by Jucha, S. H.
“And so we embark on a new adventure, Ser President … even if it’s only a vacation,” Cordova added, with a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Of course, you know my new starship trainee, First Mate Francis Lumley.”
The ex-UE captain was bent over the pilot’s panel, and, at the mention of his name, spun out of his chair and came to attention.
“No need for such a rigid style, Ser Lumley,” Alex said. “We are much more informal here.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Lumley replied, relaxing into parade rest.
“It’s a pleasure to see that you’ve found a place for your skills in our world, Ser,” Renée said. “Are you planning to retire soon, Captain Cordova?”
“Not if I can help it,” the captain replied, “but in this new world of ours, it pays to be prepared. Someday, I expect Ser Lumley will take care of you as I’ve tried to do.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Lumley agreed.
“So, Captain, are we ready?” Alex asked.
“Yes, Ser President, we have four travelers aboard with pilots and crew, baggage and equipment have been stowed, and all personnel are aboard and report ready.”
“You sure we haven’t left some aspect of the population down below?” Alex asked, narrowing his eyes at the captain.
Lumley hid his smile by turning back to his bridge control panels.
“I believe we have the required number of essential personnel for any adventure the president wishes to discover,” Cordova deadpanned.
“Then let’s make for Oistos, Captain,” Alex ordered.
On the central screen, the view changed as the liner pivoted away from the planet to face the deep dark and accelerate toward a system exit.
Alex’s thoughts drifted over the times he had sailed the venerable liner into trouble. When Haraken was established, Alex considered he had the start of a unique and stable society, but time and growth said that no society was immune to change. It’s how we manage those changes, Alex thought. He promised himself that when he returned with the girls, he would spend some time with the teens from the club. He wanted to know what they were seeking, or perhaps, better said, what was missing in their lives — Librans, New Terrans, and visitors — all of them.
-8-
Taking on the role of admiral in Tatia’s absence, Sheila Reynard was arguing with Assembly Speaker Eric Stroheim in his office.
“I’m not in favor of Alex’s directive either, Eric, but he was specific in his orders … no carriers,” Sheila said. “Alex thought the presence of that much force at Oistos would cause the criminals to panic, creating dangerous circumstances for the girls before he could make contact and begin negotiations with them.”
“I see Alex’s point, Sheila, but, on the other hand, you must admit that we’re risking a great many of our key people against unknown and dangerous adversaries. It’s not just the girls who might be in danger.”
“You called me here this morning for a reason, Eric. Do I take it that you have a suggestion?” Sheila asked.
“Actually, I do. How are the field tests for the Tanaka proceeding?”
“Latest reports have the sting ship returning to the system in three days. All tests were passed successfully. But what’s the difference between sending a carrier and sending a sting ship to Oistos?” Sheila asked.
“I agree our carriers are known entities that would only signal aggression. But our sting ship is brand new, unseen. I think it would be a great time to show it to the New Terran president and see if his government is interested in purchasing some.”
“A business trip … Assembly Speaker Stroheim, I believe you’ve been hanging around the New Terrans too long,” Sheila said, with a smile.
“Indeed,” Eric replied, adding his own smile.
“But to make this work, Eric, we’ll need a government representative aboard.”
“Precisely,” Eric replied, his smile growing larger.
“You?” asked Sheila, surprised at how far Eric had thought through his idea.
“Me … and I will need some things from you, Admiral Reynard … a traveler for me to meet the Tanaka when it enters our system and whatever additional crew and supplies the ship might need for an extended trip.
Sheila mentally sorted through the Tanaka’s original outfitting lists as quickly as she could. The sting ship’s structural buildout was complete, but it was only minimally supplied for its trials — a bare crew, one traveler in its twin bays, which could accommodate four, and sufficient food and cabin outfitting for the small crew.
The Assembly had sought to honor Alex by placing his name on the first sting ship as suggested by Eloise Haraken, who considered the vessel, with its aggressive nature, akin to their protector, her great-grandmother’s term for Alex. But, once again, Alex dodged the honor by suggesting someone he believed more appropriate — Hatsuto Tanaka, who sacrificed his life to protect Alex at New Terra. The Assembly accepted his recommendation.
“I can have you outbound from Haraken tomorrow morning, Ser Assembly Speaker, and let me be the first to wish you good fortune in securing a favorable agreement with the New Terrans for our newest ship,” Sheila said, rising and extending her hand with a sly grin on her face.
* * *
Reiko Shimada completed the last of her summary reports for her superiors. She couldn’t be happier with the results of the sting ship’s trials. It’s a completely different game when SADEs design your ship, Reiko thought. In the UE, a new destroyer took months to shake out the kinks and bugs and then not always. More than one warship was plagued throughout its life with quirks that could never be solved.
Before Reiko rose, she took a moment to stare at the exquisite crystal decorating the corner of her desk. Days before she left Idona Station, returning with Franz Cohen aboard the Rêveur when the Harakens left Sol, she was presented with the memento from Nikki Fowler, the station director, and Patrice Morris, the assistant station director. Inscribed on the crystal’s stand was the sentiment: To our hero and friend.
Leaving Sol for an alien world was the hardest decision Reiko thought she would ever make, except for maybe choosing to ram a UE battleship with her destroyer to save Idona Station. In the end, it came down to a simple question: Did she want to live without her huge, New Terran lover, Commander Franz Cohen? The answer was a resounding no.
* * *
The Harakens’ new sting-class ship, represented by the Tanaka, was created following the realization that their carriers and travelers were insufficient to handle the dangers that the universe seemed intent on throwing at them. The carriers had no defensive capability and had to be kept out of harm’s reach. The travelers were tremendous offensive and defensive weapons, but if the carrier was lost, the travelers were trapped in system.
Not long after Reiko landed and received her implant, Tatia tasked her with helping the SADEs design a mid-sized, attack craft with FTL capability. The SADEs insisted on employing a beam weapon energized by a grav drive, since it was essentially a weapon that didn’t require armament.
Reiko recalled the miner’s exploratory tool at Idona Station, which employed a clamshell scoop to collect spe
cimens. She suggested to the SADEs that they might cover the primary drive engines with a similar design that could seal like the travelers’ hatches, which melded with the shells. The clamshell would open, allowing the primary drives to move the ship from system to system, and, once in system, would close to allow the grav-drives to charge the beam and power the ship just like a traveler.
The same concept was required for the twin bays, carrying the four travelers. Open bay doors would severely curtail the gravitational wave energy inducted by the shell while the fighters launched, but this limitation could be overcome by employing the primary engines. It gave the captain options — opening the bays doors to launch and retrieve the travelers, accepting the loss of drive or, if extensive maneuvering was required, opening the rear clamshell to employ the primary engines.
The design came together rather quickly considering. Not so for the construction of the first sting ship, which earned its class name when Christie, who had marveled at the design, said, “That should give someone a nasty sting if they mess with it.”
Since this would be the first Swei Swee shell-covered ship that departed from the design of the Nua’ll travelers, Mickey chose to approach the construction in steps. He and his engineering team built a series of models, one-twentieth scale, and requested the hive females layup shells on each one. This allowed the team to test the efficiency of a model to pass gravitational waves through its shell. The best design, after more than a hundred tests, bore an eerie resemblance to an elongated traveler with a pointed bow and a long tubular body that widened toward the bubble-shaped aft end.
The full-scale, sting shell took the Swei Swee the equivalent time of twenty travelers to layup. But the matrons laid into the effort with a will. The First was ecstatic to see the Star Hunters creating more powerful ships to defend their world against other hunters.
Mickey took the completed hull structure and sliced into the shell to cut the hatches, bay openings, and aft-end’s four clamshell sections. After having successfully performed the same operation on myriad travelers, Mickey’s engineers expected similar results and they weren’t disappointed.
Reiko was honored with the first test flight, a circling of the planet with the new ship, and she chose Franz to sit copilot with her. After arriving at Haraken, Reiko joined the cadet training academy as a lieutenant, and Tatia promoted her to captain on graduation, recognizing her achievement of top honors and first in her class. But it was what everyone expected of an ex-destroyer captain who had made cruiser commodore in United Earth’s naval forces.
At graduation, Renée and Reiko had hugged warmly. The women had become close friends as Renée knew they would. “Was I right?” Renée said to Reiko, when she caught the petite Asian eyeing her New Terran lover, who was chatting with Alex. When Reiko grinned and nodded in response, Renée added, “These men are irresistible … noble and virtuous, out to save the worlds, but who protects them? We do,” Renée said, taking Reiko’s hands in hers. “A woman might choose not to be a mother, Reiko, but there’s no reason she can’t still be a protector.”
* * *
Per Reiko’s orders, Willem brought the Tanaka to a zero-V relative to the three travelers coming amidship and opened the bay doors on either side of the sting ship.
Reiko waited in the airlock for the bay to pressurize so she could greet her guest, Eric Stroheim. The Assembly Speaker was playing it close to the chest about what constituted the reason for the emergency trip to New Terra aboard a barely tested new ship — the first of its class, at that.
Having developed a healthy respect for the Haraken SADEs at Idona Station, Reiko had approached Willem to ask if the SADE would agree to accompany the ship on the unscheduled trip to New Terra.
“Most assuredly, Captain,” Willem had replied. “The safety of the crew depends on my continued presence until the ship has been tested to my satisfaction.”
It was an extremely welcome answer for Reiko, who was a believer in the SADEs’ incomparable degree of competence. The complete dearth of issues discovered during their shakedown cruise had taken her aback, not that she wasn’t pleased with the results.
“Welcome aboard, Ser Stroheim,” Reiko said, greeting the Assembly Speaker as he descended from the traveler.
“Please call me Eric, Captain,” Eric replied. “It was short notice, so I had difficulty finding an unassigned officer to command the traveler pilots. This was all I could get,” he added, pointing over his shoulder at the traveler’s hatch where Franz appeared.
“Really scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel,” Reiko agreed.
Franz was handling baggage and his smile disappeared when he saw Reiko and Eric staring at him in disgust. He looked behind him and then back at the two on the deck, “What?” he asked, and Eric and Reiko broke into laughter.
Sheila sent the sting ship three fully loaded travelers. Two were filled with pilots, flight crew, and additional crew members. It wouldn’t complete the vessel’s full crew complement, but it was all that two travelers could hold. The third traveler, designed as a freight shuttle, which loaded and unloaded from the aft end, was crammed full of supplies. The crew wasted no time unloading food stock, cabin supplies, and sundry other material.
Willem ensured the hatches, bay doors, and clamshell sections were securely closed, according to sensor reports, and the shell was fully operational, attested to by the controller’s monitoring of the grav-drives as the energy levels rose. When he was satisfied that the ship was properly sealed and charging, he directed the controller to determine the nearest system exit to jump for New Terra. Reviewing the controller’s calculations, Willem approved its directional choice and calculations and then ordered the controller to launch the ship under max acceleration. Immediately after, he joined Eric, Reiko, and Franz on the bridge.
Eric was ending a lengthy update for his audience on the recent events in Espero, from the initial suspicion of interlopers to the discovery of two gangs at work in the city to the kidnapping of the three girls that they believed were aboard a freighter bound for the moons of Ganymede in the Oistos system.
Willem didn’t require an update from Eric Stroheim, but he kept that note to himself. He had received Rosette’s transmissions, updating him as information became known. As Rosette supported the Assembly, she was privy to information at Eric Stroheim’s level, and she communicated to every Haraken SADE, who was a director of Haraken’s Central Exchange, the government’s bank. The SADEs shared critical information with one another as it became available and stored noncritical data in the Exchange vault, an underground data storage location known only to the SADEs and Alex Racine.
Willem didn’t consider withholding knowledge of the events at Espero from Captain Shimada as inconsiderate. It was a simple matter of preventing unnecessary information from burdening his captain. Willem, who had struggled mightily with his transfer to an avatar, had Alex to thank for providing him with direction and helping him integrate into human society, which, at first, he had shunned. The SADE thought of Reiko in the same circumstances as those early years of his, an individual deserving of some protection until she had more time to orient herself to a new society. Then again, Willem was not the best judge of people. Kilo for kilo, Reiko Shimada was one of the most self-reliant humans he might ever meet.
“Which carrier did the president take?” Reiko asked. When silence greeted her question, she said, “He took the Rêveur.”
“The president believed that a carrier might foment trouble with the New Terran government and scare the criminals into rash decisions,” Eric supplied.
“Ah … so that’s the ploy,” Reiko said, nodding. “We arrive on this strange Haraken ship and announce to the New Terran president that we have this shiny, new design for him to inspect and see i
f he wants a few for his people.”
“Precisely,” Eric replied. “And if, for some unexpected reason, our president, on his vacation mind you, requires assistance …”
“We are there to provide it,” Franz said, smiling along with Eric and Reiko.
Willem’s typical days were filled with interstellar exploration. He ran the highly respected observatory platform positioned outward of Haraken that searched for secondary worlds for the people. Scientists from Haraken, New Terra, and, occasionally, Méridien, worked with him, collecting and analyzing the data from probes sent on trips tens of light-years out from Hellébore. Listening to the humans discuss a ploy founded on duplicity made him realize how much he prized the world of empirical science.
“Sheila tells me your beam tests went well,” Eric said, looking between Reiko and Willem.
When Reiko nodded to Willem, the SADE replied, “Expectations, comparative to our travelers, were that the beam’s power would increase by a factor of 12.65 and the reach by a factor of 21.32. However, the test revealed a power factor discrepancy of -0.3 percent and the reach error was even greater at +0.5 percent.
“Worrying indeed,” Eric commented drily.
“Precisely,” Willem intoned. “But I believe the errors will be found in our extrapolation from the model to the full-scale ship, in which case, reality must supplant expectations.”
“In other words, we must accept the results as they are,” Eric surmised,
“Unfortunately, yes,” Willem replied. When the SADE noticed Reiko’s hand hiding a grin and Franz searching the overhead while pinching his lips, Willem added, “Perhaps my top-down view of expectations is unnecessary. In human terms, the tests went well.” That his last comments elicited smiles seemed noteworthy to the SADE. The individuals in front of him weren’t scientists, and, therefore, they required a different form of analysis.
Early in his relationship with the president, Willem had been warned by Alex when he said, “SADEs will seem identical, even though they’re not, compared to humans, who will have nearly an unlimited number of different opinions on the same subject.” It had seemed an incomprehensible statement to him, at the time, but here was a perfect example. That the beam tests did not meet expectations was unnecessary to these people. Under the circumstances, they needed the beam to work well — and it did.
