Colonial Prime_Humanity

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  “I already have a chief engineer and master chief in mind with whom I have worked in the past. So that leaves me with two positions, executive officer and weapons officer. You are going to be my executive officer. Effective immediately it will be entered in the ship’s log that you’ve been granted a commission with the rank of commander, serving as executive officer to Captain Amara Corrin.”

  Nathan blinked, stunned. Executive officer? How was he going to command a convoy of over 3,000 people?

  “I had the computer upload the files of some of my choices for the weapons officer and master chief to your wristband. Please look over their files and let me know your recommendations within the hour. I will make the shipwide announcements before we leave the Jupiter Station.”

  Nathan nodded and stood.

  “Oh, and Commander,” Captain Amara said as he turned to leave. He turned back. “I’m putting a lot of trust in you here. Please don’t make me regret that choice.”

  Nathan nodded, his resolve suddenly growing. He straightened and flashed a quick, wide grin. “You never will.”

  Jaelyn worked his spade through the soft loam and detritus of dirt, fertilizer, and dying plant matter, tilling the compost to add the right amount of air to the mixture. He braced himself as the ship settled into the Jupiter Launching Station’s enormous launching clamps and the ship began turning in a geosynchronous orbit around the massive gas giant.

  Soon, after the cargo holds were loaded with all the supplies and fuel needed to make the forty-five-year odyssey through space, the ship would begin to spin around the planet faster and faster, pulled inward by gravity and centripetal force until reaching launching speeds and being hurled out into space. What was more, since space had no frictional force, the speed at which they launched would remain the speed at which they traveled for the duration of the voyage. No wasted fuel except for minor course corrections. According to the reports Jaelyn had read, the artificial gravity inside the ship would counter the massive g-forces that spinning around the planet would cause.

  He’d heard some of the stories about what had happened to the first few test pilots back when they were testing the device. Insides crushed, burst blood vessels, exploding organs. He shuddered, turning his mind and attention back to the task at hand. Still, he couldn’t help but swallow against the lump of fear that worked up his throat. Normal launches were bad enough.

  “I think the soil is ready, Dr. Martin,” he said.

  The older woman looked over at him from where she worked on the outside of the planter, arranging a number of potted rose bushes. Within just a few minutes of introducing herself and offering him a duty post she had put him to work and left him to it, returning to her own devices. That was fine with Jaelyn. He preferred the solitude and appreciated working with someone who didn’t feel the need to fill the empty spaces of the room with equally empty conversation. Besides, the work helped him focus and it was good to be in motion with the diminished gravity inside the ship. The more resistance his muscles experienced, the less likely they would atrophy over time.

  “You think?”

  Jaelyn rolled his eyes. “The soil is ready, Dr. Martin.”

  “Good. Always be direct and assertive in your words,” the woman said, picking up a few of the potted plants and lifting them up to him. “Passive phrasing leads to misunderstanding and allows others to perceive you as beneath them. Now, dig me enough holes to get these planted.”

  Jaelyn grumbled to himself, but set to the work anyway, rather savagely digging his spade into the dirt to start a hole. Adults liked to lecture, even when some things were better left unsaid.

  He’d just set his spade to start the second hole when the sound of crackling speakers cut through the silence. Jaelyn’s mother’s voice filled the air.

  “Attention passengers. Loading should be completed within the next few minutes. Launching will begin shortly thereafter and we will truly take our first steps toward our final destination. There will be no turning back after this – fuel will be inefficient to do much more than correct our course after launch.”

  Jaelyn paused in his work for a moment, adjusting his shoulders and suppressing a shiver.

  “To help us on this journey, we welcome Commander Nathan Esquina as executive officer, Commander Jackson Li as the chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Holly Chalman as the chief weapons officer, and Rajesh Kuthar as the master chief. Other duty stations and commissions will be assigned throughout the day as each officer decides the breakdown of their own command structure. Please check your wristbands periodically for updates. May we all have a peaceful voyage.”

  The speakers crackled again, signaling the end of the announcement.

  So his mother had picked her command structure. Good for her, he thought as he finished up digging the holes for the rose bushes and bent to take one of the plants from Dr. Martin for planting. Honestly, his mother had been through so many different posts Jaelyn didn’t usually pay much attention to those with whom his mother served. He’d grown accustomed to the fact that they’d just be transferred again soon and there’d be new people to meet and smile at to further his mother’s military career. Getting attached to people, to friends, was an exercise in frustration and futility. It was a much simpler matter, a safer matter, to simply devote himself to his studies, to learning, to his passion for plants and genetics, than to try and be the typical child everyone expected him to be.

  He dropped the first plant into a hole he’d dug, careful of the thorns. This time it was different though. He had to keep reminding himself of that. This time there would be no more transfers. This time he wouldn’t be moving to any other ships. This was as much a home as anything he’d ever known. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere else for the next forty-five years. Maybe he should pay more attention to these ones. It would certainly make his mother happy, and that’s all she cared about at least.

  A soft whooshing noise and the mild rasp of metal on metal signaled someone entering the gardens through the sliding doors near them. Jaelyn glanced up to see a distinguished figure stomp up the steps, heavy military boots clanging against the metal flooring. He started talking almost before reaching the top of the steps.

  “What does this idiot woman think she’s doing?” he demanded, addressing Dr. Martin. “Did you hear who she appointed as her executive officer? Some arrogant little pup barely off his mother’s tit. I warned her what would happen if she didn’t appoint me. Did she listen?”

  Dr. Martin raised a hand, gesturing sharply and nodding toward Jaelyn. Jaelyn pretended not to notice, shoveling dirt over the rose’s root system and tamping it down, though he noted the exchange and filed the information away.

  “We all face our own little disappointments, Sheawn.” Dr. Martin said, handing Jaelyn another potted rose. “I’m sure our good captain has reasons for what she’s done.”

  The man, Sheawn, looked Jaelyn up and down, grumbling under his breath. Jaelyn studied the man himself out of the corner of his eye. With a square jaw, greying hair, and distinguished features, the man was the picture of military decorum. A careerist.

  Careerists were a scheming, conniving lot, according to Jaelyn’s mother. They did best in situations where they could have job advancement and recognition. When they didn’t get it, they took their ambition and channeled it into other avenues. One of his mother’s favorite sayings was that the difference between a military careerist and a criminal was where they directed their ambition.

  “I’ll talk to you later then,” Sheawn said, turning on his heel, “2100 hours at the bar.”

  Dr. Martin waved a hand after him in acknowledgement, though her eyes looked troubled. In spite of, or maybe because of the fact that Jaelyn didn’t like conflict or being around too many people at once, he’d gotten good at reading their emotions and facial expressions.

  “Everything alright, Doctor?” he asked.

  “Everything is splendid,” she muttered. “Just splendid.”

  The
ship shook ever so slightly as it completed the final revolution around Jupiter, clamped into place on the launching deck. Even with the artificial gravity generators working at peak efficiency, there was no way to completely compensate for the massive g-forces created by the near light speed revolutions around the massive planetary body.

  “Brace yourselves,” the computer’s calm voice advised over the system speakers.

  Nathan envied the computer’s ability to ignore the emotions that were swelling through his body at that precise moment. He’d only been out to deep space once before, during the war, and had thrown up shortly after the launch. He remembered somewhat ruefully his friends’ laughter as he’d heaved into a trash receptacle near his desk.

  He wouldn’t have the luxury of throwing up, or having friends, as the executive officer.

  Nathan leaned forward slightly, putting his hands on the catwalk’s railing for support as he watched the stars zip by though the Command Bubble’s DuraGlass walls. Next to him, Captain Amara did the same, her face the unchanging mask it always was. Why had she chosen him as the XO?

  The ship lurched.

  Nathan couldn’t stop his fingers from clenching around the metal rail as if frozen in place. The stars outside the Bubble seemed to blur into one long streak of light. Nathan let out a long breath in as inaudible a sigh as possible, though it still came out sounding like something halfway between a huff and a gasp. A quick glance around let him know that no one but Captain Amara had heard and she didn’t appear as if she was going to acknowledge it outside of a slight glint in her eyes.

  “Ready a fleetwide broadcast, Commander,” she said. Nathan nodded and hit a few buttons on his wristband. When he looked back up, Captain Amara had a hand covering her mouth as she coughed. For half a moment, Nathan wondered if she was covering up a laugh, but almost immediately dismissed the thought. He wondered what a genuine laugh from her would sound like. Could she laugh?

  “Ready, Captain.”

  “We have launched,” Captain Amara said in her steady, feminine voice. Nathan felt, more than heard, it echoing throughout the ship and knew it was being broadcast to the four other vessels of a like size flanking them. “As our ancestors before us, we’ve taken a step further along the path of progression for humanity. Each of you, each of us, is a branch of the great family that is mankind, reaching forth across the stars as we leave behind the home of our parents to become our own nation. Come success or failure, life or death, happiness or misery, we cannot go back. We’ve passed that line of demarcation. Forty-five years will forge us anew before we reach our hallowed home.”

  Nathan couldn’t tear his eyes away from Captain Amara’s face as she spoke. Her expression held such conviction, it was all Nathan could do not to cheer. Or weep. It was, well, it was a beautiful expression on her otherwise stoic face.

  “Whatever our allegiances were back on Earth,” she continued, “our allegiance is to us now, to our new home, to the continuance of this branch of humanity. Everyone aboard this ship and this convoy is no longer a stranger. We are family. Let us become and remain such over the next forty-five years.”

  It took Nathan a moment longer than it should have to realize Captain Amara had stopped talking and was waiting for him to end the transmission. He quickly tapped the necessary buttons on his datapad.

  “Thank you, Commander.” Captain Amara turned on a heel and began walking down the long walkway toward the far side of the Command Bubble. “Please have the department heads assemble in the main conference room. 21:15 Earth standard time, if you please.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  As Captain Amara walked away, Nathan found he couldn’t help but admire her.

  Amara leaned back in her chair at the head of the long conference table and closed her eyes. She hadn’t thought of herself as anything but Captain Corrin in such a long time. Since just after Jaelyn had been born, really. That was the last time she’d thought of herself as simply Amara, the day she’d come to accept what had happened to her and moved on with a focus and determination to become the best soldier, the most well-respected and feared warrior, of any woman ever. She hadn’t been a captain then, of course, just an ensign, but the sentiment was the same. Still, this was a new life, a new responsibility. She had a duty not just as a captain, but as a colonist. Just Amara was what she needed to be more than Captain Corrin.

  The small beep that preceded the door opening cut through the stillness of the room. Amara’s eyes were open and she was sitting fully erect and straight-backed by the time the door slid all the way open.

  Commander Nathan Esquina entered the room followed by the department heads, including her senior officers. Nathan walked with military efficiency, back straight, chin parallel to the floor, expression schooled into calm confidence. With his trim brown hair, stark blue eyes, and square-jawed almost boyish face, Amara was suddenly hit by just how striking he appeared. He was the picture of military decorum, but not pompous by any means. He was the type of man people would grow to look up to, over time. She’d made a good choice, picking him. She let her gaze linger on him a moment longer before moving on to the rest of the group filing into the room. She knew them all by name and by the image that came on their dossier, but she’d only met a few of them in person before.

  First behind Nathan came the senior officers. Chief Engineer Jackson Li, a short, wiry, older man who had formerly belonged to the Asiatic Coalition of Nation-States before joining this fleet, took a seat at the far end of the table almost immediately.

  Chief Weapons Officer Holly Chalman came next, long red hair pulled up into a severe bun. In contrast to that, she held a bright smile on her young face and winked at Commander Li as she passed him. One would never know to look at her, but she held the record for the single most kills in hand-to-hand combat in the late war. Just the thought of all that blood on the woman’s hands made Amara’s skin crawl and she had to force herself not to shudder at the recognition that she wasn’t much better herself. The act that landed her as captain of this voyage across the vastness of space had put plenty of blood on her own hands.

  The last of her officers, well, staff really, since he would have been a non-com in a standard Fleet vessel, Rajesh Kuthar, took a seat next to her and pointedly looked down at his hands, the salt and pepper of his hair contrasting with the dark tone of his skin. The short man had been part of the old nation-state of India before it had fallen. He’d lost more friends and family in the war than anyone had a right to. He was a silent, hardworking man, but a genius at keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes. Amara knew she would come to rely on him greatly over the next few decades. Persuading him had been even simpler than asking Commander Esquina.

  The remaining department heads filed in and took seats around the table. Commander Esquina took a seat to Amara’s right. A woman Amara recognized as Dr. Alexis Martin, a botanist and head of the Life Sciences department, took a seat at Amara’s left.

  “Thank you for coming,” Amara said after a brief pause. “I trust you all heard the broadcast upon our launch from the Jupiter Station. This is our journey now, our life, and our legacy. I trust–”

  Amara cut off as the door’s proximity alert sounded again and the door slid open. Sheawn Olliard stepped into the room, a wide smile that showed far too much tooth plastered on his face. Next to Amara, Dr. Martin let out a soft groan, so quiet Amara was sure only she had heard it.

  “My apologies, everyone,” Sheawn said, speaking through his smile and displaying that rare talent politicians and salesmen had to speak without parting their teeth. “But I didn’t get the memo until just now. New ship and all.”

  “I don’t believe you were invited,” Amara said, voice hard. “You’ve interrupted a rather important meeting for what purpose, sir?”

  Sheawn’s eyebrows rose and almost disappeared into his receding hairline. He stopped near the far side of the table and raised his hands, gesturing toward the table and the occupants there. Amara held the
man’s gaze.

  “This is a meeting of the senior staff and department heads, yes?” His tone was pitched perfectly, the exact mixture of confusion and innocence that almost involuntarily elicited a response whenever it was used.

  “You are neither,” Dr. Martin said before Amara even opened her mouth. “Kindly remove yourself, Sheawn, or I’ll ask Holly to escort you.”

  Holly grinned. “I’d have fun tossing this one through an airlock.”

  “Captain,” Sheawn said, expression contorted into perfect affront, “are you going to allow your people to make threats against me? I am an admiral in the Fleet. I—”

  “Not anymore, sir,” Amara interrupted, forcing herself to keep a level, calm tone. “Aboard this vessel, Fleet does not exist. For all intents and purposes, Earth itself no longer exists. Dr. Martin, Holly, I trust you to keep a civil tongue. Mr. Olliard, despite the manner in which it was said, Dr. Martin is still correct. You are not invited to this meeting. Please excuse yourself, sir.”

  Amara kept her gaze locked on Sheawn’s, so she noticed the flash of anger there and the sudden tightening of his facial muscles as his jaw clenched. He nodded – a perfunctory motion at best – turned on a heel in textbook-perfect about-face, and strode from the room without a word. The door slid shut behind him with a hiss.

  “Ace,” Holly said, “please lock the door.”

  “Yes, Commander,” came the computer’s reply.

  “Well now,” Amara said, eyes lingering for a moment on the closed and sealed doorway, “let’s get down to figuring out how we’re all going to mete out our existence for the next forty-five years.”

  Jaelyn stood up and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. His back ached from long hours spent almost completely doubled over, gently tilling the soil in a long planter set against the back of the garden deck. Dr. Martin had been gone several hours now, but he didn’t mind so much. The solitary work suited him and he had Ace read him a half dozen reports and articles of interest as he worked.