Impulse

by Dave Bara

  I stood and stared as I waited in line with repair crews and materiel vendors for my turn through security to get into the boarding tunnel. I went to the port window to take her in as much as I could. Crews were covering the scarring to her amidships with the same superconductive compound the Earthmen had provided for building her in the first place. The repair crews extruded new skin over the damaged areas, and the compound, a unique form of nanotechnology from Earth’s science labs, raced to form itself perfectly into the wounds. It was an amazing sight.

  There was a golden glow coming from Impulse’s window ports. The ports were aesthetically pleasing but would never have been possible without the protective Hoagland Field the ship generated from the twin gravimetric drives at her stern. The forward third of the ship was a long, oval-shaped tube with the conning tower on top and protective baffle shields covering her nose. The conning tower was another purely aesthetic touch, again made possible by the enveloping Hoagland Field, which let the cruiser glide through normal or hyperdimensional space with equal grace. Since the field provided maximum protection equally to any part of the ship, the Lightship designers had exercised their dramatic license and chosen the conning tower for the bridge.

  It was the baffles that had failed Impulse at Levant, but they could only do their job if they were properly engaged to catch the enveloping Hoagland Field. Clearly, for whatever reason, they had not been prepared at the time of the accident. The dark scarring present on her hull showed that plainly enough.

  Impulse’s amidships were wider and flatter than her forward tube, bulging nearly twice as wide but still managing to keep a sleek appearance. This section contained the major crew quarters, sickbay, science labs, and operational centers, as well as the landing bay for the onboard shuttles she kept as exploration vehicles.

  To the aft she grew still wider, the gravimetric plasma drive generators pushed out away from the main hull of the ship, protected by the delta wings and winglets of the Hoagland HD drive generators. The final section was the stern, stacked between the Hoaglands and both serving as a rear defensive tower and holding Impulse’s drive regulators and sub-light impellers.

  When I turned back from the window Poulsen had managed to get us clearance.

  I rejoined Poulsen and we passed through security and into the tunnel. The views of Impulse from the tunnel gave me an even better view of the damage done to her. I looked through the glass to see a crew ripping out the longscope sensor array. Whoever had used it before me clearly would not be getting another chance. The longscope officer was the one who should have detected the rogue HD displacement wave before anyone else.

  Finally we were at the main hatch. I saluted the lieutenant of the guard, who was wearing Carinthian green but with a USN crest and patches at the arms, and handed him my papers. I was surprised to see both him and Poulsen in their country’s uniform. I had been under the impression that USN white was the standard dress aboard the Lightships. The lieutenant glanced at my papers and then compared me to my photo, asked me to validate my digital thumbprint, which I did, then waved me through. I took in a deep breath and let it out, stepping on to the deck of an in-service Lightship for the first time.

  They said you couldn’t notice the output of a functioning Hoagland Field, but I always did. A slight tingle of warmth at the back of my neck, an almost imperceptible flow of fluid down the spine. I supposed it would help if we knew how the field actually worked, or what it was, but the Earth Historians kept that information on a need-to-know basis. Somehow, though, I always knew when I was on board a ship with a functioning Hoagland Field.

  Poulsen and I started down Impulse’s main galleria, what he had called the Promenade. It ran from stem to stern, cutting the ship into port and starboard, and served as the main makeway for everything from crew to cargo to parade grounds. As I looked down Impulse’s length the Promenade swept away into the distance, the deck curving up and out of sight a hundred meters behind me and nearly the same distance forward. Impulse, like her sister Starbound, was nearly three hundred meters long and a full sixteen decks deep, not counting the conning tower, making them easily the biggest vessels humans had built in a century or more.

  I’d been aboard Starbound enough times to know that her main gallery was nothing compared to this. The Carinthians had spared no expense. What the QRN treated as a utility corridor the Carinthian Navy had converted into a grand presentation of their culture, quite literally a space-borne art museum cutting through the center of their greatest warship. I couldn’t help but be impressed.

  As we walked I noted full-size marble sculptures in classical styles dotting the hallway, with intricate woodwork and gilding around the coved ceiling a good fourteen feet up. Fanciful murals were painted on the blank canvas of the ceiling, like the pictures I’d seen of historical European palaces on Old Earth. Paintings of ancient battles so large they took up entire walls were hung between the sculpture alcoves. Doors leading to officer’s quarters or any important room were made of dark hardwoods. One of these doors was open and revealed an actual library with hundreds of books and wooden bookcases.

  “That’s the Historian’s quarters,” noted Poulsen. “We don’t go in there often.”

  “Can’t wait to meet him,” I said, with only a touch of sarcasm. It was true for more than one reason. I needed to size him up and see if he would be amenable to my secret orders, should they become necessary to carry out.

  We passed a pair of portraits flanking the corridor on either side of a central rotunda. The portraits were lit by a dome that glowed with a reasonable facsimile of natural light. The subjects were the current Grand Duke of Carinthia, Henrik Feilberg, and the Lady Bertrude, his wife, no doubt from an earlier time in their lives. I paused to consider Henrik Feilberg’s stern dark face, and wondered what the daughter of a man like that might look like. I was, after all, no doubt intended to eventually make the acquaintance of the Princess Karina Feilberg as part of my diplomatic duties. Thankfully an examination of the Lady Bertrude in her younger days revealed a gentle beauty with fair skin and hair and a pleasantly oval face. One could always hope.

  Presently Ensign Poulsen ushered me along. “I need to get you to your cabin, sir,” he said.

  I eyed him. Something was up. “I thought you said the captain wanted to see me right away?” I asked.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to examine your cabin first? Unload your bags, freshen up and get settled a bit?” he responded.

  I stopped and looked around again at the luxurious surroundings of the galleria. No doubt my cabin would be of a similar class.

  “Actually, Poulsen,” I said, handing him my shoulder brief, “why don’t you go on ahead and take care of things in my cabin for me. I’ll be along after I meet with Captain Zander.”

  “But . . . sir . . .” stumbled out Poulsen as I handed him the brief. “I’ve got a dress green uniform laid out for you in the cabin, sir. Your size was sent ahead. Proper attire and all that.”

  I looked down at my QRN uniform: dark blue with gold piping, Cochrane family crest of three boars’ heads, orange chevrons, and Southern Cross. I decided I’d make my first impression on the captain of Impulse wearing my own family’s colors.

  “I’m afraid that my Quantar blues will have to do for now, Ensign. Just point the way to the captain’s cabin and take the rest to my suite. I’ll be along after the meeting.”

  “But, sir, standard duty uniform aboard Impulse is Carinthian green. You don’t want to meet the captain—”

  “Actually, Ensign, I do want to meet him, just as I am. Now point the way, and carry on.” The way I said it left no room for further discussion. Poulsen reluctantly obliged with directions and I headed off to a portside lifter as Poulsen made his way up to officer’s country. He only paused once to look back and I waved in a friendly manner. No doubt part of his orders were to get me properly introduced to the Carinthian Navy way of
doing things. I smiled a bit as the lifter doors closed. Captain Lucius Zander would just have to meet with me for the first time on my own terms.

  I knocked firmly on the real wood door to Captain Zander’s cabin. More precisely, I knocked on one of the two wood doors to his cabin. Again, it seemed the Carinthians had spared no expense. The door was opened from the inside by an ensign. I nodded at him as I proceeded through into the largest shipboard room I had ever seen.

  It was a good twelve feet up to the ceilings, something that would have been regarded as a tremendous waste of space aboard a QRN ship. The walls were full of wooden bookcases stuffed with leather-bound editions. What wall space wasn’t taken up by bookcases was filled with portraits, again of the Grand Duke and his wife, along with a hunting party scene and a portrait of an unidentified lady, possibly Mrs. Zander, I surmised. A large cabinet full of naval souvenirs and brass sailing relics, complete with a large supply of liquor, took up nearly one whole wall.

  An intricate and oversized map desk flanked by Carinthian and Union Navy flags filled the back third of the room. In front of me in the center of the room was a sitting area with a formal sofa, coffee table and two leather chairs on either side, all facing a simulated fireplace burning with a soft orange glow. The sitting space was pulled together by an exotic Persian rug full of muted greens, reds, and yellows, the colors of the Carinthian flag. I stood at the front of the room near the doors and snapped to attention, feeling as if I could have been naked, I felt so out of place.

  The man seated in the center of the sofa put down his coffee cup on the table and stood slowly and with purpose, acknowledging me with a nod and then waving me forward in a welcoming manner.

  “Come in, my boy. And at ease,” said Captain Lucius Zander, all five and a half feet of him. He was wiry and slight, with exceptionally long blond-white hair. By looks I placed him in his mid-fifties, but I couldn’t be sure. His gravel-sharp voice made him sound as if he were twice that age.

  I stepped forward, tucking my navy cap under my arm as I came. Zander reached out to shake my hand and then clasped it with both of his when he took it. “Good to meet you, Lieutenant Commander Cochrane. Good to meet you,” he said. His eyes were a steel gray and I could see from his demeanor how he had ascended to captaincy of his world’s most important vessel. He may have been slight in stature but with that voice and those eyes I believed he could have withered grape vines in summer if he so chose.

  Zander motioned me to one of the leather chairs and I sat down.

  “I’m just finishing my morning coffee, Commander Cochrane, would you like some?” he asked.

  “No, thank you, Captain,” I said instinctively, and instantly regretted it. It was always impolite to refuse an offer of comfort from a superior officer, at least in the QRN. It made it seem as though you felt you were too good to be one of those types who liked to play on a captain’s favor. My regret came from the fact that it was nearly midnight according to my QRN clock, not prime time for coffee, but here on Impulse it seemed as if the morning watch was just beginning. I glanced up at an ornate wood wall clock; it said 0645. After a moment Zander took another drink and then started right in with the formalities.

  “I just wanted to offer my sincerest condolences on the loss of your countrymen. Your Admiral Wesley has informed me that you had a particular attachment to one of the young lieutenants aboard the First Contact shuttle. Lieutenant Decker was a fine officer, and a fine young lady, and I enjoyed having her aboard Impulse,” said Zander, quietly and sincerely.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. Natalie’s death was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Every reminder of her struck a chord of pain in me, pain I was trying to get past to embrace my new duties. Perhaps proper grieving would come later.

  Then Zander focused those eyes on me, took in a deep breath and said, “What happened at Levant was a tragedy, one I intend to set right. This crew has been through a lot. We all lost someone we cared about that day.”

  I didn’t really know how to respond to that. They had all lost someone, a friend, a shipmate perhaps, but I had lost the girl who was my first love. I blurted out another “thank you, sir,” for the offered condolences, then hoped the conversation would go anywhere away from this subject. Fortunately, it did.

  “Well then, no doubt you have a great deal of unpacking to do, Mr. Cochrane,” said Zander. “I want you to know that I won’t be expecting you on bridge duty today until noon. We depart tomorrow for our return trip to Levant and you can report for full duty then. But I do run a tight ship. I expect my officers on the bridge most days by 0700. We take thirty minutes for lunch at noon and the day shift ends at five. I expect all my senior officers for dinner nightly at 1900 in the officer’s lounge. The rest of your time is your own, except for Sundays when you are excused from morning duty to attend Church Worship, if you go in for that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, feeling weary already. The captain looked up at me.

  “Yes, you understand, or yes, you attend Worship?” he asked.

  “Yes to both, sir,” I said back.

  “Good,” he said forcefully, “I like a man with morals. It’s no fun putting your life on the line with atheists in space.”

  I nodded at this, again unsure how to respond. The fact was I wasn’t really sure I wasn’t an atheist. I just hadn’t had much time to contemplate it, and I’d grown up going to Worship on Sundays.

  “One other matter,” said Zander. “I’d like you to meet with Tralfane, our Historian, before your first duty. What with the two of you working the ’scope together, I think it would be best if you got off on the right foot.”

  “He was on my list, sir,” I said. Zander nodded.

  “Good. Our previous ’scopeman never really had a good working relationship with him, and it cost us dearly at Levant.” Then Zander looked away again. I could tell from the way he spoke that he took Impulse’s failure personally.

  “I should also like to meet with your exec at the earliest opportunity,” I offered. “Just to get more familiar with Impulse’s key personnel and my duties.” Zander glanced at his watch.

  “The new exec should be here any minute,” he said.

  “New exec, sir?” he nodded.

  “We lost our XO at Levant, Commander. His replacement is an officer I have been grooming for several years. Capable, competent, and no-nonsense. You will be learning from one of my best,” he said.

  Just then I heard a knock at the door.

  “Ah,” said Zander, standing. “That would be her.”

  “Her?” I asked. He nodded.

  “The commander and I have served together for quite a while, since she was an ensign, and it’s her old job you’ll be taking,” he said. I stood automatically to greet my direct superior as the door opened. I was surprised that I already knew her.

  “Lieutenant Commander Peter Cochrane, may I introduce my new Executive Officer, Commander Dobrina Kierkopf,” said Zander.

  I extended my hand in greeting and she took it. “Commander Cochrane,” she said, shaking my hand. “So good to meet you.” Her tone gave away nothing to indicate that we had met before.

  I returned her handshake and tipped my head slightly in greeting.

  “And so good to meet you as well, Commander Kierkopf,” I replied, being equally coy. We all sat down, Zander and Dobrina on the sofa, I in the increasingly uncomfortable leather chair. The next few minutes were taken up with casual conversation about duties and protocol, though nothing was said of my uniform choice. Zander seemed satisfied at this exchange and then glanced at his watch at five minutes to seven, by the wall clock.

  “More to come, Commander, but for now I have to make my appearance on the bridge or those rogues will start slacking. As I said, feel free to take until noon to report, and Commander Kierkopf here can continue to fill you in on the run of the ship.” Then he stood and D
obrina and I followed suit.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. “It’s an honor to serve with you.”

  “Nonsense, my boy, the honor is mine. Here’s to hoping we can resolve this Levant blockade and get back to doing what the Lightship fleet was designed to do, opening up new worlds once again.” We exchanged handshakes and then he was off to the bridge, followed by his attending ensign. That left Dobrina and me alone. I stood for a second, hands on my hips, looking at the now-shut door and bobbing my head ever so slightly. I had been played by her again, and I didn’t like it. I crossed my arms and turned back to Commander Dobrina Kierkopf.

  “How—” I started, but she cut me off with a wave of her hand as she sat down on the sofa.

  “How did I come to be here? Or how did I get aboard before you?” she said between bites of a croissant and sips of coffee.

  “Yes! Both . . . I’m not sure. I just know I don’t like it.”

  “You’re not supposed to,” she said. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Lieutenant Commander Cochrane, and I intend to be your teacher.” That pissed me off.

  “I don’t need a teacher, I need a compatriot. You and Poulsen came to Candle to spy on me,” I said, getting angrier at the thought of it. “I knew I recognized him from the bar.”

  “Nonsense,” she replied. “I was assigned to Impulse by your Admiral Wesley, and I had to meet with him before he would approve me as Zander’s XO. The trip to High Station was already planned.”

  “He sent you to check me out though, didn’t he?”

  She shrugged. “You’re a very valuable asset to the USN and they don’t want to lose you on your first mission.”

  “So you’re my babysitter,” I said. She stood to go.

  “If you like. It doesn’t really matter. I’m here and that’s just the way of it. Now come on, let’s get you to your cabin and get you properly dressed for duty aboard a Carinthian Lightship.”

  “This is a Union Lightship, madam,” I said, just to be cross with her.