by Jay Allan
“Mr. Garret, please excuse me for being late.” A tall man in a perfectly-tailored blue naval uniform walked through the open door. “As a rule I am very punctual, but I’m afraid I don’t get home to Terra Nova very often. Well…you know how family obligations can be.”
Garret certainly understood not coming back to Terra Nova often…if he ever got out, he doubted he’d want to return. “Of course, admiral.” Garret would have waited all day if he had to, not that he had the impression he had any choice. An insistent Marine escort wasn’t easily sidestepped. “I am at your convenience.” He wanted to ask why he was there, but he decided to play it cool and wait and see what Halperin had to say.
The admiral didn’t make him wait long. “I’m sure you are curious why we brought you here.” Halperin looked a bit apologetic. “I am sorry if your escort was a bit brusque. I ordered them to bring you to HQ, and I’m afraid they follow my orders quite literally around here.” He paused, looking down just for a second. “I should have been more specific. My intention was for them to provide you an escort, not descend on your home like stormtroopers.”
“It’s quite all right, sir.” Garret let a little of his relief out in the form of a tiny smile. “I am always available to you, sir.”
“That’s good to hear, Mr…may I call you Augustus?”
“Of course, admiral.”
“Well, Augustus, I will waste no more of your time.” Halperin had an amused little smile on his face. “I had you brought here because of your results on the Test.”
Garret could feel the rush of excitement building, but he tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress it. The Naval Academy! Was it really possible? He was going to be a midshipman? A naval officer? “Are you saying that I passed the Test, sir?”
Halperin let his grin expand into a full blown smile. “Passed it? Over 185,000 people took the Test this year, Augustus…and you finished first.”
* * * * *
It had been a crazy two weeks. That’s all Garret had…two weeks. Half a month to settle his affairs and say goodbye to everything he’d known all his short life. He’d longed to leave Terra Nova as far back as he could remember, but he found it more complex and difficult a thing to do now that it was real. It’s one thing to chafe at the relentless monotony of a place like Terra Nova, quite another to leave it all behind, especially when it’s the only home you’ve ever known.
Garret’s dreamy, childhood visions of leaving had never focused on the images he now lived, things like saying goodbye to his mother and father…possibly forever. Looking at familiar places and things acquired a painful twinge as he now wondered if he’d ever see them again. When leaving had been an unreal dream he’d been cavalier about it, but now his former certainty that he’d never return seemed cocky and arrogant.
Then there was Charlotte. She’d taken the Test too, but she didn’t pass - there would be no Academy for her. Pursuing his dream, his destiny, meant leaving her behind. There’d never been a time in his life he could remember when she hadn’t been a part of it, not a meaningful thing he didn’t share with her before anyone else. For as long as he could remember, he and Charlotte had been just that…he and Charlotte.
He knew he loved her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, no sacrifice he wouldn’t make. Save this one. He could feel his destiny, it coursed through his being. Turning his back on the navy, on the fast track to the command ranks his test results opened to him…it was unthinkable.
He sat long one day at the edge of a stream that ran through a small valley down the hill from Bluestone Manor, a place where he’d spent countless hours with Charlotte. He couldn’t imagine life without her…or how he could leave her behind, stuck on Terra Nova alone. But turning down the navy, walking away from his dream, from the glory he knew in his heart he’d achieve? That was inconceivable. All his life he’d imagined this, and now everything he’d ever wanted was there, right in front of him. Everything but Charlotte Evers.
In many ways, Charlotte understood him better than he did himself. She was truly happy for him; she knew better than anyone how desperately he wanted – needed – this. Everyone had humored him over the years, indulging his declarations about a naval career, but Charlotte had truly believed. She knew in her heart that Augustus would achieve whatever he set his mind too.
She threw her arms around him joyfully when he told her, but inside she felt an emptiness, a cold despair. She knew he would go, that almost nothing could stop him from pursuing his dream of glory. She could, perhaps. If she begged him not to go, he might stay. But she wouldn’t…couldn’t…do that to him. The Augustus who remained on Terra Nova would be dead inside, his spirit broken. He would always regret the chance he’d let pass, and she would blame herself…and one day he would blame her too. She loved him too much to be the reason he lost his dream. And if she begged him to stay and he went anyway, it would destroy her.
In the end he swore her empty promises, and she believed them…they both believed them. He would return after he graduated; they could be together even with his naval career. It might not be ideal, and they would probably be apart frequently, but they could do it. They were 18 and they loved each other, and that made it easy to believe.
The First Frontier War had been over for fifteen years, and the Alliance was more or less at peace. The interregnums between declared wars were hardly without fighting, but incidents were scattered, and most of the navy’s ships split their time between patrol duty and port. He would probably do most of his service in dock anyway, on some base or colony world. So why, he thought, couldn’t they be together?
It was raining the day he left. She stood on the platform watching as he boarded the shuttle. They said their goodbyes, talking long and quietly. She managed to hold back her tears…mostly. They repeated their promises to each other, but inside she felt dead, empty. She held on to him tightly, dreading he moment she had to let go, to watch him walk away in the cold drizzle. It took all the strength she had to do it, to loosen her arms and let him pull away…to give him to his destiny.
He turned one last time and looked back at her. She was grateful for the rain that hid her tears. He smiled and waved…the same Augustus she’d loved for so long. She forced a smile to her own lips, and watched him climb up the ladder and disappear into the shuttle. It was only then the last shreds of solace from the hopeless promises they had sworn dissipated, and Charlotte knew she had lost him forever.
She stood there, unmoving, tears streaming down her cheeks like rivers, as the shuttle fired its thrusters and blasted up into the dark gray sky.
Chapter 4
Control Center
AS Wasp
Tau Ceti System
Inbound from Gliese 15 Warp Gate
Third Squadron was deep in enemy territory. Wasp and her two sister-ships were inbound at 0.03c, engines shut down and reactors on minimal power. They were three small ships approaching a heavily defended Caliphate sector capital. They would be massively outgunned in any conventional fight…everything relied on stealth. This was a raid, one with a very specific objective.
Tau Ceti III was a staging ground for a planned Caliphate invasion of the newly settled Alliance world of Armstrong. Third Squadron was here to take out the troopships. The Caliphate was stretched thin, attacking on multiple fronts. Alliance Intelligence believed if the three heavy transports at Tau Ceti were taken out of action, the enemy would be compelled to postpone the invasion. It was a desperate, high-risk mission, but the payoff was huge. The Alliance was losing the war and didn’t have the forces available to defend Armstrong. Third Squadron’s daring raid was likely the only chance to hold on to a promising new colony.
Garret had commanded Wasp for almost nine months, the first six as part of the Amiens battlegroup. It was boring duty for an aggressive, young captain. Amiens and her support ships were stationed at Columbia, positioned to defend that colony against an expected attack…an invasion that never came. Battlegroup duty was frequently boring and
uneventful, not at all what Garret had imagined when he got his captain’s stars.
Finally, the high command issued new orders. The threat to Columbia had proven to be false intel, and Amiens was heading to the recently-opened shipyards at Wolf 359 to be refitted with the new external missile rack system. Once complete, the ship would be able to carry 40% more missiles, dramatically increasing its firepower. Best of all, by Garret’s reckoning, it put his ship, and the entire 3rd Squadron, out of a job. Out of a boring job far back from the front lines, at least.
The Tau Ceti raid was just the sort of thing Garret had dreamed about, a chance to win true glory. They were going in silent, right until the moment they fired. The plan gave Garret a lot of autonomy, even though Squadron Captain Simmons was in overall command. Alliance Intelligence had managed to sabotage the scanning grid on the Gliese 15 warp gate, allowing 3rd Squadron to transit undetected. It had been a considerable operation, run by a young agent named Gavin Stark. Garret didn’t know how Stark had infiltrated the Tau Ceti defense network, and he didn’t care. That was a job for spies. His part was blasting one of those transports into atoms.
Wasp’s vector had been carefully calculated, courtesy of more data provided by the intelligence types. As long as the transports were still in the same position, Garret’s ship – and the rest of the squadron – had come through the warp gate on a heading straight toward the targets.
“Lieutenant Forsten, do we have a reading on the transports yet?” Garret leaned back in his seat and wiggled around, trying to get comfortable. He’d commanded Wasp for eight and a half months, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the chair. And it was even worse wearing the bulky combat gear. The suit was cumbersome and annoying, but it would also save his life if Wasp was hit and lost pressurization.
“No, sir.” Forsten was another Terra Novan who had taken the test and scored well. Garret hadn’t known him personally before taking command of Wasp, but he vaguely recalled the family. “Scanning continuously, captain.”
I hope the bastards haven’t repositioned those damned ships, Garret thought – I really don’t want to do a burn before we fire. As soon as Wasp – or either of her squadron-mates - fired their thrusters they would become much easier to detect. They might pull off a small burn and stay hidden, but their chances dropped enormously.
“Very well. Notify me as soon as you have any readings.” He turned to glance behind him. The bridge of the fast attack ship was cramped, with low ceilings and exposed structural members and conduits. Garret hit his head at least once a day, and that was after eight months getting used to it. “Ensign Vickers, please advise Engineer Carson that I’m going to want the reactor at 110% power on sixty seconds’ notice.”
“Yes, captain.” Vickers was from Sandoval, an idyllic world that had initially been colonized primarily by refugees from London. He had a heavy British accent, something that had become an increasing rarity on Earth. In the almost-century since the formation of the Alliance had combined most of the English-speaking nations into a single Superpower, there had been a trend toward consolidation of speech patterns into a single “Alliance” accent…at least among the middle class and colonists. The massive Cog communities that inhabited the Alliance’s slums still spoke mostly with the historical regional accents typical for their predecessor socio-economic classes.
Garret’s plan was daring. And dangerous. His orders were simple…attack the transports. It would have been pointless for Captain Simmons to issue more specific commands. The squadron had entered the system with a pre-plotted vector and velocity, and the ships had maintained a communications blackout since transiting. Simmons had to rely on the judgment of his ship captains in how they would make their attack runs. For Augustus Garret, this was an invitation to throw caution to the wind. He was going right down the throat of his target ship. If Wasp remained undetected, he’d be able to drop two plasma torpedoes right into the guts of the target.
“Captain, I have a scan on the transport group, sir.” Garret knew immediately from the excitement in Forsten’s voice. “All ships are located precisely as expected.”
Garret’s expression morphed into a feral smile, the look of a predator on the hunt. “All personnel, the mission is a go.” His stomach clenched, and he could feel the excitement, the tingling in his arms. Wasp hadn’t seen any action during the time she was posted to the Amiens battlegroup…this would be Garret’s first combat as a ship captain.
“Ensign Carson, prep the tombs.” The five acceleration shells on Wasp’s bridge were mounted to the port side wall in a single row. The shells looked a bit like upright coffins, which explained how “tombs” had become the nearly universal slang used to identify them.
“Tombs ready, captain.” Carson’s response was almost immediate. He had run a diagnostic on his own just before Garret’s command. Without the tombs, the crew would probably be crushed to death or suffocated by the massive acceleration Wasp’s engines would put out after the ship fired at its target. Tau Ceti was a major Caliphate choke point system…there were enough warships orbiting the planet to blast Third Squadron’s three tiny craft to plasma a dozen times over. Running like hell was the only viable tactic, and Wasp would be blasting with all the thrust she could generate.
There was a lot of talk about new expandable systems designed to be built into the chairs and workstations themselves, eliminating the need for separate shells. Garret was skeptical, but he was all for it if it was real. Getting rid of the tombs would be a huge space saver. And extra room on a warship meant additional weapons, bigger reactors, and more powerful engines. More combat power.
“Lieutenant Forsten, run a diagnostic on the weapons control system. I don’t want any slipups.” Garret knew weapons control was functioning perfectly, but he thought it would do his crew some good to have something to do. Other than sit and wait to see if they were detected before they got to the firing point. If they were picked up before they fired they had very little chance of getting out of the system. Garret knew that, and so did his crew. There was no point giving his people time to sit and think about that.
“Yes, sir. Commencing test now.”
“Very well, lieutenant.” Garret turned toward the communications workstation. “Ensign Randall, put me on shipwide com.”
“Yes, sir.” A brief pause. “Captain, you are online.”
“Attention all personnel.” Garrett’s voice was steely, firm. He was exhilarated at the prospect of commanding his people in combat, and all he wanted them to hear was the resolute voice of their captain. “We will be entering firing range within the next twenty minutes. We have served together for some time, but this will be our first combat operation.” He paused, but just for a few seconds.
“We are here to forestall a Caliphate invasion of one of our worlds. We can save hundreds of Marines from death in combat. We can spare thousands of civilians from the nightmare of an occupation that could last for years.” He could feel his excitement growing. How many times had he imagined addressing his crew before battle? His mind flashed back for an instant, over the years, thinking about his own commanders and the things they had said as their ships went into combat. Now it was his turn.
“There is no crew I would rather have right now, and no ship in the fleet I would trade for our own Wasp. I know each of you will do his or her duty.” He took a breath. “We have reviewed this operation multiple times. At the first alarm, all personnel not directly engaged in weapons control are to report to the tombs.” The first alarm would be sounded three minutes before they reached the firing point. “The second alarm is the firing point. When that klaxon sounds, I’m counting on fire control to pump two plasma torpedoes into the belly of the beast. You’ll have three minutes to enter your final targeting solutions.”
He took a quick glance around the bridge before continuing. “Weapons teams, I want you in your shells within one minute after firing. We’ll have to leave it to the ship’s computer to run the damage assessment.” Th
e computer would have done most of the work anyway. Much of what the crew did on a warship was redundant, supervising and confirming data crunched by the ship’s AI. But Garret wanted that redundancy; he wanted to know that both man and machine were at work.
“Exactly 90 seconds after we fire, the ship’s computer will execute a full strength burn of the engines. We will be accelerating at 21g, so anyone caught outside their shell is going to be in rough shape. It is vital that we begin thrusting as soon as possible…any delay will only decrease the probability of our escape. So the scheduled burn will not be delayed.” He paused. “Not for any reason. Make sure you are in your shells on time.” Another pause, longer this time, the seriousness of his last point hanging in the air. “Now let’s go and get these bastards!”
Garret couldn’t see the faces of the crew, not most of them, at least. But from the expressions of the bridge officers, he decided his little speech had done its job. He flipped the com, switching to the direct line to Engineer Carson. “Lieutenant, I want you monitoring the reactor constantly while we’re in the tombs.” The chief engineer had a special shell with internally-accessible readouts and a special AI interface. Garret planned to run the reactor well over its specified capacity, and he wanted it watched carefully.
“Yes, sir.” Carson seemed tentative. There were a few seconds of silence before the engineer added, “Sir, I still advise against running the reactor at 120%...especially as a massive power spike.”
“Understood, engineer.” Garret’s voice was calm and even, not at all unpleasant. It was Carson’s job to warn him of the risks, and he wasn’t going to slam the engineer for speaking his mind. But Garret knew what he was going to do. “Continue according to plan.” The chance of a critical reactor accident was a lot less than that of getting blown to bits by the enemy fleet if they didn’t haul ass out of the system. At least that’s what Garret believed…and his was the only vote that mattered. It was on his shoulders. If his people escaped successfully - or if they were blown to atoms by a reactor explosion – it would be his responsibility…the result of his decisions.