THE SKY IS FILLED
WITH SHIPS
by
RICHARD C. MEREDITH
Singularity&Co.
18 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
2013
www.singularity.co
The Sky is Filled With Ships
by
Richard C. Meredith
This book was originally published in 1969, and is made possible by the members of SavetheScifi.com. This edition and additional material copyright © 2013 by Reversity Media, LLC, all rights reserved, and may not be reproduced without permission.
Cover Artwork by K. L. Ricks, Copyright © 2013 by Reversity Media, LLC.
ISBN-13: 978-1-938536-14-4
ISBN-10: 1938536142
Published by Singularity&Co., an imprint of Reversity Media, LLC, in the U.S.A. This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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As an employee of the Solar Trading Company, Major Janas had been on an intelligence patrol for ten years, gaining information for Altho Franken, his boss and President of STC.
And it had been worth it. Because Janas was bringing home vital and secret information about the strength of the forces brought together by General Kantralas, leader of the Alliance of Rebels, an alliance that had been formed over a period of forty years and had already had two major battles with the government of the galaxy—Earth’s Federation.
The Solar Trading Company had been there to pick up the pieces—and STC was still there, not for the Alliance and not for the Federation, either. STC was still there—to keep civilization going after the governments had battled it out.
The information Janas was carrying was vital to the role STC would need to play in the coming conflict.
And suddenly he found no one would listen…
To my wife, Joy
Chapter I
He had never seen the Lunar terminals so crowded, nor had he ever seen the crowds so quiet. Here on Luna things still looked normal; there were no signs of bombing, the terminal staff and their automated equipment still functioned normally. There was, he noticed, an unusually large number of soldiers, though few were part of the sullen, milling crowd. Most stood armed and silent, dressed in Federation combat green, their backs against the walls, their faces impassive.
But the people—he could see it in their faces, fear just below the level of panic. Many of them were refugees, as he was in a sense, just come to Luna from the star worlds. They knew what was happening Out There and what could be happening here soon—and they were frightened.
He turned and looked out through the transparent bubble that covered this section of the huge, sprawling Lunar terminal. Stark, harsh shadows fell across the spaceport, slowly, imperceptibly lengthening as Luna’s backside swung toward the sun. Out there, in the near vacuum of the moon’s surface, glittering in the brilliant late afternoon sunlight, lay the starship that had carried him from Odin back to Earth’s companion. It lay quiet and still now, like some huge, metallic sea beast thrown up on this uninviting shore by a terrible storm, on the southern edge of Mare Serenitatis, this misnamed Sea of Serenity. He wondered if that great beast would ever again swim in the oceans of space, and he doubted it.
Captain Robert L. Janas of the Solar Trading Company, of late Acting Manager of the STC Odin Major Terminal, before that commander of the STCSS President Regan, Terran by birth, starman by occupation, looked up at the moon’s pitch-black sky and saw the brilliant half-Earth hanging like a painted toy against star-spangled velvet.
She’s been lucky so far, he told himself, but now her luck’s run out. He muttered something that was halfway between a curse and a prayer and was about to turn away when a glint of climbing light caught his eye.
One following another until there were dozens of them, moving spots of reflected sunlight, a fleet, no, an armada of starships, rose into the Lunar sky from somewhere far across the flat plains of Mare Serenitatis. He knew what ships they were, and he knew their names and their purpose. A chill ran down his spine. He ticked off those names as they rose skyward, fell into orbit around Luna, and waited for their companions. Out there, moving starward now, were Marathon and Belleau Wood, Bull Run and Agincourt; one was Salamis and one was Argonne Forest, and there was Pork Chop Hill and Waterloo and others with names as vivid. Climbing away from Luna was the cream of the space fleets of the Terran Federation, the greatest of the heavy battle cruisers of the stars.
And soon, Janas knew, rendezvousing with them, lifting from other Lunar ports, would be the Federation’s destroyer fleets, ships named North Carolina and Revenge, Victory and Bismarck, Royal William and Hood, Yamato and Alabama, and a hundred more.
Together they would meet in orbit around Luna, and with others they would climb away, moving starward, and somewhere in the darkness between stars, somewhere in the grayness of another universe, they would meet that other fleet, a fleet whose ships bore names like their own, manned by men like themselves, and the battle would be joined; the Great Rebellion would reach its climax. And then?
Janas tore his eyes away from the sky, wondering what it would be like here a month from now. Would the Lunar terminals still be operating? Would they even exist? Whose ships would be in her dark sky? And what of Earth herself? Will she be green and blue still, or will her continents, like those of Antigone, be shrouded in smoke and her oceans covered with steam?
Robert L. Janas, Captain, Solar Trading Company, was halfway between birth and death according to the actuary tables of this, the year 979 of the Federation, or the year 3483 on the old calendar. He was a tall man with a cafe au lait complexion, unusual for a person born in the section of North America from which he had come, but his mother’s people had been bred by the mingled races of the plains of Asia, and her blood ran thick in his veins. His face was made of sharp angles and harsh lines, a quickly wrought sketch of a medieval knight; few women called him handsome but none had called him ugly. His eyes were deep-set and dark, the eyes of a man accustomed to peering into the endless depths of space, the eyes of a dreamer strangely set into the face of a warrior, and perhaps this is why something in his appearance harked back to the days of steel armor, broadswords and towering castles. The darkness of his hair was shot with a premature gray that made him look older than he was. When he walked there was a slight though noticeable limp; a scar and a transplanted trochanter were the only reminders of a fight on an alien world so far away and so long ago that he hardly remembered it. The blue and gold uniform he wore looked well on him, for Robert Janas was every inch a starship captain.
But now, in this year 979 FE, standing on the surface of Luna and watching the fleets of the Federation move toward the stars, Janas felt little of the feline strength that resided in his slender body, felt little more than a cold apprehension. The end was near, the “Imperium” was about to die, mankind would be plunged into the darkest of dark ages, and there was nothing that could be done t
o stop it.
Shifting his attaché case from his left hand to his right, he walked away from the observation deck and back toward the center of the terminal dome. Rising from the tiled floor of the dome were the information and reservation desks, forming a circle around the reservation computer input station, which was strangely quiet and still as it had never been before. Above the input unit was a pedestal on which sat a 3-V tank, and in the depths of the tank was a pleasant-looking young man seated behind a broad desk. Before him were several sheets of paper that he shuffled, perhaps nervously; behind him on the wall was a Mercator projection of Earth, emblazoned with the combined letters “T” and “F” of the Federation. The young man was speaking.
“…after weeks of discussion. Citizen Herrera, Chairman of the Federation, announced within the hour that Citizen Altho Franken, President of the Solar Trading Company, has agreed to allow the use of STC ships and personnel in the defense of Federation territory against the rebel Kantralas.”
The face of the young newscaster faded away to be replaced by the pudgy-faced, hard-eyed image of the Chairman of the Terran Federation, Citizen Jonal Constantine Herrera. The word “prerecorded” appeared in the lower right hand corner of the 3-V tank. The image spoke, the words heavily flavored with the east European dialect of his childhood: “The noble and self-sacrificing action of Citizen Altho Franken will long be remembered by the peoples of the Federation. We all know the Solar Trading Company’s long-standing neutrality in political affairs, and we can appreciate Citizen Franken’s hesitation to break such a time-honored tradition. However, my fellow citizens, it well may be that Citizen Franken’s actions of today will go down in history as the turning point of our long, hard battle to maintain the integrity of the Federation.”
As Herrera’s image faded the face and voice of the newscaster returned. “Chairman Herrera went on to say that…”
Violently Janas turned away from the 3-V tank, the sinking feeling in his stomach threatening to carry him to his knees. That fool, he yelled silently to himself, that goddamned fool!
He found a place to sit and collect his thoughts. Opening his attaché case, he took out typewritten copies of the reports that were his reason for being on Luna, his reason for coming across the long light-years to Earth—to deliver those reports about the star worlds and the rebel forces to Altho Franken. Franken, once Janas had informed him of their existence, had asked to see them, had asked Janas to return to Earth, to give his opinions about the war’s probable outcome, and had said that he would make no final decision about the STC’s stand during the imminent battles until he had seen the reports and talked with Janas. But now, after Janas had crossed light-years and stood some 384,000 kilometers from Earth, Franken had broken his promise and committed the future of the STC into the hands of the TF Chairman, Jonal Herrera. A few more hours, that was all he need have waited, and Janas could have spoken with him—and perhaps prevented the destruction of all of civilization.
Janas slipped the papers back into the attaché case and angrily slammed it shut, wishing that the feeling in his stomach would go away.
“Paging Captain Robert Janas,” said a voice from the ring of loudspeakers that decorated the 3-V’s supporting column. “Captain Robert Janas, please come to the Solar Trading Company reservation desks in terminal dome A-3.”
There was a moment of silence before the pleasantly feminine voice repeated the message.
With infinite weariness, Janas rose and crossed the tiled floor to the circle of desks. The girl sitting behind the desk he approached was wearing an unusually revealing dress, though by the cut and colors of it he knew it to be a regulation STC uniform. Apparently there had been some changes on Earth since he had last been there. The girl smiled.
“I’m Robert Janas.”
“Good afternoon, Captain,” she said. “There is an analogue call from Earth for you. Would you take it in booth twelve, please,” and she pointed to the row of analogue communications booths near the corridor that connected this dome with the main terminal building.
“Thank you,” Janas replied, and turned away toward the booths.
A few minutes later, sitting in a plush chair that faced a seemingly blank wall, Janas glanced briefly at the two small consoles that bracketed him. On his right was the communications unit, a handful of controls to adjust the “picture” and sound that would spring to life as soon as he waved his hand over a certain photocell. The console on his left was an auto-bartender and was, at that moment, a welcome sight. Janas dropped a coin into the slot, punched a button, then waited until a panel slid aside and a tall, chilled glass of Brajen whiskey rose to meet his hand. Thus fortified he covered the photocell with his palm.
He had not bothered to wonder who was calling him all the way from Earth. Enid did not know that he was coming in on this particular flight; only two people did know, and he did not think that one of them, Citizen Altho Franken, would feel any need to call him now.
The wall before him shimmered for a moment then became transparent. The effect was that of looking through into another room that seemed to be separated from his by only a thin sheet of paraglas. The other room was of approximately the same size, though more luxurious, and the opposite wall was emblazoned with a stylized representation of a solar disk and rays, the symbol of the Solar Trading Company.
Sitting two meters away, so Janas’ eyes told him, was a short, stocky man, fair-skinned and carrot-haired, and perhaps a decade or so his junior. Only the light-speed delay betrayed the image’s unreality.
When Janas keyed the analogue transmitter, half a hundred scanners had recorded three dimensional images of him and the room in which he sat. Those images, electronically integrated and coded, were carried by a wide-band maser signal away from Luna at a speed just under 300,000 kilometers per second. Crossing from Luna to Earth took almost one and three-tenths seconds. It took that much more time for a returning signal to reach him from Earth. A little over two and one half seconds had passed, therefore, when the analogue image smiled and spoke. “Hello, Bob.”
“Hello, Jarl.”
Jarl Emmett, Operations Supervisor of STC Central, shifted in his chair, pulled a cigar from his coat pocket and puffed it alight.
“Have you heard, Bob?” Emmett asked, blowing a puff of smoke that billowed against the pseudo-wall that separated them.
“I’ve heard,” Janas answered. While waiting for the signal to cross to Earth and its reply to come, he took a drink from the glass in his hand.
“Altho just couldn’t wait,” Emmett said angrily. “He didn’t tell us anything before he did it. The first I heard of it was on a newscast less than an hour ago.”
Janas nodded, but did not speak.
“Hell, Bob, I don’t know how to react,” Emmett said. “Maybe you can still talk to him, though I doubt it. He’s committed himself, and I don’t think he could back down now even if he wanted to.”
“What about a board meeting?” Janas asked when Emmett paused. “He is an elected official.”
“Elected, hell,” Emmett snorted after the delay. “I’m sorry, Bob, but have you ever heard of a Franken being removed from the presidency?”
Janas shook his head slowly.
“And even if we thought we could we don’t have that much strength on the board. Most of its members have been trying to get him to do this for months anyway.”
“We can’t give up now,” Janas said coldly. “We’ve got to try everything possible.”
Emmett looked around himself suddenly, as if fearful that someone might be listening in, though there would be no way of detecting a signal tap if there were anyone who wished to tap an analogue signal and had the proper equipment to do it—and both the Federation and Altho Franken had such equipment.
“You’re right,” Emmett said at last. “We’ll talk about it when you get here. How soon does your ferry leave?”
Janas glanced at his wrist. “About an hour and a half.”
“Okay,�
�� Emmett said after the light-speed delay had passed. “I’ll meet you at the spaceport when you get there. Is there anything else?”
For a moment Janas was silent, then shook his head.
“Have a good trip, Bob,” Emmett’s image said as his hand moved toward the control console on his right.
Janas smiled back but did not speak.
The wall before him flickered and then returned to opacity, and for a long while Janas did not move.
At last, as if under a great weight, he lifted the glass to his mouth and downed the remainder of the Brajen whiskey. Savagely wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he rose, picked up his attaché case, and left the booth.
Chapter II
About seven and a half parsecs from Sol and her third planet, Earth, capital and founder of the Terran Federation, out in the direction of the constellation Aquila, far, far beyond bright Altair, lay a line of picket ships and unmanned scanners, each decorated with the “TF” of the Federation, alert for the enormous enemy fleet that reports said was now on its way toward ancient Earth, sweeping in from the worlds of the Rim.
One such picket ship, the TFSS Douglas MacArthur, lying in the void light years from any star, tended one of its half dozen automated Non-space scanners. When the MacArthur’s technicians had completed their check-out of the huge metallic globe, it was cast back into space and carried away from the MacArthur by chemical rockets. When the scanner, designated MAC-5, had moved some five hundred kilometers from its mothership, it halted. For a long time it sat motionless as its energy banks accumulated power, while Jump Units inside it reached potential.
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