by Jake Elwood
Three other human reporters jockeyed for position in the mechanical crowd. Two were junior reporters like Janice, willing to put in long hours at long odds for a shot at a story that would make a splash. She also recognized Jerry Sturgeon, a washed-up alcoholic who'd sobered up and now worked the fringes of the news trade. On her bad days she was pretty sure she'd end up like him. If she lasted that long.
"Thank you for coming." The speaker was Alvarez Castille, an admiral who reminded Janice of her father. Her father had never had such steel in his gaze, though. "We're delighted at the opportunity to open our ships for a limited time to members of the Fourth Estate. You should have received your media packages already. We're pleased to announce that nineteen members of the press have been assigned to twelve different ships on missions ranging from three days to almost three weeks."
Nineteen assignments, given to nineteen established reporters with more clout than Janice Ling. She was a freelancer without a following, which meant she was here looking for crumbs. She would take whatever the real reporters didn't want.
Castille began to speak about the fleet and the mission of the Navy. It wasn't so much a speech as a long string of clever sound bites designed to promote the Navy in twenty words or fewer. He wasn't saying much, and Janice, despite her best intentions, felt her mind starting to drift.
Sturgeon started murmuring to the cub reporter beside him. The young woman listened wide-eyed, and Janice edged closer, eavesdropping shamelessly.
"Corvettes are where it's at. They’ve got a spot on the Alexander, but don’t take it if they offer. It'll be gone at least five days, maybe longer. You'll miss a hundred good leads and you won't get anything for it." He patted the pockets of his rumpled suit as if absentmindedly looking for a bottle. "There's no news on that tub. She's ancient. When I was your age, well, that's when the Alexander was news. You wouldn't believe the things she did in the war. Now she's a relic. Five minutes of human interest story. Not five days' worth."
Janice tuned him out, bringing up the media package on her implants. The Alexander was on a training mission, giving cadets one last opportunity to serve on a real ship of war. The Navy press kit made it all sound quite positive. Glorious, even. According to most of the feeds, though, it was nothing but. Why, the pundits demanded, was the Navy wasting their cadets' time learning to operate an obsolete ship in its last year of service? It was a colossal waste of time.
She was about to close the article when a line near the bottom caught her eye. She tilted her head, making the retinal display scroll up.
The Alexander would be leaving the Sol system through Gate Three, carrying a group of technicians who would check Gate Four, the mirror to Gate Three in the Naxos system. The technicians would inspect the Gate thoroughly in an attempt to prevent another Gate failure.
Naxos was one Gate closer to Aries, Tanos, and Calypso, the three systems that had gone silent, their Gates offline.
Janice felt her pulse quicken ever so slightly. There was a story—a real story—behind those Gate failures. She was almost certain of it. The real answers would be in Aries or Deirdre, the system between Aries and Naxos.
Still, Naxos put her one system closer.
Can I afford to be gone for five days? What will I miss? She made a face. The sad truth was, she would miss scraps. Her "career" as a freelance journalist was a joke. This month's rent would be tight, but five days of eating the Navy's food would help.
Castille wrapped up his speech with a final one-liner about how agility meant survival in the jungle and in space. The scrum broke up, and Janice worked her way through the dispersing robots, heading for the stage at the front. Castille looked up, gave her a single unsympathetic glance, and left through a doorway at the back.
She made a face at his retreating back, then smiled as she remembered Hammett ambushing her and throwing her against the wall. She supposed she should be annoyed, but she couldn't help it. She was looking forward to seeing him again.
A young lieutenant came to the edge of the stage, smiled, then hopped down so he was at her level. "Can I help you?"
"Yes." She gave him her brightest smile. "I understand you have a spot available on the Alexander?"
CHAPTER 6 - HAMMETT
Hammett sat at his console on the bridge of the Alexander, watching status reports scroll past. Final checks were taking an absurdly long time. The cadets didn't know what they were doing, and his small handful of sailors and officers were running themselves ragged.
A yellow bar in the flow of green text caught his eye. The last shuttle from Spacecom had docked. The gate technicians were on board. They would be sedate types, used to labs and offices. He hoped they hadn't had that al Faisal guy for their pilot.
The shuttle had another passenger, he noted. A reporter. He brought up her name, and groaned inwardly. Janice Ling, the woman he'd thrown against the wall.
Well, they were taking his ship away from him in a few months. What the hell did he have left to fear? She could trash him in the press if she liked. How could she make things worse?
Sighing, he finished scrolling through the status reports. Everything showed green. Undoubtedly there was a screwup somewhere—with more than a hundred cadets on board it was a near certainty—but it would be nothing catastrophic.
Still, he wouldn't take the ship through a jump Gate right away.
He stood, and the bridge crew turned in their seats to look at him. Velasco stood along the port bulkhead. His Third in Command, a seasoned lieutenant named Carruthers, shared the helm station with a nervous-looking cadet. A mix of junior lieutenants manned the other stations.
"We'll start with a slow sweep around Luna," Hammett said. "Then we'll swing by Sawyer Station and from there to Gate Three." He headed for the bridge doors. "I'll be in Engineering. Velasco, you have the bridge."
He glanced at her as he went past, and paused. She had something close to panic on her face. Oh, for God's sake. Hammett stopped, raked his fingers through his hair, and said, "On second thought, Velasco, why don't you come with me? There's things we need to discuss. Carruthers, you have the bridge."
Carruthers nodded and stood. The cadet beside him gave him a frightened look, and Carruthers chuckled. "You've done this in simulations, son. You'll do fine." Carruthers strolled over to the captain's seat and sat down. He had years of bridge experience. The ship was in good hands.
Hammett jerked his head curtly at Velasco and left the bridge.
When they were alone in the corridor he said, "You'll have to learn how to run a bridge."
"Yes, Sir."
He strode along, and she hurried to keep up. "In fact, you need to learn the entire ship."
She frowned.
"Stow it, Commander. You're on a ship now. I don't care if it's what you want. You're here. You've got a job to do, and I expect you to be ready to do it." He shook his head, exasperated that he had to have this conversation with a senior officer. "We're going to visit Engineering, and then we're going to visit the missile bay. After that you'll go back to the bridge and tell Carruthers that he's not relieved. You'll stand there and watch what he does."
"I'm busy," she protested. "I've got a mountain of paperwork to-"
"Paperwork?" He stopped and faced her. "You're my First Officer. You have whatever paperwork I assign to you, and that's it."
Velasco scowled. "This isn't my first day in the Navy! You can't just order me to-"
He leaned in close to her, and she stepped back. Her nose almost touched the bars on his chest, and he tapped them. "What do you think these mean, Commander?"
The clatter of feet and the murmur of voices in the distance saved her from having to answer. Hammett straightened up and resumed walking, Velasco behind him. They met a sailor and a cadet coming the other way, the sailor giving a running commentary about the cables and conduits that flowed along the ceiling above them. There was a brief pause for the exchange of salutes, and then both groups continued on their way.
"
Let me put it this way," Hammett said when they were alone again. "In about twelve hours you're going to take us through Gate Three. I strongly suggest you be ready."
The corridor widened as they came to an intersection, and he stopped. "Now. Pay attention. See these stripes?" He gestured at several colored bars of paint on the bulkhead. "Red is Engineering. The only red bar is on this side, so we know Engineering is this way. See this one?" He tapped a white bar with a red outline. "That's Medical. Notice it's lower than any of the others. That tells you Medical is at least one deck down. The stripe is off to the right, so the nearest ladder is that way. I expect you to learn what the rest of the stripes mean on your own."
He led her aft. The corridor curved, straightened, then ended at a broad pair of doors, painted bright red. "Engineering," he said.
The doors slid open. Engineering was busier than usual, mostly with crew explaining things to cadets. I'm captain of a floating classroom. It's supposed to be a bloody warship. Hammett suppressed his irritation. Forty years from now, some of these cadets would still be in uniform. At least someone in the service would remember what a real ship was like.
He and Velasco skirted around the bulk of the hydrogen fusion plant that gave the ship its power. Beyond the plant stood a vast steel globe, the tank that contained the ship's supply of liquid hydrogen. Pipes ran aft from the tank to the Alexander's three engines.
"It's a simple process," a voice said to Hammett's left. He turned to see Susan Rani, his Engineering Officer, lecturing a cluster of bored-looking cadets. "The engines operate on a principle of thermal rocketry. We heat liquid hydrogen to fantastic temperatures and blow it out the back."
The cadets would have learned that in their first week, if they actually made it into Basic without knowing something so elementary. There was no discouraging Rani as she warmed to her favorite subject, though.
She broke off her lecture when she spotted Hammett. "Is there something you need, Sir?"
"No, no. Just taking a look around."
"Everything's ship-shape," she assured him. "In a couple of days these kids will be able to run things without me."
Hammett smiled. "I don't doubt it. Carry on, Lieutenant."
She nodded and resumed her lecture, and Hammett continued his tour of the engine room, Velasco at his heels. "You need to be familiar with this place," he told her. "You need to be able to walk in here and tell at a glance if there's a problem." He read impatience in the narrowing of her eyes, but he ignored it. "I can tell already that everything's fine," he continued. "Come with me. We're visiting the missile bay next."
A sailor with a sidearm stood guard outside a locked hatch. The Marine Corps had disbanded a decade after the war ended. Now sailors trained in boarding procedures and intra-ship combat. It was more than adequate for the seizures and customs searches that were the role of the modern Navy. The sentry saluted and stepped aside, and Hammett led Velasco inside.
The long, shadowy bay contained no personnel. The missiles themselves were hidden by panels that would slide open in the event of combat. The missile bay could have been a cargo hold for all a casual visitor could see. Hammett looked at Velasco. "What do you know about the ship's weapons?"
She gave him an irritated glance. "There are lasers?" When he scowled she added, "Oh, and rail guns. And more than one kind of ammunition."
"We have twelve laser batteries," he said, not trying too hard to hide his irritation. "Three on the top hull forward. Three aft. Six more on the bottom hull. Computer-targeted, but they can be used manually if necessary."
Velasco shrugged.
"We have two rail guns firing forward," he added, "and one firing aft. And we have a variety of ammunition. Also just over two hundred drone fighters, able to fight autonomously or by remote control." He walked over to the nearest wall and pressed his hand against a scanner. "All the corvettes have the same weapons, on a smaller scale. Here's what makes the Alexander unique, though."
A panel a meter high and two meters long slid up with a hum, revealing a squat cylindrical shape on a long shelf. Hammett reached up and patted the side of the cylinder. "This is a missile," he said. "It uses a chemical rocket for propulsion, and it has a warhead of high explosives surrounded by shrapnel. It can detonate on impact, or it can explode in the middle of a fleet and spread damage with shrapnel." He closed the panel and strolled down the missile bay. He tapped another panel. "This shelf contains a nuke. I can't open it. Only the weapons officer can, and then only if it's unlocked from the bridge." He smiled, proud of his lethal arsenal. "We have six of them."
"Nuclear missiles?" she said. "What in space are you going to do with those?"
His smile thinned. "Actually, I'm going to fire them for practice." The thought soured his stomach. "It'll be a training exercise for the cadets." Not that the cadets would ever use it.
Velasco shook her head. "You're just going to … fire them at nothing?"
"We'll blow up some rocks," he said. "These birds are almost thirty years old, and the Navy has no plans to refurbish them. They don’t much like the idea of storing them, either. So we're going to get rid of them on this trip. It'll be historic, I guess. It'll be the last time a warship ever fires a nuclear missile."
"The last time?" She pursed her lips. "Has a warship ever fired a nuclear missile before?"
He nodded. "During the war. The Custer fired half a dozen nukes at the Battle of Helfcene Station."
Velasco's eyebrows rose. "What happened?"
Do you know nothing of military history? He said, "How can you-" then stopped himself. To him it was high drama. He'd watched it in the feeds, breathless, with his fellow officers around him. To her, though, it was history. She'd been an infant, and how much did he really know about military history before his own lifetime?
"None of the missiles hit," he said. "The RNA fleet cut them up with lasers before they even got close." He gestured around the bay. "It's why the new ships don't have missile bays." He wanted to tell her to savor the experience. He wanted to tell her she was standing in a little piece of history. But history to her meant dust and irrelevance. He frowned and headed for the hatch. "Let's go. I've got work to do, and you need to get to the bridge. You've got a lot to learn."
CHAPTER 7 - VELASCO
Anna Velasco lowered herself gingerly into the captain's chair and looked around. She was pretty sure at least one lieutenant was watching her from the corner of his eye, but most of the bridge crew seemed focused on their own stations. She balled her hands into fists to keep herself from fidgeting, took a deep breath, and searched for calm. How bad can it be? I'm not the one doing the actual flying. If I do something really stupid, one of these lieutenants will speak up.
Won't they?
That would be humiliating. Crashing the ship into the edge of the Gate would be much, much worse. She imagined half the ship warping through to pop out the other side while the other half remained behind. Could that happen?
I'm an administrator, not a bloody physicist! I'm not a ship's captain, either. She thought of the reports and proposals accumulating in her data stream. I've got things to do. Important things. I'm helping direct the course of Spacecom itself. I'll be an admiral someday. What the hell am I doing out in space?
It didn't help that she was utterly exhausted from a combination of stress and trying to catch up on projects back at Spacecom. She suppressed a yawn and gathered her wandering thoughts, checking the screens arrayed around her chair. The biggest screen, mounted just above her knee, showed the view from the forward camera. The Gate loomed there, a vast steel ring almost edge-on. We need to move the ship over. That's not the terminology, though. What am I supposed to say?
The helmsman, a young cadet who looked almost as frightened as Velasco felt, turned in his chair and glanced back at her. I'm taking too long. You can't just sit here. I have to at least pretend I know what I'm doing. "Helm." Her voice wasn't perfectly steady, but it would do. "Bring us around."
The cadet no
dded, hesitated, then said, "Heading, Ma'am?"
For a long frozen second she stared at him, terror constricting her throat. I don't know what heading! That's your job. Haven't you done this a thousand times in simulations?
He had, of course. She couldn't talk him through it step by step, but she didn't need to. "You know where we're going." She gestured forward, where the Gate lay. "Line us up with the Gate."
"Aye aye, Ma'am." He turned to his console, and she felt the faintest of tremors as the Alexander's maneuvering thrusters fired. The Gate seemed to turn in place on her screen as the ship drifted sideways. She supposed it might be faster to turn the ship and fly around in a big arc using the main engines. There was no rush, though. The slow approach would work nicely.
When the Gate formed a perfect circle on her screen she felt another tremor. That would be the maneuvering thrusters on the other side, firing to bring them to a stop. The cadet seems to expect her to say something, so she said, "Well done." He beamed as if she'd promoted him to lieutenant. Strangely, it deepened her unease. I don't want this kind of power. I'm not ready for it.
The bridge went silent, and she stared at the Gate. This is it. It should be perfectly simple, right? We just fly right through. She touched her tongue to her lips, wondering why her mouth was so dry. Am I forgetting something? If I am, someone will speak up. Right?
The helmsman turned again to glance at her.
"Take us through," she said, then added, "Slow and steady."
The cadet didn't speak, just nodded. She could see his tension in the set of his shoulders. She felt the same tension in her own shoulders and neck. She took a quick, furtive glance at the three lieutenants managing bridge stations. None of them looked nervous. Maybe that means I'm doing fine.
The Gate grew larger and larger on the screen until it disappeared completely. All she saw was the black of a starless expanse. There was a way to show distance to the Gate, but she didn't know the controls well enough to-
