Chapter Two
The sound of the red alert klaxon shook Laurants from his dreams. Stumbling groggily from his bed, Laurants hurried to put on his uniform, stuffed his bare feet into his boots, and charged from his tiny quarters aboard the Explorer. He piled into the lift with a dozen others, including Thornton, who had the same disheveled look of someone roused from her sleep that Laurants had. “Another fucking drill,” a crewman growled. In the nine months since leaving Earth, there had been a drill nearly once a day. The drills were held at different times, but always seemed to wake someone from their sleep.
The lift doors opened, Laurants and Thornton rushing out of the lift and down the corridor. Since they were not on duty, the two ensigns reported to the
“I didn’t have time…” Laurants stammered.
“Never mind that! We’ve taken simulated damage Deck 12 on the port side. Get your asses over there and check for any ‘simulated’ casualties!”
Laurants and Thornton mumbled acknowledgement then hurried back into the corridor. “Don’t we need a medkit?”
“For what? Simulated injuries? Just use your imagination,” Laurants grunted.
“Aren’t you supposed to be injured?”
“Yeah, I’m dying,” one of the soldiers sneered sarcastically.
“Let’s just get out of here. You able to walk or should we carry you?” Laurants asked.
Master Sergeant Alex Davis looked over at Corporal Enrique Caustillo and Private Charles Cromwell, both smiled deliberately.
“Don’t worry about us,” Laurants said softly into
***
“In short, the crew has performed commendably over the past nine months. Once we reach the colony, we should be ready for almost anything we encounter,” Veranda closed her presentation to the assembled commanders of the expedition.
General Harry York rubbed a hand over his close-cropped white hair, grimacing, “These drills have been useful, and the results are encouraging, but my pilots are getting worn out; none of them has had a decent night’s sleep in months. When we get to the colony, we may be ready, but we’ll be burnt-out.”
General Wallace’s belly shook as he guffawed loudly. “What’s the matter Harry, are your pilots a bunch of cream puffs?”
“With all due respect, General, I think General York is correct. We have been working everyone hard. I think we should suspend readiness drills until we’re a couple of weeks out to give everyone on the expedition some time to rest and prepare for what’s to come,” Shaw spoke up, glaring at Wallace coldly.
Wallace smiled smugly and snorted, “You two may want to coddle your commands, but I intend to keep the edge on my troops razor sharp. As per Command’s orders, I have the authority to do that.” Wallace pushed himself away from the conference table, swaggering from the room, an uneasy silence left in his wake.
Shaw finally broke the silence, “Don’t feel any pressure to outdo him, General. I’m sure we could all use a little rest.”
“That was certainly productive,” Veranda bit out.
“Nine months and we still haven’t made any headway with Wallace. Good thing we’re almost there, the sooner we get there, the sooner we can get back to Earth,” Shaw replied, stretching tired muscles in her back.
“I thought you liked it out here,” Veranda said jokingly.
“I liked it better before Wallace was out here,” Shaw laughed, getting to her feet. “I certainly won’t mind my mother nearly as much after putting up with him for so long. Pass the word that the drills are going to be stopped as of now until we’re two weeks or so out from the colony. Don’t want our crew getting too rusty.”
“I suppose not. You have to admit that everyone did well, even the kids.”
“Yeah, we picked a good team. Let’s hope they do this well once we get there.” Shaw strode from the room, heading back to her office to catch up on paperwork, leaving Veranda alone in the conference room.
Veranda sighed, the smile fading from her face. Shaw’s comment about her mother had hit Veranda like a slap in the face. How would her own daughter react when Veranda returned home in another fifteen months? She imagined that Ally would be just beginning the 4th Grade, another first that Veranda would miss. Of course, Ally’s new stepmother would probably be taking good care of her. As much as Veranda had tried to find faults with Ted’s new wife, she had to admit that there was nothing openly wrong with the woman. In fact, she would probably be a better mother than Veranda; she would at least be home more than two months of the year.
Veranda had told no one about the divorce papers she had signed before leaving on the Explorer, not even Shaw. Even after nine months the pain was still too fresh to talk about with anyone else, so Veranda had kept a smile on her face, not letting anyone know what was bothering her. At moments like these, when she was alone, was when the pain finally caught up with her. She was no stranger to pain or to separation from loved ones, but this time was different. She and Ted had been so in love, it seemed that nothing would tear them apart, but eventually the long separations had taken their toll.
When she got back to Earth, she knew that she could visit Ally, but she would have to find somewhere else to live. It would, in a sense, be starting over again, except that this time she was pushing forty years old, not leaving her much time to settle down and start a new family. She was nearing twenty years of service, which meant that she could retire, find a nice job on Earth or maybe one of the colonies, maybe find a new husband, and have more children. On the other hand, she loved the blissful chaos of day-to-day operations on a starship. The reason that she had wanted to come on the Explorer mission was that she loved her job. If she left the service, she would miss the thrill of being out in space, of going where humans had only dreamt to go until now. If she stayed in the military, however, she would probably end up a lonely spinster, forced into retirement or some desk job. At least, she thought, I’d be doing what I love. She sighed, getting slowly to her feet. She would have to make her decision once the Explorer reached Earth, in the meantime she would have to affix her smile and go tell the crew the good news.
***
Laurants checked his wristwatch again, noting how late it was. Over the past nine months he had grown used to working the second shift, the “night” shift, although day and night were relative on the Explorer. Being used to the shift did nothing to relieve his boredom, though. Tasked with operating the Explorer’s sensor arrays, there was very little for Laurants to do while the ship was running almost completely blind in hyperspace. Once every four hours, Laurants would push a button to drop a probe into space, then record the readings the probe transmitted before the probe’s tether snapped. He checked the readings for anything of scientific note, but there was usually nothing and it was too early to get any readings on the colony.
Stretching the tired muscles of his back, Laurants desperately wished for a cup of coffee, but beverages were prohibited near the sensitive electronics of the sensor station. The intercom suddenly came to life, startling Laurants. “This is navigation, you got anything?” Ensign Jerry Klein asked in his thick
“Nothing all around, just empty space,” Laurants reported dutifully.
“Let me know if anything, a stray rock or even some dust shows up so I can have something to record in my logs.”
“I’ll let you know,” Laurants replied evenly. At least once a night Klein would call Laurants to ask if there was something on the sensors that Klein could document in the ship’s navigation logs. Between star systems, though, there was very little floating around, just the occasional asteroid or dust cloud that had somehow escaped the gravity of its home system. Laurants could understand Klein’s frustration; it was hard to remain focused when there was absolutely going on for twelve hours every day.
“When is he going to just stop asking and realize that there’s nothing out here?”
“Can’t blame a guy for trying, at least gives him something to do,” Laurants responded, looking around for the duty officer, but Lieutenant Hicks was in the forward compartment.
“Just a couple of more months and we’ll be at the colony, at least then there will be a planet to look at,”
“Haven’t you seen pictures of that place? It’s almost all brown, so there won’t be that much to look at.”
“Compared to right now it’ll look like a van Gogh painting. I don’t know about you, but…”
“Something I should know about?” Lisa Shaw asked quickly as she strode from the lift, seeing
“No, sir,” Laurants answered.
“Just because there is nothing around here doesn’t mean that you can start getting lazy,” Shaw replied, her tone harsher than usual.
“Yes, sir.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Go ahead.”
“Is this a surprise inspection?”
“No, I just wanted to check on things up here. I can see that I need to talk to Lieutenant Hicks about maintaining a bit more discipline.”
“It won’t happen again, sir,” Laurants apologized.
“Good,” Shaw responded, her voice softening a little. “When we get to our destination, I need to be able to count on my crew to get the job done. There can’t be any mistakes. That means that we all have to be at our best.”
“Understood,” Laurants said quietly and
“I really came up here because I needed a break. There may not be much for you to do up here, but there’s plenty of paperwork to go around. I needed to get myself back to reality for a few minutes, to remember what all of the paperwork is for.” Shaw stopped as she yawned, then smiled wearily once again. “I’m sorry to bite your heads off, I know that you have been doing an excellent job. Lieutenant Hicks and Commander Veranda have had nothing but praise for this crew. It’s hard being so far from home, so far from everything familiar, but everyone is doing a terrific job of dealing with it. So I trust there are no problems here?”
“No, sir, everything is just fine,”
“Good. I do want you to keep your eyes open for anything. The last thing I need is to get stranded in space because of some chunk of debris.”
“We’ll try to stay more focused,” Laurants replied. “With all due respect, Captain, I think you should get some rest, you look pretty beat.”
“Thank-you for your suggestion, Ensign, I’ll try to work in a couple of hours of shut-eye.” Shaw slowly got to her feet, nodding to the two ensigns as she headed towards the forward compartment.
***
Shaw finally entered her quarters an hour later, after discussing the bridge crew’s readiness with Lieutenant Hicks and clearing some of the paperwork off of her desk. She and Hicks had discussed Laurants and Thornton in particular, both of whom were making excellent progress. It was good to see Laurants opening up a little bit, becoming more outgoing then when Shaw had first met him. He’ll be a good one, in time, she thought as she stumbled through her dark quarters towards her bed. Like her office, Shaw’s quarters were not decorated, save for a trio of pictures next to her bed. Two of the pictures were of her and her parents in those rare moments when they had been together, one was at Shaw’s graduation from the Academy and the other had been taken last Christmas, the last time that the three Shaws had gathered. She glanced at the third picture, shaking her head. She had no idea why she kept it, except perhaps that it reminded her of the time in her life when everything had been perfect.
Sighing, Shaw sat down on her bed, staring at the picture. The picture had been taken twelve years ago when Shaw had been promoted to lieutenant. Standing next to her behind the stunning backdrop of a
The man was then-Lieutenant Nathan Nichols. He and Shaw had known each other all through her time at the Academy and had served together as ensigns aboard the frigate,
The day the picture had been taken in
She sighed, setting the picture back next to the others. She rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling of her quarters. Twelve years, twelve lonely years since Nichols had proposed to her. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about what her life would have been like if only she hadn’t been reassigned. Maybe she and Nichols would still be together, living on Earth with children, a normal family.
She chuckled at that thought. Twelve years ago Nathan Nichols had been no more ready to settle down than she was. She doubted that he ever would have taken to a “normal” family life; Nichols was too restless for such a mundane existence. He was adventuresome, always pushing the envelope or looking for some new thrill, he would never trade flying for sitting behind a desk, no more than she would trade being on the bridge of the Explorer for an office job. There was no way that a relationship would have ever worked out between her and Nichols, but try as she might, she could never stop thinking about what fruit their relationship might have borne.
Shaw reached into the drawer of her nightstand, pulling out a compad. On the pad was a letter she had written to Nichols before she had left on this mission. She had wanted to send it to Nichols, to let him know how she was doing and that she missed him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. It had been too long, she had told herself. As flighty as Nichols was, he had probably forgotten about her already. He had probably had dozens of girlfriends since their engagement broke off. The last thing Nichols needed to hear was a letter from a long-ago flame. It was better that she didn’t embarrass herself by sending such a silly thing to Nichols. As convincing as that logic was, it still didn’t help her in these dark, lonely hours when she was in bed all alone instead of with his body next to hers.
Maybe when I get back to Earth I’ll send this, she thought. Maybe when I get back I’ll find him and deliver it personally to him, to see how he reacts. Maybe I’ll take the desk job at Command that Mother wants me to take so that Nathan and I can finally be together. It’s not too late to start a family, to have a happy ending. After all, what’s keeping me out here? The paperwork is endless, the hours are terrible, I can never get more than two hours of sleep a night, the crew is…She stopped suddenly, a smile spreading across her face. The crew is wonderful, the best I have ever seen. She thought of her brief talk with Ensigns Laurants and Thornton, they were two of the finest young officers she had ever served with; both were bright and full of potential. Is that why I stay out here? She wondered. There were few things so rewarding on a starship as watching the young officers mature into leaders. They would take over ships of their own, or leave military service to become captains of industry. Shaw always enjoyed watching the new recruits the first time they came aboard the Explorer. Their eyes were wide with awe and excitement, their hearts filled with joy at being out in space. Being away from Earth, on board a starship, it definitely changed people, it helped to put everything into focus for young people. They realized how small the Earth was in the universe, how important it is to live every day to the fullest.
It was those moments that kept Shaw on the Explorer’s bridge, she realized. There was no other job for her; this is what she was meant to do. Looking at the picture of she and Nichols, she knew that she couldn’t settle down and raise a family. There would be more missions for the Explorer, more young people for her to help guide to their full potential. It would mean many more lonely nights of sleeping by herself, but she wouldn’t trade it for anything.
***
Laurants finally settled down into his bed, his long shift finally over. Laurants stared up at the ceiling, dark thoughts gnawing at him, as they always did when he was alone in bed. As much as he tried to keep the grisly images from his mind, they always appeared before him as though it had happened yesterday. He tried to think of something else, but once more the memories filled his vision.
It had been six years ago; Laurants was coming home after hockey practice. He waved good-bye to his friends, as he stepped into the house. Right away Laurants knew that something was wrong; the house was completely silent. He called for his mother, but there was no answer. She had to be home, he had seen the hovercar in the driveway. Maybe she had gone with a friend, he thought as he stowed his hockey equipment in the front closet. Or perhaps she was just taking a nap. He called for her again as he crept up the stairs towards his parents’s room.
The door to his parents’ room was ajar, but the bathroom door was closed, so Laurants gently rapped on the door. No answer. He looked down at the floor to see if the light in the bathroom was on, that was when he saw a red spot on the carpet.
In a panic, Laurants opened the bathroom door and fell to his knees, a coldness seizing his bowels. There was blood and brain matter splattered against the walls of the bathroom, it was still fresh enough that it was slowly oozing down the walls. Slumped against the wall next to his door was the headless corpse of Laurants’s mother. A pistol was clutched in her right hand, its muzzle blackened from the discharge of the weapon.
Laurants turned away, wailing and throwing up intermittently. After lying on the bedroom floor for an hour, Laurants got up the courage to examine his mother’s body. In her lap was a blood-splattered compad, which Laurants carefully activated. Right away, he knew that this was no accident or criminal act, his mother had killed herself. “Sorry, Jack and Mary. I love you but I am not strong enough to keep living like this. Find the strength to carry on without me,” was all that was written on the pad. Laurants let the pad drop from his grasp, tears stinging his eyes. He slowly went down to the kitchen, calling the authorities on the holophone to report what had happened. Afterwards, he blindly stumbled out to the doorstep, sitting numbly on the ice-covered steps until the police arrived. It wasn’t until an officer said something that Laurants realized that he had some of his mother’s blood on his hands. He wiped them off on a towel as an officer escorted him away while his mother’s body was removed from the house.
That day was the last time that he had cried, since then there was only an empty place in his heart. Even when he thought of that horrible day, he could no longer bring himself to shed any tears for his mother, or anyone else. He had watched friends die on the bridge of the
Laurants’s mind was brought back to the present. He stared up at the ceiling, wishing that he could just will the horrible memories away. Maybe that’s why I wanted to be out here, he thought gloomily. So that I could be so far away from Wolf Bluff that the memories would just fade away, but no matter where I go it’s always here.
Laurants sat up in his bed, looking around the dark room for something to comfort him. He smiled, as he always did, when his eyes came across the picture taken when Laurants was just ten years old. He, his little sister, and mother were on the local hockey arena in Wolf Bluff just after Laurants had scored the game-winning goal in the league championship. He remembered her saying how proud she was of him, how much she loved him. What would she think of me now? He wondered. Drifting around aimlessly, not knowing what I want to do with my life, how can she be proud of that?
He sighed as he put his head back on his pillow. If she were still alive, I wouldn’t even be out here, he mused. I wouldn’t feel this emptiness inside. He closed his eyes, shaking away the dark thoughts. There’s nothing I could have done for her and there’s no use thinking about this now. I have too much to worry about to let the past haunt me. Despite that thought, he couldn’t help but think about what his life would be like if that horrific sight in the bathroom had never been.
Maybe I could have done something more with my life, maybe I could have been happy, he thought sadly. I could still be on Earth; I could be home. He opened his eyes again, sitting up against his pillows. Is that what I want? He wondered. Do I want to be on Earth? As much as he hated the long hours and the constant boredom, being out in deep space was exciting. He and his crewmates were venturing into parts of the galaxy no human had ever physically been to, that humans had only dreamed to ever visit. He had spent his entire childhood in Wolf Bluff, in the quiet little town where nothing ever happened and people preferred it that way. Being out here, in space, was something he had never thought he would do, something he never even dreamt of, yet here he was. It was not quite a silver lining in his mother’s tragic demise, but it was something that she could be proud of. If only she had been able to see me off, to tell me one last time how much she loved me and wanted me to come back safely.
You can’t turn back the years, Laurants raged at himself. There was nothing you could have done. What if there was? There had to have been some sign, there had to have been an indication that she was thinking about suicide, why hadn’t he seen it? He closed his eyes, allowing himself to drift slowly into sleep. It’s my fault, Mother. I failed you. If only you could be here to forgive me, to take this guilt away. At last Laurants fell into the blackness of sleep, the terrifying memories visiting him no more that day.
***
Captain Henry Lang of the 18th Heavy Armor Platoon stood in the center of the cargo bay next to what looked to be an oversized, bulky gray spacesuit. Lang motioned his laser pointer to the spacesuit’s head as he continued his lecture. “The MAX-19 ExoArmor is the latest development in combat arms. It combines the mobility and protection of ordinary infantry armor with the firepower and versatility of the
The laser pointer briefly touched the ExoArmor’s left arm, leg, and torso area. “The MAX-19 features a wide variety of weapons, all of which are contained in the arms, legs, and torso of the unit. The standard complement of weapons include two long-range Cardinal missiles, two six-packs of Mark-16 rockets, two anti-personnel machine-guns, and one lightweight XEM-3 rifle using armor-piercing slugs.”
Rosaro watched the lecture with grim curiosity, noticing the expression of sheer wonder on
“What makes the MAX-19 unique, is that the weapons load is not attached in the usual manner. To explain better, let me give you a demonstration.” Lang took a microphone from the helmet and said, “Guns.” Instantly, the left and right arms of the ExoArmor began moving, pieces rearranging quickly, contorting themselves until there was a small machine-gun below each of the ExoArmor’s arms.
“The guns are nice, but how are you going to get missile racks on that thing?” Rosaro asked sarcastically.
“The missiles are stored in the ‘backpack’ of the unit,” Lang answered, pointing to a rectangular bulge that went down the length of the ExoArmor’s back. “The backpack is designed to eject itself if it is breached so that the ammunition does not destroy the MAX-19. The missile racks themselves form in much the same fashion as the lasers. Sixteens.” With the last word, the ExoArmor began another strange transformation, two rectangular frames folding out from the side of the MAX-19’s legs, followed by six contoured metal sheets, and finally twelve missiles, each two feet long, deposited themselves along the contoured sheets. The entire transition took less than thirty seconds to complete.
“So how vulnerable is this thing while it’s changing over?” Rosaro questioned, still not convinced by Lang’s demonstration.
“The MAX-19 uses the latest in blast deflection armor. Running through the inside of each panel in the chest, arms, and legs are billions of tiny microconduits. These microconduits will disperse any energy blast the unit takes, thus limiting the damage done should the ExoArmor be hit.”
“Seems like a nice piece of equipment. When do we get to try it out?”
“We’ll begin running all of you through the simulators today. Once you are trained, then you can train your units on how to use the MAX-19s, if they are called upon to use the ExoArmors. The ExoArmors will be dropped onto the planet by a remotely piloted shuttle, after which, they will be used to help garrison the planet. Alliance Command feels that the MAX-19s will give the troops left behind the firepower and mobility to police and defend the world until the next expedition. Any further questions?” No one said anything for a long moment, so Lang clapped his hands and said, “then let’s get to work!”
***
Staring at the black emptiness of space, S’Olonny grimaced as he stood before the window in his quarters. He had hoped to find some kind of bio-energy in the system, but there was nothing but a round, metallic object circling lazily over a worthless brown planet. While his ship was still three months away from the system, it was unlikely that anything would change. S’Olonny would then have no choice but to return home with his paltry offering. Hardly enough to feed a single village for a month, he thought glumly.
The door tone sounded, shaking S’Olonny from his dark thoughts. He grimaced again, seeing S’Tallen at the door. “What do you want?” S’Olonny growled.
“I need to collect fresh tissue samples from some of your troops,” S’Tallen replied, seemingly oblivious to S’Olonny’s mood.
“For what purpose?”
“The last samples I collected have deteriorated. I need fresh tissues to continue my research.”
“I fear that your research will not continue much longer,” S’Olonny responded, mocking the scientist.
“Why?”
“Our scans show nothing in our latest target system. We will have no choice but to return home.”
“No, we cannot return, not yet! My work is not finished!”
“Your work?” S’Olonny sneered. “You have accomplished nothing!”
“Only a fool would take what I am doing so lightly, S’Olonny. I am on the trail of the greatest discovery in the history of our people.”
“Do you not understand yet? You have failed! We have all failed! Our people are doomed to extinction!” S’Olonny roared, placing a hand on his sword hilt. “I should take the head off your shoulders and drain your bio-energy, but that would only taint the entire supply with your stink.”
“What of my request?”
“Denied. You may take tissue samples if we encounter some other species. Until then, end this foolishness and turn your research to something more productive.”
“Such as?” It was S’Tallen’s turn now to sneer. “Artificial bio-energy? There can be no such thing. I have already studied the matter, using every type of vegetation we have encountered. It is impossible.”
“Then find a way to replicate bio-energy, or to modify our digestive systems. Find a useful way to serve your people, S’Tallen.”
“And what of you? What have you done? The bio-energy you have collected is pitiful. You have failed, S’Olonny. When we return home, they will execute you for your incompetence.”
S’Olonny again reached for his S’Zai, but forced his anger down. “There is still time to arrange for your disappearance, scientist. The Grand Council would not miss you.”
S’Tallen looked into S’Olonny’s eyes, finally relenting. “Very well, I will submit to your command, for now.” The scientist stormed away, leaving S’Olonny with his thoughts once again.
He is right, S’Olonny thought. They will have me executed when I return with this pathetic amount of bio-energy. I will die no better than a criminal, without the honor I have sought all my life. Angrily, S’Olonny stared out into space once again. We must find something soon or all is lost.
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