Call of Courage: 7 Novels of the Galactic Frontier

by C. Gockel

  Alvarez woke with a jolt. He had become good at sleeping upright and, somehow, not spilling his coffee. Out his window he saw the Thompson orbiter, the next residential structure on the relay route. He watched as a transit exited the station. Rather than continue on the relay route, it headed straight toward Novos.

  “Must be direct transit,” Alvarez muttered to himself. Direct transits were the express shuttles. They were for VIPs only and went to Novos without making stops along the relay route. You couldn’t buy a ticket, but it was free to ride if you were high enough on Novos Corp’s pecking order. When Alvarez was a mission colonel, he rode direct transit exclusively.

  Stepping down to a desk job was hard for many reasons. The longer commute took some getting used to. On the bright side, Alvarez had learned to snooze en route. It was terrible quality sleep, dozing off in his seat, but he took what he could get.

  Alvarez rested his eyes, drowsy but no longer able to sleep. Between caffeine consumption and an incessant beeping that sounded over the shuttle’s PA, Alvarez was awake.

  He knew the sound. Everyone did. It meant they were approaching their final destination, Novos. He shook his head in disbelief. He must have slept through the last three stops.

  He stood up, stretched his legs and back. Looking out the window, he noticed they were hovering outside the docking bay at Novos. He wondered what the holdup was. Other passengers were getting impatient.

  “There must be another shuttle still docked,” the woman standing next to him said. Alvarez checked the time. He should have been in the lab six minutes ago.

  Another passenger said, “All roads lead to Rome, but all transits lead to Novos.” The man chuckled at his own comment. He looked from face to face for someone else to share in his mirth. No one laughed, and no one made eye contact with the irritating man.

  This catch-phrase was one of Novos’s old slogans that had lost its levity years ago. That had become a fulfilled prophesy. Currently, nearly every transport traveling in the sector was heading to or from Novos station, where most business and factory production took place. People worked in orbiters doing service jobs: retail clerks, utilities engineers, maintenance techs, educators, etc. But all of the primary production took place at Novos.

  The one exception was farm orbiters. Growing food didn’t require a great deal of technology or energy. Novos had more than enough starlight to grow plants and to power solar arrays. What Novos didn’t have was plenty of wide-open spaces. Even so, Novos was an intermediary hub for most farm techs, a transfer point between home and fields.

  Alvarez looked out over Novos station. It lacked the rotating towers of a residential orbiter, and it outsized one by an order of magnitude. The dish-shaped station was tilted vertically and had two sides: the dark side was flat and had a central docking bay. The other side was concave and faced the sun.

  Even though transit shuttles were the most common sized crafts to dock, the bay could handle the entire range of Falcon-class ships. Larger Atlas-class vessels had to dock on the exterior hangar bays located on the structure’s outer rim, which was thicker to accommodate the construction demands. Ship activity on the dark side resembled a bee hive’s alighting board, highly congested but synchronized. The dark side was only relatively dark; its Christmas-tree-of-lights were on continual display.

  The side facing the sun appeared tranquil, even serene by comparison. Its surface was a smooth, iridescent monolith of solar arrays that was unobstructed by ships or other shadow-casters. Maximized solar collection was its function and the reason for its slight concave design.

  Initial structures in early space settlement resembled globes, cubes, or cylindrical shapes. A remnant of the latter design was still apparent in residential orbiters. But as time passed, designers began to realize the utility gained by building structures for maximum solar aspect. Novos and most other primary stations in Outer-Five settlements used a similar dish-shaped design.

  Laboratories and offices tended to require less contiguous space and were usually located near the center of the dish, the thinnest segment on the station. The main docking bay being at the center of Novos meant Alvarez didn’t have far to go.

  There was a murmur from the passengers, too disgruntled to be a cheer. Alvarez saw a craft exit the docking bay. It wasn’t a design he had seen before. Larger than a common Falcon-class ship, it barely squeezed through the bay doors. The insignia on its hull read NC Constance. The bloated ship awkwardly navigated out of the station, fired its main thrusters, and was away.

  Alvarez's shuttle zoomed in to take its place. Passengers scurried out onto a platform. To everyone’s dismay, the transfer corridor was backed up with other travelers. Something had disrupted the normal, efficient flow of the security corridor at Novos.

  It must have been that ship, Alvarez thought. Fortunately, the science lab wasn’t far from the transit station and would only take Alvarez a couple of minutes to get there post transfer.

  He filed in line and joined the slow creep toward the security booth already in progress. The transfer agent in the booth wore the standard light-blue uniform. Her cap read N.T.A., which stood for Novos Transfer Agency. The cap’s short brim, a vestigial characteristic from days on earth, was an iconic expression of Outer-Five fashion. Unless you’re on Terra Firma- unlikely for Outer-Five settlers- there was little use in shading your eyes from above. Most middle-class to affluent settlers could afford auto-tint retinal lenses that adjusted quickly to diminish the intensity of direct rays. This and numerous other realities had slowly changed clothing styles of Outer-Five settlers, widening the gulf between them and the Statists.

  He watched the next shuttle come in. It must have been a direct relay, because the handful of passengers walked through the express check-in, bypassing the soul-crushing waiting game everyone else had to play. The corridor’s sole purpose was to slow people down, corralling them so that surv-tech had time to process faces and biomarkers.

  The agent monitoring her console for alarms or suspicious activity looked bored, her eyes glazed over. She worked as an over-glorified toll-booth operator. Security was a rouse. She was really there to charge passengers for their transit; Novos automatically deducted certs from their accounts. Any unauthorized passengers or visitors were stopped and processed by agents, an uncommon event.

  Certs were stock certificates issued by Novos Corp. They, along with certs from other settlements, functioned as currency. Their value floated against the value of other certs, scarce commodities, and the cost of various goods and services. Although corporate settlements issued the certs, they had no way of controlling their value. It was up to people to determine how many certs they were willing to pay. When corporate settlements issued too many certs, creating an imbalance between their currency and the underlying assets they were supposed to represent, markets devalued their certs against other more stable currencies. There was no free lunch, and only through the creation of real value did corporate settlements flourish.

  When a settlement made unpopular or risky policy changes, certs often traded at discount to commodities and other corporate certs. Many people traded commodities such as precious metals or more utilitarian commodities like enriched isotopes that fueled reactors. But those were private transactions. The only officially recognized currency were Novos certs.

  Alvarez passed the security booth. He attempted to make eye contact with the agent, but she was in a hypnotic daze, staring at but not really seeing her screens and consoles. The passengers exiting the transfer corridor splintered into a thousand paths toward a thousand destinations. Past this point, movement was quick and unrestricted. Alvarez was in luck. In front of him was a PTU, personal transfer unit.

  PTUs were floating balls of glass with only enough room for one passenger. Novos’s central computer monitored the whereabouts and activities of all persons on the station and placed PTUs in anticipation of transport needs. People outnumbered PTUs, but the mainframe continuously integrated transfer data into
the predictive algorithms. On the rare occasion a PTU wasn’t present, people could summon the nearest available unit with a couple strokes on their wrist console.

  PTUs used no motors, jets, or propulsion systems of any kind. Instead they achieved weightlessness and high-velocity travel by disrupting the artificial gravity system. Novos mainframe set their exact course, maneuvering around persons and objects more quickly than a human pilot could.

  The dumbed-down explanation given to Alvarez was that PTUs weren’t propelled at all. Technically, they fell—forward, backwards, up, down, any direction—as they glided on the surface between weightlessness and gravity. Alvarez was just glad they worked.

  Entering the PTU, Alvarez spoke his destination, “Science Lab – division three.” The translucent door closed behind him as he strapped himself in. He closed his eyes in anticipation of the dizzying trip, the blur of external objects, that would ensue. Unnoticed was the coffee floating above his unsealed mug. The unit zoomed forward, and the hot brew splashed backwards against his neck and lab coat collar. Alvarez first winced, then yelled out of frustration. Despite the translucence of the PTU, its speed provided anonymity—small comfort it was.

  The unit darted through the maze of vertical and horizontal tunnels. Arrival times varied depending on how proximate destinations were to the transfer corridor.

  By the time Alvarez had cleaned up his mess, he was at the science lab. He passed the reception desk and entered the main laboratory, which in division three was more office than lab. People’s heads—their backs turned—filled cubicles lining the walls.

  Alvarez covered his tracks, looking over his shoulder and trying to avoid detection. But it was no use. Waiting for him at his workstation was his boss, Bob Richards. Alvarez was thirty-five years old, and Richards—as far as Alvarez could tell—was in his late twenties. Both Alvarez's age and, especially, his distinguished career as a mission colonel seemed to aggravate Richards’ insecurity. He over compensated by riding Alvarez's tail for anything and everything he could.

  Alvarez tried being assertive. “I don't know what happened. This morning I...”

  Richards interrupted, “Just because it’s your last day of work doesn’t mean you can come in late. And why don't you wear a clean lab coat for once? You know you have to catch up on a lot of work, including data reports on the sensory probe.”

  “I’ll get right on it, sir.” Alvarez said. The last word caught in his throat. He didn’t want this job, and he certainly didn’t want to take orders from this middle-management dweeb.

  Why couldn’t he come in late on his last day? Alvarez wondered. He was done with this place, wasn’t he? Even an unexcused absence on his record wouldn’t amount to anything in the big scheme of things.

  Alvarez decided it was because of who he was, or at least who he told himself he was. He finished things, regardless of how hard or easy they were. He didn’t back out of his promises, and he didn’t cut corners on a job, even soul-sucking data processing positions like this one.

  Alvarez sat down at his cubicle, accessed his console, and started opening data files. The first he came to was from a sensory probe stationed in a far, outer edge of Novos territory. Unlike most cases, he enjoyed processing these. They were a link to his former life.

  The data-burst was from a probe named NC-108D. The raw data looked like it was broken or damaged. He tried what few tricks he knew to get it working but to no avail. Reluctantly, he hit the call button for Richards who was looking over people's shoulders, making comments, and trying to substantiate his existence. He stomped over to Alvarez as if he was being torn away from something important. In reality, he lived for moments like these—when he could make subordinates feel stupid. Despite the appearance of urgency, he was in no hurry. Alvarez knew Richards would enjoy every minute of this encounter. Richards had a half-eaten breakfast sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. Arriving at Alvarez’s workstation, he noisily slurped his coffee. He annoyed Alvarez at all levels.

  “What is it this time?” Richards asked.

  “It's the data from the sensory probe. It seems incomplete.”

  “Did you reformat it via Telos before trying to open it?”

  “That's the first thing I did.”

  “Did you check if the cohort is still entangled?” Richards said with a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Yes, it’s unaltered. All I can figure is that the data was corrupted on their end.”

  Richards took another bite. “I'm pretty sure that is a manned probe. Let's see if there was a video feed.”

  Alvarez scanned through the list of files on his screen. “There it is,” he said. “It looks like some of it is still intact."

  The console screen went black. Richards said, “I don’t get it. That should work.”

  “Listen,” Alvarez said. He turned up the volume.

  “Gospod' Iisus Khristos Syn Bozhiy, pomiluy menya greshnogo,” said a voice.

  Richards, about to take another bite, put down his sandwich. “Is that the probe technician?” he asked.

  The voice repeated, “Gospod' Iisus Khristos Syn Bozhiy, pomiluy menya greshnogo.”

  Richards swallowed hard his last bite of half-chewed food and said, "I'm calling Brennen."

  Chapter Three

  SPACE-ARCHITECT DAVID PARKER was aboard his newly finished vessel, the Constance. He was joined at the helm by a skeleton crew: a systems operator, navigator, and three sensory technicians. The navigator and operator flew the ship, and the three techs collected and analyzed performance data in real-time. Usually the rest of the ship would be staffed with mechanics and service technicians scattered about in various compartments. Today, it was empty. If they broke down, Novos was close enough to send help.

  Parker turned from the observation window and approached the systems operator. “Run another diagnostic test,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” said the operator. She—already engaged with holographic projections—seamlessly switched controls and initiated the test. The computer chirped. “Everything checks out,” she said. “Oh, and thruster efficiency is above expected norms.”

  Parker bit his lip. He was the nervous type, tall, slender, and with a habit of standing with his arms crossed. The Constance was his crowning achievement. It was the most dynamic ship he had ever built. Novos intended to use it both as a show-piece to taunt other corporate settlements with and as a marketing ploy to attract migrant settlers.

  Despite its versatility, Novos commissioned the construction of the Constance for a specific goal: interstellar exploration. It had to be both fast and highly capable. Every space saving feature was included, and all of its sensory technology was state-of-the-art.

  The lynchpin of the design was Parker's new engine. It wasn’t really an engine in the traditional sense of the word. Every design had thrusters, the stereotypical rockets responsible for propelling ships at sub-light speeds. Parker’s engine innovation was a more efficient warp-field generator, the key element that had turned occasional moonwalkers into interstellar life-forms.

  Though large stations and orbiters depended on solar arrays for primary power, ships capable of IST relied on an isotopic reactor core. No amount of solar efficiency could satisfy the energy demands of a fully spun warp-field generator.

  It took Parker over two years just to get the formulas for the warp field right. Only then could he design the rest of the craft. This was simply the nature of spacecraft modeling.

  Architects were known as control freaks for the same reason they were so highly paid; these hard to find personalities had to be able to hold and consider each design element with the next phase of production in mind. Perhaps scarcer than the requisite math and physics knowledge was the ability and willingness to push forward toward a single goal, in isolation and without external validation, for years on end until completing the job. The kicker was that many of the projects were flops or, at the last minute, corporate sponsors would pull funding. Successful architects
had to be able to endure the long commitments and fickle, uncontrollable rejections as just another part of their job.

  Although Parker’s warp field generator design was unique, the basic technology had been utilized for over fifty years. The generator harnessed a natural phenomenon that had been observed but misunderstood since the dawn of air travel during the first half of the twentieth-century.

  Early witnesses to the phenomenon were called frauds. Some skeptics tried to rationalize them away, but the most common response was to ignore them, denying their existence altogether. When passengers experienced missing time, impossibly shortened travel times, or disappeared around the Bermuda Triangle region, they were unwittingly coming in contact with warp fields, i.e. tears in the fabric of space-time created by a coalescence of electromagnetic fields. The frequent super storms in the North Atlantic created perfect conditions for naturally occurring warp fields.

  Travelers to the Bermuda Triangle who disappeared were often in the wrong place at the wrong time and were destroyed in the tear. On occasion when they weren’t killed instantly they were transported; people usually ended up in an inhospitable location, e.g. miles beneath the earth’s crust, in the far upper layer of the atmosphere, or in the outer edge of the solar system.

  A small minority of travelers caught in the warp field vortex were propelled forward in their original trajectory, arriving at their destination impossibly ahead of schedule. Documented accounts began to build, and they all repeated similar themes. People flew into channels formed by clouds, fog, or highly charged storms, and the tunnels would collapse behind them. Ejected out of the vortex after a handful of minutes, they found themselves one-hundred or more miles ahead of schedule.