Con opened a hatch that separated the passenger cabins from a connecting corridor. On the other side of the small area, a spiral staircase led up to another floor and the Centau began gliding up the steps. Watson’s feet rang out on the metal and he clutched the wooden bannister to guide himself.
“One never knows, Watson.”
“‘Unless things change.’ What would change?” Watson repeated. “That’s a very foreboding statement to drop on a man just before a dangerous journey through space to an unknown solar system with some all-powerful aliens.”
“Remember, Watson, you are an alien to me.”
Watson chortled. “Whose world is this, anyway? You came here. You’re the alien.” Boy, was he pushing it. Didn’t matter.
The conversation died, leaving Watson feeling like he’d gone too far. He knew the Centaus were decent. Probably. They’d had ample opportunity to prove otherwise—years in fact—and they’d done nothing but help. This anxiety was nerves about the journey. Leaving was finally a reality.
They reached the next floor. Watson opened the hatch to the dining room and they went inside. He was particularly proud of how the dining room had turned out. Floor to ceiling windows lined the perimeter. That view would be amazing once they were in space.
And perhaps a bit frightening. But, well, he had the figurehead, his boon against the darkness and the unknown. She’d do something. Dispel his fears. Cast light into the shadows. Be a mystical guide across a blackness as deep as the River Styx.
Con’s large, dark violet eyes studied Watson.
“If I knew what the future held, I would tell you.”
The planes of the tall Centau’s face were angular. Elegant. Alien. Just off of human enough to hit an uncanny note in Watson as he watched the male survey the dining room.
“Venture a guess?”
“No.”
“Well.” Watson chortled. “Don’t that beat all. I’m not going to be a slave at the end of this journey, am I?”
“Slave?” Con repeated the word as though he was trying it out for the first time, as though he’d never heard it before.
“Oh, come on, now. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of slavery.”
“And what is your fear, Watson? That we are kindly hauling a large fraction of your population to a slave colony under the guise of being friendly?” He paused, absorbing what he saw. “This room is to my liking.”
“Why thank you very much, Con. Finally, something you approve of.”
“I approve of much.”
“First I’ve heard of that,” Watson said.
“Life should be beautiful. That’s why we’ve toiled to bring the 6 Moons to life.”
Watson shook his head and crossed his arms, watching the dining room staff run around making final preparations. They draped table cloths over the round tables. Some workers were checking the interior seals on the windows. Watson and Con approached the workers. The Centau leaned in and checked the seals.
“Show me what you’ve done.”
Watson watched as the worker demonstrated the reinforced seals—they’d been done for a while. This was routine, to make sure the weakest places were secure. Every system that could fail and result in massive damage was getting this final check.
But Watson’s mind was elsewhere, lost in the mixture of excitement and fear that broiled in his gut. He knew his ship was space-worthy. It was a bond he had with the old girl, a connection that he anticipated growing stronger as they sailed into the unknown. Well, it was known, but unknown to him.
“Continue on,” Con said to the workers. “This is one area we do not want to fail. A compromised seal in this large space could cause us to lose the whole ship.”
“Aye,” the workers agreed.
It was true. Con followed Watson out of the dining room to a second corridor.
They wound their way to the bridge where Watson’s navigation crew was finishing their final checks. They saluted him and then bowed to Con, who returned a bow.
“How close are you?” Watson asked his First Officer, Brand.
“On the final pages of the checklist,” Brand said. “Which puts us on schedule. We’ll be ready to depart.”
“Excellent.” Watson exchanged a look with Con, who nodded in that nearly imperceptible way singular to Con.
The ships would be towed to the space platforms with powerful technology the Centau had brought to Earth that evening, and boarding would take place all night via the space elevators, so that the fleet would be able to leave at 6 am UTC.
Thinking of it, Watson’s heart pounded. He’d need a shower soon over the nervous responses his body had been resorting too. He wore a light shirt, but the room felt like a sauna. Was that just him?
Once this check was done, he’d say one last goodbye to his few friends and family, then head to the space platform and rendezvous with Fortune’s Zenith. This was madness. But the best kind of madness.
5
Dusk fell outside the space-elevator port as he watched the sun setting through the windows.
This was his last sunset on Earth. Would it be the last one he saw, forever?
In a way it wasn’t a surprise that he was standing here, about to embark on what was quite literally the most insane move he’d ever made. He’d wanted to go with the Centau to the 6 Moons since he’d been just a child.
The arrival of the first alien life on Earth was still burned into the collective unconscious—Watson remembered it like he’d been alive when it had happened. But of course he’d not been.
Since that moment when they’d shown up, slave colony worries had circulated as one of the most feared ideas for all humans.
They’ll force us into hard labor. They’re more powerful. We’re at their mercy!
A lot of fears.
But, so far, none of them had come true.
After the initial contact when the agreements and treaties had been struck, the Centau had left and returned many times, bringing massive terraforming machines and powerful ships to transport raw materials around the solar system.
Eventually the tall aliens had become a standard feature of Earth’s major cities as their emissaries and ambassadors worked with governments to establish the protocols and select colonists.
In the end, it had taken years for the Centaus to fulfill their many promises to Earth so that they could take a fraction of the Earth’s population with them to the 6 Moons. But the aliens had done their part terraforming Mars, establishing space platforms and the Luna settlements, closing the distances within the solar system with borrowed advances in space flight, assisting in setting up mining operations on the belt and other large scale projects like that.
Without their help, the people of Earth would still be inching their way slowly out into the solar system.
I’m really leaving.
A part of him observed that fact dispassionately. Another part realized that what he was doing was mind-blowing. Coming back wasn’t impossible, but full trade routes wouldn’t be established for years. The day had finally come when the first batch of colonists would leave Earth behind.
Today. He swallowed. Right now. Tonight.
As he waited to board the space elevator, lost in the midst of a ragged line of colonists, he reflected on his few goodbyes. Obviously Janus, the ass, and Nora, his wife.
They wouldn’t miss him. Really, the only person who would miss him was his sister, Angelica. She’d come to see him off at the entrance to the space platform. Neither himself nor his sister were the type to make large, loud gestures, so it had been a subtle send off. Their discussion and final embrace still hung like a stone in his gut, invasive, unresolved, threatening to make him feel sick.
“I’m sorry, Anj, but you know I’ve wanted this forever,” he’d told her, the only family he was leaving behind.
His sister—an academic who didn’t like the Centaus. Despite all testimonies vouching for them, she’d never relented in her view, disregarding even the testimonie
s of the human ambassadors the Centaus had taken to the 6 Moons. Those witnesses had come back with only the best news—no slave colonies, no monsters. Gorgeous planets. So much promise.
Watson laughed to himself softly, remembering how Angelica had graced him with a goodbye in her hallmark style—delivered with a stiff-upper-lip, a few curses under her breath, and a dash of sharp “good riddances.”
“Triton’s behind, Anj, it’s not that bad. Is it? You’ve got your family,” he pointed out, thinking of her three children and husband.
“Who’ll now grow up without an uncle.”
He smiled at her flair for drama. “I’ll still be out there. Just look up at the sky.”
She cocked her head to one side, her light brown eyes glistening.
“Knock it off, Watson. Besides, the miles are impossible. The distance unfathomable, you—you—butthead,” she frowned. “What would be the point of even glancing up at the sky? Some naive longing to know where my brother is, and what he’s doing, if he’s even alive?”
The name-calling—butthead, that childhood term of derision—brought home just what he was leaving behind. A bratty sister who loved taking him down a notch.
A sister he loved.
He’d clenched his jaw and shook away the emotion welling up in his chest, making his throat tight. “Butthead? OK, thanks. Thanks for that. Well. Hell, that doesn’t make me want to stay. Besides, I can’t back out now.”
“I know. And you’re a butthead, and I wasn’t trying to get you to stay. That ship has sailed. Alright, alright. No more guilt. I’m being selfish.”
He recalled how she’d looked up at two capsules descending on the space elevator cables. He’d caught a glimpse of the tears filling her eyes at that moment. The lights at the gate struck them at just the right angle. She’d hide those tears—that was her way.
Anj had sighed and returned her gaze to his face. “Look, I love you. I’ll miss you. But have fun, I guess, on your adventure.”
Watson squinted. Goodbyes were annoying. He’d not even entertained the possibility of not going until this moment. He loved his sister, but he’d underestimated how much she cared. Honestly, her connection to him hadn’t been even a remote consideration when he’d made his choice. That made him selfish, he guessed.
He kept playing through their recent interchange as he waited to board, wondering if he was making a huge mistake. The line shuffled forward and shunted him toward the gate into the capsule. He was past the point of no return, besides, he was a captain. If he backed out, it impacted an entire ship of colonists.
A surge of regret for how he’d handled the last minutes of their goodbye rippled through him. He should have been softer. More sympathetic to her.
Angelica’s expression had transformed between angry and resigned. But she’d never demand that he not go. She had her own life. He wasn’t going to stay behind to be an uncle.
“Anj, pioneers always left home behind, even when they were just crossing an ocean.”
She scoffed. “Please. This is bigger than an ocean.”
“Not so different, though. Back then it might as well have been as far as space. There were no mobile phones or even transoceanic phones. It was just letters.”
“Whatever you say, Watson,” she sighed. “Whatever. Look, I can’t even send you a letter.”
“Technically, you could.”
“Even if I could, I won’t. For my heart, Watson, for my sanity, I’m going to believe that you’re dead.”
“Did you switch to drama teacher at the university, Anj?” He laughed softly, trying to take the sting out for her. “Technically, there will eventually be things like letters and trade routes, right?”
“I’m not writing you.”
It was an ancient performance, probably. The goodbyes between those who stayed behind and the ones who sailed out into the unknown. He wasn’t personally familiar with it, exactly, but as the two of them pantomimed the roles, it resonated on a primal level with him: this had been happening for millennia.
He couldn’t take the guilt she was giving him anymore.
He’d finally thrown his arms around her small figure and held her tight. She returned the hug, squeezing the breath out of him. He’d felt a tremor in his ribs from the emotion she held back, rippling through her chest and into him.
“If I can ever come back, I will.”
He’d let go and walked away, only looking back once, and he could tell from the set of her face that her jaw was clenched. He brushed his tears away and kept moving.
Even with staggered departures, the platform had been busier than Watson had ever seen it. It had only taken a few seconds for Angelica to be lost in the throngs.
With a loud sigh that caused others to turn and study him for a moment, Watson pushed the memory down deep into his subconscious, snuffing out the ache. He focused on the now, on the feel of the straps of his daypack beneath his fingers.
Before long, he was in the capsule, seated and secured, watching out the window as the lights of the continent receded below him, becoming a black mass with glittering lights strung along a dark coast.
6
Upon arrival on the space platform, Watson hurried through the crowds. The dense mix of humans and taller Centaus were a force to be reckoned with. He was swept into their midst and carried along. His senses were overcome with the smell of sweaty crowds and cooking food from the vendors lining the causeway. Far ahead of him, a halo of red curls caught his eye. He stopped and stood on his tiptoes to peer over the throng of bodies.
It was her. Sally Anders.
He found himself grinning. Briefly he considered shouting for her, but changed his mind. There was no way she’d hear him and he certainly wasn’t going to rush and fight through the crowds to catch up to her. He continued on beneath the garish lights, happy to know she’d made it this far.
He found his way to the level that gave him entrance to Fortune’s Zenith.
During the night, crews of tug ships had towed the colossal zeppelins out into orbit, where they were docked at the platform. As he passed the area that afforded a view of Fortune’s Zenith to board the ship, he noted that Cassandra the figurehead was still perched on the nose of the zeppelin.
Good.
He watched the umbilicals that connected to his ship topping off fuel and life support systems. Lost in thought, he became oblivious to his environment as the minutes passed in a blur. Exhaustion swept through his body. The years, the months, the sleepless nights, the thrill and the fears accumulated in this final moment.
And then . . . it was time.
Along with the rest of the crew, Watson boarded. As his foot left the gangway, he noted it. That was the last time he’d be on Earth. Or even on a thing of Earth. Would he miss her, the Earth? Would his new home be so much like her, that he’d think of it as Earth?
Strange.
He engaged in necessary pleasantries as he passed the many members of support crew, feeling their gazes on him as he rushed to his cabin, trying to put distance between himself and the thoughts that hounded him—this was an end.
A requirement of all beginnings, Watson, you fool.
His cabin was located near the bridge in a section of living quarters for officers. Inside, he threw his luggage down and collapsed onto the bed. Everything smelled new—the blankets, the pillow, the comforter beneath him. He laid there for a few minutes, knowing that his officers were managing the day-to-day details on the final stretch. His heart ached, but it also raced with excitement. Such a strange mix of emotions. He let out a long breath and nuzzled his cheek down into the pillow.
He started, on high alert. Something had woken him.
Which meant he’d fallen asleep.
How’d that happen?
Watson sat up and ran his hands over his face and through his hair. How long had he been asleep? He almost didn’t recognize where he was, then the past two days came rushing back.
He leapt from his bed, patting his hand
s across his uniform, searching for something and shaking the dust of sleep off.
“Captain?” A voice asked.
Watson tapped his ear. The touch activated the comm system that consisted of a microphone and speaker attached to a fold of cartilage in his ear.
“Yes, yes, here,” Watson said, clearing his throat and attempting to sound like he’d never been asleep.
“Requesting your presence on the bridge,” the voice said.
Watson recognized it as his First Officer, Brand.
“This is no time for naps,” Brand said. “You sound like you’ve just woken up.”
“On my way,” Watson said, bristling about Brand seeing through his act. But that was why Brand was second in command. The cheeky bastard wasn’t afraid of Watson—the man knew when to question and when to go along with his captain.
A quick glance in the mirror hanging over the sink in Watson’s private bathroom, then a splash of cold water across his face and he was ready. He’d meant to unpack, but that time was gone now. He hurried out of his quarters and made his way to the bridge, passing crew members along the way, nodding at them and greeting some of them by name.
On the bridge Brand nodded, giving Watson a half-smile. There was a thrill in the First Officer’s eyes, a look that Watson recognized as the anticipation at the beginning of a journey. Anything could happen, it said. Anything.
“Nice of you to join us.” Brand stood and gripped Watson’s forearm.
“You had it under control. Good work. How’s the boarding going?” Watson released Brand’s forearm and glanced around at his crew at their stations. Kañon Cortez, the Second Officer, sat at a console littered with glowing charts, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her gaze flicked to him and she nodded, then went back to studying the charts.
Dan Campana conferred with another subordinate who saluted then left, presumably to carry out whatever the 3rd Officer had told him.
Brand cleared his throat and crossed his arms behind his back. “Nearly done. All passengers are accounted for. The crew, of course, is entirely boarded. Most of the non-bridge officers are completing their last rounds.”
The Colossus Collection : A Space Opera Adventure (Books 1-7 + Bonus Material) Page 148
