by M. D. Cooper
Tanis picked up the comm message and flipped it to the bridge’s audible systems once the first syllable came to her ears.
“Good morning, Sabrina, this is Captain Joseph Evans of the ISS Andromeda. It’s a little hot out here, so we thought we’d give you a ride into the Intrepid.”
“What the hell?” Cheeky exclaimed, furiously adjusting her holo interfaces. “There’s a fucking cruiser on our ass that wasn’t there a second ago!”
Tanis felt a smile nearly split her face in half.
“You have the honors,” Sera said, returning her smile.
“Andromeda, this is Tanis…sweet stars it’s good to hear your voice, Joe.” Tanis all but gasped the last words, her voice choking up.
“Tanis! Oh stars, thank god. I was afraid it was a hoax, are you OK? Are you in danger?”
“I’m well. Captain Sera and Sabrina have treated me very well.”
“Corsia is sending a plot for your pilot. We need to cut the chatter and get you off radar. Dock as quickly as you can. I love you, Tanis.”
“I love you too, Joe. See you in a few minutes…”
Tanis couldn’t stop the flood of emotion that washed over her. She let out a sob and tears started to flow. She saw Cheeky and Sera exchange incredulous looks before her eyes misted up too much to see clearly.
A moment later there was a hand on her back and a soft voice at her side.
“I take it he’s someone special to you,” Sera’s voice was thick with emotion.
Tanis gulped down a deep breath and forced herself to calm. “He’s my husband,” she managed to say.
“Husband?” Cheeky asked with a grin. “I bet he’s a real looker—no wonder you never came by my cabin.”
Tanis smiled and wiped her face. “Yes, that was it. Did you get the information to dock?”
Cheeky nodded. “Their bay is right behind us, it’ll be snug, but we’ll fit. Just one jot to the left and we’ll drop right in.”
“I’m going to the hatch,” Tanis said as she rose.
“Right behind you,” Sera said. “You have the bridge, Cargo.”
Tanis was sliding down the ladder in the corridor before Sera finished speaking. She knew it was irrational, but the thought of being with Joe made all the obstacles before her seem so much simpler. Sure, they faced insurmountable odds, and there was little chance of ever building the colony they had dreamed, but none of that mattered if she was with Joe. They could figure it out, they could figure anything out.
She arrived at the forward hatch and all but bounced on her feet as she waited for the sound of the ship settling in its cradle.
As soon as the telltale clang echoed through the deck plates, she cycled the airlock, barely aware that Sera stepped in with her.
It seemed to take forever for the pressure match indicator to turn green, and when it did, she pushed out of Sabrina and smashed herself into Joe’s open arms. The smell of him washed over her and she couldn’t stop overwhelming sobs of joy and pent up anxiety from escaping her.
“I’m here Tanis, you’re safe, you’re back with us,” Joe whispered in her ear while stroking her hair.
Tanis wasn’t able to form words and spoke into his mind instead.
Joe chuckled.
Tanis finally became aware of Sera’s presence, floating awkwardly behind her. She looked around to see all eyes in the shuttle bay on her. She flushed and stepped back.
“Joe, this is Captain Sera, my rescuer. Sera, this is Joseph Evans.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Joe said with a smile as he extended his hand to Sera. “Any rescuer of Tanis’s is a dear friend of mine—not to mention a rare person. Usually she is the one doing the rescuing.”
Sera took his hand and returned the smile. “Then you won’t be surprised to learn that she rescued me once on our way here.”
Joe barked a laugh. “Now that’s more like it.”
Behind Sera, the rest of the crew, bar Cargo, stood at the ship’s airlock. Tanis introduced them to Joe and Sera called up for Cargo to secure the ship and come down as well.
Joe led Tanis and Sabrina’s crew through the docking bay toward the ship’s forward crew lounge.
“It doesn’t look that much more advanced. I thought you guys were supposed to have amazing tech,” Cheeky said while peering around. “It seems pretty normal—except the lack of AG.”
Tanis had to hide a smile as the crew of Sabrina clumsily navigated the corridor with the hand and footholds that she barely even thought of. It was possible that most of them had never even spent any appreciable time in zero-g.
“It’s not what’s visible,” Joe said. “We don’t have artificial gravity on ships this size, true, but we’ve flown Andromeda within a thousand klicks of those big newcomers out there and they didn’t even catch a glimpse of us.”
“You buzzed an AST dreadnaught?” Cheeky’s eyes grew wide with appreciation.
“That’s why we were out here,” Joe said with a nod. “We wanted to know what those new ships were all about.”
“What did you learn?” Tanis asked. “How do they stack up?”
“They have omnidirectional antimatter engines on either end; heavily shielded, and deadly to boot. Their beams are as strong as our best and their grav shields can probably block almost anything we can throw at them. I think we’d wear them down in a slug-fest, provided we could keep them at bay, but with all the other players on the field it gets pretty complicated.”
“It usually is,” Tanis said with a smile.
A minute later they arrived in the forward crew lounge. The room was clean and spare, yet well appointed. Tanis remembered spending many an evening relaxing here on the long deceleration into Kapteyn’s, and again during her many tours on the ship during the Victoria years.
“You’ll all receive a protocol upgrade by nano packet to update your Link for our systems,” Corisa announced over the lounge’s audible systems. “Please accept it and you’ll get onto our public nets.
“Thanks,” Cargo said. “I was wondering why I couldn’t make any sort of connection to a shipnet.”
“What happened to you?” Joe asked as Sabrina’s crew accepted the upgrade and Linked to the Andromeda’s net.
“My pod got picked up by pirates after I ejected,” Tanis said. “It’s a very different galaxy than we last saw.”
“You can say that again,” Joe replied.
“Thanks, Cor,” Joe said as he held Tanis and kissed her.
INTREPID
STELLAR DATE: 10.26.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: ISS Andromeda, Near Fierra (6Mj Jovian)
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Sera watched Tanis and her husband—husband!—with a smile slowly creeping across her face. Who would have thought that the hard-bitten general had a man into whose arms she melted? Of all the things she expected to encounter, this was perhaps the last.
She glanced at her crew as they watched Tanis, and caught Cheeky’s eye. They exchanged a knowing look, before Sera returned her gaze to the forward-facing window.
She felt a pang of homesickness as she looked through the holo-enhanced portal. It reminded her too much of home. So clean, so meticulously maintained by nano, that it looked brand new, even though it ha
d likely seen centuries of service.
Through the plas she saw several Bollam’s World Space Force ships come into view, their mass and vector highlighted on the display for any Linked viewer to see. The vessels were new and well made by ninetieth century standards, but there was something about the understated elegance of the Andromeda that put them to shame. The Bollam’s ships were boxy and utilitarian, where the Andromeda hailed from a time when both form and function were honored without compromise.
She was impressed with how neither Joe, nor any of his crew, gave her unusual black skin, or Nance’s hazsuit a second glance. Then again, given what she had read about the early fourth millennia, her crew fit well within the bounds of what was considered normal.
They slipped past the Bollam’s picket lines without drawing attention, and before long the Intrepid came into view.
“All those ships dock inside the Intrepid?” Nance asked in awe.
“They do indeed,” Tanis replied with a nod. “Most of the cruisers fit in the main bay.”
Cheeky whistled. “Well, I’m not surprised. Most of the stations we dock Sabrina at are smaller than that ship.”
Sera counted ten capital ships protecting the Intrepid, the largest being a pair of two thousand meter cruisers that the window’s holo enhancement labeled as the Orkney and Dresden.
The display didn’t provide many details beyond mass and size, but given what she knew of Sol in the fourth millennia, and what she had read about Victoria, Sera suspected that the Intrepid’s fleet was more than a match for all but the AST vessels surrounding them.
Even if they didn’t resort to their pico tech.
Sera sent an affirmative response.
“Those poor pirate fleets,” Cheeky chuckled. “They must really be wondering if they bit off more than they can chew.”
“They’re probably considering joining forces,” Tanis said.
“Or getting the hell out of here,” Sera added.
“It’s like looking back in time,” Thompson whispered, his voice filled with awe. “So much of what we see, the worlds, the stations, what few rings remain, they’re the ruins, leftovers from before the wars. What we’ve built since…well, at best it’s utilitarian and functional…but this ship, the Intrepid…it’s so graceful, it’s amazing….”
Cheeky put a hand on Thompson’s shoulder. “I never knew you were such a romantic.”
Thompson, looked around, his face flushing. “I’m uh, I’m not…don’t expect future sentiment.”
Nance let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t blame you though…that’s one hell of a ship. How do they build something so big…?”
“Have you ever been to Sol?” Sera asked Nance.
“I’ve never felt like having the probe it takes to get in that far,” the bio replied.
“They have more than a few artificial structures that dwarf planets. Building things like the Intrepid is practically child’s play—at least it used to be.”
“Are the Mars Outer Shipyards still there?” Joe asked.
“No,” Sera shook her head. “Sol suffered the worst, in the FTL wars. The only megastructure still there is High Terra.
Joe’s face fell. “Mars 1, the Cho?”
Sera shook her head. “All gone—well, the Cho has been rebuilt…sort of.”
“I don’t think I even want to know,” Joe replied.
“We got out in the nick of time,” Tanis said with a hand on her husband’s shoulder. They tore themselves apart even before FTL came along.”
Joe sighed. “We knew it was coming…it’s why we left, after all. Place was getting nuts.”
“The whole core is nuts now,” Sera said. “It’s a hundred messed up worlds in there.”
“I resent that.” Nance said. “I’m from a core world.”
“You’re from Virginis; they’ve only been in the AST for a century. It’s not enough time for the madness to settle in…maybe,” Sera’s expression grew deadly serious. It took Nance a moment to realize the Captain was poking fun at her.
“I’m going to ignore your biased remarks,” she said, with obviously faked haughtiness.
“I don’t know.” Cheeky grinned. “Maybe her hazsuit fetish is a symptom.”
Nance chose to ignore the barb. “If you’re the famous General of Victoria,” she said to Tanis, changing the subject and gesturing at the Intrepid through the display. “Are you in charge over there?”
Joe let out a laugh and wrapped his arm around Tanis. “She thinks she is—usually is too if the captain is in stasis.”
“I’m the executive officer,” Tanis said and threw a mock scowl at Joe.
“On paper,” Joe added with a wink at his wife.
“Were you ever going to come up to the bridge?” A new voice asked from behind the group.
Sera turned to see a tall woman with lavender skin and a highly exaggerated figure standing in the entrance to the lounge.
“Jessica!” Tanis cried out and ran to the woman. They embraced and spoke privately for a few minutes before joining the group.
“No wonder she never thought you two were that unusual,” Cheeky said, giving Nance and Sera significant looks. “Your kinks are nothing on hers.”
“It’s not like that!” Nance whispered. “Cut it out already.”
“Sorry, Jessica,” Joe said as Tanis and Jessica approached. “We got talking and I sort of decided to stay down here for the approach and forgot to tell anyone.”
“Well, who’s going to fly it then?” Jessica asked.
“I’m pretty sure that Petrov can manage to dock with the Intrepid. Besides, Corisa just humors us all anyway.”
“That’s…a bit creepy,” Thompson said.
“Are all your AI so imperious?” Cheeky asked. “No offense Angela, but you’re a little bossy too.”
Angela said.
Sera was certain she knew what the conversation would be about. She remembered learning about the Phobos accords as a child, but those laws were dead and gone. However, the crew and AI on the Intrepid would likely not appreciate the low station of most AI in the ninetieth century.
“Wha—?” Cheeky began to ask before Sera sent her a message to drop it.
“Tanis!” A new voice entered the conversation and Sera turned to see the holo-presence of a tall, rather distinguished looking man.
“Captain Andrews,” Tanis said with a smile as she turned to face him. “I see things are proceeding well as usual.”
“Not too much worse for wear,” the captain returned the smile.
Tanis had never mentioned how attractive her captain was. A man from the early fourth millennia too—if the sparse records from so long ago were to be believed.
“I have some friends coming aboard,” Tanis said. “This is captain Sera and the crew of Sabrina,” Tanis gestured to Sera’s crew. “They have some fascinating information regarding FTL that they would like to share with us. Earnest will be especially interested.”
“Thank you for returning Tanis to us,” Captain Andrews said to Sera. “From what Corsia has relayed of her conversations with Sabrina, you were a long way from here.”
“Just about a hundred and fifty light-years,” Tanis said nonchalantly. “A hop, skip, and a jump by today’s standards.”
Joe nearly choked. “A hundred and fifty! Stars…I would never have found you.”
Sera watched Tanis embrace her husband and whisper something in his ear while Captain Andrews continued.
“I’ll be glad to have you all aboard—and not soon enough. Every one of our friends out there is making more demands than I can shake a stick at. Thankfully, there are so many of them, no one wants to make the first move.”
“We’ll be docking in thirty minutes,” Joe
said. “Should be up there in forty-five.”
“Very well,” the captain replied and his holo faded out.
“He’s hot!” Cheeky exclaimed.
Tanis looked aghast. “He’s the captain!”
“And a damn hot one at that.” Cheeky said to herself.
Several conversations picked up as the Andromeda approached her mothership, and Sera turned to admire the view. The design of the Intrepid was both alien and very familiar. Its elegance reminded her of some of her people’s ships—the ones built before The Sundering. Truly amazing craftsmanship had gone into what was ultimately just a colony route stevedore.
The Andromeda passed near one of the cruisers shadowing the Intrepid. The holo overlay on the lounge’s window highlighted it and identified the ship as the Orkney. Sera slipped out of her footholds and kicked toward the window, dismissing the information overlay from her vision. She wanted to look upon this vista with her own eyes.
Both ships were on similar vectors, and the Andromeda’s pilot brought the ship in for a slow pass, only a thousand meters from the Orkney.
It was built for war and Sera found herself impressed with the firepower the Intrepid was packing in a fleet of ships, which should have been nothing more than transports, pushers, and cargo haulers.
The Orkney gleamed like a jewel, sheathed in what was likely several meters of highly reflective ablative plating. Nearby, a hauler was moving an icy asteroid into position near the warship. She suspected it was to extract water and create an additional ice shield around the vessel.
She imagined some terraformer working on the world below was probably quite upset to see over a hundred trillion liters of water they had planned for a lake or sea taken away.
It was a form of warfare Sera had only read about. Take your big war wagons, sheathe them in ice and let them take the heat from enemy beams. The ice would also add radiation shielding from indirect nuclear blasts.
The tactic matched the rest of the ship’s structure. With only rear engines, this was a vessel that was made to get to the fight fast, take a beating and wipe out the opposition quickly. It was aided by an assortment of beams that even the AST dreadnaughts would envy.