The Collective

by David McCahan

  The battle in front of them didn’t last long with the Columbia’s attack squadrons supplementing the partial destroyer squadron.

  “Colonel Callaghan, let’s bring our birds back to the roost. Damage reports?” the General requested.

  “Yes Sir. Reports coming in. Blue squadron lost drive on one ship with two wounded. Earth is dispatching a tender for her. Red squadron took a direct missile hit on one ship and lost the ship with all hands. A tender is on its way to check for survivors but none are expected. Our alpha squadron suffered minor damage to two shuttles, minor injuries but shuttles docking under their own power. We’ll be short those two shuttles for at least 24 hours.” Glory reported.

  “Thank You Colonel. Send my thanks and condolences to Colonel Montgomery. When she’s ready we’ll get back to speed and heading. I hate to just leave like this but the longer it takes us to clear the system the greater the risk of another crazy attack.”

  “Yes Sir. Redeployment almost complete. We’ll be able to resume speed and heading in just over two minutes. Looking ahead there is no way to eliminate all possible hiding places. There are some rocks and snowballs out there on all vectors but at this point if they are out there Gravity Sensors can’t spot them. They would already have to be in place if there are any more threats ahead of us.” Glory reported.

  “Good. I’m sure you’ll keep alert as we go. Nav, I think we should add an extra course change with the current situation. Plot a course to have the least amount of asteroids and comets near us, even if it takes a few extra hours, and then engage at 0.5 C when the screen is ready.” Jeff ordered.

  “Yes Sir. New course plotted and verified. Colonel Montgomery just signaled ready. Sending new course to the screen and engaging at 0.5 C.” Eva acknowledged.

  “Hopefully we don’t have to spill any more blood to make our escape from Sol system.” Jeff commented to himself.

  The next 40 hours were exhausting to the crews. Once free of the area around Earth orbit there were very few places for any attack ships to hide. The senselessness of these attacks and the waste of life and ships were just astonishing. There were a total of another 10 ships attempting suicide runs on the Columbia. Since they could only be accomplished with one or two ships at a time, and at long distance because of the course deliberately chosen to stay away from any asteroids or comets, the screen easily picked them off. Out here it was one hail and then take them out.

  They neared the Heliopause, the boundary region where our sun’s solar winds slow to zero and there is an interaction with interstellar debris. This causes a build-up of hydrogen, as well as what could best be described as ‘space dust’, and the turbulence creates ‘bubbles’ in this soup. All in all, the accumulation of matter and the turbulence creates moving matter of varying density. This is the last area that any hostiles could be lurking and would have a chance of evading detection.

  CentCom had decided to leave the third squadron at the original system egress point to serve as a decoy. Jeff had discussed with his staff, and Colonel Montgomery, the possibility of changing course to exit right under them. They should be able to spot anything out there. However, if the course had been leaked the empire may well have stationed ships or mines in the Heliopause before the screen arrived. It was decided to continue on and exit as far away from predictable as they could.

  As they approached the border area and space began to thicken with matter, the fleet slowed slightly and Colonel Montgomery accelerated with 1/3 of the screen to scout the Heliopause. Additionally, crews were ordered to their shuttles to be able to launch at a moment’s notice.

  “You know they have to have one more trick left out here for us. Get past this and we’ll have escaped their traps.” Jeff said quietly to Glory while she stood beside him with rapt attention on the plot and on the sensor systems in her mind’s eye.

  “I know we had better expect it but where did they come up with all those ships and sneak them out here? They can’t have any craft left after this ridiculous waste!” Glory spoke quietly but with a little more venom than she meant. Columbia was several million miles off of any anticipated course. Totally at Eva’s discretion. There is no way they could have deployed any assets out here.

  “Damn!” Glory spoke just as the battle station alarms rang out. “General, the flagship just took a mine at almost point blank range!” She was scouring the sensors now intensely looking for any other matching signatures. Now that they had one in the logs they knew what to look for. “Gotcha!” she exclaimed. “General, three more mines in our vicinity. I won’t call them quite cloaked but they’ve masked them pretty well. Sending targeting coordinates to the screen now!”

  “Excellent Colonel” Jeff replied. The plot now changed with three red icons marking the mines and three of the escorts changed vectors to eliminate them while two other ships moved in to assist Colonel Montgomery’s flagship.

  “Any damage reports yet on the Raptor, Colonel?” Jeff queried Glory.

  “It’s pretty chaotic over there. Rescue is underway but damage is severe. The Colonel survived and is transferring her flag to the Everson. She instructs us to continue through. She’s onboard and moving to point again. One of the rear guard ships will continue with the rescue.”

  “Acknowledge receipt. Let’s get on through then.” The General commented.

  The three mines were dispatched quickly and the fleet was able to pass through the Heliopause without additional incident. They traveled on for another hour to be well clear of any threats before stopping to complete final checks for FTL travel.

  General Fitsimmons looked at the main viewer and the image of Colonel Helen Montgomery. Air cast on a broken arm and synthflesh bandages over burns on her face.

  “General, we’ve seen you out of system and they threw everything they had at us but we made it.” The Colonel spoke to Jeff.

  “Thank you Colonel, and my thanks and eternal admiration to your crews. We christened the Columbia today with too much blood but if not for their skill and bravery it should have been much worse. I wish I could take the time to assist in the rescue efforts but before we attract anymore bogies that you have to fight off I think we had better be underway.” Jeff replied.

  “Thank you General. It’s been an honor to see you through. We’ll finish up here quickly. We are bringing out the last of the injured crew as we speak and then we’ll scuttle the Raptor and head back in-system ASAP. I’m hoping we run into a straggler or two on the way so we can exact a bit of revenge. God speed to you all. Montgomery out.”

  “Thank you Colonel.” The General replied. “Nav, move us away from the fleet at 0.75 C. Engineering ready Gravity Focus at Navigation’s command.”

  “Acknowledged” came the reply from both Navigation and the Engineering Chief.

  “Colonel?” Jeff asked Glory which she knew to be her cue for final status check. She queried the systems and all were green and good to go.

  “All systems report ready Sir.” Glory reported.

  “Nav you’re clear to engage Gravity Focus at 2.0 C”.

  The cheers were almost deafening as the order they’d been waiting years for was given.

  Index

  Chapter 4 – Nightmares

  Gravity Focus locked onto the star system Tau Ceti and pulled Columbia to two times the speed of light in a matter of seconds. That acceleration rate would have made mush of the crew in an Ion powered ship but with the gravity bubble that Columbia produced the crew didn’t feel the acceleration at all. They were effectively isolated from real space gravity.

  Their ultimate destination is Epsilon Eridani but again, in order to avoid any potential traps, a shift in course for the burn-in test of the drives is in order. The burn duration is 48 hours to allow Engineering to monitor the operation over a long duration stress and then certify the systems for ‘top’ speed. They will be approved for 10 C after this test is completed but since this is the first ship using this technology, the physics are still in debate as to what the t
rue top speed of Columbia is. For this mission they are capped at 10 times the speed of light.

  None of this mattered to the crew. Everyone was just glad to be underway and free of anymore threats. It was a shame that they didn’t have the opportunity for a proper shake down and space trials but all the simulations and static tests were well within all safety limits. So if all went well on this first leg, the space trials would be considered complete and passed.

  The Command Staff was seated in the Commander Conference Room as General Fitsimmons and Colonel Callaghan entered the room and took their seats.

  “As you were.” The General commented as a signal for the staff to retake their seats from standing at attention as he entered. “It’s nice to be underway. We just got off a conference call with General Emerson at CentCom and before I could suggest it he assured me that Colonel Montgomery and her crews would be receiving highest honors for their service the last couple of days. I know I’ll never be able to repay their sacrifices in this action.” Murmurs of agreement reverberated around the conference room table.

  “By the way Javier the GravComm worked terrific. Considering we’re several light days out there was very little delay and video was very clear. I know you had a major hand in that design. Nice work!” Jeff addressed the Chief of Engineering Colonel Javier Rodrigues.

  “Thank you General. The real test will be once we are a light year out though. Once we pass beyond that there will be delay starting to add up. Real time video will be out of the question as we near Eden but data and video messages should function well. As we’ve never been out here before only time will tell. It would be nice to be able to phone home though.” Javier replied with a slight smirk on his face and a little laughter around the table.

  “Although I have an Ex that it wouldn’t bother me if she couldn’t call if things didn’t work.” Jeff said with a dead pan delivery doing a good job suppressing his own laughter. “Ok with 10 hours into our burn test let’s have a run down on the status of the drives.”

  Javier pulled up the system status dashboards on the main screen. “So far I couldn’t be happier with the drive performance. All indicators are nearly perfect. Just really exceed my wildest hopes. Fusion plants well within ideal range and Gravity Drives well within design specs. I wish we could just declare success and turn ‘em loose but 10 hours does not a full burn test make, but at this point we’re good to go.”

  “Medical, status of our wounded?” Jeff asked towards Dr. Rhonda Evans, Chief Medical Officer.

  “Yes Sir, we had four wounded in the first attack but no serious injuries. Some second and third degree burns, two broken arms and a broken leg. Synthflesh treatments have almost completely healed the burns and I’ll need another week to finish healing the fractures. I’ll return two of them to full duty tomorrow and keep the fracture patients off duty for probably 10 days. As far as the rest of the crew we’ve had one appendicitis and evidently the marines felt left out of the actions and we had a bit of a fight break out with three suffering some cuts and bruises. Other than that medical is clear.”

  “Oh brother. Captain Gerard I hope you are taking care of this?” Jeff asked the Marine Commander, Captain Adam Gerard.

  “Yes Sir, evidently there was a disagreement over a woman that escalated past a shove to fist. Since they have a little too much energy they’ll spend some extra time running the track. Maybe after a couple of marathons they’ll be too tired to create trouble.”

  “Well I think you have matters in hand so we’ll just move on to Space Ops. Glory status?”

  “Yes Sir. The two shuttles damaged in the first attack have been repaired and we now have all birds at operational status. We’re maintaining a full flight of 12 on ready alert at all times until we’re well clear of Sol system and any possible threats.”

  “Good to hear. I figure once we’re half a light year out we can cut that back to a half flight.” Jeff said and then addressed the rest of the staff “I think we can dispense with the rest of the status reports. Message them to Colonel Callaghan after the meeting with updates every 12 hours. We have 38 hours left in the burn test so let’s meet back here two hours after burn test completion for review of the results before we proceed to Eden. If nobody has anything else you’re dismissed.”

  “Jeff, the results of the burn-in are fantastic news. I’m happy to approve full operational speed on course for Epsilon Eridani.”

  “Thank you General Emerson.” Jeff replied to the view screen to CentCom Commanding General Bradley Emerson. “The only issue we’re noticing is a difficulty in keeping the ship time synchronized with Earth time. It appears that once again Einstein was correct in his theory of relativity and our day appears to be 53 seconds longer than an Earth day. It’ll be interesting to see how 10 C changes that.”

  There was a couple seconds delay and then General Emerson began to laugh. “Well if the clock starts running backwards then we’ll really have something. I’m sure you’re eager to get back to FTL so we’ll wrap this up. Let’s convene again at 0800 tomorrow, EARTH time, so figure out how to keep the clocks synced and we’ll talk to you then. Emerson out.”

  “Will do General, Fitsimmons out.” Jeff replied. “Ok people you heard the man, Engineering full speed ahead at Navigations command, and see if you can fix the clocks please.”

  “I’ll figure something out Sir. Can’t have you late for the video conference with CentCom.” Colonel Rodrigues quipped.

  “You’d better because shit-flows-down-hill you know.” Jeff laughed.

  The next few months the ship’s crew fell into routine nearing boredom. Luckily the ship had plenty of space and in addition to hydroponics there were actually three park sized green spaces with grass bordered by bushes and small trees. This was for more than just aesthetics as the plants helped supplement the carbon dioxide scrubbers, provide a fresher smelling atmosphere and also initial filtration of waste water. For the crew this meant space to enjoy the outdoors and even sports. The lawns were each 500 yards by 400 yards so most any activity the crew could think of there was adequate space.

  Today Glory had booked a section of Edison Park to introduce a few of the command staff to another of her ‘ancient’ sporting activities. Today was ‘Frisbee’ day. Actually the replica that ship stores made worked quite well. Jeff, Glory, Eva, Javier, Adam and Rhonda were tossing the Frisbee back and forth and they were picking it up quite well. During a break in the fun Glory and Rhonda were sitting together.

  As Glory lay back on the grass she stretched and let out a long yawn.

  “Oh my excuse me. I haven’t been sleeping very well lately. Just been having the weirdest dreams. Scary, but not quite nightmares.”

  “Glory, you know we’ve a real run on patients suffering from insomnia and describing the cause as nightmares.” Rhonda said, “Can you describe your scary dreams?”

  “There are not any real images in the dream that I can think of. In fact, what I see and feel is just darkness, suffocating darkness, now that I think about it. I just feel lost and scared. I feel tired like I just ran a mile.” Glory said.

  “Well that pretty well describes a dozen patients I’ve seen in the last couple days and the pace seems to be picking up. I’ve been prescribing a sleep aid but the commonality is making me concerned. Do you want something to help you sleep better?”

  “No thanks Rhonda, I always feel a little weird the next day after taking those. I’ll deal with it for now. Maybe it’s just a matter of getting used to the ship vibrations, but keep me posted on the crew situation. If the crew continues to have problems, then maybe we need to bring in Life Sciences and Engineering to see if it might be a harmonic vibration or a component in the water or air that is the root cause.”

  “I’ll keep you posted Glory” Rhonda said. “Whoa! Look out.” Just then a Frisbee hit Glory on the back of the head.

  “Ouch, Hey General I saw that. You did that on purpose.” Glory yelled playfully at her commanding officer and friend. “Paybac
ks are a bitch.” She said laughing as she tossed the Frisbee back and rejoined the rest of the group.

  The darkness was closing in on her, pressing in and squeezing the life out of her. She didn’t know where she was, just darkness everywhere. No sound, just cold heavy darkness. Glory awoke with a start, again. She was exhausted and her clothes and sheets were drenched with sweat. She gulped air trying to catch her breath.

  “Ohhhhhh, come ON! Not again. What’s wrong with me?” Glory asked herself. She hated to admit it but maybe she should try the doctors prescribed sleep aid. How she hated the thought of popping pills, but this was getting too bad. She was exhausted and it was beginning to affect her work. “Ok doc, let’s see if your voodoo will help.” She took the meds and then crawled back in bed. She tossed and turned but eventually fell back into a dreamless sleep for the next few hours until the alarm went off.

  “Arrggh, ooohh what a headache. I think I had better see if doc has anything else to try after breakfast.” Glory mumbled to herself as she got out of bed and headed for the shower to start another day.

  A few weeks later at the Commanders Briefing Rhonda was reporting on the status of the crew:

  “It’s the most baffling thing I’ve ever seen. Over half the crew is having the same nightmares, over and over. We can’t find any environmental nor biological reason that’s causing it. You’d hope it was something simple as when humans first went to space and there was so much problem coping with microgravity and motion sickness. We’ve tried higher gravity and lower gravity, higher oxygen level and lower oxygen and anything else that anybody could think to try. I’m prescribing a sleep aid that primarily prevents the patient from dreaming. This is somewhat better but they are still tired and feel a little hung over. I’m at a total loss. I’m sorry General.”