by B. V. Larson
After that, he vanished from sight. The staff looked at me, but I turned back to the designs and ignored them. On the floor, droplets of silvery metal chased one another. They would eventually form veins of shimmering liquid then coalesce into a door again.
I smiled contentedly. I didn’t know where Miklos was going, or what he planned to do first. But I always like to see my people hustle.
-4-
Two days later, the fleet arrived. It amounted to half my complement of ships from the Helios ring garrison. No one really liked the idea of stripping ships from that border, as Earth had attacked us with a serious armada not long ago through that very ring. But that was the only ready supply of ships I had, so I had no choice.
The fleet was a small one. All told, there were less than a hundred vessels. Two thirds of them were smaller ships: ugly, stubby gunboats. Each of these were armed with a single heavy railgun that was the equivalent of a Macro cruiser’s belly turret. They had little armament other than that one heavy gun. The rest of the ships were Nano-type cruisers and destroyers.
Absent from the roster was one carrier. Miklos had not quite managed to pull it off yet.
“Sir, give me one more day,” he said.
I shook my head.
“No.”
I thought I’d said gently, but I could see he wasn’t happy. He was red-eyed and squinting from lack of sleep. He fought visibly not to have a public outburst, which would no doubt turn into a gush of curse-words thrown in my direction.
I watched him with interest. Miklos had never quite been in such a state of frustration, at least not that I’d seen. I chalked it up to the lack of sleep.
“You’ve done very well, but your best was not quite good enough,” I said. “Also, you need to get some rest, man. Part of an officer’s responsibility in my fleet is to maintain his readiness. All things in moderation, as they say.”
Miklos glowered at the screen, unable to lift his burning eyes up to me. I walked away to the big viewscreens on the walls. They were so high-resolution they looked like windows.
Outside the station sat a hulking shadow. It looked quite a bit like the carrier I’d designed in a ten minute stretch a few days earlier. But there were holes in it—in the hull. Not all the smart metal had been troweled over the exterior.
“Shame about the holes,” I said.
For some reason, this put Miklos over the edge. “For your information, Colonel,” he snapped, “those holes are your doing.”
I glanced back at him in surprise. “Really? How did I manage that?”
“By redesigning the ship with too thin of an exterior layer of smart metal. The ship was designed to use the thick hull as part of its structural integrity. We haven’t been able to compensate.”
I nodded and made a clucking sound. “Well, my design was only a starting point, really. You can adjust it.”
“We will,” Miklos said, “but there just wasn’t any time in the schedule for a redesign and correction.”
I frowned at the ship. Really, it was an impressive effort.
I felt myself bending. I didn’t like it, as bending wasn’t my way. To get things done, a leader had to establish the rules and stick to them. If people started getting the idea your deadlines were only guidelines—they would relax and nothing would get done. It was only human nature.
Still, I liked the idea of having this ship on the expedition into the Thor system. It would transform a thin force into a much stronger one. I’d begun to think of the carrier as a small mobile battle station, and the idea of having such a flying fortress to back me up was seductive.
“I’ll tell you what, Commodore. The task force will get underway now, but I’ll leave behind ten small ships. They will form your carrier’s escort. When your carrier is ready, send it out the Crustacean worlds after me.”
Miklos looked startled. “You want the ship to come in later? As a relief force?”
“Yes. In some ways this improves the plan. We can head out with the vanguard at top speed and render any assistance we can. Then your carrier group will follow to a safely established position. This way, the ship won’t slow down the entire fleet. If you finish tomorrow, it will come in two days behind us. That’s not too long to wait for the support.”
I glanced at him again. The transformation in his mood was obvious and dramatic. The light of hope had returned to his dark eyes.
“You will get that support, sir,” he said. “But did you say carriers, as in the plural form…?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m impressed by the design, and the versatility is there, at least on the planning boards. I want two of them. Stay here after the first one is done and finish a second. Don’t let anyone sit on their hands here at the station. Double-shifts for everyone.”
I heard a few groans from the staffers, but pretended I hadn’t noticed.
“You’ll stay here,” I continued, “When you finish the second ship, send it with another fighter wing stripped from the battle station to the Helios ring garrison. That will make up for having their strength reduced so significantly. You’ll stay in-system even after the ships are built. In my absence, you’ll be in charge of defending our colonies.”
Miklos nodded rapidly. “I can do that, sir.”
I almost laughed. Given the chance to build a second of his beloved carriers, all his plans to rave at me had instantly faded. I had to admire his dedication to Fleet. He was passionate about his forces.
“Uh, who should command the first carrier, sir?” he asked a moment later.
“Give it to Captain Sarin. She’s a senior officer, and she’s in line for a new ship.”
Captain Jasmine Sarin had an interesting history, which was intertwined with my own. She and I had worked together from the very start of Star Force, and we’d become—close. Too close for my girlfriend Sandra’s comfort.
Sarin had left my service and joined Crow last year, thereby gaining a promotion to the rank of Admiral. But she’d soon seen the error of her ways and returned to my banner with the reduced rank of Captain. As of today, I had her captaining a destroyer with a crew of only six. I knew she’d see the new captaincy as a promotion, one which I thought she’d earned.
Captain Sarin was informed of the change in plans and requested a private channel with me. I took the call in my stateroom aboard the cruiser Lazaro, which was to serve as my command ship for this mission. The small fleet was just getting underway. Sending through a few ships at a time, we wriggled through the ring and glided into the Thor system.
“Colonel Riggs?”
“Hello Jasmine.”
“I just got the news from Miklos. Thank you very much! I won’t disappoint you, sir.”
Her pretty face appeared on my screen, her image updating a few seconds behind her voice due to transmission relays and other propagation delays. My cruiser was in the Thor system now, accelerating away from the ring toward the gas giant the Crustacean moons circled. Jasmine was still back on Welter Station.
“I know you won’t, Captain,” I said. “That ship is ugly and slow, but she’s powerful.”
Jasmine was as pretty as ever. Dark hair, dark eyes, perfect nose and lips. I’d been taken with her since the first time I’d met her. She was slight and quiet, but tougher than she looked. And she was always, always competent.
“Any special orders for me, Colonel?”
“Yes,” I said, “get that ship finished and get out to Thor as soon as you can. If possible, take over the task of playing assembly-boss from Miklos. He’s not taking proper care of himself.”
“Uh, isn’t he just doing what you asked him to do, Colonel?”
“A man’s got to learn to pace himself.”
“But, Colonel, if you order a man to do something and give him an impossible schedule, he’s going to overwork himself. Surely you can see that.”
I frowned at the screen. “You want me to take responsibility for the man’s condition? I guess I may have accidentally over-motivated him—i
f such a thing is possible. But in any case, he needs a few hours off.”
“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” she said. I thought I heard a small sigh escape her.
“Very good. Riggs out.”
* * *
A day later, we were half-way to the Crustacean homeworlds. Happy news came in from Welter Station: the carrier was finished. Miklos reported this to me with obvious pride. I thanked him, praised his efforts, then ordered him to build the second one immediately.
“And get some sleep, man. You look like hell.”
“Yes, sir.”
When I broke the connection, I found Sandra standing behind me with her arms crossed. My immediate thought was: she’s found out about my giving the carrier to Jasmine, and knew I was bringing her along on this mission.
She did looked annoyed, but not openly pissed. This was a fine line in her expressions. I decided to play it cool.
“Hey honey, how about we get some chow down at the wardroom? This cruiser has the best food in the fleet. I ordered up a supply of frozen air-swimmers from Eden-8 just for you.”
Her expression softened, but her arms stayed crossed. “Dinner now?” she asked. “We’re only hours away from planetfall.”
I shook my head. “Plenty of time. Nothing’s shooting at us yet.”
“I wanted to talk to you about something first.”
There it was, I thought. It was the Jasmine-thing. It had to be. Jealousy was a prime-motivator on Sandra’s hierarchy of emotions. It outweighed hunger every time.
“I want to ask you about Miklos,” she said. “I think you’ve been working him too hard.”
I blinked. This was an unexpected but welcome turn of conversation. I began to smile. “He’s been driving himself too hard lately, I agree with that. I just told Jasmine—ah, Captain Sarin—to take over the construction effort from him.”
“He’s been driving himself because you ordered him to do it, Kyle,” Sandra admonished me. “You can’t tell people to work harder and at the same time tell them to take breaks.”
“I just want people to do their best,” I said. “They often don’t take into account the need for balance in order to achieve that.”
“What it sounds like to them is a set of contradictory orders.”
I shrugged. “How about those air-swimmers? They’re great when broiled. I’ll have the cook dip them in butter and garlic.”
“Okay,” she said, weakening.
I stood up and took her arm. We headed toward the exit when I got an idea. I bent and kissed her. She kissed me back. We stopped and didn’t take another step toward the door for a while. Somehow, we’d begun making out.
“What happened to dinner?” she asked.
“I’m not that hungry.”
She laughed, then pulled away a fraction. Her eyebrows knit together. “You gave a new ship to Jasmine, I heard.”
Damn, I thought. Talk about a mood-deflator.
I tried to smile. “Yeah. She’s senior, and her talents were wasted on a destroyer.”
“What ship did you give her?”
I hesitated. I could tell she already knew the answer. How could she have heard the rumor without knowing what it was about? She just wanted to see a full confession.
“The new carrier,” I admitted.
“You know what she’s going to call it?”
“No, not yet.”
One of Star Force’s oldest traditions dictated that new ships were named by the Captain. It dated back to the early days, when Nano ships plucked their captains out of their beds. After passing the deadly tests and taking command, the new people had been given the honor of naming the ship that had tormented them.
“She’s going to call it Gatre,” Sandra said.
“You seem to know more about current events than I do.”
“That’s part of my job.”
I moved in for another kiss, but she dodged me.
“Don’t you want to know what Gatre means?”
“Um…no, not really.”
“It means something like ‘calloused’ or ‘stubborn’ in Hindi.”
I frowned. “Did she tell you that?”
“No. I looked it up.”
I nodded, but had no idea why we were having this conversation. I reached out a hand toward her shapely hip, but she pushed it away automatically. I could see the look on her face was one of concentration. She really was interested in this carrier.
Her eyes studied mine with sudden intensity. “Why did you give that ship to her, Kyle?” she asked.
My face went blank in surprise. When it comes to women, I’m a bumbling idiot, but I’ve learned to sense traps when they’re laid at my feet. I was on guard immediately. I knew I had to step very carefully.
“Uh…” I began, my mind churning, “because she deserved a serious command?”
“Yes, I know that,” she said, her eyes searching my face. “But I don’t think you made the right decision. People have feelings you know.”
I heaved a sigh. I didn’t like where this might be going. Was she going to have another jealous fit?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Me? I’m not talking about me.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Miklos, of course. He wanted that command. He built the ship, he has dreamt of it for months. He hardly talks about anything else, you know.”
“No, I didn’t realize that. But don’t worry. I’ll give him the second ship.”
“The second one?”
I filled her in on Miklos’ new orders. By the end, she was satisfied, and a few minutes later we were back to kissing. Soon I was as satisfied as she was.
By the time we made it down to get our platter of broiled air-swimmers, the kitchen had run out for the night. But after a disappointed look from me, they headed back to the freezers and thawed another batch. Rank does have its privileges.
-5-
The first day’s voyage into the Thor system was tense, but uneventful. We were expecting something to happen at any moment. Every hour we stared at the screens, made countless attempts to open channels and continuously scanned the moons ahead.
“What if we’re too late?” Sandra asked me.
I glanced at her, then went back to staring at the screens. The same thought had occurred to me. What if the Crustaceans had been too proud to ask their enemies for help? What if they’d waited until the last and what we’d heard had been the last gasp of a civilization? Now that we’d finally responded, there might not be anyone home to answer our call.
“Nonsense,” I said. “They’re just stuffy and prideful. They’re probably too embarrassed to tell us they have problems.”
“You think they regret calling on us? That they’re too proud to admit they need help?”
“Exactly,” I said. “But we won’t know the truth until they talk to us or we get more solid data.”
More long hours passed. During this time, the carrier Gatre was crewed and launched back in the Eden system. It came into the Thor system behind us, trailing its tiny flotilla of support ships. When a call finally did come into my command center, it was from Captain Sarin, rather than the Crustaceans.
“Where are their ships, Colonel?” Jasmine asked me when I opened the private line to her carrier.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We haven’t seen them fly above their atmosphere on any of the three worlds since we entered the Thor system.”
“I don’t like it,” she said, “it looks like a trap.”
“That, or the aftermath of a tremendous catastrophe.”
Jasmine didn’t answer me for a while. When she finally did, her voice was hushed, almost as if the things we were discussing were too terrible to be spoken aloud. Perhaps we were.
“You think they’re all dead?” she asked. “That’s why they aren’t talking?”
“We’ll find out when we reach orbit.”
“But it might be too late by then.
If there is something so powerful it could erase a species from three worlds that quickly—your fleet may not stand a chance.”
I chuckled. “If this entire fleet turns into vapor, your orders are to do a U-turn with that carrier and get back to Welter Station. Then close all the shutters and hide in the cellar.”
She didn’t seem amused. “Don’t you at least have a theory, Colonel?”
“Of course I do,” I said. “But I’ve got nothing to go on. Guesses aren’t helpful, so I’m going to wait until we have some hard evidence.”
Privately, I felt certain the prideful Crustaceans would never have called me for help unless they were desperate. Whatever was going on out here, it was serious.
The second day went on as had the first. We sailed through space, coming closer and closer to the gas giant in the habitable zone. More than a day’s flight behind us was Captain Sarin’s carrier group. I monitored the new ship’s vitals from the beginning. There were a few glitches, and she was slow. I calculated that it would take Gatre more than two days to reach the home planets of the Crustaceans—it would be closer to three days.
The moons, Yale, Harvard and Princeton, now were visible using our long-range optics. They were strange worlds, beautiful in their own way. I reflected that calling them moons was really only a technical description. They were planets, just like any other. They did happen to be locked in orbit around a larger planetary body, but isn’t every planet is locked around its star? They were nothing like the sterile rocks we called moons back in the Solar System.
Two of the worlds had so much water on them there was virtually no land to be found on the surface. The depths of these oceans were tremendous. As we drew closer, our readings indicated that the third moon—Yale—had the deepest oceans of the three, and that it was even more alien than we’d thought. Yale had no land at all.
