James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 06

by Crucible

  “As soon as solar radiation has diminished to acceptable levels, we will resume restoration work on Lexington Keeler. Lt. Commander Duke is eager to begin yelling at people again.

  “Lt. Alkema and Lt. American will coordinate the division of crews. We will begin the process during the initial round of repairs. Of course, volunteers will be taken first. If volunteers are insufficient, Alkema and American will assign additional crew based on necessity. If you object to your assignment, you may appeal to me, but my word will be final.” He left out a couple of details. First, Goneril Lear, as Acting Shipmaster, would also be allowed to request crew, and to persuade key crewmen. Also, he had a list of people who were going to be assigned to Lexington Keeler whether they liked it or not.

  “Upon restoration of Keeler’s hyperdrive, we will leave this system and return to the StarLock Chapultepec. Both ships. Pegasus, will proceed through the Starlock Chapultepec and to the Orion Quadrant, where we will continue to seek Earth. Lexington Keeler will remain in the Perseus Quadrant, to seek out lost colonies, and build alliances with them against the Aurelians.

  “Both of these are worthy missions. Life on Keeler will not be easy. There will be at least two hard years of repair before that ship is fully operational. And on Pegasus, anyone who remains will have to work double duty. Not to mention, if we make it to the Orion Quadrant… there’s no guarantee we’ll find anything there. We have no information about where colonies can be found. We have no way of knowing what the tactical situation will be there.” The Surface – Eight Days After That

  The solar flares had subsided, but they had left the planet’s atmosphere in turmoil, well, worse turmoil. The entire surface was a Category Five killstorm.

  The Aves Winnie II bore down through the cyclone, its alabaster hull was blasted with hot sooty winds.

  Magnus Morgan looked over the ground telemetry: Surface Winds 45-50 kph. Surface Temp 45 degrees.

  “Windy and warm, with a chance of chaos,” said Technician Superman.

  “I had to beg Commander Keeler for the chance to recover the rest of our equipment,” Morgan told her. “I don’t want to waste it.”

  If he was correct, the atmosphere would have buffered the surface from the worst effects of the flares. They might be able not only to recover some of the equipment left behind, but perhaps retrieve additional materials from the Redoubt, which should have sealed all of its treasures safely against even the worst of the flares.

  As the ship approached the abandoned Redoubt, it caught a violent wind sheer that knocked it a hundred meters straight down, but it recovered, and powered in for a smooth landing on the flat piece of ground half a kilometer from the entrance from when the crew had been evacuated eleven days earlier. When Morgan and the rest of his crew exited, they were clad in heavy landing gear to protect them from the blasting winds and blowing debris.

  The air was thinner than it had been. The solar flares had torn away 15% of the planet’s atmosphere. And what it left behind was a hot, mildly toxic stew. They kept their rebreather masks on.

  They passed a razorback that had been blown upside down by the winds, but appeared to have only scratches and minor cosmetic damage. “Recovery crew,” said Lieutenant Technician Denver. “We have a salvageable vehicle 66 meters west-south-west of the landing site.”

  “The landscape doesn’t actually look that bad,” Superman said. She was a Sapphirean woman. An expert in salvage operations. “I was expecting, I don’t know, scorched ground as far as the eye can see.”

  “The atmosphere took the worst of it,” Morgan answered, his voice crackling through the landing suit’s COM Units. “Most of the ozone layer has been burned off. Some of the debris from the megasphere was blasted into back into space. Eventually, it will combine with lunar debris to form a thin ring around the planet’s equator.”

  “No one’s going to see that,” said Superman. “I don’t think anyone will ever come back to this system after Pegasus leaves.”

  “Maybe not,” Morgan said. “Which is why it’s so important for us to recover anything that was left below.”

  He despaired when he came to the Redoubt. The blast doors to the Redoubt were parted by about half a meter. “We sealed the entrance before we left, correct?” he asked. He was sure they had, he just wanted confirmation.

  “According to the Mission Log, you did” said Superman. “They must have cracked open in the storm.”

  Morgan had been thinking instead of Taurus, Rook, and Jordan; How they had barely escaped, and how some alien army had been chasing them. “Or… someone’s taken refuge inside.”

  Their warfighter escorts readied their weapons. They slowly made their way through the half-meter wide crack in the blast door.

  The entrance corridor was empty. There was no sign of an alien presence. The four of them all picked up the same thing in their Spex. One humanoid life signature, in the control center, barely moving.

  The Warfighters moved ahead of Morgan and Superman, gesturing for them to hold back.

  They moved toward the Redoubt’s control center at the end of the corridor. Morgan and Superman followed behind.

  All of the landing crew were accounted for, Morgan thought.

  On the Spex, the figure in the control room rose, walked to the rail that surrounded the level and looked out toward them. The warfighters stopped advancing. Morgan and Superman stopped behind them.

  He’s not armed, Morgan thought.

  The figure moved away from the rail and made its way down the stairs. When it reached the level of the corridor, it began walking toward the landing team. The Warfighters steadied their weapons.

  As he emerged from the shadows, he showed himself to be very thin and humanoid. His white skin was nearly luminous. He was naked and there was not a hair on him anywhere.

  One of the warfighters activated a light, and the human hid his face behind a hand to shield himself.

  But Warfighter Action saw enough for her to recognize the man. “TyroCommander Redfire?”

  The man lowered his hand, and they all knew his face. He stared at the landing team, then down at his naked, trembling body.

  “TyroCommander Redfire?” Morgan repeated.

  “Is that who I am?” the pale naked man whispered.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  72 Days Later

  Forty days after the sun exploded, we left the system. We later rendezvoused with Lexington Keeler at the system designated 15 559 Crux. (Of which, not much need be said. 15 559 Crux is a system of nine boring uninhabitable planets orbiting a very old A-class star on the verge of burning through the last of its Helium.)

  We are holding position near the seventh planet while Lexington Keelercompletes a systems check. Acting Shipmaster Goneril Lear is trying to recruit more personnel for her ship’s crew.

  More after my nap.

  Lexington Keeler – Secondary Command Center After a lot of backbreaking work, the SC-2, was made fit to serve as Keeler’s acting bridge. The space was far more cramped than the massive Primary Command Center on Pegasus, but it was now more than capable of handling the ship.

  Eliza Jane Change had flown over on the Aves Ida to perform systems checks on Lexington Keeler’s hyperspace navigation systems. It was a vastly different system than that on-board Pegasus. On Pegasus, navigation was controlled by the navigator, with the BrainCore used for processing. Lexington Keeler’s system gave the BrainCore complete control over hyperspace navigataion, interfacing with the human navigator only for certain necessary inputs related to the high gift of precognition. Lex had apparently set it up that way in the course of repairs.

  If Eliza Jane objected, she said nothing. The system had successfully taken the ship to 15

  559 Crux, and it was not her ship, anyway.

  In the midst of her final check, she felt a pair of small, but very strong hands on her shoulders. She cringed a bit, restrained the impulse to slam her datapad against the shoulder-toucher’s head, and looked up to see
Acting Shipmaster Goneril Lear smiling down on her.

  Which, as one would imagine, was rather frightening.

  “You looked like you had some tension in your shoulders,” Lear explained, massaging her gently.

  “I’m fine,” Eliza told her. “You recorded 62 system anomalies during the flight from 15

  215 Crux. None were catastrophic, obviously, but they should be corrected before the next Hyper-Jump.”

  “Technician Scout should be able to deal with them,” Lear’s voice was bright and chipper, completely uncharacteristic. “She’s going to be staying on board this ship. She and Lt.

  Cmdr. Duke have apparently commenced a love affair. Isn’t that marvelous?”

  “Not really,” Change replied, rising to stand. “It used to happen among the mining ship repair crews all the time.”

  “Would you consider doing the same?” Lear asked.

  “Lt. Cmdr Duke isn’t my type,” Eliza said flatly,

  “I meant, would you consider remaining aboard Lexington Keeler. That’s the part I meant was marvelous, not the affair, which is completely their business alone, although they could exercise more discretion in my opinion. But if you would like to stay, I would make you First Officer. Quite a promotion. The Odyssey Project might even give you command when the ship’s repairs are complete.”

  “I am already First Officer on Pegasus,” and I hate it, and no one even asked me, she could have added.

  “Acting Executive Officer, only while TyroCommander Redfire is off-duty, and everyone is praying that he recovers soon.” Lear seemed to be reciting a prepared statement, but she was still irritatingly bright.

  “I am not interested in command,” Eliza Jane Change told her. Lear had a psyche profile that said otherwise, but she continued to play it soft.

  “I only thought you might consider remaining. You are calm, level-headed, accustomed to austere conditions. Prime Commander Keeler’s quest to explore the Orion Quadrant, to find Earth, one planet lost in 50 billion stars, without maps or charts to guide him, seems romantic, but impractical. And you are not an impractical person.” Change said nothing, and Lear looked for a sign of … anything, a twitch, a thoughtful gleam in her cold brown eyes, a moment of hesitation.

  “Lexington Keeler will be a very different ship than Pegasus,” Lear assured her. “Perhaps, a ship where you would feel more at home. We still have one hundred sixty-three days until we reach the StarLock. I recommend you seriously consider this offer.”

  Pegasus – Commander’s Conference Chamber, Deck 101

  A wall-size display displayed the names over over four thousand crewmen. The ones in yellow were remaining on Pegasus. The ones in red were going to Lex Keeler. The ones in gray were undecided. Touching a name brought up a holo-portrait and personnel file.

  Alkema entered, walked to the wall and updated the name list, turning several gray names red, and several more yellow. Prime Commander Keeler rounded the desk and hit the COM

  Link. “Are you there, dead guy?”

  Silence. Keeler slapped it hard a couple of times. “Dead guy, we need your council.” Alkema quietly crossed the table and hit the TRANSCEIVE button on the COM Link.

  “Dead Guy, turn on the damn COM Link,” Keeler continued.

  “I’m here, y’stupid Drobny,” Dead Keeler answered.

  “Good, let’s begin. How is the reorganized Tactical Core shaping up?” Keeler asked.

  Alkema brought Tactical Core to the center of the display and enlarged it. “She asked Lt.

  Cmdr Honeywell to serve as Chief Tactical Officer, and he accepted. We’ll need a new Chief Tactical Officer, when TyroCommander Redfire recovers, he’ll take over as first officer.”

  “Are you volunteering for the job?” Keeler asked.

  “There are several officers with more experience than me,” Alkema admitted. “I was thinking of Lieutenant Taurus.” Alkema projected her service record.

  “Taurus is good on the ground, which is why she should be promoted to Warfighter Commandant,” Dead Keeler advised. “Which is a rank I just made up.” Alkema brought up more personnel files. “Tactical Lieutenant Patton has the most seniority, but Lt. Moon could also fill in. Flight Lt. Colorado and Flight Lt Paradise both have dual service with the Warfighters.”

  “Actually, I already had someone in mind. How many warfighters has Lear demanded? I want to keep as many as possible. We’ll need them… where we’re going.”

  “She hasn’t requested any,” Alkema informed him, double-checking the Provisional Warfighter Manifest. “She has about forty volunteers, and another hundred and ten with secondary warfighter skills. She wants a lot of technicians with defensive systems specialties.

  She is probably going to automate Keeler’s defense grid and rely on that.” If a ghost could snort, than that would be what old dead Keeler did just then. “Yeah, right.

  Those automated defense systems never work out. They either crash at the wrong time, or turn on you and try to kill you.”

  Alkema saw it differently. “The reactivated Lex BrainCore has proven incredibly efficient at re-integrating systems. We got the Hyperspatial Navigation Systems and Drive Systems up in a fraction of the time we thought it would take.”

  “It just wanted to get somewhere,” Live Keeler argued. “Just be glad there’s another Dead Guy on that ship to keep the BrainCore honest.”

  Live Keeler contemplated this for a moment. “Let’s give her all the defense systems technicians she wants. Moving on from Tactical Core, what else is on the list.”

  “She has requested half the Diplomatic Core,” Alkema reported.

  “Let’s give her the entire Diplomatic Core,” Keeler answered. A bank of names turned red.

  “What else do we got? Specialist Atlantic?”

  As Keeler spoke his name, his file opened, showing his curly blond hair and innocent face.

  His name was in yellow. “Staying,” Alkema confirmed.

  “Damn! Specialist Brainiacsdaughter?”

  “Going.”

  “Double Damn. What about Molto? English? Standard? Fedex? Mastermind? Kennecott?

  Goodrich? McCormick? McCormick? Outrigger? Danger? Powerhouse?”

  “Staying, going, going, going, staying, going, going, going, going, staying, staying, staying.”

  “What about Toto?”

  “Staying. Lear has requested half of Flight Core, including half the Aves,” Alkema brought Flight Core front and center on the display. Most of the names on Flight Core were yellow, between a third and a fourth were red, there were very few gray names. “To do it, you’d have to force some of the ones who’ve committed to Pegasus onto Keeler. ”

  “I’m not doing that,” Live Keeler asserted firmly. “She gets the volunteers and that’s it.” He settled back in his chair. “I should get together with Flight Commander Collins to figure out how to get our squadrons up to full strength and lay out the new command structure.”

  “Since you bring it up, Flight Commander Collins has requested transition to Flight Commandant. She would like to succeed Flight Commandant Jordan.”

  “Why?”

  “Um, she’s pregnant.”

  Keeler wiggled his eyebrows. “Really?”

  “Doctor Silver confirms it.”

  “Well, send Flight Captain James a big bottle of Janeberry Schnapps from me,” Keeler squinted at two of the gray names in the Flight Core roster. “Why are Matthew Driver and Trajan Lear still gray. I thought for sure they would be going with Lex. ”

  “They have not yet answered,” Alkema reported. “Probably, they’ll be going with Lear.

  “We should know for sure when they return from the shuttle mission.”

  “I’ve got a cold bottle of forty-year old Borealan Whiskey that says they won’t be coming back,” Keeler bet him.

  Alkema smiled, “Done.”

  Lexington Keeler – Hangar Bay Alpha

  Prudence had flown back to Lexington Keeler for the first time since her
repairs were completed. There was not so much as a scar along the length of her hull, and the new blast-shield upgrades around the command module were very handsome.

  Acting Shipmaster Lear had come from the Secondary Command Center to meet them. It was a safe journey, now. The sections between SC-2 and the Hangar Bay had been thoroughly rebuilt and strengthened. A tubeway connected them with swift mag-lev cars. Duke was also there, but for him it was not a long trip, as his command post was still in the Hangar Bay where it had always been.

  She and Duke met Trajan and Matthew Driver at the bottom of the exit stairs that had been moved to Prudence’s side. Goneril Lear was in the full swell of her pregnancy, now, and walking had become very uncomfortable, but Trajan had insisted on making the Hyperspace transit aboard Pegasus, away from his mother, father, and brother, who were now quartered in a former cargo bay in Keeler’s underdecks.

  “Welcome back, son Trajan,” Lear greeted him. “And Flight Captain Driver.” They returned her pleasantries with a few of their own. Trajan mentioned how much improved the Hangar Bay was since their last visit. “It’s almost as if we never left Pegasus. ”

  “It’s nothing less than a miracle that the missile that damaged your ship didn’t destroy the entire Hangar Bay,” Lear continued, with a breathlessness that was uncharacteristic.

  “Technician Bonaparte probably managed to defuse the primary warhead. Only the detonator exploded,” Duke put in.

  “At some point we will have to find an appropriate way of commemorating all the brave crewman who gave their lives to restore this ship,” Goneril Lear went on. “We may rename all of the Aves in their honor.”

  “That seems trite,” Trajan Lear told her.

  Her expression turned a bit cold, just for a moment, but she went on. “Of course, that will be up the the Flight Commander, ultimately, a position for which I think Flight Captain Driver is admirably suited. I am sure you will be able to name your ship whatever you like, Flight Lieutenant Lear.”