Once again, all Ryck had was, “Sir?”
“We have to clear the present list as per Code 92, so your expected date of promotion will be July 1. However, you are authorized to be frocked[5] as of today, so once again, congrats.”
I’m a colonel? A full bird?
“Do you have any questions before we push on?” General Mbanefo asked.
“Sir, why me?” he asked, to him the most important question.
“They asked for you and the FS Justin Mathis,” the general told him.
“The Mathis, but that’s not—”
“Exactly, Colonel. You got it in one.”
“The Aliens Are Here,” Ryck said under his breath.
The flick, which had enjoyed considerable commercial, if not critical, success, had told a somewhat fanciful version of the Trinocular War. Ryck had been heavily featured, as had the destroyer the FS Justin Mathis. Except, there never was a Justin Mathis. Over a spat of some kind, the Navy had withdrawn support from the flick, so the producers had simply created a composite ship that incorporated a number of heroic battles as fought by several other ships. And not just Federation ships. The climatic naval battle in the flick was based on the exploits of a very real Greater France ship, the GF Georges Leygues.
If the Trinoculars were asking for both Ryck and the Mathis, then they’d somehow pulled the names from the flick. This was all too surreal for Ryck. A momentous occasion for human kind, and it was being predicated on a grubbing flick?
“I’m here, but what about the Mathis?” Ryck asked.
“Please, Colonel, give us some credit,” Admiral Eaton said. “As we speak, the FS Antelope is being re-designated as the FS Justin Mathis.”
“Is it just us? I mean, the flick focused only the Federation, not any of the allies,” Ryck asked while trying to marshal his thoughts.
“We have Vice-Bishop Donato here from the Brotherhood,” the general said, indicating one of the civilians, “but until we know more about this supposed threat, we are keeping this classified at the highest levels. Only our two governments are aware of it for now.
“I know you must have more questions, but we really have to push on. We’re running out of time.
“Where are you, Colonel Nidischii’? Oh, over there. Why don’t you get Colonel Lysander’s uniforms and kit together. He’s going to need to be here for the duration until he leaves. And let his family know he’s working on a project for us.”
Bert acknowledged and left, but not before giving Ryck a wink. That had a surprisingly strong effect on Ryck in grounding him. It was all OBE[6] anyway. If he was already recalled, he had no choice in the matter, and he had to buckle down and get ready.
Not that he would change anything even if the choice had been his. He was back in the Corps!
FS JUSTIN MATHIS
Chapter 4
The newly designated FS Justin Mathis floated motionless in space, right at the edge of the Blue Line. Ryck stood on the bridge with the crew, waiting for the signal to proceed.
The Mathis was a Wildebeest-class destroyer, one of the older classes still in service. It normally carried a crew of 80. For this trip, the crew had been stripped to the bare minimum of 31. Fifteen other men had been added to the party, though, to include almost a dozen civilian experts of various stripes, three Brotherhood reps, and Rear Admiral Hancock Baris, the senior man and overall mission commander.
Ryck was already in his vacsuit, the helmet unsealed and pushed back over his shoulders. They’d been on station for over three hours, but the Trinoculars had not made a move. Ryck was glad for the diaper gels in his vacsuit. Without a head on the bridge (who was the genius who omitted that?) the admiral himself had had to make a hasty withdrawal to answer the call of nature. He’d rushed back after only a few minutes, but nothing had happened in his absence. There was no change in the line of capy ships.
A vacsuit is not too conducive to sitting in gravity, so after another two hours, Ryck had wedged himself against a bank of monitors in the back of the bridge and was half-drifting off when the bridge came to life. A single Trinocular ship was slowly moving forward, coming to a stop right on the Blue Line.
“Bring her forward,” the Mathis’ captain told the helm. “I want her exactly 30 meters from that ship and oriented on it.”
Thirty meters was nothing in the vast reaches of space. It was tight even at a station with ships docked next to each other. Ryck had never heard of such close quarters in open space, and he had visions of collisions that would put the best flick special effects to shame. But the helmsman did his thing, and with help from the nav AI, managed to bring the Mathis to a halt just off the Trinocular ship.
“Are you ready, Colonel?” the admiral asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t have any memorable things to say, so just do your job,” the admiral added. “I don’t have to remind you to keep your recorder running and broadcasting at all times, and as soon as you can, get our experts over there so they can take over.”
Ryck nodded and left the bridge, followed by a Navy rating. The Mathis was a fairly small ship, so it only took a minute or so to reach Airlock 1-C. Ryck pulled up his helmet as the sailor checked its seal and gave Ryck a thumb’s up.
The next step was still a little unclear. Ryck was to make a ship-to-ship transfer, but the specific details were lacking. The Trinoculars had sent an animation of some sort that showed the ships adjacent to each other. A human figure—representing Ryck, they assumed—made a crossing along an illuminated path. A hatch on the capy ship opened, and the figure moved inside.
“You are reading all greens,” the ship’s captain announced over Ryck’s comms. “If you’re ready, I’m going to give the order to cycle the lock, sir.”
“Roger that,” Ryck responded.
The red light over the lock turned green, and another sailor opened the inner hatch. Ryck stepped inside, and the sailor handed him his vacsac. The inner hatch then closed, isolating him. Thought had been given as to having someone or someones join him. The Brotherhood had wanted a rep, as did the Navy. A xenobiologist who specialized in the Trinoculars was considered, an option that Ryck preferred. But in the end, it was just Ryck. The animation had shown only one human, so one person it was until Ryck could clear it with the Trinoculars for the others to come across.
A moment later, the air in the lock was pumped out, and Ryck was in a vacuum. The outer hatch began to open, but instead of Ryck just stepping out, he was pushed back as air rushed in—from open space.
It only took a second for the air to equalize, and Ryck immediately checked his readout to see what was going on. He was in a breathable atmosphere, with about a 22% O2 content. There were some weird trace gasses, but nothing harmful. The bottom line was that Ryck could breathe the air if he were out of his vacsuit.
The scientist-types had assured Ryck that he would be able to breathe aboard the capy ship. But this was in open space. It should be a vacuum out there.
“Colonel Lysander, are you OK?” a voice came over his comms.
“Uh, yeah. I’m fine. Are you reading the atmosphere here?”
“Yes, we are. Wait one.”
Ryck, still in the airlock, moved forward to where he could see the capy ship, only 30 meters away. It looked huge, but what caught Ryck’s attention was the shimmering tunnel that stretched between the two ships. He could see through the walls of the tunnel, but it was as if he was looking through heat waves in the desert training area back on Tarawa. Evidently, the “illuminated path” in the capy animation was more than just an indicator of the route he was supposed to take. It was some sort of pressurized connecting tunnel. Such a force-field tunnel was theoretically possible and had been achieved in labs, but no one, to Ryck’s knowledge, had ever been able to devise a practical application of such a tunnel. No human, that was. Evidently, the Trinoculars had managed it.
“You are to proceed, Colonel” the voice came back over his comms.
Ryck idly
wondered who it was passing the word to him. It would have been nice to have met the man first, to be able to put a face and name to his connection back to the ship—and to humanity.
He gave his thrusters a short blast, and he was out of the Mathis. With only 30 meters, it took him less than a minute, even at 1% thrust, to cross over. Just before he arrived, a hatch opened up on the side of the capy ship. Inside the ship, a capy stood waiting, his head jutting off to Ryck’s lower left. Ryck adjusted his yaw thruster, spinning him around so that he and the capy were oriented together. With one more tiny puff, Ryck crossed the threshold and was in the ship—a Trinocular ship. A week ago, he was worrying about getting the kids to practice in time. Now he was the first human envoy in a Trinocular vessel. The hatch closed behind him with a degree of finality.
To Ryck’s surprise, there was no artificial gravity in the ship. The capy hadn’t been standing but rather floating in Zero G. The capy turned and started to pull itself out of the compartment.
“Wait!” Ryck shouted, breaking open his vacsuit helmet.
The capy came to the inner hatch to the compartment, ignoring Ryck, so he lunged out and grabbed the capy’s foot, stopping him.
“Wait. I’ve got to do something!” he said, pulling up his vacsac and opening it.
The capy merely watched Ryck with no change of expression that Ryck could see. Ryck wiggled out of his vacsuit and pulled out his blues. Within a minute or two, Ryck was smoothing out his uniform. Wearing the blues hadn’t been his idea, but someone on high had decided that the uniform would infer a higher degree of authority. This was probably the same person who had decided Ryck should be a full colonel as well. Ryck wasn’t sure that the Trinoculars had any concept of uniforms or rank, but orders were orders.
There were several weapons in the vacsac, but Ryck left them there. Alone on the capy ship, if they wanted to do him harm, they would, and his Ruger was not going to make much difference to that.
“OK, buddy, let’s go,” Ryck said, pointing at the open hatch.
The capy said nothing, but Ryck could smell something like cinnamon that seemed to waft over to him. It tickled the back of his nostrils, threatening to make him sneeze. Ryck floated there for close to 30 seconds before the capy turned and pulled itself through the hatch.
Leaving his vacsuit behind but towing his vacsac, Ryck followed. He expected a long corridor, so he was surprised to immediately enter a huge open space, possible 70 meters wide and even longer, possibly 100 meters long. This had to be the entire interior of the ship aside from the propulsion unit. All around him, a couple of hundred capys bustled about, doing whatever capys did to run a ship. Ryck had a moment of vertigo as he looked around. Where humans liked to orient themselves together, heads all in one direction, feet in the other, the Trinoculars evidently didn’t care much about that. They moved about and worked haphazardly without any discernible “up” or “down.” Ryck didn’t like it at all and had to take a moment to swallow down his discomfort. Mankind’s first envoy to an alien species did not need to be marked by him losing his lunch.
“I’m inside the, well, not the bridge, but it looks like the whole ship,” Ryck whispered into his throat mic.
There was no response.
“Mathis, this is Colonel Lysander, do you read me?”
Silence.
Grubbing great. No comms!
On both GKA Nutrition and HAC-440, the capys had been able to block Marine comms. Even if there were no hostilities at the moment, it seemed as if that capability was in play. Ryck hoped that wasn’t an indication of something sinister in the works.
Inside the big open space, small balls seemed to be hanging fixed in place. Ryck’s guide was crossing the open area by grabbing the balls and pulling itself along. Ryck shrugged and followed, if not quite as smoothly as the capy.
To his surprise, none of the others seem to pay him much attention. If Ryck were escorting a capy to the Mathis’ bridge, every swinging dick on the ship would be jockeying to get a good look.
Ryck’s guide led him to a position no different than any other.
It turned to Ryck and said, “Query?” as an image of Ryck, or the actor who played Ryck in the flick appeared in front of them.
“Rycklysander,” the capy said, its voice a low monotone.
“Uh, yeah, I mean yes. I am Colonel Ryck Lysander, United Federation Marine Corps.”
“Query? Rycklysander?” it said again, only now Ryck could see the voice was emanating from a small sphere attached to the capy’s utility belt.
A strong smell of mown grass hit Ryck.
“Yes. Ryck Lysander,” he said.
The capy seemed to consider that. It turned to three other capys, all who seemed to be in the same “class,” as the xenobiologists termed the different body types of Trinoculars.
A few whistling sounds were evident, and Ryck’s scalp felt itchy, but there was no speaking as Ryck would term it. Several warring smells hovered just at the edge of what Ryck could discern.
From the dissection of what turned out to be Trinocular young, Ryck knew that the capys could see well into wavelengths too low for humans, and that they could sense vibrations, but Ryck came to the conclusion that there might be an olfactory component of capy communications.
“Query? Effessjustinmathis?” the capy asked as it turned back to Ryck.
“Yes, there,” Ryck said, pointing back to where the airlock was.
His (what, his interpreter? Guide?) turned back to the others. Ryck heartedly wished the other three would move to some semblance of order. Two of them were almost aligned with each other, but the third was off by at least 100 degrees, and all three were off of Ryck and his guide.
“Query? Effessjustinmathis? Location?” his capy said through the sphere.
This time, as it said “Effessjustinmathis,” a human-sounding voice said, “FS Justin Mathis.”
Shit! They’ve recorded the sound of the flick! he suddenly realized.
He pulled out his PA. As he expected, it was blocked from the net, but its internal memory was intact. He entered “F.S. Justin Mathis,” and got an image of the ship from the movie. Except the ship 30 meters away from the capy ship was not a match. He quickly pulled up “F.S. Antelope” and got an image of the new Mathis.
“Here, the F.S. Justin Mathis.”
The capys crowded forward and looked at his PA. The creatures had never shown any emotion that Ryck could recognize as such, but he could almost feel the confusion coming from it.
“Query?” it started, then forgoing its own “Effessjustinmathis,” only the recording from the flick played.
“Yes, FS Justin Mathis. Here!” Ryck said, using his finger to poke the image on the PA screen.
The four capys held another conference as more smells, one of them a nasty, acrid scent that almost got Ryck to coughing, seemed to war with each other.
If they really do use smells to communicate, how the hell do they keep them from interfering with each other, especially here in this big, frigging compartment? Ryck wondered.
His capy turned back to him and touched the image of the Mathis on his PA. “Image equal ship. Negative equal Effessjustinmathis. Query? Effessjustinmathis location.”
Then it hit him. They thought the FS Justin Mathis was a person, an individual.
“The F S Justin Mathis is the ship! Uh, Effessjustinmathis,” he said, trying to run the words together, “equals ship. Is ship.”
The four put their heads together, literally. With their feet spread in various directions, they locked hands and had their heads within centimeters from each other. There were some whistles, and once again, some subsonics seemed to vibrate at the base of his skull. More scents reached Ryck, one surprisingly like lavender. Back on Tarawa, Hannah sometimes soaked in a lavender bath. She said it had a calming effect. Ryck hoped that meant it had a calming effect here, too.
His capy, as he was beginning to consider it, let go of the others and turned back to him.
/> “Query? Confirm. Effessjustinmathis negative equal human,” the voice from the sphere asked.
An image of a human, no one that Ryck recognized, appeared in the air between them.
The recorded voice from the flick said “FS Justin Mathis” while the sphere said “negative” as the human image seemed to explode into fragments.
“Yes. Affirmative. The FS Justin Mathis is a ship, not a human,” Ryck said, relieved to have gotten the point across.
“We go,” his guide said as the other three capys turned and left.
“To the ship? The Mathis?” Ryck asked. “We have more humans there to meet with you.”
His capy said nothing and grabbed one of the little floating balls to spin himself about.
Is he getting any of this? Ryck wondered.
“Stop! I need to report back to my command,” Ryck said, grabbing its leg once again.
“We go,” it said again.
“What? Uh, query? Go where?” Ryck asked.
“We go,” the capy repeated, followed by a cross between a grunt and a whistle as lavender flooded the space around Ryck.
An image appeared in the space between them. It took only a moment to realize it was a representation of the Blue Line with the human and Trinocular ships arrayed facing each other. One ship, and with a sinking heart, Ryck knew exactly what ship that was, was moving away from the line, away from the human side of space.
“We go,” the capy repeated.
Ryck was supposed to make contact, then get the capys to accept the experts waiting on the Mathis to take over from him. It looked like that was going to have to wait. Ryck was going for a ride into Trinocular space whether he wanted to or not.
For Ryck, that was decidedly a “not.”
TRINOCULAR SPACE
Chapter 5
“Well, Carl, how much longer? How much time?” Ryck asked.
“Carl” was his capy. Ryck had been tired of calling him the equivalent of “Hey you!” He understood that the capys did have personal designators, if not names in the human sense, but Ryck couldn’t yet grasp the rules of naming, which seemed to shift depending on too many factors for him to remember. So Carl it was.
Colonel (The United Federation Marine Corps Book 7) Page 4
