Into the Stars (Rise of the Republic Book 1)

by James Rosone

  Hadad turned to look at her. “I wasn’t sure what type of reactor you used, so I wanted to make sure you had the fuel. We also had you collect the other mineral we refine, which is key in building the reactors.”

  Halsey nodded. “Well, I think you and Hadad have plenty to talk about, Commander. Why don’t you guys continue your conversations and see if there’s anything useful we can implement? In the meantime, I’ll leave the guards here with you. They can escort Hadad back to the shuttle bay when you guys are done.”

  Turning to look at the professor, she said, “Audrey, I think you should continue to interview the rest of the Sumerians. Find out what their previous occupations were, and what more we can learn from them about the Zodarks and their own history and home world. We’ll all reconvene and talk again at a later time. Right now, I need to check in on someone.”

  *******

  Leaving Engineering, Halsey made her way over to the medical bay to check in on Ambassador Chapman. Nina had been through a lot.

  As she entered the medical bay, Halsey spotted Dr. Hani Gupta, her chief medical officer.

  Hani smiled as he approached her. “Abby, you look tired. You need to get more sleep.”

  Hani was a civilian doctor, a brilliant physician from Chicago, which just happened to be where Halsey grew up. Hani and Halsey had made it a habit to spend one hour together twice a week, discussing anything from the crew to life back on Earth. It was a way for Halsey to keep tabs on the crew and get to know someone from her hometown. As a spacer, she seldom spent much time on Earth. Most of her career had been spent among the stars, discovering and exploring their own solar system.

  Halsey smiled and chuckled. “Hi, Hani. I get my five hours of sleep. That’s all a person needs, you know.”

  They embraced. He kissed her softly on both cheeks, which seemed to be his thing.

  Turning serious, Hani asked, “I suppose you are here to see Nina?”

  Abby nodded. “I am. How is she doing, Hani?”

  Halsey was genuinely concerned. Since they had recovered her from the Zodark camp, she’d practically been in a catatonic state. She’d been held by them for less than six hours, but they had done something awful to her in that short time. It was as if her mind was lost somewhere in her head, and it wouldn’t come out. She wasn’t responsive to questions, and she wouldn’t eat or drink. She’d just stay curled up in a blanket on her bed, eyes wide open but completely vacant.

  Hani sighed as he guided the two of them over to his private office. They walked in and took a seat. He looked up at Halsey with those big brown eyes of his. They were warm and compassionate as he began to explain. “Nina has suffered an emotional trauma none of us can even begin to imagine, Abby. She’s hardly said a word since she was rescued from the Zodarks. I’m not entirely sure what they did to her, but it was something unimaginable.”

  Abby grimaced. “Did they give her any drugs or do anything to her physically beyond what we already know?”

  “You mean besides raping her? Yes, we ran a full spectral analysis of her blood when she was brought in. It showed traces of unknown substances. I’ve never seen anything like it. We ran some brain scans and a full-body MRI as well. Her brain scan shows all the signs of someone who was violently and psychologically assaulted for a very long time. Right now, it would appear that her mind has retreated deep inside itself as a defensive mechanism. I’ve been hesitant to try using any drugs or other stimuli to bring her back, but I think we may eventually need to.”

  Abby slumped back in her chair at the prognosis. They really needed to talk with her. What the Zodarks had done to her was horrific. What it appeared they had done to her assistant, Justin, was even worse. What she was concerned with right now was that they had no idea what either of them had told the Zodarks. For all they knew, the Zodarks now knew what star system Earth was in. She needed to speak with Nina.

  Lifting her head as she steeled her resolve, she said, “Hani, I need you to try and bring her back. We’ve got to talk with her. It’s been too long.”

  “Abby…she needs time. If we rush this process, she may never fully recover,” Hani said.

  “I know, Hani. Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to give her more time. But we’ve got to know what she told the Zodarks. Earth could be in danger. This is a lot bigger than her.”

  Hani nodded solemnly, acknowledging that she was right. “OK, Abby, I’ll try to bring her out of whatever state her mind is currently in.”

  Before he got up and they left his office, he asked, “Have you seen the video of what they did to her assistant?”

  Abby grimaced at the mention of the video; it had been brutal. The Zodarks had disemboweled Justin before they had cut off his genitals. They had accomplished a surprising amount of torture of Justin and Nina in the five hours they’d had them before Major Jenkins’s ground force was able to recover them.

  “I have, Hani. But that doesn’t change from the fact that we still need to talk to her. We need to know what happened. We need to know if either of them told the Zodarks where Earth is.”

  “Haven’t we been able to recover anything from the audio device from her ear or the AI translator?” Hani asked, almost pleading. “Surely one of those devices was able to give us an audio archive of what went on. I mean, we were able to capture the video from her contact lens.”

  Abby sighed. “We got some audio, mostly the first hour of what went on. But they shocked her body with an electrical device. The contact lens continued to record, but it fried the audio recorder in her ear. As to the AI translator, those things don’t record—at least not the version she had. We need to talk with her. She told them Earth was in the Indus system, and maybe they’ll believe that, but we need confirmation. If they know where Earth is, then we need to prepare Sol.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Unexpected Surprises

  Florida

  Kennedy Space Center

  Space Command HQ

  As he ran along the sandy shoreline, Admiral Chester Bailey pushed his body hard on the final stretch of his run. His feet splashed with every step, the constant waves from the surf adding their own twist to the morning routine. With every step, he felt the stress of the job leaving his body as the endorphins being released helped to clear his mind. The sudden burst of energy as the endpoint came in sight gave him an almost euphoric feeling, like the high you get from a drug, only this was natural.

  Bailey breathed hard and his heart raced. His feet pounded the sand as his eyes caught sight of the sun finally cresting above the water. The predawn light was giving way to the sun as it began to claw its way into the sky, its warm rays now starting to be felt on his skin.

  Twenty more meters…almost there…

  He ran past his official endpoint, then slowed down until he was in a gentle walk. Turning, Bailey moved a little deeper into the water until he was walking at knee depth. The waves crashed occasionally against his waist, splashing cold water on his belly and chest, a welcome relief after a hard run.

  He knew he shouldn’t shock his system too hard with the cold water, but it felt so good right now. He moved a little deeper and dove into a wave as it barreled toward the shore. As he submerged into the ice-cold water, his skin and muscles were jolted. When his face broke out of the water, he gasped for air and immediately felt like a new man. He then made his way back to the shore and headed up to the parking lot, where his Jeep was waiting for him.

  When he reached his vehicle, Bailey turned his neurolink back on and synced it with the vehicle’s Wi-Fi system. He was immediately bombarded with a flurry of messages: some urgent, some mundane. He mostly let his neurolink’s PA handle the less urgent messages and tended to focus on the critical matters and delegate the others to his staff. One message, however, caught his eye: a message from the DARPA facility on Mars marked URGENT.

  Bailey dried himself off, climbed into his Jeep and headed to the office. He’d grab a shower to wash the saltwater off before putting his
uniform on. Then he’d open the message from DARPA and find out what was so urgent.

  *******

  As he walked into his outer office, Bailey’s aide, an up-and-coming captain, greeted him. “Good morning, Admiral. There’s a message from Senator Walhoon. He says it’s urgent. There’s also a message from Musk Industries for you.”

  “Hold my calls, Captain. I have another message that’s a bit more pressing I have to attend to. Oh, and Captain, I’m turning the SCIF on in my office for this message, so no disturbances, OK?” Admiral Bailey instructed as he opened the door to his office and walked in.

  Once he got himself situated at his desk, he turned on the specialized electronic equipment that would sanitize and secure his room. It would ensure no listening or recording devices were either present in the office or able to hear or record what was about to play. Spycraft had come a long way over the years, but so had the electronic means to disable it.

  Bailey placed the holographic display unit on his desk and synced it to his neurolink. For the next ten minutes, he sat listening as Dr. Johnson recounted the data from the latest communication drone they’d just received from Admiral Halsey and her fleet. The previous drone message had indicated that they had arrived in the system and everything was going well—that was three days ago. They hadn’t expected to receive another one for at least a week. In a way, it was ironic that it took a ship fifteen days to travel one light-year, but it took a com drone a single day to cover that same distance.

  The more he heard from Space Command’s lead scientist and R&D director, the more his stomach churned. When he read the report about finding humans on the planet, he thought there must have been a mistake. But then he saw the video of them, and there was no doubt. Worse, he saw the video of the first alien creature he’d ever seen. It was apparently called a Zodark. He wasn’t sure what to make of it when he saw it, but one thing was unmistakable. It was close to twice the size of a human, standing at nearly three meters in height.

  Next, he read the synopsis of the first ground battle that had taken place between a contingent of Deltas and RA soldiers and a Zodark camp of sorts. At first, he was furious that their first interaction with an unknown sentient alien race had been to kill it. Then the report talked about how the Zodarks had actually kidnapped the ambassador and her assistant and fired on them. Admiral Halsey, the commander on the scene, had then made the decision to liberate the prisoners and recover the ambassador.

  What boggled his mind, and had stumped Dr. Johnson and her researchers, was how humans could be found on planets other than Earth. More to the point, how was it that this set of humans was speaking a variant of an Earth language?

  As if all this wasn’t enough of a shock, the information they had gleaned about the Zodarks from these newly liberated prisoners was chilling. This race was clearly an apex predatory species. One report claimed these humans were actually being groomed and cared for like cattle. The prisoner accounts of what was happening on their home world were grisly, to say the least.

  When the message ended, nearly two hours later, Bailey had a lot to digest. He sat there for a moment, trying to think of how to respond to Dr. Johnson’s message. He finally composed a short note telling her this needed to stay strictly “need to know” and to keep analyzing it. He also told her to be ready to travel to Space Command in a couple of days. They wanted to wait until they received another com drone from the Voyager before they called everyone back to Earth to discuss this most unsettling account.

  Bailey needed a few days for himself to figure out how to break this information to the civilian leadership here on Earth. It was going to cause a stir. Potentially, there could be a real problem with the newly formed Tri-Parte Alliance or TPA, as they were calling themselves, the result of a new treaty that had seen the Asian Alliance merge with the Greater European Union and the African Union after the Republic had opted not to renew the Space Exploration Treaty. This new political, economic, and military union now encompassed nearly three-quarters of Earth. The only countries not part of it were those that comprised the Republic, which now consisted of Canada, Mexico, Central America, the United Kingdom, and soon South America, once the details were ironed out. The TPA for their part had been all-in on colonizing Alpha Centauri and the Centaurus system. They had said publicly and privately that they did not want a clash with the Republic but hoped to maintain an amicable relationship, if possible, and peace so all parties could focus on what they all wanted: to colonize other planets beyond Earth.

  He turned the SCIF equipment off, and the lights in his office changed. The electronic shades blocking his windows retracted, letting more natural light flood into the room. A moment later, his aide, Captain Tippins, walked in.

  “Sir, I’ve held your calls, but I think you need to take this one from Senator Walhoon. He’s been pretty insistent that he speak with you.”

  “The good senator can be that way when he wants something, that’s for sure. All right, let me talk to the man,” Bailey relented.

  A moment later, Senator Chuck Walhoon’s holographic image appeared in front of Admiral Bailey’s desk. The senator smiled. “Ah, Admiral. It’s good to see you. Sorry for bugging you first thing in the morning. I’m sure you’re a busy man, but I needed to talk with you about this latest appropriations request you made. Is there a chance we can talk in person? I really hate doing business over these holographic machines and all.”

  Senator Chuck Walhoon was the senior senator from the great state of Texas—the largest, most industrious state in the country at this point. He was also the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which meant he controlled Bailey’s budget. Every time the three-year budget would come up for discussion, Bailey would find himself having to cajole and coax every dollar out of the committee. Given that this was also part of his previous position in charge of fleet operations, it was something he was pretty familiar with and reasonably good at.

  Smiling at the request that wasn’t really a request, Bailey countered, “As a matter of fact, Senator, I was about to give you a call to invite you over here to discuss a matter of great urgency. I was wondering, would you be able to come here in three days?”

  “If this is an urgent matter, Admiral, why don’t we meet tomorrow and discuss it?” Senator Walhoon pressed.

  “Senator, we just received a second com drone from the Rhea expedition today. We’re still unpacking and analyzing the data Admiral Halsey sent, so I’d like to have a couple more days to make sure we understand everything that was sent to us,” Bailey deflected, doing his best not to raise any red flags.

  “Hmmm…OK, Admiral. Let’s meet on Friday. That’ll give you four days instead of three to have everything ready. Should I bring the rest of the committee with me?” the Texan asked.

  Bailey shook his head as he looked at the holographic display. “No, not yet, sir. I think this would be best kept between us for the time being. Then we can craft a message on how to handle it.”

  Now the senator was curious. “Is everything OK? Should I be worried, Admiral?” Walhoon looked concerned. A lot was riding on the success of the Rhea expedition.

  Bailey shook his head. “Nothing has gone wrong, Senator, but there are some things we’ll need to discuss.”

  The senator seemed appeased by his answer. He didn’t press it further. “OK, then. We’ll talk on Friday. I look forward to seeing you then, Admiral.”

  The call disconnected.

  Captain Tippins immediately jumped in. “How do you want to handle this, sir?”

  Bailey drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment before turning to look at the young captain, another loyal officer Bailey was grooming to take command of a ship and eventually move through the ranks to become an admiral. Steadily, Bailey was building his cadre of loyal officers who rose through the ranks on his coattails—officers who would be helpful to him as he phased out Admiral Sanchez’s people and replaced them with his own.

  “Send a message to Dr. J
ohnson that her presence is going to be required here on Friday,” Bailey instructed. “Also, tell Admiral Laughton he’ll need to be here as well. Oh, before I forget, inform General Pilsner I need a meeting with him tomorrow—tell him to bring his Special Operations commander with him. We’re going to need to start looping the ground pounders into this situation.”

  Once that schedule had been handled, Bailey got to the message from Musk Industries: it was the final proposal for the new class of warships Space Command had asked for. What he saw was not just a battleship—it was a true dreadnought and a brute of a ship. If half of what he’d just heard about these Zodarks was true, they’d need more than just a few battlecruisers.

  Admiral Bailey’s staff had been going back and forth with Musk Industries and BlueOrigin on the designs: what features they wanted, what functions the ship had to have, and what kind of defensive capability had to be built into it. It was a long list of requirements, and hundreds of staffers had been assigned to work on it. Thinking back to the video images he had seen of those Zodarks, he felt glad that he had begun the process of getting the ships designed. Now they’d have to decide which track to move down and determine which shipyard would get the contract.

  *******

  Mars Facility

  DARPA

  Looking down at her wrist, Katherine saw she still had forty-two minutes of oxygen left on her tank. She bent down and picked up the rock on the ground, examining it closely, looking at the little divots and dimples on it. It was a hard material, not easily broken by her grip. She eventually placed it back on the surface and looked around at the rest of the area.

  Off in the distance, she saw a towering dust storm heading toward the military base. The cloud had nearly reached the civilian habitats, towering biospheres and skyscrapers, which would soon be covered in the wall of sand and dirt as it made its way toward the military outpost and the mountains.