Humans
Three days later, they were still waiting for an answer.
“Ensign Tandry…” the captain started.
“No, Captain. I would call you if we heard anything. I haven’t called you because we haven’t heard anything.” Tandry’s nerves were frayed from the crew’s impatience.
As if she was holding out on them.
Daksha floated patiently. BJ and the other ‘cats were on the garden deck, making life hell for the Rabbits. Jolly considered opening the weapons locker for the Rabbits to add a little excitement, but since getting adopted by Clarkston, they’d grown more accommodating.
Jolly figured that the hatchet was permanently buried and that the Rabbits would make no more war on the Hillcats, no matter how much the ‘cats asked for it.
Cain was on the bridge, but he had no job to do. Stinky was there because the commander was, although the aide de camp’s duties were few and far between nowadays. The ship ran smoothly because the crew knew their jobs and they did them. Stinky mostly helped out the maintenance personnel with Night Stalker. They were both trying to get a better understanding of the ship’s systems.
As were the rest of the Marines. The Cygnus-12 was in perfect condition. Even the dark matter had been banked to one hundred percent. The ship and the crew were ready to head into the gravity well.
Whenever they were given permission to do so.
Lieutenant Chirit activated the ship-wide broadcast. “Ship inbound. Ship inbound. ETA one hour.”
“Go active, all systems. Corporal Starsgard, bring up our defensive weapons, but keep them on standby. You are not authorized to jam or fire,” Rand ordered.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Starsgard noted.
Cain nodded and excused himself. He left the bridge and headed for the weapons deck, which was on the same level. He jogged down the corridor and stopped to wave his bracelet past the pad. The hatch opened and he walked in on Starsgard, who had his feet up and was kicked back in his integrated gimbaled chair and weapons console, an upgrade that he’d undertaken with Jolly’s help while the ship was banking dark matter.
“How’d they find us, Starsgard?” Cain asked.
“I expect they traced our signal. It would not be difficult if they had a number of transceivers. They simply triangulated our position,” Starsgard explained.
Cain watched the ship approach on a screen that filled one wall. The ship was indicated by a flashing red light and a long red tail. Their position was marked in bright blue. The incoming red ship was clearly on an intercept course.
“The captain has gone active with all systems. If they had any doubts where we were, those are erased now.” Cain watched the line. The Earth ship appeared to be coming in fast, but it veered off and slowed quickly, quicker than the Cygnus-12 would have.
“Bots?” Cain wondered, but that was answered quickly when Tandry received a signal from the inbound ship.
“Attention people of Cygnus. I am Captain Mel Brayson of the cutter Ganymede Seven. I have been dispatched to escort you to Earth Two, the space station orbiting the planet Earth. I would like to dock with you and send a navigator and pilot to assist you in your transit of our space. I’ll repeat this message as we approach.” The captain was true to his word in that the message began an endless loop.
After the fourth time, the captain told them to cut off the feed to the bridge.
“Stay frosty, Starsgard,” Cain told the corporal. “You have the conn; stay in tight with the captain. I need to go set up the reception committee.”
Cain ran from the weapons deck to the bridge. Once there, he didn’t hesitate.
“Commander Daksha, with your permission, if we let them dock, I would be pleased to present an honor guard of Marines. Fully armed and prepared to greet them appropriately,” the major offered.
“Are we going to let them dock?” Daksha asked the captain.
“I don’t see that we have a choice. This is Earth and they are almost here. Damn. Yes, Commander. We will guide them to the airlock next to the hangar bay,” Rand replied.
“I think it prudent and appropriate, Major Cain. Greet them and escort their two representatives to my quarters,” Daksha directed.
Cain nodded.
“Give me ship-wide, Jolly,” Cain requested. The AI showed a double thumbs up. “All Marines report to the hangar deck in fifteen minutes, fully armed, combat dress. Third squad, bring your spacesuits, and be prepared to suit up. Major Cain, out.”
Cain ran through the hatch on his way to the weapons locker.
‘Brutus, meet me at the weapons locker, please. We are going to need every bit of insight you and the others will be able to provide. I don’t trust these guys.’
‘We’ll be there,’ Brutus replied over the mindlink.
***
Once Cain had his Marines in place, time seemed to slow to an infinite crawl.
Corporal Jo and the members of third squad were in full spacesuits. Gracie, Shep, Shadow, Derby, and Wyatt. Even Jo’s ‘cat N’lon had his suit on, but Wyatt’s ‘cat Valerie abjectly refused.
Even in times of life and death, the ‘cats sometimes went their own way.
Ascenti didn’t have a spacesuit, so he perched on Jo’s shoulder. She carried a long blaster, a new weapon that Jolly had fabricated just for her. She had a hand blaster on her hip as a backup.
The Wolfoids wore their ballistic cloaks and carried lightning spears.
Spence stood in the corridor with the remainder of both first and second squads. Three humans beside himself, Abhaya, Trilok, and Fickle, all wearing ballistic vests and carrying blasters. The Wolfoids Forest and Tracker, and the Lizard Man Zisk wearing his skin suit. The ‘cats Tobiah, Petey, and Thor sat nearby. Night Stalker, Black Leaper, Penelope, and Hortense stood closest to the stairwell while Lieutenant Peekaless stood on the other end. Cain positioned himself in front of the airlock with Brutus at his side.
Brutus refused to wear the small cloak that Jolly had made for him, preferring agility over armor.
Cain started pacing back and forth, saying a few words to each of the Marines. He stopped and took a deep breath.
“Oh, no,” Stinky whined. “He’s going to give a speech.”
Cain chuckled. “I’m kind of obligated. This is me at my best.” Cain smiled at his friend and took another deep breath, looking from one determined face to the next. “This could be anything from the friendliest greeting we’ve ever received to one where they come out firing. We need to be ready for both, but we can’t fire first. These are people from the same stock as us, all of us.” Cain looked at the Wolfoids, the Hawkoid, and the Lizard Men.
“We are the Cygnus Marines, the best combat unit that has ever walked on Vii. We did our duty on Concordia and Heimdall. In the end, only the Marines were standing. Today, I hope to high heaven that these people are peaceful. Thanks to our Hillcat friends, we will know their intentions before the airlock cycles. Be ready, Marines. Standby for orders,” Cain finished.
He took his place opposite the hatch as the monitor above the airlock showed a ship much larger than the Cygnus-12 shuttles matching the spindle’s rotation. The cutter eased closer until it bumped against the pneumatic cushion.
The two systems matched up, creating a magnetic seal surrounded by an inflatable cushion.
‘Anything, Brutus?’ Cain asked impatiently.
‘They are as wary of us as we are of them,’ Brutus replied. ‘But they don’t intend to attack us first.’
“Weapons tight, Marines. I think these people could be friends,” Cain shouted without taking his eyes off the airlock.
The outer hatch opened and four men and two women walked into the inner airlock. They looked confused as they peered through the windows at the menagerie of life forms waiting for them.
Cain cycled the hatch, exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and put on his most winning smile. He pulled the hatch open and said, “Welcome to The Olive Branch. I’m Major Cain an
d I am pleased to meet you.”
A balding man stepped to the front. “I’m Captain Mel Brayson.” He took Cain’s offered hand and shook firmly and warmly. The two looked into each other’s eyes.
Cain saw the questions in the man’s eyes. “We have answers, I’m certain, Captain. I want to help you to understand us. We are the Cygnus Marines, a combat unit on this Space Exploration Service ship, because we found that space is dangerous. We visited two other colony worlds on our way and in both places, they turned out to be hostile. We have lost a number of our people, so please don’t take our wariness as anything personal. It is a learned behavior. We want to trust you, and we want you to trust us.”
“I appreciate that, Major Cain. We want that, too. Not the killing part, but the trust part,” the captain clarified. Cain couldn’t help but smile genuinely.
“Let me introduce you to the Marines. We are comprised of most of the sentient species on Cygnus VII. All of us were modified through DNA splicing. Every being you meet on this ship has human DNA somewhere in their past. We have Lizard Men, my deputy Lieutenant Peekaless.” Cain pointed. “My other deputy, Lieutenant Black Leaper, a Wolfoid and his mate, my platoon sergeant, Night Stalker. Squad Leaders Spence and Jo. Our only Hawkoid Marine, Ascenti. And my partner in crime, Brutus.”
The orange ‘cat cocked his head as he looked at Captain Brayson.
“A telepathic cat. How odd, and he’s a rude little bugger, too!” One of the women in the group started to laugh. Cain looked at her.
“I expect you know domestic cats?” Cain asked.
“Oh yes. My family has five at our home on the station,” she replied.
“Then you know that you don’t have five cats, but that five cats have human servants?” Cain taunted.
“That, we know.”
“What we had in mind, Captain Brayson, is that your pilot and navigator join us on the command deck to meet our mission commander and our ship’s captain. But let’s modify that plan just a little. I’ll ask that we close the airlock hatches, to create a seal. If you have a communication device of some sort, I encourage you to use it to stay in contact with your ship and your people to reassure them that you are fine. We’ll give you a brief tour of the ship on our way to the command deck.”
The captain agreed to the terms. He turned his hand over to show that he was wearing a device that already put him in contact with the ship. The other five showed that they wore the same devices.
Trust was earned by exposing one small truth at a time.
They stopped by engineering first where Briz considered the intrusion to be unwarranted, but he was pleasant enough. The newcomers wouldn’t be able to recognize the dismay projected through his vocalization device or that the pink coloring on his head and ears wasn’t natural. Cain felt bad about that, but only for a moment until he remembered what the Rabbit had done.
Ellie was pleasant. The guests didn’t miss the electricity between her and Major Cain.
“Your wife?” Brayson asked as they left.
“My partner, and I am happy that is the case. She threw me off a tower the first time we met and then there was the time she tried to knee me in the groin, but that was before she decided that I’m the ‘cat’s meow.”
‘Oh, brother. I think she’ll knee you in the joystick for that,’ Brutus told him.
“Hey!” Cain exclaimed, glaring at Brutus.
“I have to admit that we were not prepared for this.” The captain stopped and looked at his shoes before continuing. “We outlawed splicing DNA with animals millennia ago. It was considered a breach of ethics to experiment like that. We have no sentient species besides humans. I have to say that what I’m seeing is that you are stronger as a whole because of it.”
“We weren’t always that way. The geneticists fought a horrible war with the traditional scientists, our civil war from which we rose, thanks to an AI that survived. One of his progeny is on this ship. We are better with the intelligent species, too. We’ve found that our differences make us stronger, more so than what we have in common.” Cain was in his element, feeling like his great-great-grandfather trying to convince distrustful people about the importance of free trade.
Cain was trying to convince humans from Earth that the people of Cygnus were good souls and could be great friends.
They continued to the next level where the mess deck, billeting, sickbay, and ship’s stores were located. Cain took the group to the mess deck where they ordered a little snack from the fabricator--chocolate brownies for everyone. Cain ate the first one while the guests nibbled before devouring theirs.
“We don’t get chocolate very often. Cocoa beans take up too much space and provide too little nutrition. They are grown on the planet, but trips there to harvest anything are high risk at the best of times and sure death the rest of the time.”
Cain was shocked. “Earth is hostile?”
“Earth is barbaric. You had your issues and we had ours. Humanity lives on Earth Two now. Those on the planet are no longer human. It is a different place from what your ancestors knew. At some point, we will go back, but not yet.”
Cain tried to process that information, but it wasn’t registering fully. People from Earth no longer lived on Earth.
The garden deck was a treat and the earthers enjoyed their time in the humidity, surrounded by the plants. “We have a similar arrangement on Earth Two, a massive rotating plain where all the crops were planted, but we don’t have any rabbits, not anymore.”
The visitors found it pleasantly odd that Rabbits tended the garden. Rabbits had once lived on the space station, but they had eaten crops necessary for human survival, so they were eradicated. Most animal life was removed as unnecessary for survival.
On the command deck, Cain took the group to Commander Daksha’s quarters where he waited patiently with Captain Rand, BJ, and Nathan.
Captain Brayson stepped through the hatch and looked at the room, considering it to be something akin to a zen garden.
“These are you quarters, Commander?” Brayson asked, looking at Rand. The tall human shook his head and pointed to the Tortoid floating serenely over the hot sand. BJ and Nathan sat in a protective position between the commander and the Earth people.
“I am Commander Daksha, the mission commander for our return to Earth. Welcome to our ship. What do you think of The Olive Branch?”
“Most impressive, Commander. We don’t have anything like it. With the departure from the planet, we could no longer sustain the building of colony ships. Plus, we have never heard back from any of them. We had no idea that the colonists had made it to habitable worlds. You are the first to return, Commander.”
“Then we have a great deal to talk about, Captain. A great deal.”
Into the Gravity Well
Captain Brayson chose to stay aboard with his navigator Astral Star and his pilot Tian Mahjing. The other three returned to their ship.
The Ganymede Seven detached from The Olive Branch and set a slow and steady course into the heliosphere and down the gravity well. The cutter maintained a steady three gravity acceleration. The one and a half that the crew felt on board the Cygnus-12 was noticeable, but didn’t require confinement to the acceleration couches.
Brayson was amazed.
“We’ll have to stop and refuel at one of our outer stations,” he told Captain Rand.
“If you want and can get clearance, we can increase our acceleration and head straight for the station orbiting Earth. We don’t need to refuel and we don’t have to go this slowly,” Rand said, trying not to sound like he was bragging about his ship’s capabilities or trying to be demeaning regarding the Earth ship’s limitations.
“What can she do?” Brayson asked.
“The Olive Branch, which was originally called the Cygnus-12, can accelerate to the point that any living creature would be turned to a jelly smear. We have safeties in place, but we have pushed upwards of twenty gees,” Rand said proudly.
“Twent
y gees!” Tian Mahjing exclaimed. “I am amazed. You didn’t kill the crew?”
“The EM drives create a buffer where we only feel half of the ship’s acceleration. We can occupy our couches and run it up to ten gees actual for thirty minutes every few hours.” Rand looked at his counterpart. “We can cut the trip from a month to a couple weeks or less. Just let me know and we’ll assign you an acceleration couch to crawl into.”
“Easy as that?” the navigator, Astral Star, asked. “We don’t have that capability. Sure, we have the couches, but generally, we take longer to travel throughout the solar system.”
Astral Star had chiseled features and was an abnormally good looking man. Cain stood on the bridge, a little envious, but wondered if he’d been modified in some way. Kalinda looked at him as if he was gum on her shoe. Cain bit the inside of his lip as he expected the young man wasn’t used to getting looked at with such obvious disdain.
‘Anything from our captivating navigator?’ Cain asked Brutus.
‘She wants to punch him for leaning over her shoulder. And she wants to take him back to her quarters. I find it all very confusing. I think I’ll retire to the garden deck. You people are far too boring. I thought there would be a little excitement, but no. WOW! Five gravities! We can only do three. It makes me want to hack up a hairball. Do your duty, slave!’ Brutus commanded.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 21