by Michael Orr
They only picked on corvettes for now, but each target had fallen quickly to the Crusaders’ superior weapons and capabilities. It made no difference that it wasn’t a fair fight; gallantry had no part in the mission. These inexperienced crews needed practice, and as far as Juuli was concerned, every corvette out of the way meant fewer humans infesting space.
Off in the distance, the crusader jumped in using a seemingly reckless close-quarters FTL approach that caught the corvette unprepared. Juuli began recording as traces of discharge from the corvette’s railguns were lost amidst the crusader’s salvo of plasma bursts. Pieces of the victim bled away in drops of melt as soon as the plasma breached its shields.
Lifepods ejected into space as the battle matured, but the corvette held out longer than expected. It was no more than a curiosity to the Thuvian. There was never any actual hope.
The smaller ship dispersed into a cloud of components beneath the crusader’s plasma beams, and Juuli kept recording as the dreadnought swept the area, picking up lifepods. Whether they captured or killed the survivors was none of his concern. All he cared about was that they could actually do damage. Either the humans would remove themselves from the cosmos, or their in-fighting would prompt the Alliance to do it for them.
“Success either way.” He smiled across his multi-lateral mouths and prepped the unmarked recording for transmission.
SOCAL MEGAPLEX – EARTH – FEB 17, 2371
“You’re free ta pick ’n choose your gigs, Trish. No one’s forcing you ta take ’em.”
“But the only gigs I’m offered’re lame.” Trish huffed against the immovable admin staffing the local placement office. “Someone blacklisted me an’ I only get crappy work.”
The woman shook her head. “It’s legal work. You have only yourself ta blame. If you’d be good, your prospects would improve. That’s just the way it works.”
“But the offers started out lame,” Trish bitched. “It’s not like I was ever given a decent shot!”
The admin shrugged. “I’m not in control’a that. No one starts out at the top. s’Not how it works.”
“But I’m not askin’ ta start at the top. I’m asking ta work at my level. I was first in my class, but I’m getting bottom-feeder offers. Everything’s way below what I’m good at. I can do more for the Conglom than this. Why’m I not bein’ allowed?”
The admin took a ‘one last time’ breath. “At this point, Trish, yer gonna hafta earn it. You’re startin’ ta smell like Libernation.”
“I’m not Libernation! You know that! I just want quality work. Sometimes they offer it when this office doesn’t. What’m I s’posed t’do?”
The admin shook her head again. “Be good.”
Trish slumped into a waiting room chair with another huff. The Conglomerate was against her. Punishing her for trying to make a living.
“Heavy,” someone said from across the room.
Trish looked over and met the eyes of a fortyish woman whose name she thought might be Kat. They’d crossed paths before, but never actually spoken.
“Y’know...” The woman came over,. “the problem isn’t you, and it’s not the gigs. You’re just not thinking big enough.”
Trish held her tongue. Forced herself to listen.
“If you can pick ’n choose, stop limiting yourself ta SoCal.”
“But this’z my home.” Trish went on the defensive. “And there’s more than enough work here to–”
“Doesn’t matter.” Kat shook her head. “If none of it’s comin’ your way, it doesn’t exist. So, if you’re as good as you say you are, go where the good work is.”
Outside clearing her head, Trish was surrounded by the bustling SoCal megaplex. Two- and three-kilometer high towers in dramatic crystalline shapes injected themselves into the skin of a filmy sky. Halfway up, swarms of hovertraffic glinted in mid-air, their metal catching the sun as it spread its glare across the early springtime scene like a balm.
She was well aware that she lived in a remarkable age. It was all quite striking, but if she couldn’t get work what good was it? More and more, it seemed like this was no longer her place.
“The universe wants me t’grow up,” she grumbled. The conservatory was all she knew. Sixteen years of perfecting her trade and now there was nothing more to study or practice. Her cocoon was kicking her out, and god only knew where she’d end up.
If you take work that everyone else is just as capable of, what are you but an expendable cog in a trivial machine?
Where’s the once-in-eternity Trisha Thierry?
Trish frowned at the voices in her head — the familiar tag team of her guides. She didn’t always hear them as clearly as she should, but when it really mattered they were there. Long conversations with them after lights-out had steered her through many crises.
Remember the epiphany you had so long ago...that the Conglom wouldn’t be able to rule the world if its individual employees would just stop doing whatever it told them to?
You even thought about joining Libernation.
Where’d that Trisha go?
“I...”
And more importantly, where’s she going now?
What about those dreams of the Alliance? Visiting the Pleiades? The Grenadines of Heaven?
The world around her transformed into luscious images of Alliance space — alienscapes dressed up in exotic hues with fascinating life forms doing anything but meaningless jobs. Strange and awesome starships and overwhelming alien stations floated weightless amidst nebulae glowing in the beams of binary stars and bulging red giants. Time stretched backward further and further into infinity, revealing a history of spacefaring races as ancient as matter itself.
Her stomach plunged. “I’m s’posed t’go off-world?!”
Supposed to...want to...need to...
Parts of you are trying to get your attention, Trisha.
“Then, I really don’t belong here!” she gasped, wondering at the captivating worlds floating in her mind’s eye. Space was a childhood fantasy, but adults worked. Adults lived in the real world and did real things. She’d spent her youth training and preparing for a professional dancing career...had worked hard for the depth and substance in her portfolio. She was top-of-the-line, but the only realistic way off world was to trash all that and dance on a starliner with the wannabes.
She gnawed her lip. “Renée would disown me.” Cruise line entertainers came from the ranks of amateurs. No matter how good they were, they had no pedigree. No conservatory-trained professional would seriously consider working alongside them. At Trish’s level, dance was art, not entertainment.
It’s not about the work, Trisha.
It’s about being out ‘there’.
“Fuckeddy, guys. You know what you’re saying...?”
Space was still new to the human race, and going there had a profound impact on the psyche — an impact that was proving problematic. People changed in space; returned very different. Stardrive created a new caste of people who had a hard time integrating back into Earth society afterward. They never really settled in again, and Earth wasn’t home anymore. Psychologically, space was a one-way trip.
There are certain moments in life with the power to transport you beyond yourself.
If you have the presence to be mindful in such moments, you might never have to look back.
“You’re scarin’ me,” she warbled. Their words carried a gravity she hadn’t heard in them before. “’Zactly what’re you sayin’? That Earth isn’t my home anymore?”
Think big.
“Did you... Was that you talking t’me through that lady back there?!” Trish sputtered.
The universe is always speaking to you, Trisha.
Hearing means listening.
“Think big,” she mulled. “Alliance big.”
Heavens...I think she heard us.
EARTHFLEET HQ – EARTH ORBIT – FEB 23, 2371
General Wye was busy entertaining, and none too happy about being in
terrupted when Major Leyne tapped on the slider.
“No choice, General...” Leyne handed him a holokey and disappeared.
Back inside his suite, General Wye left Sveta to herself and angrily swiped on the holo.
The scene before him was nothing short of a revelation. At first, he couldn’t make out the target of the unknown ship’s fury, but the holo zoomed in right then to refocus on an EarthFleet corvette being decimated by the alien’s plasma cannons.
The battle come to an end with the vette showering space in its debris, and Wye clenched his fists.
EarthFleet ships had been disappearing for the last year, leaving scattered traces of their destruction, but no clues. Now at last, he knew. And he didn’t like knowing.
He swiped open the comm. “Leyne!”
#Yes, General?#
“Do we have intel on that ship?”
#I’ve searched our own database, sir. No matches. I didn’t wanna contact the Alliance without your go-ahead.#
“No no. We leave the Alliance out of it for now,” Wye agreed. “Gimme fifteen minutes, then get ahold of Admiral Courne.”
“Gentlemen, we need a plan,” he told the roomful of brass at his emergency meeting.
“Options.” Vice Admiral Courne wasted no time.
“I see only one,” offered one of Courne’s two-stars. “If these dreadnoughts aren’t affiliated with the Voth, they’re either Alliance or from outside. Either way, the Alliance’ll know about ’em. We have no choice but ta start there. Anything else and we risk a major diplomatic incident.”
“We could try ta capture it,” one of the brigadiers suggested, but Wye shook his head.
“They’re extremely careful about attacking only vettes. They know how to avoid our big guns.”
“We send someone to Central and get this sorted out,” one voice decided. Everyone looked over at Courne.
“What other choice d’we have?” He shrugged. “We can’t find ’em. And when they find us, we’re not in strength. We’re losing, and that ends now.”
“Ambassador corps?” asked one of the admirals.
Courne shook his head. “Strictly military targets. We keep it.” He looked directly at General Wye. “This’z your area, Hiram. Whatever ya need.”
Wye nodded. There was nothing more to say.
On the way back to his office, Wye’s master plan took an unexpected detour. There was no question that Major Leyne would take this on. He had all the right credentials. But that was the problem.
Leyne’s deputy, Lieutenant Jerrett Nash, was a good man. A solid officer with heaps of potential. And the review board had just listed Nash in their latest approvals — not for promotion to major, but to lieutenant commander.
Seeing a man from his own office choose a mariner career path was a blow to General Wye’s gut. Nash was sending the unmistakable message that Wye was wasting him, and the young man’s solution was decisive. He’d read the tea leaves aright and found a way out that burned no bridges and allowed for no backfires. This way, he didn’t risk asking for a transfer and being denied; going ‘mariner’ permitted no other option but reassignment.
“Good for him,” Wye grumbled into his office mirror. There was no one to blame but himself, and he had to admire the young man’s checkmate. In fact, such a careful, calculating style might be the exact approach needed right now. Nash would catch the Alliance off guard. They wouldn’t know how to read him, where they knew Revvic Leyne like a map.
Moreover, Wye worked his math, Nash’ll arrive at Alliance Central as a fleet officer, not an Intel agent. Another misdirection in our favor.
As much faith as Wye had in his protégé, he knew Leyne’s way of doing things wouldn’t work. It was actually a relief to have a wildcard alternative at hand, and he’d only bring Leyne in on the new master plan as a backup in case Nash botched it.
“We’ll hafta get out ta Central and see what the Alliance can tell us,” he told his favorite.
“Kinda dicey, General.” Leyne’s already dark visage darkened. “They’re gonna get all up in our business over this. Any slightest excuse...”
Wye didn’t disagree, but... “We’ve got no choice. It’s that or keep losin’ ships while we blunder around in the dark. s’Gotta happen.”
Leyne paused, letting his thoughts gel. “S.O.P., sir?”
Wye had been waiting for the right moment to spring the news, and here it was.
“Essentially.”
Leyne rose from his chair. “I should get going.”
“Not this time, Rev.” Wye stopped him. “I’ve got a political concern with this one. The review boards’ve come out ’n Nash is getting a middle stripe.”
That brought an inward smile to Leyne’s impassive face. But then...
“Stripe?”
Wye nodded, letting the news take effect. The shift in Leyne’s demeanor was subtle, but Fleet Intelligence’s chief operative had no problem sussing out the intricacies of Nash’s gambit.
“You ’n I are victims of your success, Rev. You cast a big shadow; so now, how do I convince some skipper that Nash is the catch’a the day when he’s got no kills to his credit?”
“Aaaagreed, sir....but with somethin’ like this?”
“Something exactly like this, Rev.” Wye hoped he could jar memories of Leyne’s own big break. The major’s pensiveness was his answer.
“I’ll send ’im in, sir. If you’re ready.”
Wye only nodded.
14
* * *
EARTHFLEET HQ – EARTH ORBIT – MAR 2, 2371
Lieutenant Commander Aldo Lansig sat uneasily in the defendant’s chair, hoping the holo they were about to play wouldn’t reveal something his memory had blanked out.
In front of him, the holo displayed his ship drifting aimlessly in space, the monstrous Hwarak’mogk dreadnought right above her, still slamming plasma bursts into Kolkata’s broken hull.
He remembered being there as if it were this morning. That was when the holo shifted to the recording of Kolkata’s bridge captured by his own connec-lens:
It's over. His corvette has nothing left to fight with. Nothing left but to self-destruct.
He’d been grappling himself to manual steerage throughout the chaotic battle, ignoring the pain as he maneuvered his ship every possible way, but none of it mattered and now he's all that's left. Everyone else has abandoned ship on his orders and his one hope is the escape pod upstairs in his ready room. Going down with the ship isn’t part of Aldo’s itinerary. A ship is a tool. One doesn’t sacrifice oneself for the sake of a tool.
With all of Kolkata’s systems offline, he can only fling himself across the bridge in zero-G to reach the mess of human wreckage pooling against the bulkhead. Muffled whimpers of unendurable pain filter through the mass of bodies and he digs through the pile, searching frantically for life signs. There's maybe two minutes to go before Kolkata disrupts in the vacuum.
There!
Lifeless bodies come away effortlessly in the no-G environment, and now he steers his second lieutenant’s limp form across the bridge to the lift.
No, not the lift. Backup power's offline. Gotta use the companionway.
“Cawd blessit!” He spares a glance back at poor Dane’s twisted frame. It might be mercy to let him perish with the ship, but that's not Aldo’s style. He’ll save whoever and whatever he can.
Up the stairs...into the ready room he knows so well, drawing Dane’s broken body behind him. No time for another pulse check. The best Aldo can do is give him a fighting chance.
He shoves the unconscious lieutenant through the hatch in back of the armored chamber and climbs in after him...takes station...flips the switch.
That's it. They bolt away. And as if Kolkata's held herself together only for her master, the dying ship surrenders to space.
Bits and pieces of her bang against the pod’s hull with cringeworthy force, and Aldo wonder if he’s made it all this way just for his ride to spring a leak. But it hol
ds, beating back the barrages of debris that come and go.
He checks on Dane, trying to will the weak pulse back to strength. Uses everything he can find in the medkit to stabilize the wounds. Empties a whole anesthesia hypo into Dane’s neck in the off chance the guy might be semiconscious. The pain alone will kill him.
That done, he goes to the portal and records as much of the dreadnought’s actions as he can. Spends minutes scanning every visible meter of the enemy’s dark insectoid hull with his lens at full zoom.
That’s when he realizes...
“You gawd... Damn! Motherfuckers!!”
The enemy is snatching up Kolkata’s lifepods; swallowing his crew into their main bay. Those are his men! They're counting on him.
“You fuckin’ take me with you, you motherfuckers! Come ’n get me! I’ll show you a counterattack like your worst nightmare never thought of! You will answer to ME!! You hear me?!”
They do not.
Sinister red nozzles launch his nemesis into the Deep, taking his helpless men with them. And now that they're gone and all is silence, his wrists and forearms are crippled by throbs and shooting pains that steal the breath from his lungs. He registers fresh trickles of blood on his scalp.
And Dane is dead.
EARTHFLEET HQ – EARTH ORBIT – MAR 4, 2371
“The defendant will rise.”
Lansig stood with his JAG, not at all certain the board would see things his way. Life had been unfolding according to some unknown plan of late.
“Concerning the loss of EFS Kolkata on February eighth of this year: by unanimous decision, this board of inquiry exonerates Lieutenant Commander Aldo Lansig of negligence or culpability. All charges against the defendant are dismissed, with notation that his actions as recorded during the battle went above and beyond the call of duty and represent the highest traditions of the Service.”
His heart did a double-beat and he strained to master his breath before it rose into an audible huff.
