He felt himself being lifted again, then put down. A familiar smell, pinpricks on his arm. Cryo? They’re putting me in—
*
Coming out of cryo was, as it turned out, still worse than being tasered. Or maybe being put in cryo after being tasered was some perfect storm of discomfort. Henson lay still, trying to decide if death was preferable.
His internal monologue was interrupted by Commander Rougeau’s voice. “You aren’t even trying anymore.”
Opening one eye to make focusing easier, Henson tried to smile. “I concede, Commander. You are the king, er, queen of cryo. Now, help me up?”
Rougeau grinned and reached down. Henson opened his other eye, attempted to focus on the hand, then gave up and let her handle the link-up.
Henson grunted with effort as he stepped out of the casket. “What happened after I was put in cryo?”
Rougeau shrugged. “We took a significant loss with your group being captured. There was simply no way to recover that I could see. I had a long talk with Jacobs after that. He showed me his plans and gave us some guarantees, and I decided to trust him, not that we had a lot of options. He put us all in cryo. Said it would be easier than guarding us, and anyway he knew we had family back home.”
“They didn’t disassemble the ship?”
“They didn’t need to, sir, once we surrendered. With unrestricted access to the ship, fab system, and shuttles, they went with their Plan A.”
“And?” he said, as he started for the galley.
“The project is far enough along that they no longer need the ship, sir. Jacobs gave orders to wake the crew, and we’ll be able to leave as soon as we’re all up to speed.”
“How long?”
Rougeau didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Twelve years, five months. The UEF won’t send anyone to investigate, of course. They don’t have the resources. But by the time we get back, they’ll have declared the Ouroboros lost and rescheduled colony groups.”
“That’s gonna suck for a lot of people.”
“Well, yes, until we show up.”
Henson sighed. “There will be an inquiry, of course. I might lose my command.”
“They’ll lose more than you, then. I’ll tell them to stick their job where the sun doesn’t shine. I know several crew who’ve expressed similar sentiments.”
“Thanks, Kat. I hope you don’t have to make that choice.” Henson shook himself and put his captain persona back on. “Have you inspected the colonists’ work?”
Rougeau made a face. “I’m beginning to wonder if we put the wrong people in charge back at Sol. The Valhalla colonists are probably the most concentrated group of nerds, geniuses, and engineers that humanity has ever seen, and they’ve just finished a twelve-year stint with no bureaucratic oversight, no budget limitations, effectively infinite resources from asteroid mining to work with, and free rein to do whatever they want.”
“And?”
“You’ll have to see for yourself.”
*
Henson was back in the captain’s chair, surrounded by his bridge crew. He couldn’t help contrasting today with the last time he’d been in this position. The monitor was showing a split screen, an O’Neill cylinder displayed on one side and a half-finished Bishop ring on the other.
“That thing is how big?”
Kumano turned to him. “The ring? Ten kilometers wide, two hundred kilometers in diameter. When it’s done, it’ll have over six thousand square kilometers of usable space, and a full one-gee equivalent at the rim. Meanwhile, it’s a little crowded in the cylinder, but they wanted to have a habitat finished as quickly as possible so they could wake everyone up and have their specialists available.”
Kumano worked his console and the view changed. “They’ve built a huge mirror at Valhalla’s L2 point, which has increased solar heating by about thirty percent overall, since it’s delivering sunlight twenty-four-seven. Er, well, twenty-nine and twelve minutes on Valhalla, I guess.”
Hertzog threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I wonder if there needs to be a re-think of the way colonies are planned and supplied. Our dump-and-run policy might get more raw numbers out there, but probably reduces long-term odds of survival.”
Henson gazed at Hertzog for a moment in silence, then sighed. “Not our decision, Mr. Hertzog. We’ll bring it up, of course. Assuming it doesn’t come out in the interrogation.” He turned to the Communications Officer. “Ms. Chen, please connect me with Mr. Jacobs.”
It took only a moment—no doubt Jacobs had been expecting the call. His face popped up on the overhead monitor, looking visibly older than the last time Henson had seen him. That was yesterday for Henson, but twelve years ago for Jacobs.
“Ah, Captain Henson. Getting ready to return to Earth?”
“Yes, sir. You look like you’re in fine shape. And thank you for—well…” For not disposing of us.
Jacobs made a moue of disapproval, as if he’d read the thought. “We’re not barbarians, Captain. We only needed time to bootstrap. We gain little by keeping the ship at this point, and the karmic hit would taint us for generations. I’d rather begin this adventure on a proud note. Also…”
Henson raised an eyebrow, content to let Jacobs continue at his own pace.
“Captain, I know we’re technically space pirates from a legal point of view. But if the UEF can get past that minor issue—well, this will be the first time that a ship returns with information on a confirmed successful colony. If they want to send more ships this way, we’ll have room for them. And jobs.”
The captain stared, speechless. It was a virtual certainty that the UEF would jump at the chance, and with good reason. This would be better odds than some random planet only known by examination from light years away.
Henson nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. I’ll convey that to them. I think they’ll make the right choice. Goodbye, and good luck.”
“And you, Captain. And the people of Earth.”
Henson nodded to Chen, who ended the connection. He looked around the bridge, then again at the monitor, which had switched to the view of the planet, still shrouded in ice. But not for long.
Humanity would survive. Even if all the other colonies failed, this one would carry the human race. Despite the way it had all gone down, Henson felt a moment of pride at the thought.
Maybe he could get his family’s colony redirected here. It seemed a better bet than rolling the dice on an unknown destination.
Henson turned back to his staff. “Helm, take her out. Let’s go home.”
Dennis E Taylor Biography
Dennis E. Taylor is an avid SF reader, computer programmer, snowboarder, and runner. He lives in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. After far too many years as a wage slave, he has retired and taken up writing full-time and sleeping in.
Author Page | Website
Explorations: Through the Wormhole
Explorations: First Contact
Explorations: War
Sign up for the SciFiExplorations Newsletter HERE
You’ll be the first to know when the new Explorations collections are out, as well as awesome deals from your favorite indie SF authors.
As a thank you, you’ll get Explorations: Through the Wormhole for free!
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Also By Woodbridge Press
Newsletter
Melt (Felix R. Savage)
Knowledge at Any Cost (Jasper T. Scott)
The Unsung Heroes of Sublevel 12 (Amy DuBoff)
The Failsafe (Ian Whates)
Fleeing the Fire (Ralph Kern)
The Colony of Imago (Scott Bartlett)
Spiderfall (Scott Moon)
Colony: Earth (Robert M. Campbell)
Howl (Scarlett R. Algee)
A Time and a Space (Nathan Hystad)
The Light of Distant Earth (Tim C. Taylor)
A Change of Plans (Dennis
E. Taylor)
Explorations Series
Explorations: Colony (Explorations Volume Four) Page 30
