Stories of the Confederated Star Systems

by Jones, Loren K.

“Aye, sir.”

  The welcoming committee didn’t wait for them to dock. The Assault Ship Carrier CSS Guadalcanal hailed them shortly after their transmission was received. “CSS H.G. Wells, heave to and prepare to receive a boarding party. Prepare Captain Reordan and Executive Officer Frazier for transfer.”

  “Wells, aye,” Commander Frazier answered. The small ship came to relative rest as the enormous carrier came along side. Captain Reordan and Commander Frazier surrendered to the Master at Arms force from the Guadalcanal.

  Admiral Chandling boarded the Wells and took command, immediately making a ship wide announcement to the crew. “This is Admiral Alexander Chandling, ComSpaceFleet5. Effective immediately, the crew of this vessel is under quarantine. Your unauthorized passengers will be transferred to Temporal Directorate Headquarters to await disposition. Captain Reordan and Commander Frazier are under arrest on charges of violating Temporal Directorate Rule One. That is all.” The click of the intercom shocked the crew of the Wells silent.

  Confederated Star Systems Space Force Headquarters, thirty days later.

  “Captain Erica Reordan, you stand accused of violating Temporal Directorate Rule One, interacting with the past and bringing fourteen unauthorized passengers forward from the year 1945 CE. How do you plead?”

  Captain Reordan stood and straightened her dress blouse before speaking. “Your Lordships, I plead guilty, and ask that the charges against Commander Frazier be dropped. Mine alone was the responsibility.”

  Admiral Kenyon nodded. “We accept your plea, but Commander Frazier’s own logs place the blame firmly on his shoulders. We cannot accept that you alone took these steps.”

  Captain Reordan nodded, casting her eyes on the floor. She had hoped to spare Kellin, but had known that it was a vain hope. He had convicted himself in an effort to save her. “I understand, Your Lordship.”

  There was a stir at the back of the courtroom as a late visitor arrived. Lord Kenyon, as First Space Lord and senior justice of the Military Court, banged his gavel for order. “Order! I ordered those doors sealed!”

  “Oh, posh, Devero. You will not exclude me.” Lady Roberts said in a gravelly voice. “I was late. It’s my prerogative.”

  Lord Kenyon nodded and folded his hands as Lady Roberts made her way forward. “How may we be of service, Lady Leslie?”

  “You may dismiss this court. You are out of order, and out of your jurisdiction.” Lady Leslie said softly. “The Wells and her crew are the responsibility of the Temporal Directorate.”

  “Lady Leslie, we understand your desire to…” Admiral Chandling began, but was cut short.

  “Oh, be quiet, Alexander!” Lady Leslie snapped in a tone that she usually reserved for recalcitrant children. “You are dismissed.”

  Admiral Chandling rocked back as if he had been slapped, then stood and bowed before departing. Lady Leslie glared at the other six admirals. “This court is dismissed. Captain Reordan and her crew were and are my responsibility.”

  “Lady Leslie, this is most irregular. The Wells is a unit of the Confederated Star Systems Space Navy. Captain Reordan’s actions were totally…”

  “…Expected.” Lady Leslie interrupted, causing a stir throughout the courtroom. “I expected Erica to do exactly what she did. My reasons are my own, as the decision to send them was mine.”

  Admiral Kenyon leaned forward. “Lady Leslie, you expected Captain Reordan to violate the most basic rule of time travel?”

  “Of course I did. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have sent her.”

  Admiral Kenyon put his head in his hands. “Lady Leslie, please explain. This is just too much for me.”

  The old woman gave him a frighteningly impish grin, then walked forward and took the witness stand, waving away the protestations that she shouldn’t. Looking about, she focused her eyes on the men in the guarded seats to the side.

  “When word that Flight 19 had been found reached me, I did a little research. Upon finding the information that I wanted, I ordered the CSS H.G. Wells, under the command of Captain Erica Reordan, to investigate the disappearance of the planes. I was aware of Captain Reordan’s habit of stretching her orders, and of the emotional state of her crew, especially Commander Frazier. I expected them to realize that rescuing men presumed dead for six hundred years would not cause any disturbance to the time stream. I fully expected them to rescue those men, and would have been disappointed if they hadn’t.”

  “Lady Leslie, why?” another of the admirals asked.

  “Because a little girl lost her father long ago, and I had the opportunity to find him.” Smiling, she walked over to where Captain Powers sat and said, “Hello, Grandpa.”

  “Rescue Mission” © 2008

  Minerva was written for and submitted to a ghost story anthology. Didn’t make it, but I did get an encouraging letter from the editor.

  Minerva

  Minerva beckoned, her siren song of promise drawing Alberto deeper into her lair. He chased her, following the trail she left through the maze of trees and mist that was her home. He could see her ahead, a figure in the mist that he could never catch, but was eternally fated to try.

  *

  The sound of the phone ringing woke Alberto, jarring him out of his dream and back to the reality of his life. He cursed, fumbled, and finally got the phone off the hook and to his ear.

  “Hello, you have reached a dead man. Please don’t bother leaving a message. Bleep!” he said, slurring his words slightly but not caring at all.

  A voice snapped, “Berto, get your ass out of bed. It’s nearly ten.” The voice belonged to Alberto’s best friend, Nathan.

  “Up yours,” Alberto mumbled. “What do I have to get out of bed for? I can be a disgrace from here quite effectively.”

  “Berto, you can’t just become a hermit in your room. There are people who are counting on you. You’ve got to come out and face the world.”

  Alberto rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Face my failure, you mean. Face the fact that twenty-seven men and women died because I saw a ghost. Face the fact that I’ll never command a ship again, and probably never leave this Godforsaken mudball again, either.”

  “The Board of Inquiry cleared you of those charges, Berto,” Nathan reminded him. “The gas leak in the vent ducts caused you to hallucinate.”

  “I haven’t cleared myself, Nate. Oh, sure, there was gas. But there isn’t any gas now, and I dream of Minerva every time I close my eyes.” Alberto rolled back onto his stomach and propped himself up on his elbows. “I know she’s there, waiting for me.”

  “Okay, maybe there is something to this hiding in your room stuff. You tell anyone else that story and you’ll be making pretty pictures for the PsychTechs.”

  “I’m crazy, not stupid,” Alberto said with a laugh. “You’re the only person I’ve told, and everyone knows you’re crazier than I am. No one would believe you if you told them.”

  “Maybe so. Now get your ass out of bed and meet me at my office for lunch. I have someone I want you to meet.”

  “All right, Nate. See you at noon.” Alberto hung up the phone and collapsed onto his back again. His eyes drifted closed, but his first snore startled him awake and he sat up, scrubbing his face with sweat-slicked hands.

  He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to go out. He especially didn’t want to face the reporters who wanted to know what really happened out in the asteroid belt. But most of all, he didn’t want to look in the mirror and face himself: Alberto Coronado Rivera De La Cruz, former captain of the space ship Guadalajara, which he had brought back without his crew.

  He went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth. The man who looked out of the mirror with bloodshot eyes and wildly straggling hair was a stranger. Deep crescents of darkened skin hung under both of his eyes. He looked at the stranger and snarled, and the stranger snarled back.

  “If you start talking to me, I’m calling the boys with the I-love-me jackets myself,” he told the apparition. T
he other’s lips moved with his, but he didn’t say anything after Alberto finished talking.

  Alberto moved on to the shower. Real water, as much and as hot as he wanted it. The Guadalajara didn’t have showers. If it had, he’d have taken Minerva-he broke that train of thought immediately. She wasn’t real. He knew she wasn’t.

  He was rubbing his hair with a towel as he walked back into his bedroom, savagely scrubbing at his scalp as if he could make the images disappear by wiping them away. He could still feel Minerva’s firm flesh under his fingertips. He smelled her, the smoky musk of a woman in her prime. He could hear her, her sweet voice telling him that everything was as it should be, and to ignore those sounds. The sounds of his crew beating on the hull. The radio calls for help. The pleading of the people he’d killed as he let them suffocate while he made love to a phantom.

  He threw the towel on the floor and kicked it against a wall as his chest heaved, struggling to breathe as those memories came back again. That was the worst part: he remembered it all. There was no haze to obscure his memory. No fog of drugs to distort them. He remembered everything that he had done.

  Alberto looked around his apartment with the wild intensity of a caged animal for a moment, then struggled into a shirt and pants. His feet found his shoes as he shrugged a jacket on over his shirt. He was out the door in moments, fleeing the memories that wouldn’t stay behind.

  Nathan’s office was in the Arvantan West Tower on the three hundredth floor. Alberto had managed to comb his hair in the elevator, using one of the walls as his mirror, and was actually presentable as he walked into Nathan’s office.

  Nathan’s receptionist smiled brightly when she saw him. “Señor Chavez will be with you in a moment, Señor De La Cruz. Please have a seat. May I bring you anything?” she asked with just the right lilt in her voice.

  Alberto shook his head no, but didn’t say anything. The girl counterfeited an airhead quite well, but Nathan had once confided that she was a member of MENSA and held double doctorates in personnel management and mass psychology. That fact was obscured by her appearance. She looked like a model and was one of the most beautiful women Alberto had ever met in person. Her numbskull persona was there to make people careless around her. She was Nathan’s front-line spy on the people who came to visit him, and was far too adept at reading people. The last thing Alberto wanted was for her to read him and figure out what was going on behind his haunted eyes.

  Alberto had just picked up a magazine when Nathan’s door opened and he walked out, followed by a tall man in an immaculate black suit. As soon as Alberto saw him, the thought, Spook, rolled through his mind.

  “Berto, come here,” Nathan said with a wide grin. “This is Jorge Cabrillo, from our R&D Division.”

  Alberto stood and walked over, sticking out his hand in a friendly manner. “I’m pleased to meet you, Señor Cabrillo,” he managed to say in an almost normal tone.

  “And I you, Señor De La Cruz,” Cabrillo answered with a smile that never touched his eyes. “I have heard many things about you.”

  Alberto looked at Nathan and let his mouth twist into a bitter smile. “If the stories were from Nate, they’re probably true.”

  “Not all, Señor. Not all,” Señor Cabrillo said with a wide grin that made Alberto’s skin crawl.

  “Come on, I’m hungry,” Nathan interrupted, and Alberto almost gave him a hug for breaking the tension that was growing between him and the spy.

  Nathan led them to the elevators and punched the button for the fifty-second floor. “We’re going to Cacao’s for lunch. Cacao swears he has a new dish that is so good it will make you forget your name.”

  Alberto was staring at the reflective wall of the elevator as he said, “There are a lot of things I’d like to forget,” and saw the calculating expression on Cabrillo’s face. It was there and gone again in an instant, but Alberto wasn’t fooled. He knew that expression.

  Cacao’s was the premier restaurant in the Arvantan Towers. It came close to being the premier restaurant on all of New Hispaniola. Only Señor Philippe’s was more popular with the up-and-comers of the New Hispaniolan elite.

  “Ah, Señor Chavez, welcome,” the maître d’ said as soon as they opened the door. “Your table is waiting, as you requested.” The man led them past scowling people in impeccable business dress, totally ignoring the fact that Alberto looked like he should be waiting outside the service entrance for a handout.

  Once they were seated, Nathan looked at Alberto and sighed. “You need to get out more, Berto. You look like you’re about to bolt for the door.”

  “Looks aren’t always deceiving, Nate. I’d like nothing better than to vanish right now,” Alberto answered. He looked around nervously, and saw at least thirty people looking his way.

  “Calm down, Berto. I doubt any of them recognize you. I just don’t think anyone has worn jeans, boat shoes, and a windbreaker into Cacao’s in living memory.” Nathan smiled broadly, and Alberto had to nod in agreement.

  “You could have told me where we were going,” Alberto said in his own defense. “I was thinking of that raw bar you took me to last time. The one they had to carry us out of. You remember that, don’t you?”

  “It’s all a blur,” Nathan admitted, then looked at the third member of their party. “Sorry. It would be a long story if I could remember it. But that was then and this is now. Berto, Jorge is interested in something you reported before your—incident. An asteroid with a peculiar makeup. It was something that your remote sensors couldn’t define.”

  “A mass of material that seemed anomalous,” Alberto said as his eyes went unfocused for a moment. “I remember. It was just before-just before I lost my crew. The mass seemed to exceed the volume of the asteroid by an order of magnitude. Even if it was made of a heavy element like lead, it would have been too massive for its apparent volume. But I’m not sure that it was real. By that time the hallucinogenic gas was already in our atmosphere.”

  “Señor De La Cruz,” Cabrillo said as he sat forward, “we are interested in finding this asteroid again. If it is, as you reported, a mass of super dense matter, it could be very valuable. We in the R&D Division would very much like to obtain a sample of that material, if not the entire asteroid.”

  “You want me to go back out there?”

  Nathan reached over and grabbed Alberto’s hand. “Berto, you didn’t capture any visual record of the asteroid. You are the only one who knows what it looks like.”

  “Even the report you filed on its location is of little use to us,” Cabrillo said, his expression on of intense concentration. “There was no data on its motion, direction or speed. All we know is where it was.”

  “You want me to go back out there.”

  Nathan squeezed his hand to get his attention. “Yes, Berto, we want you to go back out there. Just long enough to find and tag the asteroid. Then you come straight back to New Hispaniola. You don’t have to stay out there.”

  Alberto tried to wet his lips with a tongue that was as dry as the desert, then he grabbed his glass of water and gulped it down. “Nate, do you know what you’re asking me to do?”

  “Sorry, but yes, I do.” Nathan shook his head slowly. “Berto, I hate to use an old cliché, but you’ve got to get back in the saddle. You’ve got to put your butt in the command chair of your ship again, and damn soon, or you’ll never leave the ground again. You’ll probably never leave your room.”

  Alberto studied the tablecloth as he though, looking at the fine weave of the linen fibers. It would be so easy to make them unravel, like his life had unraveled. “I don’t know if I can, Nate.”

  “Can you try?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  *

  The next day Alberto awoke at dawn. He hadn’t dreamt of Minerva for the first time since he’d come back to the planet. After his shower, he shaved and combed his hair, then went to get dressed. His uniform hung in the closet, and for a change it didn’t seem to mock him. It
invited him to put it on. To once again be the captain of the Guadalajara.

  Once he was dressed, he looked in the mirror and nodded sharply. Then he picked up the phone and dialed Nate’s office.

  “Arvantan Cartel, Señor Chavez’s office. May I help you?” the receptionist said, her perky tone just as fresh as it was in person.

  “Maria, it’s Berto De La Cruz. Tell Nate I’m on my way up to NHSP-1. He’ll understand.”

  “Good luck, Captain,” Maria replied, all pretenses gone from her voice.

  “Thank you.” Alberto hung up the phone, then called the spaceport. “When is the next shuttle to NHSP-1?” he asked. The answer made him smile. “Two hours is fine. Book a seat for Captain Alberto De La Cruz of the Arvantan Cartel ship Guadalajara.”

  *

  The Guadalajara was still nestled in docking port thirty-seven, exactly where he’d left her when he returned from his ill-fated mission to the asteroid belt. He walked aboard with his head held high and went to the bridge. He began the warm-up and start-up procedure by himself, but he wasn’t alone for long.

  Seventeen men and women, led by Jorge Cabrillo, entered the ship and spread out, taking the crew positions naturally, as if they didn’t have to push ghosts out of the way. Cabrillo entered the bridge and smiled at Alberto.

  “I am glad that you chose to aid us in this endeavor, Señor De La Cruz. The crewmen and women I brought with me are from the Juarez, one of Guadalajara’s sister ships. They are all experienced spacers and you will have no trouble with them.” He smiled, but again, it never made it to his eyes.

  Alberto simply nodded his acknowledgement and pushed the ship wide intercom stud on his chair panel. “All hands to departure stations. Rig ship for acceleration. Bring main thrusters to hot standby. Departure in five minutes.”

  Turning to his unwelcome guest, Alberto pointed toward the chair at the engineering panel. “Sit there and don’t touch anything. We’ll get you where you want to go and find the asteroid for you. I have to wonder, though. How did you get anyone to agree to go into space with me again?”

  “Triple hazard pay, plus a bonus if we locate the asteroid.”