by James Warner
“Oh Meph! Denebian Brandy? That’s fantastic! How did you know it was my favorite?”
“I read your bio before coming aboard, Captain. It was quite entertaining.”
I blushed a little. Sometimes I get these streaks of modesty. I don’t know why, but there you are. So we went to his room and broke out the brandy.
“Captain, would you like me to make a chocolate blackout cake?” Sassy asked.
“Oh yes! And some chocolate chip ice cream to go with it,” I replied enthusiastically.
“How about the candles?” she came back to me. Very politically correct. But I didn’t give a damn if Meph knew I was turning 30.
“Of course. You can’t have birthday cake without the candles!”
The hornet whipped up my favorite cake and ice cream and presented it in the galley food synthesizer and we set the table with the ship’s finest dinnerware and had a regular birthday party, with the song and everything. I was almost in tears with the happiness of this simple event light years from civilization. It must have been the brandy. Meph had Sassy make a holo and sent it to the Boss.
I was glad I had my clothes on.
Chapter 10.
“Well, Captain. Happy birthday!” How are you this morning?” Meph asked after knocking discretely on my door and opening it gently. I shielded my eyes from the lights that automatically went on when he came in.
“Okay I guess. That Denebian Brandy is really something! How long have you had it?” I began getting up and threw a robe on in preparation to taking a shower.
“I got it from my father as a present when I was accepted by the Academy. I have been saving it for a momentous occasion. This seemed as momentous as any occasion I had envisioned.”
“Well, thanks! Thanks a lot. I suppose we should head back to base. It’s been a little over a year since we started out.”
“Yeah, oh yeah. It seems like I’ve lived several lifetimes during this year, Captain.”
“I know what you mean. In actual fact, you have, since all your friends will have aged three or four years by now. So much for Einstein.”
“Who’s Einstein, Captain?”
“Oh, just an obscure Earth physicist whose theories of space travel, though very popular for over a hundred years, ultimately didn’t pan out. But he was one of the boys responsible for developing the atomic bomb on our planet. Nearly wiped out Earth civilization by putting it in the hands of government. I suppose he didn’t have much choice, though. Things were different back then.”
“Were they now? I see. Well, shall we do it?”
“I suppose so. It seems sort of anti-climactic now. All my earlier trips took over a month at top speed to return to base. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be there in a few moments. Boy are we going to have trouble now.” I had thrown off the robe and put on some underwear. I was too excited about going home in only a few minutes to take that shower now.
I finished dressing and ran ahead of Meph to the bridge, buttoning my blouse on the fly.
“Sassy,” I spoke somewhat formally as I settled in my command chair. I couldn’t help it. “Take us to orbit at Hamarabus Star Base.”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” the Hornet responded. And my retirement home dissolved from the screens. We traveled through hyperspace, or maybe not through any known space, since I didn’t understand the Hornet’s new jump system at all. I hadn’t had enough time to study it carefully and it was still a technology that was beyond me.
“Meph,” I asked, waiting for the Hornet to return to normal space as I finished buttoning the buttons on my formal uniform blouse, “Do you understand how we are traveling right now?”
“Funny you should ask, Captain. I have been studying it whenever I can grab a moment. It appears that we are not traveling in the normal manner through hyperspace at all, but somehow the ship is bending space so the exit and entry points are next to each other and then just stepping across. I can’t imagine the amount of power necessary to do that, but it is much greater than the Hornet’s previous power plant could provide.”
“So why does it take longer to cross the folds to Base than going between the last two star systems?”
“Well, I’m not sure, but I would guess since we are traveling farther, the bend in space must be thicker, so it takes us longer to travel between the two points across the, uh, folds.”
“Sounds logical to me.” As we finished our discussion the warning chime sounded and we entered normal space at the required orbital distance from the base.
“Hamarabus Base, this is the Silver Hornet requesting permission to dock,” I said to the Watch Captain.
“Uh, what ship is this?” He was confused, as we weren’t expected for another couple weeks, based on the time they had last received a transmission from the Hornet. I hadn’t bothered to tell about the modifications to the Hornet. They’d find out soon enough.
“This is the Silver Hornet, Captain Caryn McDowell in command, requesting clearance to dock and docking bay assignment.”
“Right. Just a moment.” I could hear the terminal beeping, as he looked us up and alerted security. No problem.
“Okay Hornet, dock at bay 6. Welcome home, Captain,” he said. That was better.
“Watch officer, we have been exposed to a serious fuel spill. Please make sure the docking bay is evacuated of all personnel.”
“Yes sir,” he responded. In a few moments he came back.
“Your bay is ready. Do you need emergency equipment?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Captain, the docking bay is ready. They’ve cleared out, but the Port Captain’s representative is waiting on the other side of the dock with a few military police.”
“Very well. Go on in. We’ll take the pod to the Boss’s office.” The Hornet warped into the dock. We just faded in, black butt and all. The comm channel was immediately full of questioning voices. No surprise there. And I knew I was going to get a hell of a time from the Port Authorities. And I knew they were going to get a hell of a time from me.
“Sassy, keep shields and weapons on standby and don’t let anyone but me or Meph inside, no matter what happens,” I cautioned her.
“Yes sir.”
We were reasonably secure, with our personal shield generators on our utility belts ready just in case. We got into the pod and told it to take us to headquarters. I wasn’t too worried about the size of the pod being a parking hazard. It was, after all, smaller than a bus. The cargo bay opened, we exited and it immediately slammed shut behind us, before the Port Captain’s rep could respond. We skimmed over the port concrete, over the checkpoint (which I hadn’t actually planned to do) and through the city to the local Admiralty HQ. The pod settled down on the grass covered parade ground and in a few seconds we were surrounded by a dozen ferocious looking military police.
“Oh-oh. Meph, I’m sorry. I should have anticipated this response. I forgot the Hornet looks different now.”
“That’s all right, Captain. Besides, our images and voices could be faked. They don’t really know who or what’s inside this dark gray alien pod, do they.”
“If there’s anyone out there who isn’t trigger happy, I’ll accept his gun on us. The rest of you lower your weapons or we won’t come out. I’m not about to come this far to be killed by my own people,” I announced over the pod’s loudspeaker.
Some of the men recognized my voice and lowered their weapons. They talked among themselves and called HQ for advice. Then one of the guys I knew fairly well held his guard and the others put their weapons at rest.
Feeling a bit safer, I opened the pod and Meph and I stepped out, hands on our shield buttons. The guard recognized me instantly and put his blaster rifle at rest and snapped a pretty good salute. Meph and I returned his salute. Then we walked (and scuttled) over the parade ground and into the HQ complex building, with one hell of a military escort. Some non-military police that had arrived stayed by the pod, checking it out and perhaps securing it (from us?).
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Inside the white marble halls and chrome furniture of Admiralty HQ the guard took up their duty stations and Meph and I saluted our way to the Commandant’s second floor Admiralty office to make our personal report. It is an old fashioned tradition, but still there are reasons for it. The Boss wants to see for himself that his employees are still alive and kicking. Besides, I like the Old Man. He was once a Scoutship Captain and after retiring from active flight duty had moved up the ranks to Sector Commandant quite rapidly where he seemed to have found his niche.
“Well Caryn, you have had quite a year. I have been looking at the holos and reading the reports with a great deal of interest (an understatement). Your adventures have made me neglect some of the other Scouts, I’ll have you know. So what’s the idea of changing the course of human history so, so insouciantly! We’ve been muddling along gradually with the Scout program for quite a few years now. And you have the gall to introduce a totally new, alien and highly advanced civilization and technology right in the middle of our stupor! Some nerve!” (He didn’t realize all this was Ancient Artifacts yet. He thought it was from the Frbylzks.)
I chuckled at his ribbing. “Well sir, I couldn’t help it really. You see there was this dragon out there in the ocean and he said that if I would just walk through this mirror, I would be able to read backwards and so...”
“Okay, I’ll see and read the rest of your reports. What’s the summary?”
“Where should I begin?”
Meph interjected, “Why don’t we start at the end and work our way backwards?”
“Hmm. Actually that’s a good idea. Meph, speak
up if I leave anything important out.”
“Good. At ease you two. Grab a seat and tell the old man all about it.” The Commandant gestured to a pair of comfortable (for me) chairs in front of his desk.
So Meph and I sat down and began to tell the Commandant the story. He sat in his large old soft leather chair, eyes closed most of the time, listening in that way he has of not missing a thing.
“First, and I guess most immediately important, the Hornet has a new kind of star drive. It somehow folds space so that we can travel a long distance by going between the folds. At least that’s what I have figured out so far. Right Meph?”
“Yes sir. That is my analysis as well, Commodore.
We don’t know how the ship’s new power plant accomplishes this, but that is apparently what takes place. We returned here from where the modifications were performed in a matter of minutes.”
“So tell me, what prompted you to modify your ship in the first place?” the Commandant asked.
“And how the hell did you do it?”
“That was from an encounter with Pirates, sir,” I said. It was time to change the subject a bit.
“How do they fit into this, Captain?”
“Well, we encountered a major planetary base in star system XN47248, sir. They were using a habitable planet as a construction base. They had built over a hundred star ships roughly equivalent to our Frigate class ships. Also they were in the process of building a dozen planet buster spheres,” I began.
“They were not happy about our arrival, and jumped us almost immediately, sir,” Meph added.
“What happened?” the Commandant asked, obviously keenly interested in the battle.
“In our first encounter there we destroyed several of their starships and spheres before we were damaged by their planet-based blasters. We were able to escape to a nearby alien planetary star base where we were fortunate enough to have the Hornet repaired. Then we returned later to finish the job and destroyed their planetary defenses,” I said, leaving out some of the details.
“By the way, Commandant, they were using the planet’s molten magma layer to provide power for their defenses. We were very lucky to be able to destroy their beaming emplacements using a scalar weapon I have developed to dig out a cubic mile of the planet’s surface,” Meph elaborated.
“A cubic mile? What the hell!” the Commandant exclaimed, apparently not having apprised himself of the Hornet’s new weapons and defenses before we left.
“Yes, sir. But the Hornet was severely damaged in the encounter. We managed to return to the alien star base and the Hornet was repaired as you see her now. They didn’t have the materials we use, so much of the Hornet’s skin was replaced as well as the power plant and warp drive,” I explained.
“Okay kids. You’ve done an admirable job of avoiding the most important question. Who are these aliens you encountered?” he said, pinning us on the mat. I have to hand it to him, the Boss is still pretty sharp.
“We don’t know, sir. It was all done robotically, and we never actually saw any of them. My guess is it might be those aliens we ran into at Last Chance, who are apparently more advanced than we are, but that’s a very big guess,” I said, hoping to close it out for now.
I didn’t mention the Ancients or Artifacts yet and just blamed the Frbylzks. Meph chimed in from time to time to elaborate on some of the technical details and some of our theories. We were there for over two hours. The Commandant grasped everything very well. He was no dummy, just too old to command a Scoutship anymore.
“All right. I assume the aliens weren’t around, since you didn’t bring a hostile fleet chasing after you. I’ll be looking forward to the details when they come in the message packet from the GED. Are you two hungry?”
“Yes, sir,” we both said as one. The Commandant led the way and we went downstairs to the basement commissary for lunch. It was divided into commissioned and non-commissioned dining areas and I knew the non-commissioned dining hall had the best variety of food. But the Navy always has the best food in their commissaries – almost as good as what you can get at a fine restaurant. And it’s always freshly prepared, which you can’t always get, even at fine restaurants. We ate well, in other words. I was glad to have a meal not synthesized. There is something different about real meat and vegetables. Maybe it’s the air.
I ordered beef barley soup, steak and vegetables and chocolate mousse for desert. Meph ordered a Chinese shrimp salad with wonton soup and a bowl of cherries. Harry ordered a deluxe cheeseburger with all the trimmings and French fries and an apple pie for desert. The meat parts were home grown and fresh as were the vegetables. The shrimp were imported from a nearby aquatic world.
Hamarabus was a well-financed and well-
populated world of three million inhabitants that was not really considered a frontier planet any more. The Navy made that possible.
“There’s something you haven’t mentioned yet, Caryn,” the Commandant said as we were finishing our desert. “Is there something you’d like to talk about off the record”?
I got an immediate feeling of shock. Then I realized he was probably talking about the known fact I had taken my option.
“Yes sir,” I answered, relieved that he had brought it up. I didn’t want to talk about the Artifacts yet.
“I exercised my option this trip.”
“Well, that is a cause for celebration!”
“Yes, sir. But I’m afraid I’m a bit nervous if I made the right decision. Would it be too prying to ask you what you did for your option?”
“No. It’s not a secret anymore. I went into partnership with two friends on a planet called Last
Chance Bar and Grill. I believe you’ve been there?”
“Really?” Meph and I chimed in unison.
“Yes. It was to be my last trip. There had been reports of hostilities in the area but there had been no official Scouts sent. Our three ships were sent out to reconnoiter in force. When we found the planet, it was devoid of life forms higher than small mammals. However it was very rich in fuelsource and other useful elements. It was nearly an exact duplicate of old Earth, with the star’s radiation, the planet and even much of the flora and fauna matching to the 9’s. And the rest of the system was of no consequence, so we decided to split it three ways and set up a permanent human outpost. The hostilities had b
een between competing mining companies in the star system’s asteroid belt. After that claim I retired from flight duty and accepted the position here and my two friends married and retired on Last Chance. And that’s the story. I have more wealth than I could ever spend from my share in the planetary trade and I am doing what I love best. The best of all possible worlds, if you’ll forgive the pun.”
“I see,” I said, thinking about my option and the magnitude of my claim, compared to his. My option was secure from prying eyes and so of course he had no idea what it was, only that I had exercised the option on this trip. From the other items Meph and I had uncovered and revealed in our reports, I could imagine he was dying of curiosity over what I had saved for myself. Naturally he was too polite to pry and regulations protected my secrecy for a year. I let it stay that way for the moment, until I had a chance to absorb it all myself. It looked like I was going to need an extended leave. This was available, also on a onetime basis, when a Scoutship Captain exercised her/his option.
