Oort Rising

by Magnus Victor

  Less than a minute later, he felt the forward tug of deceleration. While he knew that he must be hitting several gees, the gravity systems let through only a single gee, no more than normal standing upright. This prevented blood from pooling in his feet, which he appreciated, given how close he was to falling asleep anyway. He landed gently outside yet another nondescript hatch, where Ensign Marius stood waiting.

  “Here’s your room, sir.” He said. When Klaus did not answer, the Ensign coughed to draw Klaus’ attention, and repeated, “Here’s your room, sir.” He checked his Navy datapad again, and nodded. “It’s already keyed to your chip, so you can open the door by addressing the ship’s computer.”

  Klaus shook his head to clear the cobwebs. It didn't help. He was a bit angry with himself for having lost focus, making the young ensign repeat himself. He was supposed to set a better example than that, after all. He tried to keep the gruffness out of his voice, and failed. “I’m very familiar with this sort of system, kid.”

  “Okay, sir. If you have any questions, you can call me by—“

  “Very. Familiar.”

  Marius got the hint, and grinned sheepishly. “In that case, goodnight sir.” He took off down the corridor.

  Klaus shrugged, dismissing the conversation. He supposed Marius was a decent enough sort, for the Navy. He was just too tired to care. He voiced the door open, fully expecting a basic cabin, about the quality of his old one on the Ad Astra. He did a double-take. The room was enormous, and elegantly appointed, like no military bunkroom had any business being. It had wall-to-wall carpeting, no less, and ambient lighting in some shade of orange that he presumed was supposed to be relaxing. The king-sized bed along the far wall pulled at him, but he took a deep breath and pushed his tiredness aside. It might not be his room for long, but for now it was his corner of the giant ship. Best see everything that was here.

  The closet was stocked with uniforms, although he was too tired to catalog them other than noting that they were Navy, and that there was nobody hiding behind them to jump out and kill him in his sleep. Why had he thought that? No matter. He opened the door to the head, and was surprised to find a spacious shower. The room belonged in a five-star hotel! He wondered what lucky civilian bastards the room was normally reserved for. Then again, the ensign had mentioned that the ship was designed to carry VIPs. That just left the question of why Klaus was given a luxury stateroom.

  He'd worry about that later. Maybe after he slept, and his mind could think.

  There was even a small kitchenette, off to one side! His stomach growled, telling him to inspect it more closely. The Ad Astra had, to no great surprise, an extremely limited menu when it came to food. And he hadn't eaten in what, forever?

  He padded over to the faux-marble counter, leaned on it for support, and then rapped the surface with his knuckles. Good. At least the Navy hadn't wasted weight on real marble. He examined the odd-looking wall oven, puzzled at first. He blinked a few times, and then it came to him. It was a full auto-kitchen. He'd always wanted to experiment with one of those, but he was just an engineering tech on a rust-riddled freighter, and they certainly weren't cheap.

  He paged through the auto-kitchen's product display. Fancy stuff, but a bit too exotic for his taste. He couldn't even pronounce half the stuff there. Where was pizza? Where was peanut butter? Where was the speckpfannküchen?

  Ah. Here was something he recognized, at least. Klaus punched in his order, and checked the time required for processing. Ten whole minutes? Even though auto-kitchens were pretty new gadgets, he thought they should be much faster than that. What was the machine doing, catching the fish first? His stomach growled again, and he silently promised it the best sandwich ever.

  He straightened up from the display, and his vision swam. He should probably sit down to wait. May as well test how soft the bed was — in a suite like this, it was probably ridiculously soft.

  He sat down on the bed, and sure enough, sank a good four inches into the mattress. Typical. The room was probably meant to be for politicians, well-heeled VIPs and other ground-sider wimps. No true spacer would trust a bed like this – too much of the room was wasted, and it was too soft. If gravity were lost it wouldn't be a good surface to push off of.

  He leaned back, testing the pillows. As expected. Ludicrously soft. It was downright unnatural. If the crew of the Ad Astra had seen him in a bed like this, they'd have laughed themselves sick.

  He could never sleep in a fluff-pit like this. As soon as he finished his sandwich, he'd have to find something to place on top of the mattress, to make it hard enough that he could—

  He slept.

  Chapter 6: New Day

  A sharp beeping woke Klaus the next morning. Eyes closed, he fumbled his hand toward the nightstand, trying to find the source of his annoyance. And kill it.

  His hand connected, hard, with a solid bulkhead. He sat up, nursing his bruised knuckles. At least now he was fully awake, but he no longer heard the alarm. Come to think of it, he didn’t remember setting any alarm last night.

  He found a clock mounted next to his bed. Seven in the morning, ship-board time. The same time he had woken up every morning for what seemed like forever, working on the Ad Astra. But this wasn't the Ad Astra.

  That brought his thoughts into focus. Had yesterday really happened? He half-remembered the Ad Astra being destroyed, escaping on the Raven, and some gigantic warship appearing out of nowhere. It was either the weirdest day he could remember, or the strangest dream. He rapped on the wall next to him. Solid enough. No dream, then.

  He wrinkled his nose. Something smelled bad, like stale sweat and old fish. And dreams didn't smell bad, did they? Fish? He remembered something about ordering a sandwich last night, and opened the door of the auto-kitchen. He wished he hadn't.

  "Ach" The acid bite of hours-old fish attacked him, and he turned his face away. He took the sandwich, searching for someplace to throw it away. Preferably, someplace airtight. He found a recycler set into the wall, toed it open using the foot pedal, threw in the old sandwich and slammed it shut. But the damage was done. His stomach remembered it was hungry, and complained loudly.

  First, though, he had to get out of his old clothes. He stripped them off, and was tempted to throw them in the recycler with the fish. After all, they smelled almost as bad. But then he stopped. They were his only physical reminder of his time on the Ad Astra. It was logical to throw them out, because even as a contractor, the Navy would surely want him in a new uniform, but at least he knew his old clothes fit. Besides, somehow it seemed wrong. As if he were somehow discarding the memory of that ship's crew. He carefully folded up the old clothes and placed them on his bed.

  After a lengthy-by-military-standards five-minute shower, Klaus felt human again. Wrapped in a towel, he opened the closet, remembering the Navy clothes he had spotted there the night before. This time, he took a closer look, and found two sets of crisp Navy uniforms. They were Engineering-duty issue, and the shoulders and sleeves were bare of any insignia. Civilian spec. He checked the size and length, and as he had expected, they fit him exactly. Impressive. The Navy must have found his file from the last time he was in the service.

  Well, the uniform should have fit him exactly. Something must have been recorded wrong, as it was rather tight about the waist. He squeezed himself into it nevertheless, and decided he'd get it fixed in the evening, when his shift was over. After all, maybe the uniform was just new and would stretch out to its correct size through the day, if the button held. At least the shoes fit. Klaus stepped outside his stateroom. “Computer, request flight to nearest mess hall. Execute.”

  As the Overlord’s gravity system snatched him off of the deck and down the corridor, he reflexively shifted himself into his preferred position for supermanning – reclining, legs extended out front, hands interlaced across his stomach. After a few abortive tries, anyway. It took a bit of doing to get the arm movements just right to position himself. Every person had their
own preference – the gravity systems didn’t care what position you chose – but Klaus felt more comfortable going feet first.

  The speed of the ship's system no longer surprised him, and he idly wondered just how fast the system would go. “Computer, request flight speed increase to maximum safe velocity.”

  Now he really felt the acceleration. Because of his feet-first orientation, blood rushed to his head as his speed increased rapidly, and the corridor around him flashed by in an unreadable blur of motion, too fast for Klaus to even begin to guess how rapidly he was moving. He shot around a corner, grunting against the g-forces that squeezed the air from his lungs.

  "Whoo!" He looked around, hoping that nobody had overheard him. That must have been close to five gees!

  He was just beginning to settle in and enjoy the ride when it abruptly ended. Blood rushed to his feet as he decelerated violently. He groaned absently, and then grinned to himself. Well, that's one way to wake up. Better than a cold shower, even.

  The gravity systems deposited him outside a large, open room. His stomach growled as the welcome scent of food – real food! - wafted through the wide opening. Two rows of tables, full of sailors eating and talking, sat on highly polished, black-and-white checkered floor. Beyond them lay the serving area, backed by actual trained cooks. Maybe it was wishful thinking on his part, but at least they looked trained. None of them looked like the part-time machinist's mate aboard the Ad Astra, whose only talent lay in heating pre-cooked meals in a dangerously antiquated microwave, while simultaneously scratching himself, chewing tobacco and coughing over their food.

  Having never served on a Navy ship with a complement greater than a few dozen, Klaus was overwhelmed by the sharp clicking of cutlery and the loud murmur of voices from at least a hundred people in the mess hall.

  He blinked, and leaned on a table to steady himself. His blood hadn't quite returned to his head yet, and he hadn't eaten in what felt like days. On top of that, he could certainly do without the noise. Or the crowd. Especially the crowd – Klaus couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a room with this many people. The “mess hall” on the Ad Astra, converted from a single bunkroom, rarely sat more than three at a time. This sort of bustling crowd was just...unnatural.

  But the food on the tables! Proper meals, cups, glasses, plates and all, not MREs. Hopefully that would be worth having to put up with the crowd.

  He made his way through the diners to the serving area. The serving counter was lined with an assortment of hot and cold foods, vegetables, even fresh fruit, if he were any judge. On the other side of spotless glass and gleaming stainless steel, a staff of cooks were hard at work over stoves and grill-tops. He couldn't see a single pre-packaged food container.

  He left with a half-pound hamburger, an omelet, and a lasagne on his tray, along with side dishes of pad thai and some naan bread. The plates overlapped each other, and threatened to spill over the side. But it was worth the risk. He was astonished at the variety of food available, and wanted to sample as much as he could, especially when someone who actually knew what they were doing was cooking.

  And what a variety it was. God bless Navy cooks. Serving anything you want, around the clock.

  “Klaus! Over here, lad! I'd heard you were aboard.”

  Crap. He knew that voice. Should have expected it, he realized, remembering his conversation with Captain Conagher. A tall man waved at Klaus from one of the tables. Two crewmembers sat opposite him, their suits bearing the bright-yellow shoulder-patches of the engineering crew.

  Klaus would have to work with him, back-stabbing bastard or not, so he might as well start right away. Still, he had hoped to finish a nice, glorious breakfast first. No changing that now, though. He took a deep breath, and reminded himself not to frown. He carefully threaded his way over and set his tray down. “Johann, great to see you." He lied. "I’d heard you were aboard.”

  “Aye, that I am. Must say, living on a bloody warship of all places has been better than I expected.” Johann waved a ruddy, big-boned hand at the platter of food in front of him, which held a burger much like the one on Klaus' platter. “However, I must say I miss proper food. You'd think I was the only Scotsman in the whole bloody Navy – none of yon cooks have the slightest idea how to make a decent meal. No haggis, or proper meat pies! All they make are these bloody Americanized dishes!”

  Klaus smiled in spite of himself, glancing pointedly at his side dishes. If it wasn't Scottish, it was "Americanized". Apparently Johann hadn’t changed a bit, either. For better or for worse.

  “Ach, but where are my manners?” The tall Scotsman gestured to the two figures sitting across from him. One solid and light-haired, the other with reddish-brown hair and - Klaus blinked - curves. “Meet my assistants, Petty Officers Jim North and Roberta Murphy.”

  “Murphy, eh?” Klaus groaned to himself. Had he really said that? He must not be fully awake yet.

  She snorted, smiling guardedly, with one eyebrow raised. “Don’t start. I assure you that I’ve heard every joke known to mankind about an engineer named Murphy.”

  “Ah.” Klaus grinned back, glad she had not taken offense. He liked the subtle lilt in her voice, the slight roll of the r's. “You got me there.”

  Johann took a bite of his burger, waved it in Klaus' direction, and spoke softly. Well, softly by comparison to his usual standard. “The Navy gave me their best and brightest: these two.” He paused, another bite. “They’re bloody good mates, don’t get me wrong, but they don't have a PhD between them.”

  “Johann,” Klaus began, “the Overlord was only on her trial runs, and she’s a warship to boot. They probably couldn’t spare anybody more qualified.” He heard a sharp intake of breath from North, and realized what he had just said. He chastised himself. What he had said was true enough, sure, but not everyone reacted well to plain facts. He turned to the two engineering ratings. “No offense.”

  “Oi!” replied the Scottish physicist. “But they should have at least found me more. The QMP system is cutting-edge! You don’t give a groundbreaking new drive mechanism like that a crew of three!”

  Johann really was the same as he'd been back at MIT. Always insisting that his project, his team must always take priority over any others. Priority funding, best lab allocation, and first choice of grad students. At university, the man's ego had been a minor annoyance. Johann's work was important enough that he usually got the labs and the funding, and interestingly enough there had always been a long waiting list of grad students applying to work on his projects.

  But a warship was not some academic lab. There was no way that his project could be the center of the universe. There were literally hundreds of other systems all more crucial to its combat effectiveness, every one of them probably still going through tests. And on a shakedown voyage, Klaus suspected that many of those systems would be demanding a lot of attention.

  Klaus remembered all too well how difficult it had been to work with Johann's ego, with his inflated expectations, even if he had to acknowledge that the physicist was brilliant. Since he would now have to work closely with him, he decided he had better knock the situation into Johann's head the only way he thought would be effective: loudly and aggressively.

  “I would bet that half the systems on this ship are ‘cutting edge’!” Klaus began, his voice rising. “She’s got three times the displacement of any warship before her, and probably uses those other 'cutting edge' systems all the time. And you wonder why they can’t spare more manpower for some untested and non-critical experiment?”

  Klaus saw a couple of sailors at the other tables looking at him, and realized that he had spoken louder than he should have.

  North mumbled, "Yeah. We haven't even seen the L-T in days."

  "Not a bad thing," chuckled Johann, "That Ranjit lad hasn't shown much interest. Keeps him out of our hair."

  "Exactly," Klaus cleared his throat and started over in a quieter voice, “Bet his boss is also more interested in the
other stuff on this ship. For instance, take the reactors. This ship’s got eight of ‘em, each one individually enough to power any other ship ever conceived by man. Line up the three tallest buildings on Earth end-to-end, and they’d all fit inside the hull. The armor and shielding on this ship’s enough to run over a good-sized planetoid! Everything onboard this damn ship’s practically experimental – they can’t spare more crew for just another prototype.”

  “I thought you just came aboard,” interjected Murphy. She met and held Klaus' gaze, as if daring the older engineer to deny her a part in the conversation. “How could you know something like that? Most everything about this ship is classified.”

  Heh. Boy, did Klaus ever know about that. “Because, God help me, I advised the board that approved this ship’s construction.”

  “Huh. And you still don’t like it?”

  Klaus smiled. “The board approved the ship. I didn’t. For the price of building this great big showcase of a ship, we could have fielded another entire squadron.” He tapped his finger on the table with each word. “Five. Entire. Warships. Would have been much more useful than this one tub – there’s nobody anywhere, except the Fleet itself, who could pose any sort of threat to the Overlord. Always building bigger and better weapons, to fight the last war. It's a powerful vessel, sure, but she can only be in one place at a time.”

  He stopped, glaring back at some sailors who were once again looking in their direction. No, he told himself, he absolutely was not bitter. Not about his sincere effort to improve this ship. Not about his friend getting Klaus' career shot in the foot. And especially not about how that same colleague had the job that Klaus had been wanting, even if he had advised against the whole project in the first place.