Four Tomorrows: A Space Opera Box Set

by James Palmer

  Captain Harmon had been so eager to take her command that she immediately packed her bags and hopped the next available shuttle from Mars Station Zebra after receiving her orders.

  And now here she was, having shown up unannounced--

  --And two days early.

  Captain Harmon could not wait to get aboard and feel her way around, to get to know her ship and feel all of its moods and intricacies. “The captain has to be one with her vessel,” she recited from an old boring textbook to the vastness of space around her as she watched out the transparent tube that housed the antigrav lift. She knew that she must look frightfully like a tourist, but at the moment she could care less. This was her moment and no one could take that from her. She would kick the ass of anyone who tried.

  Her deep blue UPA military uniform jacket was neatly pressed and adorned with her new rank of Captain. “Captain,” she said aloud for maybe the one hundredth time. It had a nice ring to it. Just as it had when the word had come down from Command that she had been promoted. That was two months ago and, truth be told, it still had a nice ring to it.

  Shuffling her duffel bag of personal belongings from her left shoulder to the right one, Harmon reflexively straightened her short black hair for the hundredth time. All the while never taking her eyes off of the gleaming hull of the beauteous beast before her lest it vanish into the darkness of space like a dream.

  As uncomfortable as she was in the new uniform, the only down side of command in her opinion, the captain tugged slightly at the black collar that had been made for someone with a neck much smaller than hers. She often wondered where they found people small enough to wear these things. Certainly they were not designed for diverse body types, but that was an argument for another day. The uniform in general wasn’t the most comfortable of things to wear. Black boots, black slacks, a gray shirt with a black collar, and shoulders for officers. Non-commissioned crew at least got to wear the black pants with gray shirt without the jacket, the lucky devils. Add to the ensemble the thick blue officer’s jacket and the uniform became unbearably hot, dry, and insufferably itchy. Over the course of the past few years most officers had opted to remove the jacket when on duty. That was, of course, unless there was a practical reason to have it on like an official ceremony, settlement negotiations, etc.

  Taking command of her first vessel warranted the extra treatment, she figured. On this joyous occasion, why not look my best? she thought. Even if I am completely miserable in this damned uniform.

  Unconcerned with its passenger’s clothing crisis, the lift continued uninterrupted upward, past the sleek lines of the starship Pegasus. Captain Virginia Harmon stared out in awe. She hoped to get over being “shell-shocked” about the whole thing eventually.

  The promotion.

  The new posting.

  A brand new ship.

  It was all so hard to take at once. Although she was encouraged by her good fortune, she also realized that the resources of the Alliance had indeed become depleted over the last few years.

  That is a heavy burden to strap across any captain’s back, especially someone as new as I am to the job. She tried to push the thought away lest her nervousness increase, if such a thing were even remotely possible. She was plenty nervous already.

  Building colonies across the cosmos has taken a considerably large chunk of the Alliance’s budget. “Money is tight right now,” the politicians said often. But when isn’t that the case? No one was more aware of that than Virginia Harmon. She knew first hand how hard it could be to tighten one’s belt. Having grown up in a large, poor family, Virginia understood the concept of doing without far more than she would like. There was simply no way to get around the fact that there just isn’t enough room for everyone. Letting people live and work on the star ships would ease a very small fraction of the population problem, but not enough.

  Nowhere near enough to do any good.

  By the time the full crew arrived aboard the Pegasus within the next two and three days she, as captain, would be one hundred percent business. That was her goal. She planned to get all of her sightseeing out of the way before her new crew arrived.

  “You are a beautiful ship,” she said to the Pegasus while saluting her new partner, her ship. “Here’s hoping the two of us have a long and prosperous journey together.” She lowered the salute and the ship just hung there in silence. Not that she had expected an answer, but the sentiment was more for her sake anyway.

  Although the Pegasus was not entirely ready for launch just yet, her crew had been assigned and they were either en route or were on board already. When she arrived at the Bridger Corporation’s main complex at the Moon’s Alpha Colony installation, Captain Harmon just had one agenda; getting to know her ship.

  My ship. The words still felt strange, but deep down inside she knew this was it. This was what every military commander in the United Planetary Alliance wanted above all else, her own command.

  The lift slowed to an almost smooth stop by the airlock, but she did not move toward the locking panel. She stared at the unpainted trillium surface, watching her distorted reflection staring back and suddenly all of the hurry to get aboard ship drained away. All that remained was the secret, small part of Virginia Harmon that was still a scared little girl who dreamed of going to the stars. She looked at the airlock, almost afraid to go in. Calming her nerves, the captain took a deep breath of recycled station air before entering the six-digit access code that allowed her, as captain, free access to any and all parts of the vessel.

  The red light on the indicator panel dimmed, only to be quickly replaced by the accepting green. The locking clamps release and the airlock cycled open in a slow mechanical fashion. A slow hiss of releasing air the only sound to indicate that the door was even moving. It opened far to slowly for her taste, as anxious as she was to get aboard.

  Inside was just as she expected. It was everything she had dreamt of and more. The thing was quite a moving experience for her. It was...

  “Beautiful.”

  “Welcome aboard.”

  Startled from her reverie, Captain Harmon turned toward the unexpected voice. A tall, slender man in his late forties is walking toward her. He is wearing a pair of oily, grease-splattered coveralls that look out of place in the aesthetically clean environment of the starship. In his right hand he carried a tool kit, in his left a drink bottle. He apparently did not know who she was. Or he was simply too busy to stand on ceremony before the official launch. No matter which case, Captain Harmon planned to further the gentleman’s education on proper starship etiquette.

  “Uh, hi.” She stammered. “I’m Virginia Harmon. Captain Virginia Harmon,” she added the rank as an afterthought, but it felt right announce her status although she mentally chided herself on being too pretentious. “Pleased to meet you, Mister...?”

  The man smiled at the pointed question. He shuffled the tool kit to the left hand without spilling a drop of the liquid contained in the drink bottle. Extending a hand toward the captain he introduced himself. “Harold Thomas. A pleasure to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” With a firm grip, Captain Harmon took the offered hand and shook it vigorously.

  “You’ll forgive me, Captain, but no one told us you were coming aboard or we would have scheduled someone to meet you at the airlock.”

  “Which is why I didn’t tell anyone. I just wanted to get in a little alone time with the Pegasus before the launch. Sort of a chance for us to feel each other out, I guess.” She smiled nervously. “Sounds silly, huh?”

  “Not really. I understand all too well. I’ve been doing much the same with the new engines.”

  “Are you part of the maintenance crew from Bridger Corp?” Harmon asked.

  Thomas stifled a low grunt. “No ma’am.” He looked around as if he is about to reveal a secret held tight lipped from the masses for centuries.

  He leaned in close to her left ear and in a soft-spoken voice said, “I know it’s hard to tell from the lo
ok of me now, but I’m the chief engineer of this ship. Chief Thomas, at your service.”

  “What?” She regretted the outburst as soon as it left her lips. “I was under the impression that Franklin Thorne was to be the chief engineer on board this ship. What’s happened to him? Where is he?”

  The chief’s demeanor changed from sarcastic to one of genuine surprise. “I’m sorry,” he said, his expression softening. Chief Thorne is dead, ma’am.”

  “What? When did…?”

  “You didn’t know.” It wasn’t a question.

  The news hit Virginia Harmon like the proverbial ton of bricks. “H-how?” she stammered. “When? What happened?”

  “I don’t know all of the details ma’am. I got the call two days ago from Central Command. They had new orders for me to transfer from the Exeter to the Pegasus forthwith.”

  “The Exeter is a survey vessel.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was second in command of the Exeter’s engineering staff. When he found out there was an opening, my former commander put me in for the promotion. I’m sorry, Captain. I had assumed you’d been briefed on my arrival.”

  “No, sir, I most certainly was not,” she fumed.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not your fault, Chief. Do you know what happened to the transport ship Chief Thorne was on? Was there an accident?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much. When Central Command issued my orders they did not go into details, but I heard that the chief was on his way here aboard a transport vessel bound for Earth orbit with supplies when it was attacked and destroyed.”

  “Attacked?”

  He nodded somberly. “Yes, ma’am. They killed everyone aboard just to stop the shipment.” Harold shook his head. “What a shame.”

  With a concerted effort, the captain forced her emotions to settle into focus, then she immediately moved into full command mode, her training taking over. “Scavengers?” she asked, fearing she already knew the answer.

  Pursing his lips as if deep in thought, the chief shrugged. “I really can’t say, ma’am. Scuttlebutt has it that it was a Scavenger attack so I guess it is possible.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming up.”

  “But,” he said as if on cue and she smiled despite herself.

  “Since when do Scavengers destroy a ship before they steal the cargo?”

  2

  Transport Vessel Windsong

  Braun Hatmeyer was restless.

  Since his earliest recollection he’d had only one goal in life. He wanted to travel the space ways. Every story he read romanticized living and working in the outer reaches, the wonders of the cosmos had been conveyed with such reverence and awe.

  Young Braun ate it up and set upon a course that would eventually take him to the stars.

  Growing up on the Seltus Minor Colony only further fueled his ambition to go anywhere but here. Seltus was not a bad place to grow up, even he would admit. He had a loving family there who still worked the farm to this day. His two brothers and one of his sisters were still within walking distance of his parent’s home. Braun doubted they would ever leave.

  His sister, Arani, and he were the rebellious ones of the bunch. They were the only Hatmeyers to actually leave the colony in generations. To this day, despite the years that have passed, his mother still expected her errant children to “grow out of this ridiculous phase and come home where they belong.” Braun suspected his mother was in for a hard lesson one day.

  Although their father never said anything to the fact, Braun knew that it hurt him that two of his children had chosen to leave the nest. He was simply far less vocal on the matter than Braun’s mother. As such, Braun tried to keep in touch as often as possible. Communications across the gulf of space was expensive, especially for a real time feed so he mostly wrote them letters from whatever port the ship happened to stop at long enough to allow shore leave.

  Arani, on the other hand, stayed closer to home. She moved to Mars where she attended University. While there she met a man, fell in love, and stayed. The last time he spoke with her, she was pregnant with her second child, a girl this time.

  She told him of her plans to visit the family on Seltus in a month and she had convinced Braun to join them. Unable to deny his sister anything, especially when she laid on the guilt, he agreed. His captain had approved the time off request and even offered to drop him off since the ship would be in the Seltus sector on business around the same time. This officially eliminated any chance he had of backing out of it at the last minute.

  Braun looked forward to visiting the old homestead, but a part of him also dreaded it. He had spent so long trying to get away from it that the prospect of setting one foot on the farm scared the hell out of him.

  But he did miss seeing his family.

  And it would still be a month before his visit.

  Braun was off duty. Sitting alone in his cramped cabin, he lay in his hammock and stared out the porthole that was his window to the cosmos. When he had left Seltus, he signed on with the first ship that would take him. It had been a small freighter that was looking for strapping young men to work in the holds. It was grunt work, but he took it gladly. Surprisingly, grunt work on a freighter was very much like grunt work on a farming colony.

  Basically, he worked for room and board with the occasional bonus, but really didn’t mind. He was finally in space, ready for the adventure he had so long dreamed of.

  Ten years later he was still waiting.

  He never once regretted his decision to leave Seltus, but space was not the sprawling adventure he had read about as a kid. In his case, truth was more mundane than fiction. Living in outer space was a lot of hard work. Oh, he still loved it, but he was a bit restless because even this great experience had become mundane. Nothing exciting ever happened to them. At least not exciting enough for Braun.

  His biggest regret was that no one - most importantly, not he himself - had discovered an alien race.

  None.

  That fact was the hardest to swallow. The galaxy was vast, filled with planets of various sizes, shapes, and atmospheres. Surely, somewhere out there had to be… something.

  Were humans the only intelligent life in the galaxy?

  Braun Hatmeyer hoped not.

  Too worked up to sleep, he rolled out of the hammock, his bare feet stinging on impact with the cold steel floor. He reached over and grabbed his shoes and pulled them on quickly. His cabin was compact enough that he grabbed them without leaving the hammock that was both his bed and easy chair. A small digital converter and screen sat atop the clothes dresser built into the wall of the cabin. A stack of movies sat on the shelf above the screen. He had acquired some entertaining movies over the past year thanks to the bonus the captain paid out after they made the Palfry run under budget. The movies were great, but he had already watched all of them at least twice and was not really in the mood for another viewing.

  Maybe a run will help, he thought as he opened the door and stepped into the cramped corridor, which was barely wide enough for two people to pass one another.

  His ship, The Windsong, was a transport vessel. Captain Reyes was the owner and operator. They moved any kind of cargo not considered illegal under the UPA legislature’s transport code. One of the things that Braun respected about his current employer was his integrity. With the black market flourishing and smuggling becoming a growth industry, Captain Reyes had chosen to keep his hands - and ship - clean.

  Braun respected the man for that.

  The Windsong was on approach to home port after an exhausting three-week round trip from the Pellor Three Colony. The colonists had chosen a harsh, barren world to cultivate. The terrain was rugged so farming was difficult. The colonists were certain they could fashion a living for themselves there and had thus far been successful.

  Mining had become the primary resource on Pellor since the discovery of Trillium Ore in the mountains north of the initial sett
lement. The colonists were giving it a go, but since they were not miners by trade, they wisely went into business with those who were.

  The Axapta Mining Company had partnered with the settlement to work the mine and share the profits. While Axapta Mining did not have the best reputation in the business, they did manage to get the job done.

  The Windsong had been chartered to deliver the usual essentials to Pellor Three to handle the increased manpower on site. Food rations, toiletries, assorted entertainment programming, and medical supplies were the primary resources needed for the increased population of the colony.

  After the three-week round trip, the Windsong would put into port, take on a small job or two, then one week later head back out to Pellor Three. Apparently, Braun was not the only one impressed by his captain’s performance record.

  Braun was looking forward to docking at McGintlee Station, the ship’s home port. Captain Reyes had an office on the station that served as home base for his shipping business. He also held the lease on warehouse space and a secure docking port. If business kept picking up, Braun might even start saving up some money of his own.

  Reyes had already mentioned purchasing another transport ship to help handle the increased workload. That gave the crew incentive and offered relief that they had job security, a precious commodity considering the current unemployment rate in the quadrant.

  While his competitors dabbled in smuggling, the Windsong was able to pick up those clients with government contracts because of the captain’s good name. Smugglers tend to shy away from government controlled worlds, for obvious reasons.

  “Make a hole!” Braun shouted as he jogged through the corridor. A group of dockhands were milling about at the junction between sections. When not on duty there was not much to do aboard ship expect sleep, read, jog, or hang out. Sometimes a nice impromptu poker game would spring up, which usually drew a crowd.

  Sex was a limited option as there were only a handful of women aboard. At a ratio of four to one they generally paired up quickly. As far down the totem pole as he was in the ship’s hierarchy, Braun no longer tried. Once they hit the station though, all bets were off. He had been seeing a dancer off and on for a few months. Nothing serious, but they enjoyed one another’s company. After a long voyage, that was more than enough for him.