* * *
As established interstellar colonies grew, their citizenry demanded a home rule government not subject to martial law except in times of obvious crisis. These first stirrings of independence were recognized in the U.S., whose own struggle for independence from distant colonial rule in the late eighteenth century is still celebrated each year. In a magnanimous gesture, the U.S. Government guaranteed complete independence to all its colonies once they reached a certain population density, subject to the proviso that areas where previously established business interests existed be designated as permanent U.S. Enterprises Zones. This insured that certain so-called independence efforts were not just a precursor to planned nationalization of valuable and prosperous business assets. Within all Enterprise Zones, planetary governments were required to observe the business rights spelled out in the Off-World Colonization Act of 2035. Other spacefaring nations soon followed the U.S. lead and granted independence to their larger colonies.
A further legacy of the U.S. lead in the early exploration of the galaxy was the adoption of Amer as the defacto standard language in most off-world colonies, just as American had long been the official language of international business, shipping, and aviation on Earth. Amer was a more business oriented, less stylized version of the American language, still with all the colloquialisms and nuances that had crept into the English-based language over the centuries. Even so, scattered enclaves, and eventually even entire colonies, were establish-ed where zealous individuals kept alive their ancient languages and cultures.
* * *
As the decades passed, and space travel became almost commonplace, the need for laws governing space, an agency to enforce those laws, and courts to adjudicate issues and violations, became obvious to everyone. The solution, arrived at by a committee composed of representatives of earth and the fifteen largest planetary governments, was the formation of the Galactic Alliance. Established as a confederation of member planets, the purpose of the GA was to promote the general welfare by providing extra-world security to all member planets. From the start, it was decided that the GA would, within specific boundaries, regulate interstellar transportation, establish policies for peaceful trade between planets, create a galactic monetary system, and establish a military arm that would enforce the laws and protect the established territories of the GA. No control of planetary governments was ever planned for or desired. Initially composed of sixteen original signatories to the charter, it was clearly recognized that the number would grow as populations grew in both established colonies and colonies that hadn't yet been envisioned.
Representatives from the home worlds that signed the initial accords worked for eight years to develop and ratify a constitution, then delineate the territory to be included. Galactic Alliance space originally encompassed a cylindrical area of space with a diameter of five-hundred light-years, that stretched to five-hundred light-years on either side of a median line extending through the center plane of the galaxy. At the beginning of the twenty-third century, the Alliance amended the territorial delineation to include all galactic space above and below the cylindrical diameter, and added a one-hundred parsec wide band around their territory, except where parts of that space had already been claimed by another nation. Although officially GA space, the newly claimed area was far too vast for proper enforcement of laws, and that part of the GA became known as the Frontier Zone. The expansion immediately created a common border with two nations, the Clidepp Empire and the Aguspod. A third nation, the Kweedee Aggregate, expanded their territory shortly thereafter, extending their border up to the territorial border of space now claimed by the GA. With that expansion, slightly more than one-half of Galactic Alliance territory shared common boundaries with other nations, while the remainder bordered on unclaimed space.
From the beginning, it was decided that not all planetary governments within the claimed territory need become active members of the GA, but that all space outside every planet's sensible atmosphere (one hundred kilometers above the planet's mean surface), would be subject to all the laws of the Alliance. Any attempt to create an extra-planetary ruling government within GA space would be treated as sedition, or invasion. True to its charter, the GA maintained an official ‘hands off' policy with both member worlds and non-member worlds. What happened on their planet was their own business, with four notable exceptions. One was in the area of sentient life rights. Absolutely no slavery involving sentient life forms would be permitted anywhere in GA space. The manufacture of illegal substances, intended for export off-world, was prohibited. The development of certain technologies, whether for export or not, were outlawed. And lastly, counterfeiting and other attempts to affect the economical stability of the Alliance Monetary Fund would be dealt with quickly, severely, and decisively.
If civil unrest or violence on a planet threatened to expand beyond a planet's borders, then the GA had not only the authority to step in, but also the mandate to do so. That included the authority to arrest individuals traveling to another planet for the purpose of sowing the seeds of revolution. If a legally recognized planetary government requested assistance, the GA might send in help to restore order. But each intervention had to first be approved by the GA Council. And there was no guarantee that the government calling for assistance would be allowed to remain in power once they arrived. The forces of Space Command and the Space Marine Corps would not be used to prop up unpopular or puppet governments.
Finally, as a further incentive to join the GA as a participating and voting member, all non-member worlds were prohibited from trading with or interacting with business interests on member worlds. The benefits of membership were immediately apparent to everyone who had goods to export, or desired the importation of goods from member worlds. Member worlds were also free to withdraw from GA membership and again trade with non-member worlds, but withdrawal mandated a full ten-year waiting period before an application to rejoin the GA was considered, during which time there could be no trade with member worlds. To insure that illegal trade was not conducted, an outpost was establish-ed in orbit around every inhabited, non-member planet. All ships were required to submit to a full inspection when arriving or leaving the planet. It didn't stop smuggling, but it severely retarded its growth.
Contact with any world containing sentient life, which had not yet achieved space flight capability on their own, was strictly forbidden. A heretofore un-colonized planet that was found to contain native sentient life could not be colonized, or even occupied until approved by the Galactic Alliance Bureau of Alien Affairs. Where a planet with sentient life had already been colonized, the GABAA was charged with working out a reasonable settlement of claims.
Any violation of the rule of law, or any attempts to subvert the regulations, carried the strictest of penalties. Space Command was charged with watching for such interference, authorized to take whatever steps it deemed proper to prevent such abuse, and under mandate to arrest the perpetrators. The ships and cargo of convicted violators were seized and sold to support Space Command operations.
The Galactic Alliance Headquarters, sited at the former SAC HQ in Nebraska on Earth because the planet seemed to offer the best security during the early years of the GA, was the official home of a body comprised of democratically elected galactic officials. Earth was not at the center of Alliance space, but it was over five-hundred light years from the borders of the Alliance's nearest neighboring nation. Regardless of the chosen form of government on the home world to be represented, only GA officials that had been freely elected in a planetary referendum under the supervision of GA monitors, could take their seats in the Alliance Senate. Each planetary delegation would then elect a single member to a committee of directors known as the Galactic Alliance Council. Each councilor's vote was weighted by a complex formula designed to ensure the fairest representation for both large and small planetary populations. A council member could be recalled at any time by a majority vote in his or her delegation, and a new council
member seated. The size of the council would only grow as the number of member worlds grew.
* * *
The Galactic Space Command was developed as the enforcement arm of the Galactic Alliance. With no desire to totally reinvent the wheel, it was decided to use the navies of Earth as models in its creation. Its final form seemed to represent the navy of the U.S. more than others, but that might have arisen more from convenience that anything else. The committee started with the U.S. Navy as its foundation, and only altered the structure where it felt another nation's service branch provided a more enlightened solution to specific concerns. It was fully recognized that the final form would change as practical application met Utopian ideals.
A Space Marine Corps was created to provide ground forces for special situations, and to perform as security personnel aboard all SC warships, bases, and space stations. The Corps had no interstellar fleet of its own, but all SC warships carried detachments of Space Marines, landing craft, and fighters. SC troop transports would be used for deployments when larger forces were involved.
The Supreme Headquarters for Space Command was also located on Earth, and upon enactment of its charter by the Galactic Alliance Council, it immediately assumed command of all colonial military bases off-world. While owing its creation, funding, and continued existence to the Galactic Alliance Council, Space Command would for the most part operate independent of that body as it enforced interstellar adherence to GA laws.
The chief governing body within Space Command is the Admiralty Board. Comprised initially of ten members, all of whom have attained or surpassed the rank of Rear Admiral (Lower), the board meets several times a week to settle the pressing issues of the service. Presided over by the Admiral of the Fleet, decisions are decided by a two-thirds majority vote, although certain veto powers always remain with the AF and GA Council. The meetings are usually conducted in private, but always take place in the Admiralty Board Hall. A gallery area is available when the Board wishes to invite interested parties to view its proceedings.
* * *
Chapter Four
~ October 18th, 2256 ~
Annette Carver was the first in the family to suspect that something was wrong following the horrific accident in space. Lately her daughter had been sending recorded messages every few days. When they suddenly stopped, she was immediately apprehensive. And when two weeks had passed without any response to her own messages, she could no longer contain her fears. She made her husband promise to investigate, despite his assurances that the GSC would have informed them if something had happened. As an active-duty senior officer in the Galactic Space Command, he had a certain amount of access to confidential intelligence information through fellow officers.
It only took Captain Quinton Carver ten minutes, once he began calling friends, to learn that the Hokyuu had sent an urgent, automated distress call with a position report and then gone silent. He was told that a rescue ship was on the way, but it would be weeks before it arrived at the Hokyuu's last reported position. He also learned that a simple announcement was going to be made within a few hours that the Hokyuu wasn't responding to communications traffic. His own fears for the safety of his only daughter began to increase exponentially.
* * *
Weeks later Captain Quinton Carver received an urgent personal call from a friend in Space Command Intelligence. He nodded silently as he listened to the report filed by the captain of the ship sent to investigate the disappearance of the Hokyuu. When the call was over, the six-foot one-inch officer put his hands to his face and sobbed in the privacy of his office. He refused all calls after that and left work several hours early.
Arriving in front of the comfortable two-story brick and wood frame house he and his wife had purchased when he was still a lieutenant, Carver dropped the landing pads and let the ‘oh-gee' vehicle settle the final quarter-meter to the ground. Currently between off-planet duty tours, the ‘opposed gravity' car was about the closest he came to flying these days. At best, it could only achieve twenty-meters AGL. To fly higher than that above ground level was a violation of both military and civilian traffic laws for passenger vehicles. Some people removed the factory-installed governors, or incapacitated them, but the fines for doing so were stiff, and the penalty for violating airspace above twenty-meters AGL without a pilot's license could even include jail time if the legitimate flight path of another craft was disrupted. Even worse were the penalties for driving outside the permitted traffic lanes, but that never seemed to stop certain immature adolescents whose greatest pleasure in life seemed to be buzzing homes and knocking over sat dishes on rooftops.
After sitting quietly in his vehicle for a good ten minutes, Carver climbed out and walked to the house.
"Who's there?" he heard his wife say from upstairs as he stepped inside the front door.
"Just me, dear," he called back softly, as he did every evening when he arrived home.
Annette Carver came down the stairs smiling. Although three-inches shorter than her daughter, her resemblance to Jenetta was remarkable. Her husband lowered his head as she stretched to meet him and they kissed lightly in the habitual greeting manner of all longtime married couples still in love.
"You're home early, dear," she said, as he lifted his head.
"Yes, I wasn't feeling well," he said, avoiding eye contact with her.
Annette, fifty-three, attractive and slim, but developing a little tummy from lack of exercise since the children had all moved out of the house and into outer space, scrutinized her husband's face without appearing to. After thirty-two years of marriage, she knew him well. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but she knew that he would never come home early simply because he wasn't feeling well. Before he left work early, he would almost have to be ill enough to be hospitalized.
"What is it, Quint?" she asked softly. Knowing that only the most serious of news could account for his demeanor, she asked, "Is it about Jenetta?"
He exhaled loudly and grimaced powerfully before closing his deep blue eyes briefly and nodding. His throat had constricted and he couldn't utter the words that he had been practicing all the way home.
"How bad?" she asked, her concern growing immeasurably as she watched his face.
His continued silence, and the failure of his red-rimmed eyes to make contact with hers, was answer enough. It felt as though someone had plunged a knife through her chest, and for a few seconds she had difficulty breathing. As all her strength seemed to leave her body and her knees started to buckle, her husband grabbed her and pulled her to him. Held tightly against his chest she began to sob, slowly at first, then uncontrollably as images of her only daughter flashed through her mind. Although a grown woman and officer in the Galactic Space Command, Jenetta would always be her baby. She loved each of her sons dearly, and would grieve no less if an accident befell one of them, but few relationships are closer than the ones between mothers and daughters. It wasn't always so during the teenage years, a time when most children begin to assert their individuality and independence, but the bond had redeveloped stronger than ever as Jenetta matured during her Academy years.
Annette had always imagined that she would be strong when such news arrived. She'd steeled herself many times when she'd heard that there had been a death aboard a ship to which her husband or one of her children was posted, but it had always been someone else's spouse, or someone else's child. Space was a dangerous place, and life in the military made it ten times more likely that death or serious injury would occur, but even knowing the dangers didn't help you accept the fact when it happened.
Quinton held his wife until she was able to stand on her own again, then walked with her to the living-room sofa. As they sat together, he tried to comfort her, all the while working to keep his own emotions in check. He felt that he had to remain strong for her sake.
They sat like that for almost twenty minutes as Annette wept. Finally, she was able to ask, in between sobs, "What happened?"
"Her ship
exploded," he said when he could find his voice. "They either don't know why yet, or haven't released that information. A rescue ship picked up all the escape pods, but apparently, Jenetta never got out. They searched the area out as far as a pod could have traveled in the event of a retrorocket malfunction, but they didn't find any sign of her. She's been officially listed as ‘missing and presumed lost.' The search has been called off."
"My poor baby," Annette sobbed, as she began weeping again.
* * *
Over the following weeks, Annette spent most of her time sitting alone in Jenetta's bedroom, looking through the mementos and personal items that her daughter had valued enough to save, and in some cases, prize. There were scholastic awards, souvenirs of trips and events, and dozens of data rings containing anything and everything about space outside Earth's solar system. There were even a few personal log rings in a small acrylic box marked ‘diary,' but being encrypted, Annette couldn't view their contents when she tried them in the computer.
The room was more remarkable for the things that it didn't contain. There wasn't a single skirt or dress in the closet, or a pair of shoes with heels over one and a quarter centimeters, and the contemporary dresser yielded neither stockings nor makeup. Annette had tried to raise her daughter as she'd been raised, but Jenetta had resisted strongly, rejecting anything frilly, delicate, or feminine from an early age. No doubt, the influences from living in a military household with four older brothers were responsible in large part, but it was Jenetta's fascination with outer space that finally defeated Annette's efforts. All of Jenetta's being had been focused towards her goal, and she had agreed to put on a dress and short heels for her senior prom only because, if she did, Annette promised never to ask her again. Annette had kept her promise, and her pictures of Jenetta in her prom dress were among her most prized personal possessions. An animated enlargement of what she considered the best picture was hanging in the living room alongside the pictures of her sons, each taken on the night of their own senior prom.
A Galaxy Unknown Page 4
