by M. D. Cooper
“For the party, of course.”
“What party?” Tanis and Joe asked in unison.
“You told me that when things calmed down to hold a nice impromptu party, so I’m doing it.”
“That was a hundred and fifty years ago!” Tanis blurted out.
“I took it as a standing order. It is actually my house after all,” Ouri said with a wink.
The party lasted long into the night, eventually spilling across the lawns and into the house with hundreds of people in attendance. Tanis learned that celebrations were happening all across the Intrepid that night, as the crew gave thanks for their survival and the sacrifice of their comrades.
RECOMPENSE
STELLAR DATE: 3288936 / 09.13.4292 (A7djusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Landfall, Victoria
REGION: Victorian Space Federation, Kapteyn’s Star System
The long parties the night before threw the solemn services on the following day into stark contrast.
The morning had been filled with services on the Intrepid and several of the cruisers. Following those, Tanis took a pinnace to Landfall at Katrina’s behest.
They had to mend the rift between their peoples and waiting would help nothing.
Tanis listened to Katrina’s words, tears filling her eyes. It was the speech the still-grieving widow had planned to give at Markus’s funeral. Katrina said as much as she started it and explained that even with all the events of the last week, Markus’s vision was still her guiding light. The people of Victoria could achieve great things, but they could not be bound by their past, by their prejudices or petty jealousy.
If anything the speech resonated more now than it would have five days prior.
Katrina stepped down from the dais and Tanis stood, still rehearsing her lines. The words were carefully selected and she knew she had to get it just right in front of this mostly Victorian audience.
“I’m—.” She hardly began before a scream interrupted her.
“You killed him! You! You evil bitch!”
The woman’s screams broke echoed through the hall and Tanis looked up in surprise.
Sarah stood ten paces from her, the grieving mother’s face streaked with tears, her eyes red and swollen.
“You brought all of this on us, if it wasn’t for you, my Tom would still be alive! My Peter would still be alive! You’re no different than they are, little gods who think they can take what they want!”
Tanis opened her mouth to speak, but no words would come out. The woman before her was old and stooped, in the final decades of her life.
A retort came to mind, but it was wrong and unfair. Tanis had nothing to give that this woman would accept. The fact that Sarah was always angry, always looking for someone to attack and blame, didn’t make her words less true.
Any condolence Tanis could give—words from a woman who was in perfect health at over two-hundred years of age; with hundreds of years ahead of her; with the ability to carry dozens of children if she wished—those words would only cause more harm to Sarah.
Sarah, who had tried so hard to naturally carry a child to term, after what the years of exposure to hard radiation around Sirius had done to her body.
Tanis may well have killed Tom herself.
She didn’t hear everything else Sarah screamed at her; she did feel the spit hit her face before Peter’ brothers managed to drag Sarah out of the assembly.
Tanis turned her head and took a moment to clean the spittle off. It took a minute more for her own tears to cease.
No one spoke while she regained her composure, she thought maybe it was because no one knew she could cry. She always had to be strong, to put on a good face and inspire the people who depended on her, but somehow this event, this battle, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
She just wanted peace.
Tanis took a second deep breath and gave her speech.
She was told afterward that her words were eloquent and well delivered, but she barely remembered it. All she could recall was the sorrow in Sarah’s eyes and the pain she felt at the loss of so many friends.
RELATIVITY
STELLAR DATE: 3293121 / 02.29.4304 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Intrepid
REGION: Interstellar space near Kapteyn’s Star
“We think it’s some sort of undetectable gravity well.”
Earnest stood at the head of the bridge conference room’s table. Hovering above the table was a complex holographic display showing Kapteyn’s Star at the bottom and an elongated tail streaming out from the star.
The Intrepid was only a month out from the Kapteyn’s system and already a new calamity had befallen them.
For many, the departure from the system had been a bittersweet parting. Over the decades, many families had become intertwined between the two groups. In the end some Edeners stayed behind, while some Victorians joined new families on the colony ship.
They may have wished they hadn’t.
“Our best models predict it to be a stream of dark matter. Something that has been hypothesized as stretching out from Kapteyn’s in the past due to its extra-galactic orbit. It’s currently all but impossible to gauge our vector, but we think we are a hairs-breadth under c and still on the correct vector…more or less.”
Tanis burst out laughing so hard her body convulsed and tears streamed down her face. Everyone in the room was staring at her, aghast at her response. She took several gasping breaths, attempting to regain her composure.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Terrance frowned.
“So…so much time spent being slowed down, held back…” Tanis gulped down a breath. “And now we’re going too fast!”
She began laughing again. Beside her Abby started to chuckle and across the table Andrews let out a guffaw. Seconds later the entire group was laughing, slapping backs and generally looking like they’d lost their minds.
As the laughter died down, Tanis managed to wheeze out, “can we…can we throw out an anchor?”
This brought about a new round of chuckles with several other suggestions for slowing the ship being called out. Eventually everyone regained control, and Earnest poured himself a glass of water, drinking it down before finally providing the answer.
“I don’t think we’ll have to slow down,” he said. “I think that when we exit this dark matter accelerator we’ll shed our velocity as quickly as we gained it. However, we’ll likely shoot past our destination by a fair distance.”
“How far?” Captain Andrews asked.
“It’s hard to say… light-years at least, maybe hundreds.”
Earnest’s simple proclamation was met with stunned silence. It could be possible that the Intrepid would end up being the furthest ship from Sol, further than any of the FGT ships were known to be.
“Then again, it could be a lot less… or a lot more. It’s really hard to tell how fast we’re going. The difference between 0.9999c and 0.99999c is quite profound when it comes to time dilation.”
“How can you not tell how fast we’re going?” Admiral Sanderson asked.
“At this velocity, all light from the outside universe turns into a tiny pinprick fore and aft of the ship. We aren’t even sure if we’re in space controlled by special or general relativity or neither.”
“So what is our plan?” Tanis asked.
“Go sideways,” Earnest replied.
“That doesn’t seem like much of a plan,” Terrance said. “What if it tears the ship apart?”
Earnest shook his head. “I don’t think that will happen. Because we’re not really traveling this fast, there’s no shearing force. Transitioning into regular space should be smooth and simple.”
“We should test it,” Sanderson said. “I imagine a probe could pop out.”
“Indeed. We’re actually prepared to do just that, we don’t know if we’ll be able to get any data from the test, but we should certainly try it first.” Earnest waved his hand, and data readouts from a probe in a launch tube came up over the table.
“Bob, if you’d be so kind,” he said.
The readout showed the probe launching from the ship’s port side. External optics showed it moving into the blackness that surrounded the Intrepid. At three hundred kilometers out, the probe vanished.
“That sure looked abrupt,” Terrance shook his head. “I really don’t like this; it seems too risky.”
“More risky than anything else we’ve done?” Tanis asked.
“Those things were all calculated. We knew the math and the chances. Here we don’t even know what science to use!” Terrance replied.
“I understand your concern,” Captain Andrews nodded slowly. “To say there is no risk would be a lie, but there is also considerable risk in staying wherever we are. Is there an end to this special space? Will its properties change? We don’t know.”
Terrance leaned back in his chair and gave a wan smile. “Well then, what are we waiting for?”
Earnest began to rattle off a list of personnel he would need pulled out of stasis and other tasks which needed to be performed before the maneuver.
Terrance coughed. “That was rhetorical, Earnest.”
The maneuver was planned and set to commence in one hour. Tanis decided to go for a walk before returning to the bridge for the event. Thirty minutes later she found herself in the forward lounge she and Joe had discovered all those years ago.
She wished he was here, but they had only brought key personnel out of stasis when the ship slipped into this dark layer. No need to ruin everyone’s day with just another crisis.
Tanis leaned back on an acceleration couch and stared at the pinprick of light ahead of her. Somehow she thought all the light of the universe being condensed down to one tiny point would be brighter.
She contemplated watching the exit maneuver from the lounge. With its wide field of view, the stars would likely look amazing as they snapped from the single focal point back to their regular positions.
As she lay on the couch, imagining what the event would look like, a vibration began to build in the deck underneath her.
Tanis calmed her fears and waited, listening to the chatter on the bridge net. She added her thoughts to a few decisions, but by and large there was little advice she could offer.
With no warning the vibrations turned into a lurch and the point of light exploded into a full starscape, bathing the lounge in its light.
It was as amazing as she thought it would be.
“Woohoo it wor—.”
Tanis’s jubilation was interrupted by a deafening rending sound followed by the scream of oxygen rushing from the room.
Tanis leapt to her feet and clawed her way through the torrent of air rushing past her. Her HUD showed a bank of pods in the corridor outside the lounge and she couldn’t help calculating the amount of oxygen she would need to make it.
Tanis pulled herself forward, grabbing anything she could to as she struggled step-by-step. It was becoming easier as less air rushed past her—a silver lining around the dark cloud of an oxygen deprived death.
The artificial gravity cut out—the particle accelerator must have gone offline—and with a final heave, Tanis reached the exit as the far side of the lounge tore away, revealing open space.
She gave the deep black a short glance before signaling the hatch to close behind her.
Now that the sound of rushing air and rending steel was gone, she had a moment to realize how much her entire body ached with cold.
Tanis shook herself back to full consciousness and forced herself to move through the shuddering ship toward the pods.
Angela filled her mind with the knowledge that something the size of a small stone hit the ship in the moments before Bob could get the shielding back up. It had been traveling at near-relativistic speeds and impacted the bow like a bomb.
The sound of her heartbeat was pounding in her ears as she managed to pull herself into a pod and collapsed in its webbing.
Her internal monitoring showed burst blood vessels throughout her body, and her eyes felt like someone had tried to inflate them. She felt a final lurch and then the pod stilled beneath her.
“Sorry, I don’t think so well with no oxygen in my brain, where did we pop back out?”
Angela didn’t respond right away and Tanis activated a hard-console beside her seat.
“The computer must have been damaged, it can’t tell where we are,” she said after staring at the scan for a minute.
Tanis brought up comm to hail the Intrepid for pickup and to see if the colony ship knew where they were.
“I’m not getting any response,” Tanis said after a minute.
Tanis felt panic creep in as she studied the meager scan the escape pod was able to provide.
“Well, we’re close to a star, that’s something, and I’m picking up radio signals from it.”
“What is it, Angela?”
“Well that’s goo—. Wait, 58 not 82?” 58 Eridani was twenty-four light years further out than 82 Eridani, the star the colonists had named New Eden.
Twice as far from Sol as their original destination.
“I see something on scan, it looks like it might be a ship,” Tanis said, bringing up data and optical views. “Wait, this is wrong too, its ion trail shows antimatter and fusions drives, but the ship’s too small.”
“There it is, it came back…a lot closer, damn it’s gone again.”
Angela highlighted a point on the scan map.
“What the hell is going on?” Tanis almost yelled.
Her question was punctuated by a loud clang as something grappled the pod.
It was not often that Angela’s mental tone contained fear, but it certainly did now. Tanis was far from calm herself. Nothing made any sense, where was the Intrepid, how was 58 Eridani inhabited and how did a ship hop through space like this one had.
Optical cameras showed the pod being pulled into a small cargo bay and that was the last Tanis saw.
In the small bridge of the scout and salvage ship two men grinned at each other.
“Stasis field has the whole pod. This is going to be a good sell. That thing is from a colony ship, something called the Intrepid,” the first said. “I don’t
have anything on scan, but judging by the tech on the pod she’s going to have some advanced tech.”
“Thank god, we can finally cover what we owe Padre and get free and clear,” replied the second.
“Well let’s get a move on, then.”
The pilot nodded before he activated his console and plotted a course.
“Engaging FTL drive.”
DESTINY LOST
M. D. Cooper
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book is in your hands today in no small part because of you, the readers. Your emails and excitement for the series always inspires me to keep writing.
In addition, the author community, with whom I have found companionship, has helped me hone my craft, and shared stories of encouragement—as I have with them.
Beyond them, are the hard-working folks in the aero-space industry who are working day and night to bring our species to space in a meaningful way. Their dedication and advances are what gives me hope for our future.
Lastly, as I’ve mentioned before, this book stands on the shoulders of giants. Writers whose stories and imaginations have forged a shared vision of the future, and our destiny, that we call Science Fiction.
AN UNEXPECTED CARGO
STELLAR DATE: 06.30.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Coburn Station, Trio
REGION: Trio System, Silstrand Alliance Space
Sera slammed the shooter down with a triumphant grin and watched with reddened eyes as the man from Thoria reached for his next glass. Around them, the crowd chanted their names as money changed hands.
Her opponent downed his drink and tossed the glass onto the table where it rolled against the two-dozen empty shooters between them. With a wave of his hand and an unappealing grin, he indicated that the floor was hers.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, chanting an internal mantra of just one more, just one more. The act of raising her arm caused Sera to sway in her seat, the smell of bodies pressed close around not helping her deepening nausea.