by Dean, Warren
The startled general in command of the main force had asked Katya what intelligence she had based her tactics on.
"We did what the enemy didn't want us to do," was her simple answer.
The general had a choice; he could cashier her for recklessly endangering an entire 'tank squadron, or promote her for her courage and obvious leadership ability. Realising that promoting a war heroine would make him far more popular than a scandal, he made her the youngest ever female captain in the Russian army, and topped it off with a medal.
After a few more promotions and some more medals, Katya hit a glass ceiling. It seemed that the Russian military was not yet progressive enough for such a young woman to be considered for the upper echelons of command. So she decided that a change was in order and joined Russia's space programme. She spent four years training as a cosmonaut and, by the time the Faerie Folk arrived, had done two tours of duty on one of her country's small space stations. When the delegation to be sent to the Moon was being selected, she was the outstanding candidate. Never having been one to toe the political line, however, she had to settle for second in command.
The moonbase was bigger than Qara had expected and it seemed like forever before Katya finally stopped outside a hatch at the end of a long corridor.
"These will be your quarters. Your equipment and personal effects will be brought here from the shuttle. A media committee meeting is scheduled four hours from now. You may use the time to eat and rest. At the meeting you will be briefed on the base rules and security protocols you are required to follow."
"When did we join the army?" Qara muttered.
Katya shot her a venomous look. "Do not leave your quarters until I return to escort you to the briefing. Please," she added belatedly.
Qara stepped forward, inwardly cursing the weird effect of the moonskin which made her walk like a spider on its last two legs. Tol was expecting a dramatic first broadcast from the Moon and had scheduled it for the evening's prime slot. A committee meeting about rules and regulations was not what he had in mind. Qara thought quickly; a highly decorated cosmonaut was unlikely to be impressed by having to waste her time babysitting a Personet crew. And this was a highly decorated cosmonaut whose career progress showed that she was not one to let authority get in her way...
"Ma'am, er, Colonel, we appreciate you greeting us personally. I am sure you have more important duties than looking after inexperienced civilians. We are certainly exhausted from the flight and would like nothing better than to wash and rest. But our producer is expecting a download that he can use for the evening news. Our channel has agreed to make the feed available throughout the world. If we don't deliver it in time, we will be in a lot of trouble."
Katya's flat expression betrayed no glimmer of sympathy, so Qara ploughed on.
"He is expecting more than a dry account of progress on the Moon. He can get that from your daily report. What he really wants is to introduce the world to the personalities at the forefront of the project; the real men and women who are going to travel to other stars and distant galaxies for the first time. Ordinary people are not interested in technical data and progress reports. What they really want to see is the star ship and..." she paused for effect, "the person who is going to command it on its first voyage."
Was there a flicker of interest in those blue eyes? Or were they just starting to water from maintaining that fixed military stare?
"Of course we will obey all rules and regulations. We have no intention of getting in anyone's way. But if we have four hours at our disposal, we would prefer to use them productively. If you could give us a short tour of Earthworm, and perhaps say a few words on camera, your face will be associated with command of the ship from now on."
Qara had no doubt that there would be fierce competition among the astronauts of the five delegations; each of them wanting to be the one to command the star ship on its maiden voyage. The Americans would feel that they had earned the right to select its first commander as they had contributed the most technology to the project. But the Russians were their old space-race rivals and would dearly love to beat them to the punch.
Katya's blue eyes blinked at last. "How long will you need to get your equipment ready?"
Qara glanced at Batu. "Thirty minutes," he said without hesitation.
"I will be back then." Katya marched away down the corridor, passing a skinny young technician who was effortlessly carrying all of their luggage and equipment. One of the benefits of the Moon's weak gravity was that just about everything was as light as a feather.
True to her word, Katya returned half an hour later. Qara had barely had time to wash her face, change her clothes, and glance longingly at the small but comfortable looking bunk beds lining the walls of the sleeping chamber. She had been a little startled to see that there were no separate facilities for men and women. Space was precious on the moonbase and it seemed that there was no room to accommodate female sensitivities.
Batu and Oyugun had spent the time unpacking and booting up the camera equipment and, when Katya arrived, were ready to follow her through the labyrinthine tunnels and passageways which appeared to make up a large part of the base. At first they saw very few people and Qara got the impression that they were zigzagging through living quarters which were deserted while everyone was at work.
Gradually the drone of machinery became more noticeable and the corridors grew wider. They began to pass more technicians and military personnel going about their duties. Those wearing Russian insignia saluted Katya respectfully, but otherwise they were ignored. The arrival of a Personet crew from Earth was clearly not a big deal on the moonbase.
Qara felt that she had just begun to master the art of walking in her moonskin when they stopped in front of a large open hatchway. Personnel of various nationalities hurried backwards and forwards through it, some carting equipment and others clutching plans and diagrams.
Katya gestured for them to stand out of the way. "This is the main access corridor to the hanger bay where Earthworm is docked. One of the regulations you have not yet been informed of is that it is off limits to all personnel who are not authorised to work on the ship. Please stay close to me and try to look like you have every right to be here."
Qara couldn't hide a small grin as she followed the cosmonaut into the hangar bay. She was beginning to like the ice-cool Russian.
The wide open space of the bay was a pleasant change from the cramped confines of the corridors they had navigated to get there. A transparent domed roof curved far overhead, reminding her a little of the one at the Faerie Folk's facility outside Ulan Bator. That wasn't surprising; the bay had been added to the moonbase in accordance with Faerie Folk specifications. Through the dome she could see a spectacular vista of the Earth surrounded by the star-speckled blackness of space. She was amazed by how many stars were visible.
There was no time to stop and record an introduction, so Batu simply began filming as they moved across the bay. Katya swept imperiously towards the exotic lines of the star ship which sat at the centre of the dome. It was larger than Qara had expected and looked far more impressive in reality than it had in the media downloads.
It was not shaped like any terrestrial craft she had ever seen. It did not have wings for aerodynamic lift or a cylindrical fuselage. Instead, it looked like a large black rubber ball, studded with dozens of stubby stability fins spread over its surface. The fins were set at varying angles in a seemingly random pattern.
In numerous simulations she had watched on Earth, the purpose of the fins had been vividly illustrated. Each one was fitted with a bank of manoeuvrable air-vortex thrusters, which were used to keep the ship orientated as it hurtled through a wormhole.
The simulations had depicted wormholes as massive, twisting roller-coasters without rails, through which any unstabilised object would carom out of control and be shattered to pieces. To prevent this from happening the ship's computer systems would fire the thrusters in synchronised patterns to
counteract the immense directional forces of wormhole travel.
As she got closer she could see that the ship was supported by an undercarriage made up of four of the fins. The simulations had shown how these fins could be extended hydraulically to act as legs whenever the ship came in to land.
As she watched, a horizontal metal shaft began telescoping outwards from the hull. The end of the shaft was capped with a small metallic bulb. When the bulb was well clear of the stability fins, it sprouted a series of eight antennae. The antennae telescoped outwards in a starfish formation, each antenna at right angles to the main shaft. In space, they would extend until they spanned an area four times the diameter of the ship itself.
Qara knew from the simulations that she was looking at one of Earthworm's light-sail arrays. When travelling through normal space, the ship would not use its air-vortex thrusters, except in an emergency. Instead, it would deploy its light-sails to take advantage of the most abundant source of energy in space, the radiation emitted by the sun and other stars.
Once the antennae were fully extended, a magnetic field would be activated between them in four pairs. Then liquid aluminium would be injected through the shaft and released into the magnetic fields. This would result in the formation of four ultra-thin, pennant shaped sails, one between each pair of antennae. The angle of each of the four sails could be changed independently, to enable the ship to manoeuvre in different directions.
A second array was located on the opposite side of the hull.
The array disappeared from view as Katya led them underneath the ship. She headed for a large ramp leading into the belly of the ship, where they were challenged for the first time by a self-important young French officer. Katya slowed just enough to give him a scathing look, which was all it took to persuade him step aside.
The Personet crew followed closely as she stalked up the ramp and into a busy loading bay. They headed for a bank of elevator chutes at the far end, keeping out of the way of technicians and other personnel who were loading and unloading equipment. They stepped into one of the chutes, its doors cutting off the noise and bustle as they closed.
Batu kept recording and turned the camera towards Qara. "Ready, Oyugun?" she said to the young sound engineer. He adjusted the calibration of his microphones and nodded.
She began in a hushed but excited tone. "I am speaking to you from on board the first human star ship ever built. With me is Colonel Kasparova, the Russian Federation's most celebrated cosmonaut. Colonel, I believe you are in the running to command this ship on its maiden interstellar voyage. Can you tell us how the choice of commander will be made?"
Batu panned across to Katya, whose imperious demeanour promptly deserted her. Suddenly she looked more like a rabbit in the headlights. Cool and decisive in command of troops in the middle of deadly battles, the glare of the media spotlight reduced her to red-faced uncertainty.
"That is not up to me," she stammered. "Once the star drive is ready, the commanders of the five delegations will make a choice based on experience and seniority. I am not sure..." She was interrupted by the doors of the chute springing open. She almost leapt out of the chute to get away from the camera and led them out into a cavernous space. It was not as crowded as the loading bay, with just a few technicians working on electronic panels built into the distant bulkheads.
Qara was expecting something like the passenger deck of an airbus, with rows of bed-seats interspersed with aisles and refreshment cabinets. What she saw was nothing like that. She waited until Batu had captured a short clip and panned back to her. He widened the shot to include Katya.
"Colonel, on Earth we have been shown models of the interior of the ship, but this is the first time we are seeing what it actually looks like. Perhaps you can tell us a little about it?"
Batu panned away again and Qara saw Katya relax slightly. "I will do my best," she said. Oyugun passed her a small tablet so that she could follow what was in the camera shot.
"This is one of the passenger cabins. There are four on this deck and another four on each of the three decks above it. Each cabin can hold a thousand passengers."
Qara had heard the numbers before, but still couldn't help being astonished by the capacity of the ship. "So Earthworm can hold sixteen thousand people? But where do they all sit? This cabin doesn't look as if it can hold more than two hundred bed-seats. And what are all these little sacks for?"
The picture on Katya's monitor panned along row after row of what looked like elongated burlap sacks, each one tethered to the floor and roof of the cabin by metallic straps.
"They are not sacks," Katya replied. They do not have an official name yet, although the technicians have been calling them 'cocoons'." She paused, choosing her words carefully. "Wormhole travel is completely unlike any other kind of travel that humans have ever experienced. The speeds are so great that every little twist and turn subjects the ship and its passengers to massive G-forces. Imagine sitting in a motor car which is suddenly thrown sideways at a thousand kilometres per hour. No seat belt would be able save you. Although the ship's stability fins cushion most of the G-forces and keep it from spinning out of control, the people inside the ship would all be killed or seriously injured if they were strapped into ordinary seats."
She moved closer to one of the little sacks and showed Qara that it was constructed of an extremely malleable material.
"This is a synthetic fabric produced here on the Moon. Although it is very flexible, it is immensely strong. The cocoon is designed to mould itself to the size and shape of the person who climbs inside it. When the ship is travelling through the wormhole it acts like an elastic band. It cushions the passenger from the effect of the G-forces by stretching away from the direction of the force and returning to the centre as the force diminishes. Although each cocoon moves independently, there is no danger of them colliding with each other as they are all subject to the same force at the same time."
Qara felt queasy just thinking about it. If travelling through normal space made her as sick as it did, what would wormhole travel feel like? She silently hoped she would never have to find out.
"What do the passengers do while they are travelling through normal space? Surely they don't spend the whole trip inside the cocoons?"
"No, there are recreation cabins elsewhere in the ship where passengers can sit, eat and exercise. They use the cocoons for the launch, the wormhole jump itself, and the landing. They are also surprisingly comfortable to sleep in."
"Why is the ship so large, Colonel?"
"The size of a star ship is not restricted by the limitations placed on terrestrial craft by gravity and aerodynamics. It can be as big as you want it to be. The Faerie Folk have vessels which are far larger than this one. And you must remember that the primary purpose of space travel is to establish colonies elsewhere. To achieve this, the ships we build must be big enough to deliver meaningful numbers of colonists to new worlds."
Katya stopped and listened to a message on her 'mote. Her military expression reasserted itself.
"It seems that Lieutenant Blanc has reported our excursion to the media committee." She looked pointedly at Batu. "I hope you have enough footage for your download, and somewhere to conceal it where it won't be found and censored."
Batu nodded. He saved the footage onto a tiny external drive and inserted it into a slot within his belt buckle. He looked up at Katya's quizzical expression. "In Mongolia you can never be too careful," he said.
They left the ship the way they had come in. Lieutenant Blanc had wisely made himself scarce. Katya headed towards the other side of the hangar bay from the access corridor they had used to enter it. Qara looked up for another glimpse at the incredible view of space, and felt her heart miss a beat. A dark mass loomed over the moonbase, blotting out a large chunk of the star-scape. She gasped, thinking for a moment that it was about to crash into the dome, obliterating them all.
Katya saw her expression. "Emissary," she said without looking up. "
The Faerie Folk's star ship; it docked here a few days ago. No-one knows why. As you can see, it is far larger than Earthworm."
It wasn't the media committee that was waiting for them when they reached the command module of the moonbase. Batu and Oyugun were unceremoniously relieved of their recording equipment before being shown into the office of the commander of the American delegation. General Armitage was a large, florid man who had been in sole command of the base before the other four delegations had arrived. Although he was now one of a committee of five commanders, his manner proclaimed that he still considered himself to be the man in charge. The British and Chinese commanders were also present.
Taking advantage of the absence of the Russian commander, Armitage took the opportunity to administer a dressing down to Katya. "Shouldn't you at least have introduced our visitors to us before turning them loose on the star ship, Colonel?"
He turned to the sheepish Personet crew. "Welcome to Moonbase Alpha gentleman, and lady. I apologise for the lack of protocol shown by our Russian friend, but don't worry, I will make sure that you are given a proper orientation, and then the media committee will assist you in compiling the material you require for your news reports."
Qara squirmed at the patronising tone of the American general and risked a glance at Katya to see her reaction. The cosmonaut stood silently with her head up, betraying no emotion. As a career soldier she must be used to this sort of thing.
Qara was not. "Thank you, general, we are very pleased to be here and will do our best not to break any rules. I hope your men will be careful with our equipment as it is very sensitive and we will not be able to record anything without it."
She wasn't sure who was more surprised that she had spoken so boldly, the general or herself. The British commander turned his head away to hide a small smile, and she marked him down as a potential ally.
"Have no fear, young lady, your equipment is in safe hands and will be returned to your quarters shortly." Armitage placed a large finger on the touchscreen in front of him. "Carson!" he barked loudly.