Cygnus Arrives
Humanity Comes Home
Cygnus Space Opera
Book 3
A Tale in the Free Trader Universe
By Craig Martelle
Humans and the Intelligent Creatures
The Hillcats
Mixial – Tandry’s bonded ‘cat, a small, long-haired calico
Lutheann – bonded with Cain, all white
Carnesto – bonded with Ellie, all black
Brutus – the newest ‘cat who keeps Cain honest
Tobiah – the largest Hillcat of the era, bonded with Spence
The Humans
Cain – Great-great-grandson of Free Traders Braden & Micah
Aletha – Cain’s true love who wants to stay home
Ellie – Engineer aboard the Cygnus-12 & Cain’s ex-wife
Tandry – Sensor operator
Dr. Johns – clone of the Cygnus VI survivor. In charge of the SES
Captain Rand – captain of the Cygnus-12 Deep Space Exploration ship
Spence – a small man, huge in spirit, a squad leader of Marines
Jo – a Marine, she is a gifted marksman
Starsgard – a professor of Astrophysics, Marine Corporal
Pace – a flight lieutenant, pilot of the Cygnus-12
Foucault – called Fickle, an academic and Marine
The Mechanicals
Cygnus-12 - also called The Olive Branch, the only space fleet interstellar ship capable of flying itself through the heliosphere and into the gravity well of a solar system
Holly – the artificial intelligence on Cygnus VII
Jolly – the artificial intelligence that Holly created for the Cygnus-12
Graham – the artificial intelligence on Concordia in system IC1396
The Hawkoids
Chirit – Crew member on Cygnus-12, sensor operator
Ascenti – Marine, stand-in sensor operator
The Tortoid
Daksha – Third Master of the Tortoise Consortium, son of Aadi, Commander of the Cygnus-12 exploration mission
The Lizard Men (Amazonians)
Peekaless – nicknamed “Pickles,” Lieutenant of Marines
Zisk – a Marine
The Rabbits
Brisbois – called “Briz,” technical genius, Chief of Engineering
Allard & Beauchene – gardeners assigned to the Cygnus-12
The Wolfoids
Black Leaper – nicknamed “Stinky,” Lieutenant of Marines
Night Stalker – Sergeant of Marines
Bull – much larger than the average Wolfoid, squad leader of Marines
Grace – a squad leader of Marines
Razor Fang, Aurochs Ring, Bounding Shepherd, Gray Streak, Black Shadow, Silent Tracker, Hidden Slayer, Lightning Flash, Dark Forest, Tan Mountain, and Shades Racer – the Marine Recruits
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank the Just In Time readers who did an incredible job making sure this was a clean manuscript, that the story continued without a hitch from the past two which were written over six months ago. Since then, I’ve written eight other books and four short stories, so I got confused.
A lot.
THANK YOU!!
Beck Young
Lori Hendricks
Thomas Ogden
James Caplan
Leo Roars
Theresa Barber
Norman Meredith
Diane Velasquez
Dorene Johnson
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Debriefing
The Next Chapter
Attitude Adjustments
Shipboard Training
Payback
The Ghost in the Machine
EL475 – Welcome to Heimdall
To Wit, ‘Cats
Dead
Landfall
Retrograde
Let the War Start Here
Truth
Hide
Secure the Perimeter
The Firefight
A New Plan
They’re Coming
Recovery
Shuttles Prepped and Ready for Launch
The Dilemma
Leaving the Gravity Well
Cygnus Arrives
Humans
Into the Gravity Well
Earth Two
Welcome to our Home
What Next
A ‘Cat’s View of the World
Never Cross a Rabbit
Kick the Tires and Light the Fires
Trapped
The Free Trader Series
Postscript
Author Notes
Debriefing
“Crap!” Cain yelled.
‘Really,’ Brutus told him in his thought voice. ‘I should hold the title of general, but it would only be honorific, of course. I have no intention of giving orders to this mob.’
Cain rolled his eyes and shook his head. His senior staff tried not to look at him. The major’s conversations with his Hillcat were colorful, to say the least.
Brutus was sitting on the conference table and licking his fur.
“Would you go somewhere else to lick your butt?” Cain asked out loud, having little hope the ‘cat would acquiesce.
‘No. I think you’re jealous, that’s all. Your team is waiting, dumbass.’ Brutus continued his personal grooming without pause.
Cain looked at the faces around the table. His lieutenants were there, Black Leaper and Peekaless. It was time for the after-action review of their fight on Concordia. He used a simplified process, but it was all they needed to improve from one action to the next.
“Each of you, tell me one thing we did well and one thing we need to do better,” he prodded.
The Wolfoids sat on the floor, but their muzzles were well above the level of the table, keeping them engaged in the conversation. Black Leaper was next to Night Stalker, and Stinky went first while Stalker watched him closely.
“They couldn’t match our speed and agility,” Stinky said through his vocalization device. He had thought they’d done well, despite the injuries and the loss of Hidden Slayer. They thought they had lost Tracker, but we hadn’t. The Wolfoid survived thanks to getting back to sick bay as quickly as he did. The med bots worked a miracle on him, bringing him back from what seemed a sure death.
They Cygnus Marines had routed a determined enemy from a fortified position. Stinky continued, “Our ability to breach barriers was limited within the building and without bringing the whole building down, I’m not sure what else we could have done about that.”
“Jolly, are you capturing these notes? We’ll need a list and your help later to propose solutions, but not now. We just want to capture our thoughts,” Cain said, looking at the ceiling, which was what he always did when talking with the disembodied artificial intelligence they called Jolly.
“Certainly, Major Cain,” Jolly replied pleasantly.
The Lizard Man was wearing his skinsuit, casually watching the others. The Amazonians didn’t show their emotions in a way that humans or the other intelligent creatures of Vii could understand.
Cain had given up long ago trying to figure the Lizard Men out. He resorted to asking them, and he understood that they would answer guardedly and in clipped phrases.
“Pickles, what do you have for us?” Major Cain prompted, forgetting that he promised not to call his lieutenants by their nicknames in front of the other platoon members.
“The ‘cats’ contributions were incontrovertible,” the Amazonian said philosophically. The Lizard Me
n and the ‘cats could not converse mind-to-mind for reasons that no one knew. Stoic and stalwart, Lieutenant Peekaless did not elaborate further.
“What would you change if you could, Pickles?” Cain pressed to get a little more from his friend.
“The ‘cats. We should have brought them into the fight earlier. That’s all. We are good now.” Pickles rested his hands on the table.
Cain studied the Lizard Man’s face before accepting that Pickles would contribute nothing else.
Brutus chuckled directly into Cain’s mind. The major rolled his eyes and shook his head.
Cain looked to his squad leaders next, disappointed that they had nothing new. He thought he had trained them in critical thinking, but in the big scheme of the Cygnus Marines’ existence, they were a fledgling force with leaders new to their roles.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Cain started, standing so he could walk around as he lectured, never missing an opportunity to train his people. He maintained his upright posture, leaning back slightly as he had seen the ancient United States Marines do. He cocked his head and then continued speaking.
“Every action that we survive is a chance to learn and grow. If we don’t improve from engagement to engagement, then our enemies will eventually get ahead of us. We can’t have that, because that means body bags and I’m not ready to fill those with any of you.” Cain looked down at the table, happy that Brutus wasn’t digging into his mind to berate him on one point or another.
Corporal Spence sat in his chair while Tobiah was behind him on the floor. The oversized Hillcat looked like he wanted to jump onto the table, but seemed torn. Cain wondered if Brutus was holding him back. Tobiah was three times Brutus’s size and would fill the table.
“We’ve seen humanity return to space. Then we found what a dangerous place it was out here,” Cain said softly, lowering his voice and narrowing his eyes. He wasn’t reciting a history lesson, he was recalling the hard lessons that real-life had taught them. “So we formed the Cygnus Marines to protect our people as they made contact, and we’ll keep protecting them. Just like Starsgard did to save the ship. In space or on land, we’ll fight the enemies of freedom. And then we’ll pack up and move on.”
Cain had circled the table. When he made it back to his chair, Tobiah launched himself smoothly over Spence’s head, landing on the conference room table with a short slide, his claws scratching across the table’s surface. He knocked over a cup of water in front of Night Stalker before stopping.
The large tan ‘cat casually walked in front of Spence and turned to put his butt in his human’s face before laying down, tucking his front paws under his chest and keeping his head up, but closing his eyes.
Everyone had watched the ‘cat, which was probably half the reason that Tobiah did what he did.
All Hillcats loved attention as long as it was on their terms.
Stinky wiped the table off using a hairy foreleg. Stalker wiped her leg after his, and that took care of the spill. Then they snuggled next to each other.
Brutus started unblinkingly at Major Cain. ‘Make it stop,’ Brutus told Cain in his thought voice.
“You’ve all heard the rumors,” Cain started, standing tall as he looked proudly at his leadership team. “Next stop is EL475, a K-Class star system approximately eight-hundred and fifty light years from here. That was one of the designated colony planets that Graham reported to us. We’ll stop by to say hi, in our special way, of course…”
The group snickered as Cain tried not to look too smug.
“Once we’ve made new friends, we jump seven hundred light years to the edge of Sol’s heliosphere.” Cain paused for effect, looking at the star map on the screen behind him. He pointed to the screen. “That’s right, people. We’re going to Earth.”
The Next Chapter
“ETA to heliosphere departure?” Captain Rand asked, looking at the people on the bridge.
Lieutenant Peekaless was doing double-duty as a Marine and ship’s data systems analyst. Private Foucault, Fickle as they called him, was at the workstation next to Pickles and was assisting the lieutenant.
Lieutenant Pace sat at the flight console, watching the instruments as he programmed the next leg of the journey. He was an excellent pilot, but in deep space, Jolly handled the vast majority of flight duties.
Next to Pace, Ensign Kalinda worked at her navigation console. She was embroiled in the data that Graham had transferred to Jolly from the Concordian database. Entire new galaxies were opened up to her, well beyond what she had seen from the original expedition to the Cygnus star system.
She huffed in dismay, then leaned closer to better manipulate her screen. Pace looked at her, annoyed at the interruption. He was used to flying the ship from a separate compartment, but on the last refit, he’d been moved onto the command deck.
Pace pursed his lips and twisted his mouth sideways. He shook off whatever he was thinking and went back to studying his console.
Peekaless’s three-fingered claws were flying across the input screen as he pulled and parsed data. Jolly was assisting as needed. Until Pickles saw the data, he didn’t know exactly what to ask for, so he looked at the raw numbers and played with them manually.
Jolly was sentient and that made him an AI. He would appear in holographic form in areas where there were projectors, the bridge and engineering. He wanted to visit the garden deck, but hadn’t moved the projection installation high enough on the engineer’s priority list. He watched through the numerous monitors and lived vicariously among the ‘cats and the Rabbits.
He wanted a close-up of the tenuous peace the two species maintained. If he got bored, he figured he’d unlock the weapons locker again and turn the Rabbits loose on what they considered the Hillcat infestation. Jolly replayed the last battle between the Rabbits, the ‘cats, and the captain when he wished to be entertained.
There were fewer ‘cats on board now, having left a healthy contingent on Concordia, although the biggest instigator was Carnesto, who continually plied the decks, looking for his next victim of his creative practical jokes.
Jolly found it fascinating and was happy to see the ship filled with intelligent creatures of all shapes and sizes. He swore to improve his emotional engagement on this leg of the journey by adopting more human speech and mannerisms. He wondered if the humans would even notice.
The AI appeared on the bridge next to the captain’s chair, hands behind his back as he wore a perpetual smile. Pace glanced his way, before returning his attention to the starfield occupying the front screen.
Commander Daksha floated near the back of the bridge, his legs constantly moving as he swam to keep himself in place. He’d perfected his technique over the years and no longer even thought about it.
“A shade over nine days at current acceleration,” Pace reported.
“And then another two weeks banking dark matter for the jump to EL475,” Jolly added helpfully. “We could refer to it by the name that the colonists gave it--Heimdall, the guardian of Asgard.”
“Three weeks and two days to Heimdall it is,” Rand stated as he rotated his chair to look at Daksha without having to turn his head. “Commander?”
“Open ship-wide communication,” the Tortoid ordered casually through his vocalization device.
“Done!” Jolly replied enthusiastically, nodding. Pace cocked his head as he looked at the AI.
“All hands, this is Commander Daksha.” He didn’t know why he introduced himself, but he always did. His voice was unique and the crew was small. They knew who was speaking after the first word came through the sound system. He opened his turtle-like beak and laughed at himself, a sound that wasn’t projected so no one heard.
“We will continue out of the Concord System at our current acceleration, so business as usual people, getting the ship ready for our next jump, which will be to EL475, called Heimdall by the colonists. It is the last stop before we jump to triple zero, the root of our coordinate system.”
He didn
’t elaborate, because he didn’t need to.
***
“Starsgard! Where the hell are you?” Cain bellowed, leaning out the hatch of the weapons bay. Cain stepped into the corridor to assure himself that no one was there. He activated his neural implant, bringing up the window before his eye. “Jolly, locate Corporal Starsgard for me.”
The AI responded instantly. “He is on the mess deck.” The information window blinked as if Jolly was waiting for a response.
“Thanks, Jolly,” Cain finally said as he headed for the stairs. “You are the absolute best AI on this ship. Bar none!”
“Why, thank you, Major Cain. Wait, what?”
Cain closed the window, looking smug at having successfully delivered another joke at Jolly’s expense. Cain expected the AI would be in a philosophical lockdown for the next week as he rehashed and analyzed the statement.
The major descended the stairs, taking them three at a time. They weren’t as wide as they used to be since the upgrade when a Wolfoid ramp had been installed along with a sideways curve to allow interdeck transit during acceleration within the gravity well.
Cain stopped when he reached the platform and doorway leading to the garden deck. ‘What do you think, Brutus, a quick stop to say hi to Allard and Beauchene?’ Cain asked in his thought voice.
Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3) Page 1
