by Bobby Adair
“Perhaps forgiveness is something you should consider.”
“You’ve done nothing that needs forgiving,” I explain. “My crew came here to destroy the base and to make war on the Trogs. We did that. We suffered no losses. For you and I, peace and forgiveness are the same.”
“What of the Trogs who killed your friends in your home system? Do you forgive them?”
“I’m still at war with them.”
“And the humans in your system,” asks Man Killer, “they are still at war with us?”
“Just as you cannot speak for the Trogs who are not here,” I tell him, “I cannot speak for humans who are not. We can make peace, you and I. I can go back to my home and explain what happened here. Perhaps the Trogs in our solar system will be willing to meet with me the way you and your commanders did. Perhaps the human leaders will allow me to do this. It is my hope that together we can turn to face our common enemy—the Grays—as allies. If we do, we will defeat them and both our peoples can live in peace. My belief is when I return, the war there will already be over. You saw for yourself how my single ship was able to destroy so many of yours.”
“Most, without fuel or ammunition,” Prolific Man Killer says.
“You are right about that. I have let my ego turn the victory into something more than it was. My point is that during our trip here, my people were creating more vessels like the one my crew flies. It will not take many to destroy the last of the Trog cruisers in our system. Please do not take my certainty on this as an insult to the bravery of your soldiers. Ships like mine are faster, more maneuverable, and more deadly than your cruisers. With enough of them, we will have an advantage that cannot be overcome.”
“That is where I think you will be surprised,” says Prolific Man Killer. “Two more fleets, of sixty-six ships are on their way to your system. They each left well ahead of us. It is likely one arrived during your journey here, and the other may be there now. If your people are able to produce your new ships fast enough, you may indeed win the war there. If not, then when you return, your attempt to speak with the Trogs will be met with hostility, and you may be killed. It is not the Trog way to negotiate with someone they feel certain they can beat.”
I’m still stuck on the number of ships heading toward earth’s system, one hundred and thirty-two, in addition to the ships that were there when I left. I fear disaster for earth. Unfortunately, I’m not able to hide my feelings from Prolific Man Killer. In trying too hard to keep communication open with him, my ability to deceive is left wanting.
“Knowledge of these fleets worries you?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Perhaps you should not return until we can go together.”
“You’re coming to the earth system?” I ask, suspicious.
“It is not my purpose to join the war against the humans. The Trog revolution may be easier to start there, where we can negotiate with other clans from a position of relative strength. We will not win if we go back to the home world with only the fleet we have.”
“How many cruisers would you need,” I ask, “if you were to go to war with the Grays and loyalist Trog clans?”
“Thousands.”
Thousands of cruisers? That boggles the mind. “Your navies are that large?”
“Yes,” Prolific Man Killer tells me. “We are at war in seven systems with five other races. Most wars go well. Some do not. We need many cruisers to fight.”
“And you only sent sixty to earth in the original fleet.” I laugh. “Your Gray masters did not think highly of humans, did they?”
“No,” says Prolific Man Killer. “We did not. Until the battle we fought here against your single ship, neither did I.”
“What is your plan, then?”
“To visit the remote systems like your earth, and turn our forces against their Gray masters.”
“Will they listen to you?” I ask.
“The truth of our history is hard to deny. Though we have been subjugated, Trogs aren’t as subservient as the Grays believe. Even your pet Gray underestimates us. They are an arrogant little species, and that will be their downfall."
“Then we should meet,” I tell him, “when your fleet arrives in earth’s system. If I am still alive.”
We make arrangements for a time and place.
Chapter 9
When we jumped from our orbit around Cygni A to Trinity Base, we did it with the tank ring attached, so we felt confident it wouldn’t fail in interstellar flight. Still, our first jumps were all short. Caution can be your friend when you can afford to exercise it.
On the second day of our trip, we made a twenty-four-hour hop, then we spanned two days, after that, we tried a week. It was the process we utilized on the way out from earth. At that time we were using it as a means to stay in sync with Jill's ship. Now, with our journey reminding us of the ambiguity of Jill's fate, we reverted to our previous method.
I’m on the bridge, in my command chair, not doing anything except being comfortable. We're mid-jump. There's nothing to do except watch the blue glow of the hull's inertial bubble shimmer across the ceiling and floor. If something happens during the jump, I don't know that we could do anything fast enough to prevent the ship from breaking apart, but none of us has experienced a catastrophic mid-jump equipment failure. In fact, we humans don't have any information about what happens when a ship fails while traveling faster than the speed of light. Either it falls out of bubble and finds itself stuck somewhere on the way to its destination, or it's atomized by the forces at play.
Even Nicky isn’t helpful in this respect. She didn’t pick up that part of Gray knowledge before Phil assimilated her into their relationship. Or it’s still hidden down in her jelly brain somewhere.
That leaves me with winging it. I keep a crew on the bridge through each shift. They’re tasked with regularly scheduled systems checks and periodic walkthroughs to eyeball the interior of our hull and bulkheads. And, though it seems strange to think about, to look for anomalous variations in the shimmering blue grav fields. It might be a useless endeavor. Or, it might be pointless duty that keeps my people busy at something.
"What I don't understand," says Jablonsky, "is how those Trogs are going to fly those ships. I mean they're grunts, right? Like us. The Grays piloted the cruisers, and they targeted the railguns. Right?"
It’s my first shift with Jablonsky since we left 61 Cygni. My plan is to rotate the lineup every few weeks so I can keep the crew cross-trained and socially integrated. This bridge shift at the moment is me, Lenox, Jablonsky, and Silva. Lenox is in Penny’s pilot seat. Silva is out taking her time on the hull inspection.
I say, “Klingon Pete told me his people have been watching the Grays do their jobs—well—since forever. The Grays think they bred every shred of intelligence out of the Trogs, but the Trogs, at least the smarter ones, are good at hiding their thoughts and feelings from the Grays.”
“Like you and Phil do,” guesses Lenox.
I nod to answer her but continue with Jablonsky’s question. “Klingon Pete thinks his Trogs are capable of flying their ships and targeting their weapons.”
“Watching isn’t the same as doing,” says Jablonsky.
“I know.”
“You think they’ll be any good?” he asks.
“Don’t know.”
“You know we might have to fight them, right?”
Lenox turns to Jablonsky. “We don’t need to have this discussion again. Major Kane took a gamble. What’s done is done.”
“I’m not arguing about that,” he says. “I’m just wondering whether the Trogs will be as good with gravity as the Grays. Ticks are born to it. The rest of you bugheads, Trogs included, have it added on. You’re not hardwired for the talent, if you know what I mean.”
“Right now,” I tell him, “we have the technological advantage. It’s enough to overcome the Grays’ talent edge. It should be enough to beat the Trog
s if it ever comes to that.”
“And if they show up around earth with a thousand cruisers one day?” asks Jablonsky.
“You saw all those Arizona class ships that day we lifted off from the shipyard,” says Lenox. “I’d take a thousand Arizona Class ships against a thousand Trog cruisers any day.”
“Except,” says Jablonsky, “we had over a thousand assault ships—eleven hundred, if memory serves. And what’d they have, three cruisers bombing the hell out of us and another thirty or forty attacking the space stations?”
“That was different,” says Lenox.
“You know what we did,” I say, “with the Rusty Turd that day. You know what we did since. The Arizona Massacre was a failure of leadership, training, intelligence, and maybe three or four other things. If we can buy some breathing room, and we can build a decent sized navy, we’ll be able to hold our own against any Trog fleet that comes our way.”
“With a hundred ships like this one,” says Lenox, “with good crews to fly them, we can defeat ten times our number.”
I agree with Lenox.
“Will we have the time to build the ships?” asks Jablonsky. “One of those fleets Klingon Pete told you about will be in our system months before we get back. The other will show up around the same time we arrive. Maybe. Maybe they’re already there. He didn’t seem to have too much info on that. Is that right?”
“That sounds right to me,” I agree.
“What if they win? Then what?”
Lenox looks at me. She wants that answer, too.
“The colonies, I suppose. If the war is lost, then we go to the colonies.”
“What about your appointment with Klingon Pete?” he asks.
“We’ll deal with these questions when we need to,” I tell him. “I’ll meet with Prolific Man Killer when he arrives in system.”
“In system with empty gas tanks and no armaments,” clarifies Jablonsky.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“What’s that mean?” he asks.
“Nearly a third of his Trogs committed suicide.” I know Jablonsky knows that. Everybody on the ship knows that. “They couldn’t live with defeat and surrender. Maybe the history Nicky showed them helped them make that decision. Maybe it was a shame thing. It probably means he’s got roughly a third fewer people in each ship. Maybe he uses the free payload for more fuel, maybe more railgun slugs. He told me he was going to strip down some of the ships and send them on long bubble jumps with small crews out to other systems to pass the word. Either way, I don’t think they’ll show up in earth’s system like helpless hatchlings. They’ll be ready to fight. At least a little.”
“Let’s just hope it’s not us they want to fight,” says Jablonsky. “They won’t get there until what, seven or eight months after we arrive? That’ll give them a long time to have second thoughts about our peace.”
I don’t respond, because I’m carrying that same worry.
Chapter 10
“Lenox told me what you said to Jablonsky on the bridge today,” says Silva.
I run my fingers over her skin, tracing a line from her breast down to her hips. She usually likes to talk when we’re too tired for another go. Something about the naked vulnerability, maybe. “What did she say?”
“Just that stuff about the colonies.”
“What about the colonies?”
Silva snuggles up close, putting her head on my chest and looking up at the ceiling. “Do you ever think about just giving up on this war and running away? Starting fresh on a new world. No Grays. No Trogs. No war. You know, maybe getting a chicken farm or something and having some kids?”
I laugh.
She punches me in the stomach and sits up. “Why are you laughing?”
“I never pictured you out feeding the chickens and hollerin’ at the young ‘uns.”
“I’m just thinking about life after the war.” Silva pulls away, sits up, and leans against the wall to glare at me.
“I don’t think that much about it.”
“But if the war is over when we get back, then what?”
“You mean if earth lost?”
She nods.
“I don’t know. The colonies, I guess. But I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’m a chicken farm kind of guy. I don’t know if I could live that life.”
“You never wanted to settle down and just, you know, be happy?”
“Yeah,” I admit, but I don’t bring up my time with Claire. “I don’t believe in that dream anymore. Is that what you want?”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I think I answered.” I think about it for a moment before trying again. “I think the colonies are a dream.”
“You think Dr. Spitz was lying?” she asks.
“No. I believe Dr. Spitz. I just don’t think things out there will be the utopia we imagine.”
“Things will be hard,” says Silva defensively. “I don’t think pioneering on an alien world will be easy.”
“I’m not saying that, not really. I mean, I think I kind of imagine those worlds that way too, all rainbows and sunny days. Fields of clover and sex in the afternoon. No mosquitoes or ants.” I laugh. “In my mind, that’s what it’s becoming. Kind of a paradise.”
Silva settles back in to lay on my chest and strokes her hand across my belly. “Me, too.”
“This war has changed me,” I tell her.
"Made you hard?" she asks. "I think it's made me that way. Lots of times, I feel like I'm not in touch with myself anymore. Like I've gone numb. It's a self-defense thing, I guess."
“I think that’s normal, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t look at the sky and see stars now. I see ships full of armies coming to kill everyone I’ve ever known. I don’t think the colonies will be a haven for long. The Grays or the Trogs or some other alien race will find us there. Klingon Pete said they were at war in seven systems with five alien races.”
Silva says, “Do you ever think the universe is just so big you could hide on a hospitable planet out of the way somewhere and never worry about aliens again? Earth made it a long time between when the Trogs left and when the Grays came back. Maybe a hundred thousand years. That’s plenty of time for a good, long life for you, your kids, and anybody who would ever remember who you were.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I tell her. “I just can’t live under the illusion of peace again. I think if we went to the colonies, I wouldn’t be a farmer. I’d join a colonial defense force.”
“A colonial defense force?”
“Sure,” I chuckle. “They have to have one of those, don’t they?”
“Do you ever think maybe you just don’t want to be happy?”
“I’m happy when I’m with you.” I squeeze her tight. She turns her face up to mine and we kiss. Her hand on my belly slides down to see if I’m ready to give up on talking and pursue something a little more fun.
Chapter 11
The voyage goes fast and slow at the same time, depending on the day, depending on the mood. The closer we get to earth, the more anxious everyone becomes. We speculate incessantly on what to expect, but there’s no enthusiasm for it. Five months in a steel tube is a long, long time. We’re anxious to be home, no matter what we find.
Along the way, I started scheduling “swim” days. I know that’s a weird way to think of them. Rather than running the distance in long jumps lasting a month or more, we break it up into one-week chunks. On each day when we’re coasting along at sub-light speeds, we don our suits and go outside to fly around, practicing our suit-grav skills, swimming through the interstellar void and watching the universe slide by—a nice break from looking at the glowing interior of the ship. We never stay outside for more than two or three hours, not enough to slow the journey by any significant degree. Even if it did, I’m not sure I’d stop. The swim hours do wonders for the crew’s morale.
Now that we’re only three days out fro
m the inner solar system of our home star, the sun, Phil is taking short hops, twelve hours at a time. We have a party planned to mark the anniversary of our departure date. We’re all excited about it, though the truth is we won’t do much. We’ll talk, play games, dance, and wish we had some alcohol to make a real party. We ran out of solid food stores months ago and we’ve been subsisting on cal packs. We aren’t in danger of starving, but solid food is the fantasy that comes up in every conversation.
I find myself fixating on a buffalo steak. The last one I ate was the one Phil grilled on my back patio the night we celebrated his birthday. That steak was the only good thing to come out of that night four years ago. It was the day my fake life finally fell apart and I started chasing the dream I was born to catch. The day my revolution began.
Chapter 12
We pop out of our last bubble ten thousand kilometers above the Free Army’s new base—new the last time I’d visited and Colonel Bird assigned my ship the mission to 61 Cygni. Jablonsky opens a frequency to hail them, to let them know we’re friendlies. Penny lines the ship up to cruise toward the base at a comfortable pace.
Phil gasps.
Phil's surprise spikes my tension meter to the top of the scale, and I tell Penny to be ready at the throttle. “Tell me a story, Phil. Tarlow, you got anything?”
Tarlow works his keyboard and dials to put some pictures on his screens. I turn to look at them as Phil starts to explain. "They were hit. The Free Army base."
It feels like the air just ran out of the bridge.
On Tarlow’s screens, I see what Phil can already make out with his grav sense. Where there’d been fifty-four metallic asteroids arranged in rows and columns by a long-gone mining operation, now there’s disarray. A slowly expanding sphere of debris, thousands of kilometers in diameter, sparsely fills the space around the base, a cloud of rock and metal, and—
“Oh, Jesus,” says Phil. “Corpses.”
Enormous pieces of Trog cruisers drift through the vacuum, some right down among the base’s asteroids, others at a distance, part of the growing cloud.
