moved across its unforgiving surface, the more she began to regret her decision. It wasn’t until she reached the boarding ramp that tears began to well up in her eyes. Leaving the world she loved behind was going to be harder on her than she’d realized. But she had a specific objective in mind which had prompted her to make this decision. By channeling her desire to achieve that goal, she found the resolve to make her way up the stairs.
Pausing at the top of the boarding ramp, she took one final look around at her world. The trees, and birds, and other forms of life would still be there after she was gone. But they wouldn’t be hers to enjoy any more. It was a difficult sacrifice for her to make. She peered in through the shuttle’s doorway to see what was waiting for her there. Just inside the door, she found a brief message from a girl who had previously made this journey to all the young Sentinels who would follow behind her. Scrawled on the wall, in faded red marker, was a passage she suspected had come from the archives:
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
The passage was unfamiliar to her, but the meaning itself was perfectly clear. The message sent a chill up and down her spine as she forced herself to set foot inside the cabin.
A woman emerged from the shuttle’s cockpit and instructed her to sit in the passenger compartment . “My name is Jillian,” the woman told her. “I’m the shuttle’s co–pilot. Make sure you fasten the safety restraints around yourself. Let me know if you have any trouble with them.”
While the young passenger was picking out a seat, Jillian pulled the outer door shut and sealed it. She then returned to the cockpit and prepared to sit down in the co–pilot’s seat. But a quick glance back inside the passenger compartment suddenly caused her to change her mind. She looks so alone back there. We can’t just leave her all by herself. She looked at the shuttle’s pilot in anguish. “Can you handle this launch by yourself?” she asked her.
The pilot nodded in understanding. “You’re gonna go sit with her?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Jillian said. “I can’t leave her back there all alone.”
“It’s alright, I can do this solo. You go ahead and keep her company.”
Jillian stepped back out of the cockpit and sat down beside the young passenger. She checked the younger girl’s safety restraints and politely offered to hold her hand.
“Is it gonna be scary?” the girl asked.
“Well, not for me,” Jillian insisted. “But I’ve done this hundreds of times before. For you, though? Yeah, it might be a little. But don’t worry. I promise we’ll get you there in one piece.”
The shuttle’s engines flared up and engaged, and both of them were thrown against the backs of their seats.
* * * *
When Commander Eldridge arrived at the classroom, the remainder of Robin’s squad were already in their seats. Janine was sitting near the front of the room, scrolling through some data on a computer console. No one else had been asked or invited to attend, which left the young Sentinels feeling anxious and uneasy. Robin’s defense appeared to be riding on their shoulders. The concern on their faces was unmistakeable.
“Well,” the commander said, “it looks like we’re all here. I guess we’re ready to begin. First of all,” she addressed Robin’s girls, “I should probably clear something up for you. You’re probably all wondering what’s happened to Sheri. The answer to that is, she’s being cared for elsewhere right now. Her condition is, thankfully, quite stable at the moment. Now, on to the matter at hand.
“One of the reasons for this investigation is to determine whether your captain is fit for her command. After viewing the footage from your christening flight, I’ve come to the conclusion that, at least for the most part, she seems to have made responsible decisions under some very challenging circumstances. However, I do have to call into question her judgement in deciding to attack that heavy cruiser. From all appearances, it looks to me as though her decision was heavily influenced by emotion. For an officer in her position, that is simply unacceptable. Particularly when it involves the safety of other Sentinels under her command. Unfortunately, the recordings of that event are somewhat lacking in clarity, and fail to provide me with any real insight as to what her reasoning actually was. So the question I have for you girls now is, did Captain Starling say anything to you about her reason for deciding to attack that ship?”
The girls all glanced at each other in silence. Commander Eldridge stepped a little closer to them.
“Mindy,” she said, “you were closest to Robin. As communications operator, you would have been sitting right next to her the whole time. Did you hear her say anything that might explain her decision to attack?”
Mindy hesitated for a moment, then lowered her eyes and shook her head.
“Katrina,” the commander observed, “you actually tried to talk Robin out of attacking. Did she offer you any explanation about why she decided to give the order?”
Katrina took a deep breath. “She said that we should try to destroy that ship to prevent it from killing other Sentinels.”
The commander nodded as though in approval. “A very selfless and courageous gesture on her part. But under the circumstances, considering the age and relative inexperience of her crew, it was not a very wise decision. I’m afraid that’s not enough to get her off the hook. Did she offer any other explanation to you?”
Katrina somberly shook her head. “No.”
The commander turned to Michelle now. “Michelle, that was quite a passionate plea you made when you argued in favor of staging an attack. Do you have any reason to believe that Robin was swayed by what you said? That your emotional appeal affected her decision?”
Michelle surrendered to her feelings of guilt. She closed her eyes and hung her head in sorrow. “It was my fault,” she said. “Please don’t blame Robin. She wasn’t going to do it. But I persuaded her to.”
Commander Eldridge seemed visibly disappointed. Her expression appeared to suggest that she’d been hoping her findings would exonerate Robin. Caroline picked up on it right away, and her perception of the commander changed in an instant. She didn’t come here to find Robin guilty! She wanted to absolve her of the charges! All she needs is a reasonable excuse to justify Robin’s decision!
“This is exactly what I was afraid of,” the commander said. “It seems Robin allowed her emotions to get the best of her. I’m afraid this doesn’t bode
well for her chances. I’m very sorry for all of you, but it looks like I’m going to have to consider replacing her.”
“Wait!” Caroline pleaded. “That isn’t why she decided to attack.”
The commander stared at her for a moment, as if trying to decide if she could be trusted. There was obviously a distinct possibility she might fabricate a story to protect her captain. She studied the other girls’ faces as well and could see that they seemed to be surprised and confused. That left her skeptical of Caroline’s sincerity. Her argument would have to be very convincing in order to influence the final decision.
“Caroline,” she said, “if Robin had any discussion with you, it doesn’t show up in the audio recording. What exactly did she say to you that leads you to believe you understood her decision?”
“We were running out of fuel,” Caroline explained. “Robin didn’t think we were going to make it back. She thought we were all going to die anyway. That’s why she decided to attack.”
Commander Eldridge considered her explanation and decided to find out if it could be confirmed. “Janine,” she said, “can you verify that?”
“Give me a second,” Janine responded. She searched through the data from the Wallaby’s computer and attempted to match it with the time of the attack. “Affirmative, Commander,” she announced. “The data seems to corroborate her story. The Wallaby’s fuel reserves were significantly depleted prior to launching the attack on that cruiser.”
Caroline breathed a sigh of relief, convinced that the charges against Robin would be dropped. She’d provided Commander Eldridge with exactly what she needed — a reasonable argument to support Robin’s actions.
“Thank you, Caroline,” the commander said. “I’ll take your statement into consideration when I make my decision.
“Now, before I release you girls, there is one more thing I need to discuss with you. In years past, our forces made several attempts to navigate ships through the center of Pangea. All of those attempts resulted in failure. In fact, until you girls managed to do it, it was thought to be virtually impossible. But now that you’ve proven it can be done, we need to explore the possibility of using this tactic to our advantage. I don’t think I need to explain to you how fortunate we are that you discovered that shipyard. If there are any more like it concealed behind Pangea, we need to locate their positions and neutralize them.