by Shawn Jones
“No honey,” Kim replied, “Not since the Cull.”
“Any professional sports? I can’t believe I didn’t ask this sooner.”
“Seriously, Cort?” Dar laughed. “You have travelled three centuries across time, provided the material to reestablish an extinct species, led us to found an empire, made first contact, battled aliens, stopped an invasion, and helped unite Earth. Now you are mad at yourself for forgetting about the Super Bowl?”
Cort shrugged and asked Kim to pass him more bacon. “Keep laughing, boy. You’re the interim leader of that united Earth. All that crap you are worried about is your problem, not mine.”
“Fuck.” Dar said. I forgot that part.
--
Later that night, Cort was walking the wolves while Dar and Kim had their first opportunity to speak privately. They were arranging Dar’s things in his room when Kim sat down on his bed and asked, “Dar, you knew Cort before he went to Mars. What was he like?”
“Kimberly my dear, I knew him for a few seasons before he went to Mars, and our first encounter was less than pleasant. He belittled Clare, threatened me, and had it not been for the four wolf pups we brought with us, he might have gotten angry.” Dar had a sad smile when he turned to her from the closet he was hanging clothes in.
“So he is not much different then.”
“Oh, I did not say that. He is radically different then when I first met him. His only concern in those days was his wolf. He didn’t care about humanity or himself, but that wolf was everything to him. And had he not come here, it is quite possible that he would have gone to war with the entire human race. Now he would go to war for it.”
“Back on Mars, when the trouble with him and Clare first started, he said ‘Everyone wants a Marine when they need him, but not when they don’t.’ We need him now.” I always did. From the moment I was raped, I needed him.
Dar sat down on the bed with her. “Kimberly, tell me what happened between them. Why did it go so wrong? Why did Clare die?”
“You knew Clare better than I did, Dar. But we both know she loved him. At least she loved part of him. From what Rand and Kay have told me, and what I observed, she could overlook his ruthlessness when there was a clear threat. His love for the wolves, how he loved you and Kay, those were the things Clare loved about him. But Cort is always Cort. He cannot be anything other than ruthless when it comes to threats.”
Dar’s eyes were red. “He brought Kay back. I feel so little sadness for her death that I almost feel guilty about it. Had it not been for Cort and Sköll, she might still be alive, but she would be an empty shell. So I am glad. She lived again. She and Doctor Wills were wonderfully happy. Cort gave her that, even if it was too brief. So I cannot grieve the way I am supposed to. Anyway.”
“You are right. Kay was very happy when I knew her. But Clare became morose. Every time he killed, she become more dark. After the takeover attempt, she pulled away from all of us. Then when Speral showed up, I think she felt guilty for unleashing him on the galaxy. Gods, Dar! I thought she was going to kill Speral that day. Then Cort stood in front of her and would not move. He and I were already involved by then, I guess. I mean we were, but I had no idea if it was real or not. So, I say this because I want to be honest with you Dar, but if she had killed him, I would have killed her myself.” Kim went silent, waiting for Dar’s reaction.
“Then it was already real, for you anyway. I am glad it did not come to that, Kimberly.” Dar reached out and took her hand. Looking directly into her eyes, he said, “Remember what I said about Cort and Sköll saving Kay? You have saved Cort just the same way. Clare could never have done that. When they were sparring with those feelings, I knew it was bad, but that is the kind of thing people have to learn for themselves. You bring him peace. No, that is not right. He will never have the peace he seeks, but you ground him. Gods save the galaxy if anything ever happens to you, though.”
--
“Will it work, Bazal?” Cort asked as he walked the wolves.
I believe so. The Collaboration is out of options. Too many planets are under imminent threat of invasion. Many of the member species are apprehensive about the additional concessions you demanded. Others are apprehensive about what the rest of humanity can offer to the agreements that we had already made with you. Your people are scared. Both of us, and of each other. But your species is also curious. That curiosity will draw them in, and ultimately it will draw them together.
“Dar is concerned they will pull back when people die.”
I doubt that. It is not the nature of your species to back down from a fight. Cortland?
“Yes?”
I am the last of my species.
Cort stopped. Both wolves sensed a change in his attitude and watched him. “You are alone?”
Yes. Until you.
“What happened?”
What you would expect. We were too peaceful. We ceased to defend ourselves. We stopped developing weapons and simply avoided species that were immune to our influence. We did the same to the susceptible species we came in contact with. We led them to peaceful coexistence. It was fine for peoples of a like mind, a mind of progress and exploration. Warlike species, such as Speral’s, were both influenced and shown the benefits of the Collaboration. Over time, they became like us.
Our homeworld was then attacked by a species that was not susceptible to our influence. Several dozen of us were offworld at the time of the attack. Three shipped crews, to be precise, plus three of us who were at Government World. I was there. The shipped crews returned to our world, but were lost in the conflict.
“What of the other two?” Cort asked.
Mizur and Ofzoy were my final companions. In order to ensure the histories of the lost species were not forever lost, we separated. To the ends of the Collaborative expanse they went, while I remained with the Collaborative Government. Some hundred years ago, we ceased to hear Ofzoy. Mizur asked that I send a ship to investigate. Lap’s homeworld was near, so he asked one of his kinsmen to travel there. The crystal had invaded the system. We believe Ofzoy was in the depths of the world’s oceans and was overtaken before the crystal was even known to be in the system.
I stopped hearing Mizur this afternoon. He was able to tell me though. The system was invaded by another species. They are an unknown insectoid. Mizur was reminded of Lap’s kind, but the invaders were not readable.
“Another enemy.”
It would seem so.
“I am sorry for your loss, Bazal. It means that we must prepare for more than one enemy.”
Yes.
“You have to push the Collaborative to provide us with more assistance. We are stretching ourselves to fight one war, and now you have added another.”
What do you need?
Unknown System
“Sir, we have received a message from Kygk. The humans have all joined Addison. He enjoys the full support of the Collaboration.”
“He must be stopped. What of Bazal? He would never tolerate such aggression.”
“Our agents suggest they are close companions. Bazal has been less visible on Solitude since the other humans arrived. However, he and Addison are seen together frequently. They seem to enjoy each other’s counsel.”
“That is not characteristic of Bazal. Instruct the operative to determine the nature of their counsel.”
“As you wish.”
Solitude
“When do you leave?” Kim asked Cort that evening in their bedroom. The wolves were on the floor at the foot of the bed dozing.
“JJ already had the Phobos shipyard working on a smaller weapon platform. It was intended as a system defense ship. We are going to deploy them here, at Ares, and at Speral’s homeworld. I’m commandeering the first one after its trials. It has a lot of our point-defense weapons and a much smaller Gauss cannon. It has jump tech and a sublight drive. The drive is a little scary though because of time dilation. I don’t really follow all of the science, but I wanted the ships
to be able to travel quickly in system. That meant using Brbk’s tech. For a bunch of ten foot centipedes, her people are pretty smart.”
“Oh my gods! Brbk! Has she crawled on you yet?”
“Yeah, and I was wearing a simple tunic. When she got to my crotch . . .” Cort smiled. “Well, let’s just say having a dozen tiny feet on my manhood had an effect.”
“NO WAY! You got a, what do you call it? A boner? You got a boner from her crawling up your body? Oh baby! You are so bad!”
“I promise I was thinking of you.”
Five
Solitude Orbit
Cort stepped out of the shuttle and onto the deck of the Taurus’s midship cargo hold as the trials crew came to attention and saluted. Captain Jones was with him, and after returning salutes said, “General, I think you are going to like her. She is not as big as the system ship I had intended to give you, but based on your plans, I think the Taurus will be much better suited to your needs. I will have the trials crew replaced immediately and you should be able to ship out within the day.”
“JJ, you know that’s not how I operate. These people know the ship. They made her ready for me. It’s up to them if they stay on board or not. They know the risks, but I would much rather have a crew that knows the ship.”
“Of course,” JJ responded. Cort had suggested the show for the crew’s benefit. He wanted them to know that he had complete faith in them. In his own time, the crew would have seen through the ruse with ease, but the modern human military had no experience in the nuances of military command and leadership.
Turning to the ship’s captain, Cort said, “Captain, I want to investigate and possibly invade an alien world. Why is your ship ideal for my purposes?”
Keith Book had been with the Taurus since her keel had been laid down in the great framework of slips orbiting Phobos. At the time he thought that he would be turning the small ship over to its assigned captain and move on to the next build. Formerly he had been an engineer at one of the Addison Trust’s flight manufacturing facilities. His previous experience in hand, he wanted to make sure the new crew was aware of every nuance of the Taurus. That planning made him fully prepared to answer General Addison’s question.
“She is black, sir. As black as interstellar space. We cannot even theorize a method to detect her. And I do not mean the Ares Federation, sir. I mean the entire Collaborative cannot theorize a method to detect her. When the Taurus runs silent, not even the centipods can find this tub.”
“Why not?” Cort asked.
“We utilize a dual drive method first theorized by Erik Jonah in the early 22nd century. It is a Hawking rocket and an Alcubierre drive in the same housing. To save time and space, we designed the inner surface of the housing as the parabolic reflector for the Hawking drive. A twenty-first century physicist named White suggested altering the shape of the warp field to minimize an anomaly known as particle blueshift explosions. Obviously we cannot turn off a quantum anomaly, so when the. . .” Book stopped when Cort held up his hand.
“Captain, I’m not a physicist. Dumb it down for me.”
“Uh, yes sir. We have three drive systems. The transdimensional drive you are familiar with. The other two drives are housed inside an ellipsoid. The Alcubierre drive is a warp drive. It bends time and space around the ship for faster-than-light travel. In the front of the Alcubierre Drive is the Hawking drive. It is a perfectly massed micro-black hole that emits Hawking radiation, which the ends of the ellipsoid reflect to propel the ship at sublight speeds, as well as brake it. This combination is the Jonah Drive Construct.”
“I follow you so far. Go on, Captain.”
“What I said about saving time and space. We made the housing for the FTL drive the exact shape and size that is required for the black hole to operate. By adding or subtracting mass, we can control our sublight speed.”
“Okay, Captain. Tell me why it’s invisible though," Cort said.
“Oh, yes sir. Combined with the dark energy from the Alcubierre drive, the mass of the ship is well, neutrally buoyant, gravitationally speaking. When the black hole is perfectly balanced, it has no effect on the spacetime around it. It is even invisible on the other side of c. Tachyon nets cannot detect it either. We nullify the mass of the rest of the ship by altering the mass of the Hawking Drive anomaly or the dark energy from the Alcubierre drive, depending on our drive mode.”
“So the combined mass of the drive system is inverse to the mass of the ship,” Cort said.
“That’s really dumbing it down, but yes sir.” Book realized what he had said and blushed.
Cort decided to let the unintended jibe slide and moved on, saying, “You know Captain, back in my time I met Stephen Hawking. He was a smart-ass, but funny as hell.”
JJ turned to the General. “You met Stephen Hawking sir? How?”
“He was giving a lecture at Caltech and some bad people decided to kidnap him. My team resolved the situation.”
“Wow,” Book said.
“Why does her hull look like a Brillo pad?”
“A brillo pad, General?”
“The spongy surface of the ship.”
Book understood and said, “Ah. That is the ablative nanotube mesh. It absorbs energy and converts it for ship use. We got the idea from your HAWC suit. Not even photons can escape it.”
“One last question, Captain. You are clearly a scientist. As a rule, scientists aren’t willing to take life without thought. There will be times that you won’t be able to think about it when I give you an order. Can you follow me blindly?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you order the death of a planet? Can you kill other intelligent beings without a second thought?”
“Wow,” Book said before turning directly to Addison. “General, I do not know the answer to that question. Theoretically, yes. But I do not believe that is good enough for your purpose. I suppose I should stick to building the ships.”
“Does that mean you want to turn down the commission, Captain?” Jones asked.
“No sir. I do not want to. But I have to. I suppose we should bring that other crew on.”
“What about the rest of your people?” Jones asked.
Book was taken aback and said, “I’m sorry, we are all nerds, sirs. That being the case, you should probably stick to combat ready staff.”
“Keith,” Captain Jones said, “Do not ever apologize for being a nerd. Without nerds, men and women like the General’s fighters would be naked and hitting our enemies with sticks and rocks. And no matter how tough he is, General Addison cannot win with sticks and rocks. You give those of us on the front line a chance to win. Never forget that.”
“Thank you Captain Jones. General, if you will follow me, I will take you to your quarters. Captain Jones, the shuttle will return you to the Remington whenever you are ready.”
Cort said, “Wait, Captain. I want you to stay on board for the next couple of weeks. I will bring my own crew on, but I want you and your people to train them. You know my ship better than anyone else, and I want them to as well.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you. Now if you will follow me.”
--
“It’s good he knew his limits, JJ. And that he was willing to admit them makes him invaluable to us. I talked to him a bit as he showed me around the ship. He has no qualms about the war, he just knows he might not be the man to pull the trigger.”
“Agreed, General. But it brings to light another problem. We just don’t have the trained staff to man all the ships we have coming out of Phobos. Any suggestions?”
“Shadows. Put the trainees with active crews. Every person on every ship has a tagalong. Once you have every ship double staffed, split them and do it again. Pull the really good trainers aside and start a war college. I brought thousands of files from my time that teach strategy and tactics. Because we are in a three dimensional environment, pay special attention to the submarine training. That’s the closest analogy we have to the war we are in now
. Fill the college with simulators and train your crews. I’ve got Mike Rage doing something similar with ground troops.”
“I am going to lose my ship, aren’t I?”
Cort decided not to tease her about her use of contractions. Like Rand, she was also adapting his speech patterns.She was too somber. “Not yet, Jade. Right now we don’t have a training platform. Until we do, you might as well use your ship. Continue your current mission, but find your replacement. I don’t even mind you staying in fleet, but you are the head of my navy. Right now that is a handful of ships that can work together, but I’ve got fifteen thousand people headed our way to man your ships. And that’s just the first wave. So once the last of the three Remington class ships is built, you become an admiral.”
