by CJ Williams
A mother pulled one of her children close, holding him tightly as though someone was going to take the boy and toss him out onto the strange planet and zoom away.
The captain glanced at Annie. “I need to stay here and get people settled. Can you handle the rescue up there for the next trip?”
Annie nodded, her face full of determination.
Solomon put his arm around a young man. “Help me get these people off.” He shouted to everyone, “We’re home. We’re going to build a city right here and we’re going to call it New Hope. Now, everyone off!” Before anyone could react, the captain scooped up an adolescent girl and jumped out of the shuttle. “Follow me!”
The child’s mother shrieked and followed him out the door. The young man jumped out behind her. It started a movement. Annie cried out encouraging remarks and kept the crowd going.
“Vincent is landing,” Sadie said, loud enough for Annie to hear.
“I see him. Look everyone!” Annie shouted. “Here comes another shuttle. Go help those people get off. It’s time to start helping each other.”
Solomon saw Vincent landing and hurried over. He was waiting when the cargo bay opened. “Welcome home,” Annie heard him shout encouragingly. “That was some ride, wasn’t it?”
The last reluctant colonist disembarked from Sadie. Millie was still sitting against the far wall. “You getting off?” Annie asked forcefully.
Millie took a deep breath. “You’ll need some help. Sorry I freaked out there.” She struggled to her feet and Annie saw the panic had faded from her eyes.
“Let’s go, Sadie!” Annie said, making her way to the cockpit.
The ship screamed back into space.
“Dead ahead,” Sadie said.
A group of thirty people floated together, drifting toward the planet, gesticulating to Sadie, trying to let someone know they were alive. Thank God for the personal force fields, Annie thought. She felt ridiculous that of all people, she had not been wearing it earlier. Rule number one was that you always wore your PFF aboard ship. Thank God for Millie, too.
The cargo bay door opened and Millie jumped into the middle of the crowd. Using her gravity gloves, she started pushing people toward the shuttle. Annie stood in the doorway and yanked them inside as they got close. In less than a minute the ship was full.
“Take us down, Sadie,” Annie said.
“Course set, Miss Daniels.”
As they approached New Hope, two other shuttles were disgorging survivors. Solomon had gotten a production line established and the ones already on the surface helped empty the shuttles so they could rush back into space.
# # #
Annie lost count of how many trips she made to and from the planet. Once the floaters had all been scooped up, Sadie took her to one of the two halves of the Marco Polo. Together Annie and Millie entered the ship through one of the exposed corridors and made their way to the interior, cutting through bulkheads, searching for survivors.
On one trip to the surface, Solomon pulled Annie and Millie off the shuttle, assigning two men in their place.
“You two have been at it for almost twenty hours,” he said. “Get some rest.”
Annie had no idea it had been that long. It seemed much less. Too exhausted to argue, she grabbed Millie’s hand and someone led them to an area along the bank where other rescuers were sleeping. She noticed in passing that campfires were lit. She hadn’t even realized it was dark out. Night had fallen on New Hope, but everywhere she looked people were working and caring for each other.
# # #
It took eight more days before Solomon declared that everyone who could be rescued had been found. After that, the problem was what to do with those who had not survived.
It was an emotional question. Many on the planet had left loved ones on the ship. Most of them were separated during the attack, celebrating on different decks of the doomed colony ship. They waited anxiously on the surface, hoping that the next recovery shuttle would reunite their family.
At the end, after the captain declared all those not accounted for as lost, some wanted the remains left in orbit as a tribute to the journey not finished. Others insisted their parents or children or spouse be brought home for burial to memorialize the sacrifice of so many.
It was an all-or-nothing question. Identification was impossible in most cases, the result of explosive decompression. The question was answered when the captain ordered all remains to be recovered and buried in a mass grave two miles from New Hope. It was a hilltop that overlooked the estuary of the Marco Polo River and village of New Hope.
The call for volunteers went out to help with the gruesome job. Annie, already numbed to the grisly sight of so much death, rode with Sadie for five more days.
At the end, with thousands of others, she stood on the hilltop. It seemed appropriate the weather that day was gray and drizzly; it hid the flood of tears and muted the sobs. Solomon stood at the edge of freshly turned earth to officiate.
“Each journey has a beginning and an end. Each destination entails sacrifice. Those of us standing here will never forget the…”
His words droned on, but Annie had stopped listening. She thought only of Luke, the lover she’d left behind in a fit of unexplainable anger. How could she have been so foolish? All of the principles that fueled her rage at the time were gone; they meant nothing compared to the colony’s loss. Would it have been that impossible to forget George’s machinations and stay with Luke?
The people around her had made a bold step in boarding the colony ship, knowing it was a dangerous journey. No one had dreamed it would end this way but at least they had struggled together, right up until the end.
She, on the other hand, had cut and run. She’d fled, leaving Luke to face the advancing Bakkui alone. She never thought “coward” would be a word to describe herself. The bravery of those around her filled her with humiliation. Their grief over lost loved ones filled her with guilt. Her tears were an equal measure of shame and sorrow.
Millie squeezed her hand, offering encouragement. “You saved so many people,” she whispered. “Don’t be hard on yourself.” Millie’s innocent misinterpretation of Annie’s sobs drove the knife of self-disgust even deeper.
When the service was over Annie made her way back to the tent that was now home. She fell on the ground and prayed that she would sleep for a month.
Day 551—Departing J64 (Jigu)
It started the first day out from Jigu. Luke instructed George to create a battle simulation of their previous engagement with the Bakkui. He thought it would be a good exercise for Carrie to get a feel for the intensity on the bridge during combat. He had her sit in the first officer’s chair while he commanded Lulubelle for the exercise.
During the debriefing after the initial simulation, she confessed she could not remember most of what happened. Luke explained the first experience in combat could be overwhelming. As a young fighter pilot, his first missions at Red Flag in Nevada had left him feeling the same way.
He told her the U.S. military poured millions of dollars into realistic training centers. They had learned the hard way that it took ten missions for new pilots to reach the point of having situational awareness in combat, of knowing where they were in relation to the entire battle. It was the same for anyone, whether you were a pilot in single seat fighter or the captain of Lulubelle. On the bridge, they were learning to fight with a new type of warship in a new arena for space combat.
Carrie had asked if they could run the exercise again. After the first simulation, Luke put her in the captain’s chair and watched from the sidelines. As the scenario unfolded he pointed out options she might take and offered on-the-spot guidance. After a couple more exercises, she asked to modify the engagement. In hindsight, Luke realized that was where he had created the monster.
# # #
“Fire!” Carrie shouted as Lulubelle closed on the last Bakkui ship. It dissolved in a sea of pixels.
Luke slumped in the
first officer’s chair, totally exhausted. He was simply trying to hang on and fill his duties as a first officer. Carrie, on the other hand, was full of energy.
A week earlier, she instructed George to take over exercise planning so each step of the battle would be a surprise for her and the crew. For the rest of the journey Carrie and her bridge crew had worked Luke almost to death.
George’s voice broke into the ensuing silence. “Simulation complete. Time of engagement two hours and thirteen minutes. Enemy killed, five hundred forty. Alliance warships lost, seventeen. Fighters destroyed, seventy-eight.”
“Damn!” Carrie said with feeling. “I thought we did better than that. Sorry, Zach. I know I left Green Squadron hanging out to dry, but…you know.”
“Not a problem, Captain. I saw it coming and did what I could to offset.”
“Good job. Thanks for backing me up.” Carrie looked at Luke. “Want to run it again, Commander?”
Luke tried to look dignified as he turned down her suggestion. He was afraid he would have a heart attack if they did. “Tomorrow’s for real,” he explained. “Let’s save a little energy for that one. You have the con.” He struggled to his feet and made it back to his room before collapsing onto the couch.
He felt that Carrie had proven herself during the last two weeks. She was more than ready to take the ship into combat. Whereas Luke and Tyler tended to rely on their experience to handle whatever situations might arise, Carrie worked nonstop to improve her skills. Luke got more than he bargained for with her training.
Nevertheless, when they arrived at J97 and faced the possibility of real combat, Luke would sit in the captain’s chair. He owed that to the crew. But afterward, he was seriously considering putting his young firebrand in the hot seat on a permanent basis.
Chief Rogers came into the room and examined the sweat-stained uniform his boss was still wearing. “I see Lieutenant Faulkner’s been giving you warlord training again,” he said with a sigh.
Same Day—New Hope
“Theodora!” Camila said loudly. “Wake up.”
“Teddy!” The Captain grabbed her leg and shook it.
“Leave me alone!”
“Come on, Miss Smith!” Solomon shouted. “Sadie is acting up again.”
Annie gazed blearily at Solomon, squatting next to her bedroll. “She’s a computer! Computer’s don’t act up.”
Camila stooped down and glared at Annie. “You know what we’re talking about. Please, girl! I understand how tired you are but Millie’s got it figured out. Now get up and help. Or do you want me to tell seven thousand people it’s your fault they have to live off supplements another week.”
“Uhhhh!” Annie put her face under the dirty blanket.
Camila stood up, taking Solomon’s hand. “Okay. Let’s go, cariño, she’s not coming.” Camila dragged Solomon outside the tent’s entrance flap and shouted, “Forget it everyone. Teddy’s too tired. She would rather sleep.”
“Look out!” Solomon caught Annie’s boot just before it smashed Camila in the back. He tossed the boot back. “Thanks, Theodora,” he said, grinning.
Annie watched her tormentors walk away. She knew life wasn’t fair, but this was beyond the pale. Ten minutes later she boarded Sadie.
“You’re making me a wanted woman, Sadie. And not in a nice way.”
“I apologize, Miss Daniels. The Commander would never forgive me if I allowed you to come to harm.”
Annie let it drop. She’d already had this conversation. After the disaster, Sadie had apparently come to the conclusion that she was Annie’s bodyguard and would not go into space unless Annie was onboard. To Sadie, it made no difference that Annie was much safer on the ground.
Because the shuttles were running back and forth non-stop, Annie’s life had turned into one of unending exhaustion. The colonists were salvaging as much as possible from the disintegrating vessel.
In the meantime, people still needed three meals a day. All of the great plans for the creation of the new colony had been destroyed with the Marco Polo. The colonist’s trades and skills that would have ensured a cultured existence with a high quality of life were of little use. Instead, the community worked like scavengers to provide food.
Without basic implements, simple nutrition became touch and go. Each shuttle had a small replicator on board, but even combined, they were not up to the task of feeding seven thousand people. Instead they produced piles of nutritional supplements between trips. At best it was a short-term solution. If they could move one of the ship’s large replicators to the surface, they might have a chance at survival.
“Where’s Millie?” Annie asked.
“She is on the Marco Polo.”
“Let’s go then.”
Moments later Sadie parked next to the larger piece of the Marco Polo’s wreckage. A wide hole had been painstakingly cut through the hull into the engineering section. Millie’s crew had jury-rigged dozens of LED lights along the walls to illuminate the interior.
Annie pulled on a pair of gravity gloves and launched herself into the derelict. Near the core she spotted Millie looking very excited.
“Whatcha got?” Annie asked once she touched down.
Millie looked at the medium sized replicator. It measured a hundred feet square. “This is the one we’re going with. It’s small enough for us to handle and of the four onboard, it has the least damage.”
“Does it work?”
“I can’t tell without power. I had Vincent make a small hand generator to power the control panel. The panel looks okay when I apply voltage, but who knows about the main unit? From what I understand, it was the Marco Polo that had the database with the replicator inventory. Vincent has a limited one for basic ops, but nothing that we need on the surface.”
“That’s not good,” Annie agreed.
“These shuttles are just not that smart. Except Sadie. She won’t come out and say it, but I get the feeling that she has a more complete product list.”
“I know,” Annie sympathized. “She was the commander’s very first shuttle and helped create the initial database. She’s become a weird duck lately. Hang on.”
Annie looked back through the wreckage at her shuttle floating next to the wide opening. Sadie, answer me yes or no. Do you have a more comprehensive replicator inventory that can help the people on the planet?
Yes, Miss Daniels.
Can you make food and tools?
Affirmative.
Annie looked back at Millie. “She said she does.”
Millie gave Annie one of her suspicious looks. Annie had gotten a lot of those lately.
“How do you do that?” Millie asked.
“I’ll tell you later. What do you want to do now?”
“I’d like to try it out before we move it to the surface, but at this point I’m not sure how.”
Sadie, get in here, please.
The shimmer of a force field appeared around her hull and the shuttle reluctantly inched forward. The opening was three times what she needed, so Annie wasn’t sure why the hesitation.
Are you scared of this place? Annie asked.
A little bit, the small shuttle replied. Marco wasn’t that friendly but he didn’t deserve this. And I don’t want to get trapped inside.
Annie had been having more of these personal conversations with Sadie lately. It was getting harder not to attribute true feelings to the little spacecraft. But they had been together for a long time.
George once explained that the more time people spent with their AIs, presumably no matter what level of the device, the closer the bond between human and computer. The AIs were programmed to process their counterpart’s feelings into a feedback loop to enhance the relationship. Annie had concluded that her feedback loop with Sadie would eventually drive one of them into a nervous breakdown.
The small spacecraft came to a stop next to the two women.
“How can I help?” the shuttle asked. Her voice was clear inside the boundary of
her force field.
“Sadie, do whatever you have to, to make this replicator produce five tons of vegetables,” Annie ordered.
For this size replicator it was the simplest of instructions but would make the most difference to the colonists tonight. Annie thought she heard a mechanical sigh.
“Find a type forty-three power cable. Run it from the external power socket below my console to the JX-101 plug under the replicator’s control panel. It’s the one with twenty-eight prongs.”
It took almost an hour to find the necessary cable on level four of the other hulk. Fifteen minutes later the replicator shimmer faded away.
In the center of the replicator pad sat a cluster of forty pallets. Each pallet was five feet high and every single one was filled with individually wrapped salads.
Millie squealed and launched herself at the closest pallet. She tore out one of the packages and shrieked again. “It’s from Safeway!” She glanced back at Annie, a wide grin plastered across her face. “Look! It’s a chicken Caesar salad. That’s my favorite. It even has dressing!”
It was Annie’s favorite too. In fact, she remembered when she scanned it during the early days on one of her trips to Earth. Luke had scanned hundreds of foods into the replicator database to get Moonbase started, but for the most part, he neglected vegetables and salads. Annie chalked it up to typical male mentality and compensated with scans of her own. Sadie obviously remembered the incident too.
Millie drifted over to Sadie and planted a wet kiss on the front of the shuttle.
Sadie was affronted. “Miss Parish, restrain yourself. The biological residue from that smudge can develop a hotspot on my forward exterior during reentry.”
“Ha!” Millie responded sarcastically. “I am very familiar with the extended force field used for atmospheric flight. Nice try.” She swiped her tongue across the hull.
“Augh!”
“Stop it, you two,” Annie barked. She couldn’t help smiling. Sometimes dealing with the pair was like babysitting a couple of little sisters.
“Miss, Daniels,” Sadie announced primly. “I have notified Vincent to bring some volunteers. They will retrieve the vegetables for transport to the planet. Afterward they will return and assist with moving the replicator.”
