by James Rosone
“That’s a political and military question beyond my scope.”
He turned to look at his friend. “What are your thoughts, John?”
“Between the three of us, I’d say scrap the AC expedition,” Katherine proposed, jumping in before John could speak. “The Europeans and Asians are going to settle there. I say we let them. Let them claim those planets for themselves, and we focus on the Rhea system.”
Hmm… “You guys really think my mission to Alpha Centauri shouldn’t happen?”
John shrugged. “Miles, that’s not for me to say. But I suspect Space Command is going to want you to head here instead. This planet is about as close to Earth as we’re going to find. It’s probably rich in minerals and resources too. It’ll be my recommendation that we send your expedition here instead of Alpha Centauri. If it turns out the way I think it will, we may have found a second home world.”
Hunt could tell Katherine and his friend John were pretty excited about this discovery. Heck, he was too. He just wasn’t sure it was worth giving up the other mission over.
“So are we going to keep calling this new planet Rhea Ab, or have you guys come up with something clever?” Hunt inquired. Knowing her, he suspected Katherine had already named it.
John and Katherine looked at each other for a moment. “Technically, it’s called Rhea Ab. But we’re calling it New Eden,” she replied with a smile on her face.
Hunt chuckled at the name. “I’m not sure I’m the arbiter of planet naming, but I like it, Katherine. We’ll see what Space Command ultimately calls it.” Hunt paused for a moment as his mind raced with questions. “Why don’t we take the rest of today and you brief me on what else you’ve discovered on this planet? Tell me about the solar system and the area around it as well. If we’re going to scrub our mission to Alpha Centauri, then we’re going to need more data than what you’ve just shared with me. This mission’s been in the planning process for more than two decades. The Voyager and my own ship were built around the FLT drive specifically for the AC mission. If that’s going to change, then there needs to be a major reason to scrub the current mission as opposed to waiting until our next Hyperion-class ship is built.”
“That’s like two years away. If we wait that long, I can guarantee the other powers will find out about this planet,” said Katherine, urgency in her voice. “They’ll either change course from Alpha Centauri or send their own explorers. We need to grab this planet as quickly as we can, Miles—plant our flag and claim it. Remember, the agreement signed by everyone twenty years ago was that Alpha Centauri would be a shared world. All others were first come, first serve. This is important, Miles. You need to convey that to Space Command.”
“I will, Katherine, but you are coming with me,” Hunt countered. “They’ll want to speak with you as well.”
Chapter Four
Ballad of the Infantry
Earth
Fort Benning, Georgia
Delta School—Republic Army Special Forces
Master Sergeant Brian Royce, the senior Delta instructor for Training Class 48573, stood looking at the recruits. Sweat poured off their faces from the physical exertion he’d just put them through. He was pushing them hard, watching to see if any of them would break down or quit. If that happened, he’d wash them out of the program. They’d be reassigned to a regular line unit in a RAS battalion.
As soon as the recruits finished hydrating themselves, Royce shouted loudly to get their attention. “Listen up, maggots! If you thought the last PT session was tough, you now have exactly sixty minutes to complete the ten-kilometer run with full packs. Now grab your gear and get moving!”
The group of trainees grabbed their rucks, personal weapons, and other gear and started running. In seconds, the entire group was running in an all-out sprint. Their bodies were being pressed hard, testing the limits of their biomechanical implants, stimulants, and neural implants. The recruits needed to grasp that their enhanced bodies were stronger; they could move faster and run longer than they were used to.
The Delta instructors ran alongside the young men and women, yelling and encouraging them the entire way. When a recruit appeared to be falling out of step, one of the instructors would either run next to them to help them push through it or yell at them through their neurolink to keep pushing beyond what they thought was possible. This final phase of the physical indoctrination training was the toughest. The recruits’ minds had to adapt to a new reality—they were capable of far more than their pre–Special Forces bodies had been able to accomplish.
While genetically modified humans made up the bulk of the Asian Alliance’s force, the Republic focused on enhancing their soldiers with physical modifications. They used a particular type of medical nanite that reinforced a person’s bones, making them nearly ten times stronger than the average person’s. They also used specially modified hormone supplements that gave the soldiers enhanced muscle strength without making them look like bodybuilders. But most importantly, they raised a soldier’s overall physical endurance capability. Soldiers were also given a neural implant that not only enhanced all of their physical senses but also allowed them to retain and recall enormous amounts of information. Lastly, their blood was improved with the help of nanite technology so that it could carry and store more oxygen. This gave them the ability to run faster and longer and to hold their breath for incredible lengths of time. This was all done to allow them to operate in a zero g environment longer and more effectively than a standard human or even a genetically modified one could.
The challenge with all these enhancements was convincing the mind it could do something that had been out of reach for the person’s entire life. A flea can naturally jump an astonishing seven inches, but if you put a flea in a container with a lid on and it, it’ll jump and hit the top. In time, its mind will automatically adjust its jump to match its imposed limits, continuing to jump lower even when the lid had been removed. With an augmented soldier, a similar situation occurred—their brains knew their bodies’ old boundaries and would try to shut them down as a protective measure. That was why the first phase of Delta training was the longest and toughest to get through. It took many months of retraining the brain to realize the body could do far more than it used to.
Once these recruits graduated the basic course, they’d be sent to the John Glenn Orbital Station for zero g training before transiting to the moon and then Mars for more training. In all, it typically took a soldier two years to become a fully certified and deployable Delta member.
*******
Later that afternoon, after running the recruits ragged through the rough terrain of Fort Benning, Master Sergeant Brian Royce walked into the staff-only training room, covered in sweat and dirt. He was about to make his way over to the locker room to shower up when Lieutenant Karen Disher stopped him.
As she stood there in her pressed uniform, Lieutenant Disher shot him a look of disdain. “Sergeant, come here for a second,” she said, and then she walked briskly back into her office.
Royce bristled at the sound of the lieutenant’s voice. He generally got on well with just about everyone, but he really hated working with her. The way she demeaned the sergeants, particularly the male sergeants, really grated on him. She was one of those Academy graduates with a chip on their shoulder. It seemed like she felt she had something to prove—but in Royce’s mind, she was a fully qualified operator, an elite soldier who had nothing to prove to anyone.
Royce stepped into her office and came to attention, waiting for her to put him at ease. Instead, she kept him standing there at attention while she eyed him suspiciously.
“So, Sergeant, you want out of my training unit, do you?” Disher asked icily, her eyebrow raised as if she was surprised one of her senior NCOs didn’t want to keep working for her.
Royce didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t want to give her any more excuses to make his life and the lives of his trainees and fellow sergeants any more tedious than they alr
eady were.
She grunted at his nonresponse. “Well, apparently you got your wish, Sergeant,” Lieutenant Disher announced, voice dripping in venom. “You’re being transferred to the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion. They’re being attached to a RAS battalion, the 32nd, to be exact. I don’t know how you did it or what kind of favors you had to pull, but you’re out of here. You are to report to your new unit in forty-eight hours. Now pack your gear and get out of here. Dismissed.”
As he turned to leave the room, Royce smiled with satisfaction. He’d have to buy a beer for his old Delta buddy who’d been able to get him assigned to a deploying unit. It was a tough assignment to get—a lot of people wanted to be a part of the expedition heading to a new world.
It was also a long assignment. The battalion was being told to expect a three- or possibly four-year deployment. That was a long time to be away from family. It made sense that most of the soldiers and sailors being assigned to this expedition were ones without spouses or children, and it was strictly voluntary.
While there was a lot of excitement about this mission, there was also a lot of consternation about what might happen if the Republic didn’t extend the Space Exploration Treaty. The Greater European Union and the Asian Alliance had been grumbling about the Republic’s apparent lack of interest in renewing it and how this could end up leading to a new Cold War of sorts in Sol. Most of the Special Forces community and the Republic Army units felt the real danger and coming action would be between the three major powers. Fighting would almost certainly occur over the resources of the moon, Mars, Venus, the Belt, and the other moons and planetoids around Jupiter and Saturn if the SET expired.
Royce didn’t care about any of that. He wanted a chance to start over—a chance to be a leader again and have his own platoon. This last stint in a training battalion had been brutal. Still, he was glad he’d been given a second chance after how thoroughly he’d messed things up at his last assignment.
During his previous mission on Mars, he’d been assigned to Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC. His platoon had been loaned out to one of the three-letter agencies to do some secret squirrel stuff when things had gone terribly wrong. They had been collecting intelligence on an Asian Alliance installation on the Martian surface when one of his Deltas had accidentally bumped into a guard patrol near the facility they were surveying. Unfortunately, shots were exchanged. When one of his guys had been hit by the startled guards, a handful of his Deltas had opened fire on them.
The attack on the guards had resulted in a quick reaction force being sent after Royce and his men. It had taken them half a day to extricate themselves from the situation, dodging patrols and search parties. Sadly, three of his guys had been killed, and it had caused quite an international incident.
Royce’s penance for his part was to disappear from space operations for a little while. He’d been assigned a training post back on Earth, and the gig had been hard. He’d spent the last fifteen years operating on the edges of space, hunting pirates on the frontier and safeguarding the expansion of the Republic into the stars. The idea of traveling to Alpha Centauri and the possibility of encountering real, honest-to-goodness alien life was exciting. It was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, even if it meant he might never see Earth again.
Chapter Five
Power Problems
Earth’s Orbit
John Glenn Orbital Station
RNS Voyager
“What the hell is wrong now?” barked the engineering officer as another alarm bell sounded on their console.
“We’re getting an error message on reactor four. The power’s not transferring to the forward magrail batteries. Switching to manual override,” replied one of the weapon petty officers in frustration.
“What seems to be the problem, Morgan?” asked Rear Admiral Abigail Halsey as she walked over to him.
Looking up, Commander Aimes Morgan just grunted. He didn’t want to be bogged down answering questions from the admiral right now. He just wanted the damn ship to work the way it was supposed to.
“It would appear BlueOrigin still hasn’t found that bug in the power relay junction box connecting reactor four to the forward magrail turrets. It’s been plaguing us for months,” he finally replied after relaying a message to someone down in the engineering room.
“Is this something that’s going to delay the mission?” pressed Admiral Halsey.
I swear to God if she asks me about the mission one more time, I’m going to lose it, thought Morgan.
He paused what he was doing and took a deep breath, allowing himself to calm down before answering. “I don’t think so, ma’am. We’ve still got four months before the ship leaves. But I’d like to have BlueOrigin come back and figure out why we’re still having the same problem they told us they’d already corrected. It’s not fixed, and my teams have spent weeks trying to rectify it.”
Admiral Halsey chuckled softly so only the two of them could hear, then leaned in closer. “Smile, Morgan. You and your team are doing a great job. This is a brand-new ship. We’re bound to have some problems. You all have done a great job thus far. You just keep telling me what support you need to get this ship ready and leave the details of making it happen to me, OK?”
“You’re right, Admiral,” Morgan said, letting out a deep sigh. “I think we’re all under a lot of pressure to get the ship ready. We still need to run her through her paces before we even think about deploying. We have to make sure the FLT and propulsion systems are working so we can test the weapons.”
“I know, Commander,” she answered with a nod. “We’ll do it. Just stay focused on your task and let me know what kind of help you need. I have the full weight of Space Command behind me to make sure we have all we need to make this mission a success.”
Morgan turned to head down to Engineering, leaving Admiral Halsey on the bridge with a handful of workers finishing a few minor touches to things.
*******
Admiral Abigail Halsey walked down the hallway to check on the forward gun battery. She wanted to inspect the turret herself and see how things were on that end. After a minute, she came to the elevator that would take her to the next part of the ship she needed to inspect.
The Voyager was a big ship. It was fifteen hundred meters long, one hundred and thirty meters wide, and one hundred and twenty meters tall. It had twelve decks connecting the various parts of the ship and the honeycomb network of rooms and workstations on board. The ship had a crew of four hundred and twenty souls along with five hundred and eighty Republic Army soldiers, or RASs, that would be tagging along with them.
Intermixed with the crew were twenty-two personnel solely dedicated to growing and maintaining their food supply. Aside from the crew quarters, the grow habitats took up the largest part of the ship. Using genetically modified seeds and twenty-four-seven UV lighting, they could grow fruits and vegetables rapidly. They also had a small section for egg-laying hens to add poultry into their diet. Having an ability to grow and maintain their own food supply was critical for a mission like this. They were expecting to be underway for two years or more, and a ship could only bring along so much freeze-dried food stock.
Stepping into the elevator, Admiral Halsey hit the button for deck two and waited for the door to close. Moments later, the metal box moved gently to the next floor, the transition so soft and smooth she barely knew it had traversed at all.
When the door opened, she walked into the hallway and was greeted by half a dozen humanoid workers, or synthetics, running bundles of electrical wiring in the ceiling and along the sides of the wall. She stopped and watched them for a moment. It always amazed her how much electrical wiring and plumbing moved through the walls and ceiling of a starship. Like an underwater submarine, space was limited, which meant they had to maximize every little nook and cranny they had.
Looking above her, Halsey saw the EM shielding and smiled. That was incredibly important for a starship. Aside from the potential for rad
iation from the sun and various stars, they also had to worry about solar flares that emitted electromagnetic pulses. If their ship wasn’t adequately shielded against EMPs, it could run adrift if its electrical systems were ever fried. Every wire and electrical system was heavily shielded for this very reason.
Meanwhile, the Synths briefly acknowledged her presence but otherwise continued to perform their duties. They didn’t crack jokes with each other or talk about a sports team. They just went about their assigned tasks and worked relentlessly.
Walking past the Synths, Admiral Halsey made her way further down the ship toward the forward section and the gun turrets. As she advanced toward the door, the sensor above the entrance recognized her access code and the door retracted into the wall.
Upon entering, Halsey observed two civilian engineers providing instruction to a handful of petty officers, junior sailors, and a couple of Synths on something pertaining to the weapon systems. This group of ship personnel had a dark red stripe that ran at a ninety-degree angle across their light gray blouse or coveralls, indicating they were part of the ship’s weapon department. Like the old seafaring aircraft carriers on Earth, the starships also made use of color-coded shirts to designate who worked in each department.
The instructor bellowed, “Each main gun magazine can hold ten twenty-four-inch shells. That means you’ll need to be ready to swap out the empty one for a full one in under ten seconds. If the ship ever gets into a fight, you’re going to need to keep the guns firing for as long as needed. Now, when you’ve burned through seventy percent of the loaded magazines, it’ll automatically send a message to the weapon storage locker deck below to start fabricating new projectiles. Just make sure the empty magazines are moved over there when they’ve been expended.” The instructor pointed to a spot on the other side of the room.
