New Frontiers- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  Looking left, she saw baby Dorian, wearing a miniature version of the colonists’ standard-issue white pressure suits. He was strapped into a baby seat that looked a lot like a front-facing car seat to her. Caty studied his face through the glass visor of his helmet. He was blowing spit bubbles as he stared up at the live holo recording from the ship’s bow cameras projected on the ceiling above them.

  Looking away, she joined her son in admiring the view. She couldn’t blame him for drooling.

  Earth appeared directly above them, curving away with vast, sparkling blue oceans and thick blankets of cloud. She couldn’t see even a single dot of land, just endless reams of ocean. Caty imagined this was what Wonderland must look like—an earth-type planet with only one major landmass and one all-encompassing ocean.

  It was exciting to finally be here. She’d spent the past week training at NAS Key West, where she’d learned how to negotiate a ship in zero-G using either handrails or micro maneuvering jets. They’d also taught her how to don a pressure suit and control the basic functions of both her suit and Dorian’s by giving mental commands. Then she’d learned how to use an acceleration couch and a G-tank.

  But after barely a cursory introduction to all of that, she’d been whisked away to the Alliance’s new Anchor Station off the shore of Curaçao and filed into the next available climber car headed for orbit. Then she and Dorian had spent the next two days in that climber car, riding up to Freedom Station at the top end of the elevator, followed by a further six hours waiting aboard the station to board their colony ship.

  Theirs was the last ship to join a fleet of more than fifty waiting in geosynchronous orbit over Earth. Now Caty could see at least a dozen matching colony ships in the distance, all of them gleaming specks of silver against the black of space. From this distance they seemed tiny, but she knew better. She’d seen hers up close from Freedom Station’s viewports. The ships were massive, five hundred meter-long spears with detachable shuttles clinging to them like barnacles.

  Caty was amazed by how much the Alliance had managed to do in such a short time. The first space elevator had taken over a decade to build, but this one had gone up in a year. Granted they’d fished the old elevator ribbon out of the ocean, and Freedom Station was actually a decommissioned Alliance battleship rather than a brand-new station, but one year was not a lot of time to do anything, let alone carry a 100,000 kilometer-long elevator ribbon back into space, section by section. Then there was the matter of mass-producing spaceship components and sending them up the elevator to assemble the colony fleet.

  No wonder there hadn’t been enough government aid for the war refugees.

  Dorian began making noises like he was about to start crying. She had his comms set to the same channel as hers so she could use them like a baby monitor. “Num num!” he said, smacking his lips.

  He was hungry. She didn’t have to wonder why. They hadn’t eaten or drunk real food for days. Instead, they were fed and hydrated with an intravenous nutrient solution, but that did nothing to stop their stomachs from feeling achingly empty. Mission trainers had warned them that first-time space travelers would go through some initial discomfort during the switch from solid to liquid food. Personally, Caty found the self-inserting relief tubes that snaked up from their seats to be much more uncomfortable than the intravenous nutrient line, but Dorian was probably pleased with his perpetually dry diaper.

  Caty counted the silvery specks of distant starships to pass the time while waiting for the captain of the ship to announce that they were leaving orbit. She found there were twenty specks, and her brow furrowed. She could have sworn there’d only been twelve a moment ago. Maybe the fleet was repositioning itself and more of it was coming into view. That had to be it, Caty thought.

  Caty watched a pinprick of fire ignite and engulf one of those specks. She frowned, squinting at the sight. The ship’s thrusters, she decided. Finally! They were moving out!

  Then the fire faded, and gone was the silver speck.

  Caty blinked. Was she seeing things? It had to be some mistake, a trick of the light. Suddenly another ship erupted in an orange ball of flame, and promptly winked out of existence. Caty’s heart pounded.

  She tried switching to the crew’s comm channel so she could get some information, and her helmet was instantly flooded with a confusing babble of voices, dozens of passengers all asking the same questions at once.

  The sound cut off abruptly, and a stern male voice interrupted, “Please remain calm and stay seated. Hostilities have erupted between Alliance and Confederate forces, but our point defenses should be more than sufficient to shoot down any missiles that come our way.”

  A flurry of questions, pleas, and demands erupted in the wake of that statement, but no further explanations followed. Caty had the feeling that the crew had more important things to do right now than mollify the colonists.

  Another flare of light punctuated that thought and underlined the seriousness of the situation. They were in a colony ship in the middle of a war zone, and they weren’t equipped for war. Caty looked at Dorian; he was still smacking his lips, chewing on air, blissfully oblivious.

  Turning back to the view, Caty’s eyes drifted out of focus. Blood roared in her veins, adrenaline sparking through her body, urging her to do something, but there was literally nothing she could do. It wasn’t as though she could pilot the ship to safety or bail out with a parachute. The passenger cabins were all aboard the ship’s detachable shuttles, so technically they could abandon ship if their shuttle pilot deemed it necessary.

  Caty saw a glittering cloud of debris emerge from the starfield, heading straight for them. One by one, each twinkling speck erupted in brief burst of flame and then vanished. A shadow fell over them, and their view of Earth was blotted out by a dark, bristling gray beast—an Alliance battleship. Caty watched, wide-eyed as it flew by, missiles streaking from its bow in a steady stream.

  That glittering cloud of debris grew nearer and nearer until it came into sharper focus, and she saw it for what it really was—a wave of enemy missiles. Missiles went on exploding, intercepted by unseen means. She remembered reading somewhere that lasers were invisible in space, and she decided that the battleship must be shooting the missiles down.

  Caty stared at the underside of that giant ship, trying to identify individual gun emplacements. Then the surviving missiles streaked in. A dazzling burst of light blinded her, and she winced away from the sudden glare. The deck lurched and the ship shuddered under them. Next came a deafening roar. Suddenly zero-G was gone and they were being pressed hard against the backs of their couches. Dorian screamed, and Caty gritted her teeth, fighting the urge to do the same. Worried for her son, she managed to turn her head despite the impossible weight of it. She saw Dorian’s face scrunched up in terror, his eyes streaming with tears, and she struggled to speak over their shared comms channel, telling him that everything was going to be all right.

  Turning back to the view, she saw that they were headed straight for Earth. Lights flickered inside the passenger cabin, dimming to a soothing blue glow, and then the speakers inside Caty’s helmet crackled with a new voice.

  “This is your shuttle captain speaking. We lost the colony ship and four shuttles. Ours is damaged, but not too badly. I’m taking us down for an emergency landing. Please familiarize yourselves with the nearest exits and the life vests under your seats, and remain seated and strapped in at all times. Thank you.”

  Caty’s eyes widened. Her heart pounded erratically in her chest. We lost the colony ship. We’re in a damaged shuttle, heading back to Earth for an emergency landing.

  Earth grew larger and closer with every second. The view she’d thought to be so breathtaking before was now terrifying. She imagined the gleaming ocean swallowing her and Dorian whole, dragging them down into its black and briny depths. Caty shook her head to clear the image away, reminding herself that the shuttles came equipped for water landings.

  The heavy hand of a
cceleration didn’t let up, nor did Dorian’s cries. He was terrified. She couldn’t blame him. She was terrified, too. Caty tried to reach under her seat for her life vest, but her arms were pinned to her couch and too heavy to move. Biting back tears, she cursed her stupidity. What had she been thinking? They never should have left Earth. Wonderland had seemed like an easy out from all of their problems, but she should have known better.

  Humanity couldn’t run from itself.

  CHAPTER 41

  Alexander dropped into his acceleration couch and strapped in. Relief tubes snaked out, but he didn’t even blink at the intrusion.

  “Hayes, Vasquez, report! What’s going on out there?” Alexander demanded, even as he summoned a tactical map from his control station.

  Vasquez was first to reach her control station. “Our fleet is on its way out of the wormhole, headed back to Earth. The Confederates appear to be following us out, but they’re a lot further in than we are.”

  Alexander’s brow furrowed. He already knew from the date and time on his comm band that they’d been awakened from the G-tanks early.

  “What about the enemy fleet? Did they open fire? Did we?”

  “Our missiles are still locked and loaded in the launch tubes,” Cardinal reported.

  “I’ve got nothing on our scopes,” Vasquez added. “The Confederacy is still holding fire.”

  “Then what’s the general quarters alarm about?”

  “Looks like it was sounded automatically by the ship’s threat detection system,” Hayes said from the comms.

  “So where’s the threat?” Alexander asked, feeling exasperated.

  “What the… Captain, more than half of the Confederate fleet is missing!” Vasquez reported.

  “What? Check the sensor logs. I want to know what took them out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Incoming message from Admiral Wilson,” Hayes announced.

  “On screen,” Alexander replied.

  Wilson didn’t look well. His cheeks were pale and gaunt, his eyes wide and feverish. “Admiral, I was just about to contact you,” Alexander said. “It looks like the fleet encountered some type of emergency and the autopilots turned us around.”

  “Don’t repeat to me what I already know. Listen up, Captain. I’m dealing with the Confederate Admiral right now. He’s beyond reason, and accusing us of tricking his fleet into a suicide mission.”

  Alexander shook his head. “A suicide mission?”

  “Confederate ships were ripped apart by tidal forces inside the wormhole. They were lucky to escape with the few ships that they did. The only reason we escaped unscathed is because we were trailing far behind them. They think we knew that the wormhole was no longer traversable and we tricked them into going through first.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. We just returned from a successful trip through the wormhole. If something’s changed since then, we were equally unaware of it.”

  “Tell that to Admiral Zhang.”

  “What do you need us to do?”

  “I’m handing the negotiations to Carter. Maybe he can talk some sense into those ant-brained communists. Failing that, we’re going to press the advantage that nature’s just given us, and blow them all straight to hell.”

  Alexander nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m transferring you now, keep me posted.”

  “I’ll do my best to avoid another war, Admiral,” Carter replied.

  Admiral Wilson disappeared, and Admiral Zhang took his place. Alexander was taken aback at the enemy admiral’s appearance. His nose streamed with blood behind his helmet, and his face was blistered and red with a profusion of broken blood vessels.

  “Admiral Zhang,” Carter began. “It’s a pleasure to—”

  “Do not speak,” Zhang rasped. “You will listen. I am told I do not have long to live, so I do not have time for lies. My fleet was all but destroyed by the wormhole. We were not even a third of the way to the center when this happened.”

  Carter shook his head. “The wormhole must have collapsed since we last traveled through it, but I can assure you we had no knowledge of the danger.”

  “Lies!” Zhang coughed up a bit of bloody spittle that stuck to the inside of his helmet and blurred their view of his face. “You knew. That is why you allowed us to go first. That is also why you stopped accelerating long before you reached cruising speed. Otherwise, why not remain at your negotiated range of one light second? When our fleet began to be ripped apart, yours was more than five million kilometers away. That is over fifteen light seconds. We are only now beginning to catch up with you.”

  Alexander blinked, confused by what he was hearing. He switched to a private comms channel with Lieutenant Davorian and ordered him to double check those facts. If true, it would go a long way toward proving what Admiral Zhang was saying.

  Beside him, Carter shook his head and sighed. “Admiral, we negotiated one light second as a minimum range, not a maximum. We needed to wait for our colony fleet to catch up to us.”

  “You think we are fools.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You did not have to, but perhaps you were equally unaware of your government’s treachery. I encourage you to contact Earth. When you do, you will learn that your colony fleet is armed, and firing on what few ships we have left in orbit. Perhaps you will not believe me, but we did not fire the first shots. We were ambushed. There is a reason your colony fleet did not launch with ours. They were just another part of the ruse. Congratulations. I believe the writing is on the wall, but you will not kill this old fox without a fight.”

  The connection ended abruptly, and Zhang’s face disappeared. It took Alexander several seconds to recover, but Carter was much faster on the uptake.

  “Contact Admiral Wilson! We’re about to come under fire.”

  Alexander worked some moisture into his mouth so he could speak. “Hold on. They’re still a long way off,” Alexander replied, studying the tactical map and the range between the two fleets. “Let’s not be in a rush to start another war.

  Carter glared at him.

  “Who’s the Captain of this ship?” Alexander made a show of glancing down at the rank insignia on his pressure suit. “Oh, I guess that’s me.”

  “Admiral Wilson was very clear that I should inform him as soon as I concluded my negotiations.”

  “And you will, but not yet.” Turning away from his XO, Alexander said, “Davorian, what do our logs show?”

  “It’s true, Captain. We were holding back the whole time at zero thrust. They put us in the G-tanks for the hell of it. Admiral Wilson must have known that the wormhole had collapsed.”

  “So how did the Confederacy miss seeing that?”

  “It’s not immediately obvious from sensors, sir,” Vasquez said.

  “Hayes, what about Earth? Can you confirm that the fighting has already started there?”

  “We’re ten light minutes away, sir.”

  “I can wait.”

  “Well, I can’t,” Carter said.

  Alexander shot him a look of strained patience.

  “I’m going to save you some trouble, Captain. Admiral Zhang is a hundred percent correct. The fighting has already started; our colony ships are armed—heavily armed, in fact—and we did fire the first shots.”

  “You want to explain to me how you know all of that?”

  “That’s need to know, Captain. Ask Admiral Wilson, and he’ll confirm everything. Right now, we have a war to fight. You heard Admiral Zhang. He’s determined to get his pound of flesh. It’s our job to make sure that for every pound he gets, we extract two.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be a diplomat. You’re talking like a blood-thirsty warrior.”

  “We have the enemy badly outnumbered on all fronts, and we have a chance to defeat them once and for all. If we win now, this will be the last war humanity ever has to fight. That’s the kind of peace I’m brokering, Captain—the kind that puts you out of a
job.”

  Alexander considered that. He might have to change his opinion of Carter now. “Hayes, get the admiral on the comms. We have a war to end.”

  CHAPTER 42

  “Target data coming in from the Liberty,” Hayes announced from the comms.

  “Received, setting targets,” Cardinal replied from gunnery.

  Alexander watched the tactical map hovering between his and Carter’s couches. The enemy was getting closer by the second, racing out of the wormhole at more than 1,000 kilometers per second, meanwhile the Alliance fleet was holding steady, blocking the mouth of the wormhole. Range between the two fleets was just under a million kilometers. That meant roughly fifteen minutes until they physically reached one another, but just five minutes before they reached optimum torpedo range.

  Alexander looked up and watched as two red boxes appeared on the main holo display, each one drawn around a specific gray speck. Those were the Lincoln’s targets.

  “What are we looking at?” Alexander asked, already checking his tactical map for an answer. Ice formed in his gut as he read the ship classes. They were both Warsaw-class transports.

  “They’re colony ships, sir.”

  Alexander shook his head. “Why aren’t we focusing on their warships?”

  “I don’t know. We could ask for clarification.”

  “You don’t need clarification, Captain,” Carter said. “Look at their formation. Their warships are flying in the transports’ wake. They’re using their own colonists as a shield.”

  Alexander pressed his lips into a firm line. “They’re hoping we won’t have the guts to kill innocent people.”

  “Exactly.”

  Alexander ground his teeth, desperately trying to think of a way around it. Those ships were loaded with innocent civilians whose only crime was to dream of a better life on a new world, somewhere far from all of Earth’s problems. There would be nothing but families and happily married couples on board. Young children with their whole lives ahead of them…