by M. D. Cooper
Commander Evans didn’t look away—the common reaction to her less pleasant glares, especially the ones she used when this topic came up.
“I’m sorry, sir. I know firsthand that once you get back in and the danger and adrenaline have faded it’s hard to explain why you did what you did. Sometimes even full sensory doesn’t do the real thing justice; it may cover all the inputs, but there’s no fear when you’re watching a recording.”
Tanis nodded. “Agreed. Maybe sometime I’ll let you know more about what happened on Toro. But for now, we have work to do. I want to see the team going over the Dawn.”
Commander Evans led her out of the sector security offices and down several corridors before they entered the open space which served as the passenger debarkation area for the Dawn. Several teams were present; a few physical forensics specialists were scanning all surfaces, while net specialists had a few terminals apart, going over hardware for signs of tampering.
The commander bridged Tanis to the security net and she took stock of the teams inside the ship as well. Most of the personnel were station security, with a few GSS and TSF in the mix. Commander Evans sent a beacon out onto the net and addressed the local teams.
“Ladies and gents.” He simultaneously spoke and broadcast over the net. “If I can have a moment of your time.”
Over the security net she saw all the members stop what they were doing and signal their attention.
“For those of you on the Intrepid’s team, I’d like you to meet your new CO, Major Richards. The major is a MICI specialist and will be heading up our unit—a task I am more than willing to turn over to her.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Tanis took over the ’cast. “For those of you assigned to the Intrepid I look forward to working with you, and for those of you with the MOS I appreciate your attention. I’ve filed a report with sector security and Commander Evans has also made it available on our security net. You’ll note the specifics about the hostiles’ weapons and the nuclear device. I also want particular attention paid to how they were able to act with such precise timing. The equipment and software they used to do this is not readily available and the more data we have the sooner we can track them down.
“Dismissed.”
“No fanfare?” Commander Evans asked with a smile. She was glad he had let their tense moment slide by. They would most likely be working together for a very long time. Hundreds of years, if all went well.
“They know their jobs. Me wasting their time with speeches won’t help get answers,” Tanis replied. “Besides, I’m not a huge fan of the new CO that comes in and gets in everyone’s way.”
Commander Evans chuckled. “I’ll be honest, sir. You could be some nasty little toady and I’d still be grateful to hand the reins over to you.” He coughed as he glanced at her. Even with her uniform dirty and wrinkled she cut an imposing figure. “Not that you’re ahh…nasty at all.”
The comment was a bit too familiar, but Tanis found his cocky flyboy behavior amusing. She let him squirm for a moment before letting him off the hook.
“At ease, Commander. I don’t take offense easily…well, not normally anyway.” She decided it was time to get back on task. “Admiral Sanderson indicated you’re to take me to the Intrepid. I assume we have facilities there?”
The commander seemed more than willing to let his gaff slip by. “Yes, sir. Since the radicals started attacking we’ve been given a full Security Operations Center to help keep an eye on things.”
“Lead on, Commander.”
He directed Tanis out of the debarkation area toward a maglev train station. They passed through a lack-luster security check and took a high-speed car to the Intrepid’s berth. The train accelerated to over a thousand kilometers per hour, speeding down its track in silence. Moments after reaching its top speed, the car passed out into open space and Tanis caught her breath as the Intrepid came into view.
The ship was nearly thirty kilometers in length, the dominant feature being the two sixteen kilometer cylinders around which the ship curved protectively. The cylinders gleamed dully in the sunlight as they rotated nearly twice a minute, creating 0.82g of centripetal gravity within their hollow interiors. Inside, the environmental systems were already working, creating habitable areas with fields, lakes and forests that contained the base biosphere to be transplanted to New Eden. Beneath the floor of the eco-space were the stasis chambers. There were pods for the one and a half million colonists, plus several thousand backups to cover failures and the possibility of children being born to any crew who stayed out of stasis.
While the twin cylinders were the ship’s most notable feature, they were not technically part of the ship and would be left behind at New Eden. Also staying behind at the colony were the massive cargo cubes which were positioned between the cylinders. Three were currently in place, but seven more were being readied, each filled with supplies and equipment for building the colony.
Draped over those sections, as though cupping its cargo, was the ship itself.
The front looked much like a porpoise; sleek and curved, tapering as it ran back over the cargo containers to the engines. A large cone rested at its fore—the emitter for the Intrepid’s massive ES ramscoop which would draw in hydrogen and fuel the ship as it journeyed through the interstellar medium.
While the engines were proportionally smaller than many of the ship’s other sections, they were still quite massive, over five cubic kilometers in size. Specs that filled Tanis’s HUD showed they were capable of delivering over a trillion newtons of thrust, creating enough impulse to ultimately bring the ship up to over fifteen percent of the speed of light.
Arching down from the ship’s spine and encompassing the entire structure were the gossamer strands of super CT which held all of the disparate sections together. It appeared almost as if strings of light had drifted through space and settled across the ship; wrapping around the engines, body, cylinders, and cargo pods. It was a breathtaking sight. Tanis had seen few vessels of this size so beautiful.
The commander noticed her sharp intake of breath and smiled. “She has that effect, doesn’t she?”
“It’s magnificent,” Tanis said. “It’s hard to believe I got a berth.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied. “This was the fifth GSS I’ve applied to; I imagine I’m only on it because they’re tired of interviewing me.”
“Are there a lot of military among the colonists?”
“Numbers-wise yes, but then with the size of the colony roster there’s more of everyone.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Tanis said. “Many officers?”
“The usual mess of lieutenants, a few commanders, some good sergeants, and two other majors like yourself. Above you it’s just the admiral, and the captain, of course.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the train’s arrival at their destination.
The maglev station was both large and packed with people. It was directly off the Intrepid’s main cargo dock and everyone was coming or going from that direction. Tanis observed dozens of potential security nightmares. Something would have to be done about this.
Before they made it across the station and through the short corridor which led to the dock she was filing reports and looking up data on numbers of essential and non-essential personnel who accessed the dock.
The dock was to scale with the ship.
Needing to handle the transfer of billions of tons of cargo, the dock was over three kilometers long and one deep. In the distance, looming over hectares of crates and equipment, was the Intrepid’s yawning cargo hatch. Tanis’s HUD provided the portal’s size and she was surprised to realize it was large enough to fly the Steel Dawn III through.
Commander Evans led Tanis to a bank of ground transports and they sped off toward the ship. They wov
e around slower transports and cargo lifters, some hauling massive mechanical devices as tall as a hundred meters, all moving toward the ship’s entrance.
“We could have gone up a few decks and taken one of the maglevs up there. They run down an umbilical directly to the forward crew section of the ship, but I figured you’d like the view down here,” Commander Evans said from his position at the controls.
Tanis nodded, looking over the operation around her. “Good plan, showing me the security and control down here.”
Commander Evans gave his easy laugh again. “Yeah, you must be a Micky. Only they could think of duty and work when peering into a ten-kilometer-deep cargo bay for the first time.” He gestured at the space within the Intrepid’s yawning portal.
She resisted scowling at him for using the vernacular term for MICI while privately admitting that seeing atmospheric distortion within a cargo bay was unusual.
Twenty meters from the ship, a thick white line was painted on the deck. The far side was Intrepid. Tanis signaled the commander to stop and examined the security threshold. Holographic emitters projected the barrier vertically displaying it to the flits and cargo hovers that moved around the dock.
The security itself was manned by Terran Space Force Regulars, unlike the previous checkpoints which had all been operated by MOS security forces. Tanis added the fact that TSF and not GSS was running security for this ship to her list of anomalies. Today’s near miss was not the first significant threat this project had faced.
Above, at the levels where maglev tracks moved cargo through the barrier, more Regulars manned the gantries and inspected physical ladings while spider-like automatons crawled over everything, checking sources, destinations and contents.
Someone must have warned the soldiers that their new CO was coming through as they were brisk and businesslike; coolly efficient and quietly threatening. Tanis spotted a lieutenant and gave her a nod. The woman jogged over and saluted.
“Sirs!”
Tanis’s HUD flagged the woman as First Lieutenant Amy Lee. The name caused Tanis to bring up the woman’s record. Two names for a given name and no surname was common for the Scattered Worlds; it was unusual to find someone from the disk in the TSF. However, that was the case, the lieutenant was from the SW’s capital of Makemake.
“Amy Lee is our head of external security. She’s a former Marine from the MCSF. The three platoons under her are from a few fully manned Q companies down on the ring. No commander with them, so we put her in charge.”
Tanis nodded.
Angela all but echoed what Tanis was thinking.
“You appear to have things well in hand here, Lieutenant.” Tanis looked at the Regulars manning the checkpoints. “We’ll be expanding our area of control. I want you to begin considering shift and personnel changes for moving our perimeter out to the maglev stations and elevator banks.”
The lieutenant’s eyes widened, but she didn’t question how Tanis planned to take control of a few kilometers of the MOS.
“Yes, sir!”
“Carry on.” Tanis saluted and they moved forward to be processed by the soldiers. Minutes later they were driving over one of the bridges between the dock and the ship.
The cargo bay was even larger once inside. It turned out to be a main corridor off a hundred other cargo bays; a corridor large enough to fly the Steel Dawn III through.
Equipment moved through it on a dozen different levels. Holo emitters outlined several roads for ground vehicles and Commander Evans sped the ground car down one, deftly following its jinks and curves.
The corridor ran to the far side of the ship, some ten kilometers distant. Tanis cycled her vision and saw what appeared to be a multi-tiered docking port for external cargo. From the construction drones moving around it wasn’t quite completed yet. She glanced back and wondered what it would take to accelerate the external dock’s completion.
In two kilometers they passed the entrance to the port cylinder.
“That one’s been named ‘Old Sam’,” Commander Evans said. “The other is named ‘Lil Sue’.”
“Have you been in them?” Tanis had been in dozens of cylinder habitats, but never one that was mounted in a ship.
“A few times, yeah. Ouri, one of our lieutenants in the SOC, has managed to get her hands on a small lakeside house in Old Sam. I guess she’s also pretty big into botany and is maintaining some special garden and overseeing several other areas in there. We’ve had a few cookouts down by the lake recently.”
“What, with a fire?”
“Yeah, nuts, eh? We had no trouble whatsoever getting the authorization for it. Apparently the carbon cycle needs a little help, so the more the merrier.”
“Fires on a starship for fun.” Tanis shook her head. “Not something I think I’ve ever heard of before.”
“It’s nice when we do it, you’d think you’re dirt-side.” Commander Evans smiled absently as he spoke.
His features cut a nice profile. Either he had good genetics, or his parents had paid special attention to his looks.
“I’ve been in a few of those cylinder habs before. Every now and then I look up and see a lake or a forest rotating over my head and have to suppress the instinct to duck.”
Commander Evans laughed and they drove in silence the rest of the way to the tubes.
The lifts were guarded by GSS security and they processed Tanis and Joe swiftly. They stepped into an empty car and held the handrails as the platform shot up through the tube.
The tube’s walls were clear plas and the effect gave the sensation that the floor of the cargo bay was falling away from them. Above were several levels containing everything from life support to supplies and storage. Once past the lower levels the tube shot out into empty space, anchored to one of the gossamer struts running around this section of the ship. They sped over the matter accelerator which ran from the ramscoop back to the engines and moments later were swallowed by the upper section of the vessel.
“You know”—Tanis peered through the plas—“Even if you take off the cylinders, scoop, engines, and even the docking levels below, this ship is still one of the largest I’ve ever been on.”
“I know what you mean,” Commander Evans said. “I’ve taken the grand tour by maglev train. It literally takes an entire shift.”
The tube terminated in a large transit station and their security clearance was checked again by GSS authorities. There seemed to be a clear division of TSF and GSS control on the ship. There were also some MSF folks in the mix. It shouldn’t have bothered Tanis, but after what she had seen on the MOS that day she had a bad taste in her mouth when she thought of the Mars Security Force having anything to do with her safety.
Commander Evans led her across the terminal to a maglev and they took it to the forward sections of the ship, arriving at their final stop roughly a kilometer aft of the bridge. The Security Operations Center was just off the train station’s foyer and they stepped through the sliding double doors into a controlled chaos.
The main room was a two-tier affair with physical and holo consoles arrayed in three concentric rings. Interspaced amongst these were several large multi-d holo screens showing various news and security feeds. Leading off the outer circle were several doors to private offices, the local synaptic processing networks, and several labs.
They walked to the executive offices while the staff in the ops center cast her wary glances. Her address down at the Dawn had been posted to the SOC’s private net and contained her designation as the CO, so everyone was already aware of the change in command. She placed a hand on Evans’ shoulder when they reached the upper tier and turned to address the room.
“As you are all already aware, I am Major Richards, your new CO. Right off I want you to know that I’m not here to supplant Commander Evans as much as to supplement him. I’ve spent a bit of time workin
g ops like this: competing priorities, unknown threats; it’s an ugly situation.” The looks in the room were coolly appraising, no one showing their feelings one way or another. Without a doubt some of the people she was addressing had alerts on their HUDs that had matched her ID to the media coverage from six years earlier.
“I’m not here to shake things up, but I’m also not going to shy away from saying what needs to be said, or doing what needs to be done. I know you all have a lot of work to do, but I want to see section chiefs and reps in the conference room…”
“At 1600 hours this afternoon.” The crowd remained unreadable. “That’ll be all.”
Commander Evans gave her a scrutinizing look.