Bright Horizons

by Wilson Harp

  “All clamps secure, sir. We are set for go,” Williams said.

  Kyle exhaled heavily and smiled at his crew. “Ellison, you can unpucker. We have the hot potato secured and have our course laid in.”

  “Good news, Fitzgerald. We’ll see you in a week.”

  Kyle turned to Alex. “Sergeant Ramirez, you can initiate warp field along our plotted course.”

  “Yes sir,” said Alex as he keyed in the activation code. “We are away.”

  The ship felt like it rippled and then all sound became slightly muted. Kyle had never been on a submarine before, but he imagined that it felt a lot like traveling on a ship in a warp field.

  “Three and a half days to live and I am stuck with you guys,” Alex said as the ship hurtled through the cosmos at speeds that defied physics. Alex was always one of the first to become fatalistic on a mission, but he always had an edge of humor to keep it from turning dark.

  “Deal with it,” said Williams. “And my last meal was some leftover barbeque and baked beans that I had brought in from Earth.”

  Alex groaned and laughed. “Sir, I’m getting the bunk as far from his as possible,” Alex said to Kyle.

  “This isn’t your dad’s car, you can’t just call it,” responded Kyle. “I’m the only officer here, so you two will have to pick bunks after me.”

  The banter continued for a while, but soon all three men had pulled out things to read. Kyle and Alex were reading on their tablets while Williams had a beat up paperback. Agatha Christie from what Kyle could make out.

  “Hey, I have a question,” said Alex. “All of these sleds are named after great writers, right?”

  “Yes,” answered Williams, not looking up from his book. “That is the naming convention. Cruisers after generals and cities, sleds after authors, and scooters after rivers and waterways.”

  Alex sat perplexed for a minute. “I looked her up, and I can’t find anything she wrote.”

  Williams let his book drop below his eyes and Kyle looked over at Alex. “Who?” said both men at the same time.

  “Ella Fitzgerald. My dad had all of her music, and she was great, but I can’t figure out why they named a sled after her.”

  Kyle busted up laughing and Williams dropped his head.

  “F. Scott Fitzgerald,” Williams said slowly. “The sled is named after F. Scott Fitzgerald, not Ella Fitzgerald.”

  “Oh,” said Alex “I guess he was a pretty good writer?”

  “Look up ‘The Great Gatsby’ under literary classics,” Kyle said. He thought he could hear Williams softly crying.

  A few minutes later, Williams put down his book and looked at Alex. It was clear there was something he wanted to say, but he was struggling with it.

  “Carl, everything alright?” Kyle asked.

  “Sir, would it be inappropriate if I asked a personal question?” Williams asked with obvious concern.

  “To me?” asked Alex “You can ask, but I may not answer.”

  “Do you need some privacy? If you want I can go to the galley,” Kyle offered.

  Williams ignored his suggestion. “I was just curious as to what happened. Why you got thrown into Leavenworth. I know you put Senator Hovey in a coma, but I never really figured out what happened.”

  Kyle sighed and went back to reading. He knew every aspect of this story and he was just going to let Alex tell what he wanted.

  Alex sat up straight and looked at Williams, weighing the moment and taking his time before answering.

  “My father was Victor Ramirez, you know that right?” Alex asked.

  Williams nodded and settled back in his seat.

  “He was a Marine General for seventeen years. He was submitted to the Senate at the age of 39 and they awarded him the star two days after his 40th birthday. He was the youngest Brigadier General in a generation, and deserving of it. By the time the Indian war started he was a Lieutenant General and was immediately sent to the front lines. He ran the most efficient and clean operation, and for that they made him a four star and he was given Command of the whole operation.”

  Alex paused, clearly proud of his father.

  “Then one day, as he was flying out of Mumbai, someone hit his chopper with a mobile SAM. Huge loss for the U.S. forces. Commander of Indian Operations and three other General staff were on that bird. Fourteen people in all, none of them survived the crash. I was on an operation that day and didn’t hear about it for 48 hours.”

  Williams nodded as Alex grabbed a bottle of water from his pack and took a swig.

  “Three days later I was told to get on a jet. They were taking me to Washington for a few days. A set of my dress blues had been prepared by my sister and my mother would be waiting for me at the airport. My father would have his funeral at the National Cathedral and then he would be interred at Arlington. Afterwards, there would be a joint session of Congress where they were going to honor my father and present my mother with his Congressional Gold Medal. When that was over, I would board another plane and be back in the action.”

  “Didn’t go as planned, huh?” Williams asked.

  “No. When we got to Congress after the burial, several congressmen and senators spoke about the award. My father had never been an overly political man, and frankly, I don’t even vote except in the Presidential elections. So I had no idea who these men were, how well they knew my father, or what their politics reflected. Most were gushing in their praise; some were so vague in their accolades that you could tell they didn’t know him at all.”

  Alex took another long drink of water before continuing.

  “But then Senator Hovey got up. He was the next to the last speaker of the day. He stood there face to face with my Mother and said “If you live by the sword, you should die by the sword.” He said my father was a killer who should have been tried and executed for killing so many people. He said a painful, fiery death was what he deserved.”

  Kyle thought that Williams had surely seen the speech on the news when it happened; it was played constantly as part of the story of what happened that day.

  “So, why did you do it?” Williams asked.

  “I honestly couldn’t tell you. He dishonored my father, and that really made me mad. But I think it was the fact that he insulted my mother that pushed it over the top. She was in tears as he finished speaking, and as she stood there with the medal in her hands when they presented her with it, she could barely get out the words “Thank you.” When I saw him in the rotunda afterwards, I just snapped. I made my way over to him and instead of exchanging a few insulting, pithy words, I tried to punch his head off. He dropped like a bag of sand, and without thought, I was on him with my hands around his neck.”

  Williams shook his head slowly.

  “His two aides and one of his personal security guys tried to get me off. I broke one of his aides’ arms and smashed up the face of the bodyguard. Three Capitol policemen finally got me off the Senator and tazered me until I blacked out.”

  “What did your family say?”

  Alex laughed. “Emily was pissed. She said that Dad would have kicked my butt for a stunt like that. My Mom made me a bunch of my favorite sandwiches and just smiled when she came to visit me in holding.”

  “And Hovey pressed all charges,” Williams said.

  “Actually, no. He was in a coma until after I had already been processed. The military took jurisdiction and the DA was happy to let them have me. I got fifty years for assault and battery, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and resisting arrest. They likely could have got attempted murder if they wanted. If those guys had been a bit slower in pulling me off of him, I would probably be in a civilian prison serving out a murder two sentence.”

  Williams leaned forward and looked at Alex. “Hovey is an ass.” He picked up his book and began reading again.

  Alex’s jaw dropped open as if he were going to say something, then he smiled, looked at Kyle and shrugged. Kyle shrugged back and went back to his book.
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br />   The next several days, the men stayed mostly quiet. The weight of what they were attempting to do weighed on each of them, and room for frivolity and earnest, somber discussions was pushed aside to make room for intensity.

  “Mark one minute until dropping out of warp. When I kill the warp field engines, you need to start getting the ion engines heating up in that moment. We can’t reset the warp engines until the ion engines are at full capacity,” Alex reminded Kyle.

  “We will wait for your mark. Carl, blow the clamps at mark plus one,” Kyle reminded Williams.

  “Yes, sir,” Williams said. “Sensor recording live as of now, let’s get some good data for the folks back home.”

  “Mark ten seconds,” started Alex “Nine… eight… seven…”

  The seconds seemed to take forever.

  “two… one… Mark!”

  The warp engines dropped the field and Kyle punched the button to start the ion engines. He looked up at the long range sensors and spotted a very large ship a mere 60,000 kilometers away.

  “They took the bait,” he thought as he felt the sled shudder from the explosives sheering off the clamps. He hoped all five sets of charges had completely detached the Geneva.

  “Ion engines online,” said Kyle as the control button on his console shifted to green.

  “Geneva is clear of the clamps,” Williams said.

  Kyle fired the top side thrusters to push away from the doomed cruiser.

  “Waiting for warp engines to go online,” Alex said. The strain in his voice was evident.

  “Enemy has fired a weapon, they had it charged up it looks like,” Williams said.

  “Clear of the Geneva, go when ready Alex,” said Kyle just as the Fitzgerald jerked hard.

  “Warp on,” said Alex at the same moment.

  The ship lurched and recoiled several times as the warp field kept collapsing. An explosion violently shook the vessel.

  “Engines four, six and twelve have blown!” shouted Williams over the noise.

  Kyle looked at the sensors as he held onto the armrests of his chair. The Geneva had been completely ripped apart and the debris field was quickly moving towards the enemy ship. Just then a huge explosion filled the sensor screen and Kyle and Williams were knocked from their chairs.

  “I can’t keep the warp field stable!” shouted Alex.

  Kyle pulled himself up to look at the console. The external sensors were absolutely dead and the lights on the bridge flickered ominously. Kyle realized at that moment that the shaking and jerking of the ship had stopped. He looked over at Williams who was on one knee looking at his screen.

  “Life support is stable, but we have multiple hull breaches. Ion drives are down, but the capacitors are still charged.”

  “We have warp field stabilizing,” Alex sighed as he sat back from the console. “We made it. We are going to get to the rendezvous.”

  Williams swooned back into his seat. “Thank you, God. Engines one and ten held. All the others are toast.”

  Kyle sat back in his seat. Two engines were what they needed to generate a warp field large enough to move the sled. Two engines.

  Chapter 17

  5 July 2044

  Kyle was napping when the intercom woke him.

  “General Martin, are you available for a visitor?” asked the nurse on duty outside of his room.

  “Who is it?” Kyle asked groggily.

  “A Mister Franklin Smith, he says you will want to see him.”

  “Yes, send him in,” said Kyle as he sat up on his bed. Alex, Williams and he were on day four of a five day stay in the anti-radiation ward of the Mayo clinic. None had shown signs of radiation sickness, and their levels were fine when they boarded the Shakespeare, but precautions had to be taken due to the levels of radiation that the Fitzgerald had been exposed to. The radiation levels on the heavily damaged sled were so high that it was left sitting in deep space about half a light year from Helku after the mission.

  Kyle was wrapping his robe around himself and walking to the small sitting area in his room when he heard the door open. Smith walked in and closed the door.

  “General Martin, so glad to see you again,” Smith said with a smile.

  “Good to see you as well, Mister Smith. Please have a seat,” Kyle said motioning to a comfortable easy chair.

  Smith crossed the room and sat in the indicated chair as Kyle sprawled out on the love seat under the windows.

  “They tell me that neither you, nor Alex Ramirez, nor Carl Williams are in danger from the radiation you encountered,” Smith said. “But they still wouldn’t let me bring flowers in.”

  “Flowers?” asked Kyle. “Why would you bring me flowers?”

  “From the American media. Bringing flowers to someone in a hospital seems to be a common cultural courtesy, is it not?” Smith’s brows furrowed together.

  Kyle smiled cheerfully at the alien. “Yes, sorry, I’m just not used to many people remembering that when it comes to myself being in the hospital.”

  “I left them with the first desk I came to. Perhaps you can take them when you leave here.”

  “Thank you Mister Smith, I’m sure they are lovely. In fact, I will have my daughter pick them up when she comes to see me this evening,” Kyle replied. “But I am positive that you did not come all the way to Minnesota to bring me flowers.”

  “I wish it were that simple, but I have actually come to give you some news which you will appreciate, and some words of caution.”

  “Why don’t we start with the news, Mister Smith.”

  “Your plan worked at Helku. Mostly. The gravitational weapon was destroyed and the Iltia’cor High Command is in a panic. It seems that their supreme military leader was on board the ship at the time. It also seems that they were filming and transmitting the ambush to show other races who dared opposed them. I don’t think the images that were sent to the other races conveyed the message they were hoping for,” Smith said.

  “I would think not. How much was broadcast?”

  “All of it, they had some cameras set up about 80,000 kilometers away to catch the whole area of space. It’s a great angle of everything, including the explosion of their ship. I’ll have it sent over. I must admit I wasn’t for sure if the sled got away or not, it was severely damaged when the bombs started going off.”

  Kyle nodded. ”We may have underestimated how big of an explosion it would be.”

  “I can see where you might want to err on the side of too much rather than too little at that point.”

  “You said ‘mostly’, Mister Smith. What did you mean that the plan worked ‘mostly’?” Kyle inquired.

  “Unfortunately, an enormous amount of highly radioactive debris is about six months away from raining down on Helku. The people of the planet are extremely glad to see the Iltia’cor leave, but they are going to lose their planet. At least for several hundred years.”

  Kyle gritted his teeth. “The law of unintended consequences always has a way of intruding on triumph, no matter where it is found.”

  Kyle stood and started pacing.

  “Can we move the people of Helku off their planet and set them up elsewhere?” Kyle asked Smith.

  “I think that is entirely possible, and with the Iltia’cor no longer an issue, I would say that you could begin evacuating them in a short period of time,” Smith answered.

  “The Iltia’cor are no longer an issue?”

  “Yes, that was the major point of news I was going to inform you of. The Iltia’cor have withdrawn from all alien worlds and have started gathering in the Iltia system.”

  “When you say they have withdrawn, you mean their military has ceased oppressing the people of the rest of the held worlds?”

  “Yes. Also, all of their merchants, scientists, travelers, diplomats… every Iltia’cor is heading back to their home system,” Smith said.

  “Have they sued for peace or asked to speak to Earth’s representatives?”

  “No.”


  “We have tried to communicate with them, but they never respond. Why?” Kyle asked.

  “To them, this particular war is over. That is why they have withdrawn to their system. They will analyze why they lost, study your war efforts and rebuild in order to engage you again.”

  “The hell they will!” shouted Kyle as he stepped towards Smith.

  Smith smiled and shrugged. “You used the phrase ‘the law of unintended consequences’, and I believe the Iltia’cor are about to experience that completely,” Smith said with an oddly smug looking smile on his face.

  “What did I miss? What do you mean the Iltia’cor are about to experience the law of unintended consequences?”

  Smith leaned forward in his seat. “Tell me General, did Earth ever sign the Treaty of the Stars?”

  “I’ve never heard of that. What is it?” Kyle said sitting back down.

  “It’s a treaty that all interstellar capable races agree to. It says that you will abide by the rules and by the standards of Galactic Law.”

  “Galactic Law? Wait, why have we never heard of this before?”

  “To be honest, General, because of the Iltia’cor. They sit on the Lower Council and have rights to stop actions that they feel are inappropriate. Because you lack mosar they argued that you were not truly ‘living’ beings as described in the law. By the time the rest of the Council was convinced that you should be contacted, they had already attacked Earth.”

  Kyle sat there stunned. “What if we had been contacted?”

  “If you were a signatory to the treaty, they could not have invaded your home system,” Smith said.

  “But they invaded the Hedali’s home system…”

  “They used a loophole in the law for that. The Hedali violated the law on handling prisoners and because of that violation, the Iltia’cor were able to establish a military presence until the violators were put on trial and punished.”

  “That’s why Lon was still alive. As long as he lived, and they didn’t put him on trial, the Iltia’cor could keep their ships in their system.”