by S. H. Jucha
Alex replied, his words trailing off.
Fiona imagined the Admiral somewhere up above her—a young man barely twelve years older than her great-grandson, trying desperately to save an entire planet full of people he had only recently met. Such a good heart, she thought.
Alex heard her laughter as she closed the comm. He found he was lamenting the fact that he might never get the opportunity to know Fiona Haraken. Inevitably, some Librans would be left behind, and Alex could see the truth in Tatia’s words. Fiona would be the last Independent to leave her planet.
-25-
Day eight became a blur for everyone, except for those who waited on the ground. People hurried around Bau Ein station and the giant city-ship in a mental fog. The pilots were flying like automatons, performing their actions more by muscle memory than attention. The shuttles would land, crew would fuel, and no one was performing inspections. The gangway ramp would extend and passengers would file on and quickly take seats, filling up every space, including the Outward Bound’s refresher deck. The younger Librans had come to consider it a badge of honor to occupy those unique seats.
The crews of the shuttles napped in place after they made space, while the SADEs maintained watch and guided the shuttles to the Unser Menschen. An alert was sent to the pilot’s implants when they approached the city-ship within 100 km. Then Z chatted with the pilots for a while to ensure that they had returned to full alertness.
Accidents, previously a rarity among Méridiens—although the New Terrans weren’t always so careful—increased for everyone. The city-ship’s medical bays were kept busy repairing cuts, burns, and broken bones. Two people were in comas while nanites repaired the concussions that both of them had suffered in separate incidents.
Z remained in constant contact with the Admiral, having recognized his error while attempting to employ his new lessons in human sensibilities. Briefly Z had considered his old ways to have been preferable, but after further reflection, he realized the old ways would have him still on Libre with no hope for the future. And the Admiral’s daily comms had become entertaining. He discovered the Admiral was finding time to read the material he had sent Julien on AI mobility and they often chatted on the subject for several moments. Z might have thought the Admiral was merely attempting to make him feel better about his constant requests for updates. The negation of that line of reasoning was that the Admiral’s questions were insightful and appeared to focus on a SADE’s appearance and the public’s reactions.
* * *
Alex and Étienne had spent the night in the Bau Ein Station Manager’s plush offices. After a few hours of sleep, they started day nine by making their way to a meal room aboard the Unser Menschen. The meal rooms were serviced thirty hours a day by young passengers, who had no useful tech skills. The youthful Librans would seat the workers, bring them food, and clean up after them, allowing critically needed people to return to their jobs that much quicker.
This particular meal room had forty or so people already seated, being served even at 4.75 hours. A young woman dipped her head to Alex and motioned them toward seats at a small table on the side of the room for a little privacy. She signaled another young woman at the dispensers, who busily prepared trays for their important guests. No one had to ask what the Admiral and his escort, Étienne, preferred. Every Libran had begun accumulating a small library of the preferences of these two individuals.
Alex turned his head at Étienne’s nod. Five small children stood behind him, four with food trays and one with drinks. A tray was placed in front of Étienne. Three children couldn’t hide their smiles and giggles when they handed their trays to the Admiral. The fifth child placed a cup of aigre in front of Étienne and an empty cup in front of the Admiral. Then the boy carefully filled Alex’s cup with thé, setting the pitcher on the table.
Alex picked up his utensil, belatedly noticing one little boy still standing there with his hand extended. Alex regarded the serious expression on the child’s face and the tiny hand extended toward him. The young woman who had greeted them was now hurrying forward to recover her wayward server. Alex smiled at the little one and used his forefinger and thumb to shake the boy’s hand. The child’s fingers could barely circle Alex’s finger, but he shook it with intent.
After their meal, Alex and Étienne headed to one of the cavernous bays of the city-ship. A query by Alex for information regarding a comparison of the shuttle turnaround time of Freedom versus the Unser Menschen had revealed a discrepancy.
In the bay, Alex took a stance beside a sidelined shuttle. There were several in the bay, certified as unsafe to fly for want of repairs or heavy maintenance. He watched the Bergfalk crew unload the next shuttle. Their procedures were a polite and orderly disembarkation of the passengers and a methodical unloading of the supplies, the crew taking time to move the supplies through the airlock before the shuttle was released.
Alex sent a quick order to Julien. Moments later, two of Alex’s flight crew cycled through the airlock and came running up to him, snapping to attention, and delivering sharp salutes.
The crewmen waited as another shuttle cleared the ship’s catch-lock. Once the lock’s space was equalized, the inner doors slid open and grav-lifts embedded in the deck floated the shuttle into the bay, the connecting doors to the catch-lock sealing behind the shuttle. The four men stood there watching the methodical process of the Bergfalk personnel.
In the meantime, Alex queried Julien and Z.
When Alex saw that his men had seen enough, he said to them,
Z and Julien ran down their personnel lists and began issuing orders. Each New Terran who reported to a bay replaced two Méridiens, who were then reassigned to the work that the New Terran had been doing. Most Méridiens found they struggled to accomplish the same workload as their cousins.
After a shuttle cycled through the bay under the care of the New Terrans, Z was attemp
ting to reconcile how the turnaround had been shortened by 38 percent. He queried Julien with the data.
* * *
As day nine progressed, Z calculated that the shuttles would lift an additional 1,290 Librans by the launch time of the passenger liners. That was until shuttle HB-L131 reported a problem during its lift. The pilots were at full power, striving to reach orbit as engine coolant temperatures exceeded tolerances. The temperature gauges spiked, the engines lost containment, and shuttle HB-L131, filled with forty-nine passengers and five crew members, exploded.
Those on the ground witnessed the spectacular fireball. The SADEs quickly circulated the critical news, and Z sadly reset his lift expectations. What the Admiral had gained through the bay personnel changes had just been lost through the shuttle explosion.
When day nine ended, the tally was 3,903 more Librans lifted, fifty-four dead, and one shuttle lost. The remaining shuttles, including the Outward Bound, now parked on the Unser Menschen for overnight servicing. Engineers and techs swarmed over them, doing what they could to prep them for the next day.
* * *
When day ten started, it was business as usual, but everyone was tense. No one was falling asleep or napping. The shuttles continued lifting Librans as fast as they could, and when they landed aboard the Unser Menschen, New Terrans poured them out of the shuttles as if they were liquid. Each shuttle was sliding back through the catch-lock doors before half the passengers had even exited the bay. There was always the risk of human or mechanical error creating a dangerous decompression, but Z was paying particular attention to the shuttle operations, hoping to avert a disaster before it could happen.
* * *
Julien had placed the FTL comm station just outward of the last planet, tucked next to a small moonlet. The rotation of the tiny satellite around the planet meant outward-focused telemetry was lost for five out of twelve hours, but in the distances of space, it was a small loss to ensure the station was hidden.
On one pass to the dark side of the planet, the station recorded the huge mother ship exiting FTL. The image was immediately relayed to the SADEs and, per the Admiral’s instructions, applications were set to observe and analyze. The SADEs identified the mother ship’s velocity immediately as 0.91c. The giant sphere was still hours away from the orbit of the outermost planet where the FTL station hid, and not a single silver ship was in sight.
Alex let the people continue to work, and he and the SADEs kept quiet.
* * *
As the Outward Bound landed planetside, Edouard and Miko could see the remaining crowd gathered in the fields just beyond the runway berm. It was the same location where the Librans had first gathered to hear the Admiral speak.
According to Edouard’s update from Julien, every person left on Libre was in that field. The people had erected shelters from the sun to wait out their turn to lift. There were still families among them, but none with small children. What remained were parents with adult children, and single adults, many of them quite elderly.
The Admiral had apprised the shuttle crews of the Independents’ final boarding priority, and while these people had been branded as Independents, they were managing the process in true Méridien fashion.
When Edouard heard of the people’s decision from Alex, he was sad and angry.
Alex said before he closed the comm.
All his life, Edouard, along with every other Méridien, had been taught that the Independents had abandoned their culture because they must somehow be mentally defective. Some scientists had even studied the genetics of the Independents to try to determine the source of the flaws. Others proposed the problem stemmed from a mental imbalance caused by the implant. But neither group had been successful in proving their theory and determining what created an Independent.
Now Edouard felt ashamed. The manner in which the Independents chose to handle their fate proved they were Méridiens. They had chosen a most honorable solution, and he was guilty of condemning them for being less than human, less than Méridien. No, Admiral, Edouard thought, I’m not a good man.
When the elders saw the Outward Bound land, they sent the next 223 individuals over the berm. The Librans moved quickly and without baggage to reduce the total weight, allowing a few more passengers to board.
* * *
As day ten ended and the shuttles docked on the Unser Menschen for refueling and servicing, Alex and the SADEs watched the mother ship cross the outer planet’s orbit, and the first silver ship exited. They continued to emerge one by one until ten drones circled the giant sphere.
The FTL station was shut down once the active telemetry of the flotilla’s ships began receiving the mother ship. It was hoped that the FTL station could remain hidden for later, if there was to be a later.
Alex had the SADEs connect him to every implant in the Arno system: fleeing ships, parked ships, stations, planetside, and wherever.
What Alex didn’t say is that the liners would have a sufficient head-start to outrun the silver ships, but the Unser Menschen never would. The city-ship had already been scheduled to launch at 6 hours tomorrow, so Alex wasn’t really announcing anything different to the Leaders and officers, and the SADEs knew it.
* * *
The Outward Bound’s crew was taking a late-evening meal when they heard the Admiral’s announcement of the enemy’s arrival. Edouard laid his utensil down and took a sip of aigre to wash down his last bite of food. He regarded his crewmates, Miko, Pia, Lyle, and Zeke, who returned his determined look with ones of their own. Then the five of them rose and headed for the shuttle bays. The other shuttle crews in the meal room watched the Admiral’s premier flight crew head out and took their cue. They snatched last bites of food and drink and hurried after them.
The two acting flight chiefs in the Unser Menschen’s flight bays recognized an uprising when they saw it. Momentarily it crossed their minds to resist, but the looks on the shuttle crews’ faces shut those thoughts down. Instead they begged for enough time to allow the flight crews to complete the shuttles’ minimal maintenance.
The pilots relented and stood by impatiently as the flight crews completed their jobs and got out of the way. Within two hours of Alex’s announcement, all the shuttles were headed planetside. There were still thousands of people on the ground, and the shuttle crews were determined to lift as many as they could.
-26-
Throughout the night, the shuttles flew. Julien and Z monitored the crafts’ readiness as more and more red warnings appeared on their bridge consoles. The Libre population planetside dwindled by a count of about 352 with every round trip of the shuttles.
Andrea didn’t answer. She mentally kicked herself for underestimating the applications running in her Admiral’s implant. Must be crowded in there, she thought. Alex’s response indicated he knew exactly how dangerous the flights were becoming, and he had made the decision not to interfere. She understood. When the silver ships reached Libre, every person left behind would be a scar on the survivors’ memories forever.
Renée had food and drink delivered to the bridge crew, who had missed evening meal and would not be leaving their posts this night. She personally handed Andrea a hot mug of thé. “What arrangement has the Admiral made for the Rêveur crew’s recovery from the city-ship?”
Andrea shifted uncomfortably in her command chair. “The Admiral’s left no orders, Ser, in that regard.”
“Shouldn’t that be corrected, Captain?” Renée replied.
Andrea heard the question, which didn’t sound like a question at all. “Yes, Ser, it will be.”
* * *
Alex was hurrying through the city-ship’s corridors. As Z’s troubleshooter, he was checking systems with engineers and coordinating the manual operations of the systems required to launch. One of his implant programs continued to track a summary of the people left on the ground, every shuttle trip, and every passenger load count.
