"I just had one major question, sir."
"Oh?"
"Yes. If it's necessary, can we do Carbon 14 dating on another planet."
The older man leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and looked at them. "If this is an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star, there's no reason to think that nitrogen in the atmosphere would not be converted to Carbon-14 just as it is here."
Ann leaned forward on the table. "That sounds hopeful."
"It is. We would need to verify that with contemporary living tissue. Based on the pictures there is plenty of plant growth — I assume those are plants, I mean, they're green and all — which we could use to establish a baseline."
Bowles lost ten years on his face as he talked, and his whole bearing changed, his back became straight, and his head came up to look directly at what he clearly now considered his new students. He looked over at Ann.
"Three months."
"Yes, sir. With 21 days, more or less, on the planet."
He nodded slowly, thinking about his decision. "What else do I need to know?"
Elias responded, "If you need to go to the surface you will require training on what we call a 'SLUG.' It's like scuba gear for an alien planet, but it's heavy, and you'd be wearing an isolation suit as well."
"I'm pushing sixty, son, but I walk three miles a day, cut my own grass, trim my own trees. I think I can do it."
"There will be an archeologist and an ancient language expert going as well."
"Who?"
"The archeologist is Gabrielle Este. She's done a lot of work piecing together shattered historical monuments in the Middle East. The linguist is Greg Cordero. His research on one-sided translations is right on target."
Bowles looked again at the photograph. "Am I looking at our enemy or another victim?"
"Another victim. We've documented the same kind of attack here that occurred at Inor."
"You've shown me skeletons but nothing alive."
Harris spoke for the group. "Far as we know, sir, they're all dead."
"You're taking a linguist. There is something to read?"
Evans answered. "So far, just markings on buildings, nothing in much detail. They're at a 1970s level of tech, so we believe there will be libraries or knowledge repositories of some kind that he can exploit."
Bowles nodded his understanding. "When would we leave?"
"Plan is to leave on the 23rd of this month. There will be a brief stop at Inor, then on to Beta Hydri."
"Twelve days. Not much time."
"Yes, we understand that, sir."
"What about security? Is the enemy likely to bother us while we're there?"
"We think that's unlikely," Harris answered, "But, we're taking three squads of Marines along just in case."
"I was thinking more along the lines of a cruiser."
"You'll be going on Antares, sir."
Bowles showed some surprise at that.
"Commander Michael will be responsible for our safety should the enemy make the mistake of showing up."
"That's the ship with the Liberty survivors, is it not?"
"It is sir," Ann answered. "As I recall, there's about 16 of them in the crew."
Bowles sat up straight, as if he had come to his decision. "I saw her speech when they got back from Inor. She's a fine officer. OK, I'll go."
The formerly retired Army pathologist took a subcar back up to rural Maryland, with a promise to be back at Fleet HQ, ready to depart, by the 22nd.
Fleet Shuttle Facility
Ft. Eustis, VA
Monday, August 15, 2078, 0700 UTC
The Fleet shuttle was waiting for David at 0300. The Shuttle Terminal was closed at this hour, but the gates were chained open for those few unlucky enough to travel before it opened at 0500.
Carol rode with him from the BOQ, a short, silent ride. The evening before they had a private send-off dinner in town at the same Chinese place as on their first Sunday night together. For David, it felt like a lifetime ago, but it was just two weeks earlier. He hauled his duffel out of the Jeep and stood for a moment breathing in the warm, muggy night. The lights of the Fort and those up and down the James River reminded him of stars. Looking up, he could see a few real stars shining dimly through the thin mist in the air. The usual night sounds of crickets and the occasional bullfrog quietly accompanied their goodbyes. They both looked across the pad at the waiting shuttle. Carol held him very tight, then looked in his eyes.
"I love you," she said quietly.
"And I love you," he responded, then looked over at the shuttle and back to her face. There wasn't much light, and the shadows falling across her face made her look very different somehow. He looked at her for what felt like a long time. Then, at last, it was time to go.
"We're going to have a long life together, Carol. I know it. I can feel it. But, meanwhile—"
"Meanwhile, we fight," she finished. He held her briefly one last time, hoisted the duffel and stepped off for the shuttle. He didn't look back. Carol watched him leave, leaning against the Jeep with her arms around herself as in an embrace.
David was a little afraid that if he dared to look back, he might not be able to go, and that would not do. The shuttle crew checked his ID, took his bag and then he walked up the three steps and disappeared.
Carol turned and climbed back into the Jeep. The driver was a long-retired US Navy chief petty officer, far too old now to serve in the Fleet, but he felt far too young to just sit idly on the sidelines. So, he volunteered at the BOQ, managing to become porter, chauffeur, concierge, and privy counselor to the young officers as they passed through. He loved them all in his faux gruff way, and they adored him in return. He'd been down to the shuttle pad in the middle of the night many times, watching variations of this same sad drama unfold.
"You want to wait, Lieutenant?" he asked kindly.
Carol shook her head. "No, let's go."
"As you say, ma'am." He pulled the vehicle off the shuttle pad parking area and started back for the BOQ. Carol rode in silence, knowing there would be no more sleep tonight.
The shuttle lifted off for the two-hour trip up to Columbia as Carol walked dejectedly into her room and dropped into her desk chair. She pulled out her new notebook — a real paper notebook, not an app — and began to write: And now, you're gone. And now, the really hard part begins. That future you see seems very far away. As tears came, she found she could write no more.
They knew their assignments would be taking both of them back out into deep space, where their ships would likely be under electromagnetic radiation (EMR) restrictions. That meant there would be few chances to exchange personal SLIP messages. So, instead, they decided to keep journals that they could exchange the next time they were together. It was a throwback idea, for sure, but somehow holding a real pen to real paper connected them to their emotions more deeply and clearly than typing or dictating ever could.
David was the only passenger on the shuttle. He slumped down in a seat in the back, feeling his life surgically bifurcated: half his future was at the end of this ride, the other half he'd just left behind on the surface.
The shuttle docked with Columbia and the pilot came back to David. "Well, Lieutenant Powell, we're here. Good luck to you, sir."
David rose, thanked the pilot, then pulled his duffel out of the webbed storage in the back of the shuttle and walked to the airlock. He looked at his NETLink, suddenly realizing that by coming from EDT to UTC, he'd just lost four hours. It was still early morning in Virginia, but the work day was well underway on Columbia.
As he passed through the inner door onto a brightly lit Columbia passageway, there was a young Marine and a blond Senior Lieutenant minding access to the ship.
"Good morning. Lieutenant David Powell reporting."
Without checking the access list on her tablet, she replied, "Good morning, Lieutenant Powell."
She extended her hand and gave him a firm, sincere handshake.
"Melinda Hughes. Welcome
aboard."
"Thanks very much."
"Captain Smith has requested that you see him in his regular office immediately."
David felt a little uncertain. Dan Smith was a former classmate, his one-time best friend, but he had hoped to come aboard quietly. "Is there a problem, Lieutenant?"
She shook her head. "Not that I am aware of, but he was very clear that you see him right away. I'll get someone to put your gear in your quarters. You're in with Lieutenant Murphy, the Logistics department head. The compartment number will be on your NETComp."
"Thanks."
Dan Smith's ship, just a destroyer, was still enormous by Earth standards. Including the Forstmann Drive module at the aft end of the ship, Columbia was a good three hundred meters long. Her livable spaces consisted of individual modules, three meters high and wide, and nine meters long. Sometimes the ship felt like a giant worm or some primitive multi-cellular life-form. Walking through the passages, which were themselves modules, one was aware of the seams and the hatches and doors that set each module apart. The paint scheme was originally a typical military grey, but now an occasional blue or cream or green gave the ship some visual variety. Columbia wasn't new anymore, and while she was certainly clean and spaceworthy, she was beginning to show the wear of war in space with her crew. There were nicks and scratches and dents here and there in her passages where something had been dragged or dropped or knocked over, either by accident or in one of the fights she had seen. Like most of her crew, she wasn't old or weak, but neither was she as beautiful and perfect as she had once been. She reflected their pain, their losses, their victories. She was a fighter, and so were they.
During his work with FleetIntel, David had put his spare time waiting for Columbia to good use, studying her general layout, weapons, and surveillance resources. He had no trouble finding the Captain's office from the port airlock. In the outer office a young acne-faced redheaded crewman was typing at a workstation. He stood as David entered.
"At ease, please. I'm Lieutenant Powell."
"Yes, sir, one moment."
As the young man picked up the phone it struck David as amusing that a ship captain's office in the late 21st century would look so much like what he had seen in books and movies of a hundred or more years earlier. People in authority still need a gatekeeper, and typing still worked because it was silent and private. Dictation into voice recognition was fine when you were alone, but put a half dozen people in a room, and it became an unbearable babble. Thought-control dictation was a cool idea but in practice was not as useful as hoped. Too many random thoughts got into the product. One could have a random, even socially inappropriate, thought while typing and it didn't come out. Thought dictation was just a little too accurate for most users' comfort.
The inner office door opened and Dan Smith stepped out.
"Come in Lieutenant Powell." He turned to the crewman, "Parker, no calls, please."
They moved into his office and Smith closed the door. It was a small place, a desk bolted to one wall and a couple of uncomfortable steel chairs. Funny how space in space was always at a premium. David stood at attention.
"Lieutenant David Powell reporting, as ordered, sir," he said impersonally.
"Yeah, well, screw you, David!" he said, laughing as he extended his hand across the desk. "I am really glad to see you."
"Good to see you, too, Dan. I'm sorry it's been so long."
They sat.
Dan looked at him, his expression stern. "I have to ask — what the hell happened to you? You sent one message that Friday night and then you're gone, vanished." David sat still, silent. "Did you think we weren't concerned about you? Did you not get our messages?"
David looked off to his left, not really looking at anything, rather looking back into his past, into the painful period after his father's suicide. There had been no funeral, no visitation, no opportunity for family and friends to comfort the survivors. His mother had forbidden it, along with any discussion of the how's and why's of what happened. Eventually, David was sure, the isolation of her denial was part of what killed her.
"I got your messages, Dan, all of them. I didn't reply because I wasn't going to be part of that anymore."
Dan kept at it. "We were not just classmates, David, we were best friends. What am I to make of you just walking away from all of us?"
Feeling again the pain of loss, David responded as evenly as he could. "I knew right away I would not graduate. I knew I would have to fulfill my obligation later, and not with a commission. I stayed away because I thought a clean break would be the best for all concerned."
"Well, just this once, you were full of shit. We missed you, we wanted to help you, and you were nowhere to be found."
"Yes, I know. I am sorry now to have cut you off, all of you, but at the time I thought it was best to just put the University behind me and deal with what I had to do. It was too hard to still be connected to that dream."
Smith nodded gently. "OK David, I won't say I understand, but I see that you did what you thought you had to do. But know this — it really hurt all of us — Carol, Larry Covington, Joe Scheck, the whole group of us. Your absence left a void. We were not the same after that."
"Yes, I see that. I am sorry. I missed all of you guys. Larry and Joe were such an odd couple."
"What? A tall shaved-head black Baptist and a short, bearded Jew as best friends? It's almost a cliché." Dan could see the softening in David. "Look, I know what it cost you to withdraw, then to watch Carol — all of us — walk the stage and get what you had craved your whole life. I get that." Dan shifted in his chair. "You earned it, David, but you didn't get it."
David, who had been looking at the floor, raised his head.
"But now I have it."
"Indeed, you do. And Carol, too. But I need to know, David, are you ready to be who you're supposed to be now?"
"I think I am, yes. Ever since that day on Sigma, I've felt like myself again."
"Good. So how is my Carol?"
"She is as wonderful as ever," David replied, recalling the last couple weeks.
"Someday you should ask her about our night in the bar at Kapteyn before the Otbara search," Dan said, smiling.
"Kapteyn?"
"Yeah, she got pretty emotional, and a little drunk. Girl killed almost a whole pizza and most of a bottle of wine all by herself."
"Carol?"
"Yeah, it was a surprise to me, too. But she figured out what she really wanted."
"Oh, what was that?"
"You."
David finally smiled. "I guess I owe you some thanks as well."
"Maybe, but it was mostly me helping her find her own way. It must have been hard to leave her."
"It was. But we both know what this is all about."
"Yes. Meanwhile..."
"Meanwhile, we fight." David interrupted him.
"Meanwhile, we fight," Dan answered.
Dan Smith straightened up in his chair. He was the Captain again.
"So, tell me about this tracking."
"Seems they found a connection between the SLIP receiver and emitter. A signal of just the right type will cross that connection and be amplified. Turn off the emitter, and it won't happen."
"So, we would see this signal in the receiver status?"
"Right. Part of the software fix they're sending adds an alarm to the Comm workstation on the Bridge if it detects that signal. That happens even if the emitter power is off."
"OK, well, we pay a penalty for powering off the emitter, since it will take a couple minutes for it to come up and align itself before we can transmit. Until we get the fix, I suppose we could put a watch on the status display."
"You could, sure. Boring work, though."
"It would be, for sure. I'll think about it. Meantime, Lieutenant Powell, you're Deputy Chief of the Intel Section. Senior Lieutenant Gurgen Khachaturian is Chief. He's pretty good but I expect you will make him better. At some point, Katch will get promote
d out of here and I figure you'll take his place unless FleetIntel grabs you first. Learn the admin stuff along with the operations. Your intel experience on Sigma will help. The staff will respect that."
"Yes, Captain."
"The Nav Officer will get you on the rotation for Conn certification. On my ship, everybody flies, nobody just rides. So, Maz Dawes will be looking for you to get a schedule set. He's tough but very competent. The XO is Maz's classmate, Alona Melville."
Smith paused before continuing, thinking about exactly how to say what was on his mind,
"David, I need you to be yourself here. I need the whole cynical, analytic, insightful, ruthlessly anti-stupid David Powell in my Intel section. I can't manage with anything less."
"I will do what I can to be as difficult as possible, sir." Now, David was actually grinning.
"That's better. We're still old friends, and in private that's what we'll be."
"But you are the Captain here, and I respect that."
"I knew you would. And don't forget, you have a wedding to attend next June at the Fleet resort."
"Oh, so, Linda finally said yes?" David's eyebrows came up as he smiled his best snarky smile.
"OK, pal, that's fine. Go ahead and make fun of your commander's love life. Now, I see you really are back after all." Dan's laugh faded as his tone turned serious again, "Your day to command will come, David. A little delayed, maybe, but it will come. And don't be too impressed with these oak leaves," Dan said. pointing to his collar. "I think these are mostly a convenience for Fleet. I put you in with Jim Murphy, the Logistics section head. Good guy, same rank, about the same age. He's been on board for a while now and he happens to not have a roommate. I think you'll get along."
"I am sure we'll do fine."
"Are you working on the Senior Lieutenant exam yet?"
"No."
"Get on it. You'll get points for Sigma."
"Yes, sir, I will try."
"OK, mister always-first-in-his-class, you 'try.' That's it for now — see you at dinner." They stood and shook hands.
"Thank you, sir."
David opened the door, nodded to crewman Parker, and moved on out of the captain's office. He had a cabin to find and a new life to immerse himself in. It had not seemed a comfortable fit at first, something like too-new shoes giving him blisters, but now he was starting to feel what he had always hungered for. That this was a place he belonged; this was where he could use his formidable gifts to their fullest. His nervousness now gone, he forgot his previous angst about walking like an officer and found that he was just walking like himself, which he was starting to realize was really the same thing after all.
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