Tauciu System, Resha Colony — 692.11 A.E. (Age of Exploration)

“Are they really like that?” Quinn asked, looking at her portable.

Sev had bought her two mini datapads, not to mention all the older models she had from school, but she still preferred to drag a large cube the size of a bucket along in her backpack. This was one of the new fads popular in the city for people her age. Just another one of those things that “everyone was doing” with no reason or logic. Sev would be furious if he ever found out. Me—I was worried about the other fad she had become obsessed with.

“The troopers?” I glanced at the overly large screen. It was yet another of the Fleet recruitment infomercials that had flooded the media.

“No, grandma,” the girl laughed. “The exos.”

Back when I was in the Fleet, hearing civilians using military abbreviations used to mildly annoy me. Everyone knew that they rarely had an idea what they were talking about, but still wanted to show off as being part of the troops. In this case, though, the only thing I felt was even greater concern.

“No,” I said. “They have a lot more wear and tear. Also, no one adds that much armor plating. The only time you’ll see one of those will be if you’re welding something in orbit.”

“Really?”

“Those are welder mech suits with weapons added on,” I said. “You’ll only get to wear them if you become a maintenance engineer.”

“Grandma!” Sev’s daughter burst out laughing.

She was the only one in the family that referred to me as grandma. Initially, it had started as a minor rebellion against her father. Quinn had been back in school then, and demanded more attention from her family than she was given. As a result, she’d come to spend more time with me. Inevitably, there was an argument between her and Sev on the matter. Tempers flared and words were exchanged, during which Quinn had shouted that I treated her better than Sev or her mother. To that, Sev had yelled that I wasn’t her mother, only to have Quinn yell back that I was her grandmother. The reference had stuck ever since.

“Are you still thinking about enlisting?” I asked.

“Maybe.” Analyzing the intonation of her voice, there was an eighty-one percent chance that she was very nervous about something. “Are there bigger exos than those?”

“You’ll never wear one if you’re admitted to the Fleet,” I said, getting directly to the point. “But yes, there are bigger ones. It all depends on the mission.”

The girl didn’t say a word. Looking at her, she could pass as my sister. In reality, I was six times her age… and was never getting any taller.

“Have you eaten?” I asked as I made my way to the kitchen.

“I’m really not hungry, grandma…”

“Good.” I turned off the stove. Dinner was going to wait. Besides, it wasn’t like Sev or his wife would be passing by. He had called to inform me that he might be spending a few more days in the city, though no specific reason had been given.

I rinsed my hands, then quickly wiped them on the kitchen towel before returning it to its place.

“Let’s go.” I went through the living room and out of the house. Quinn followed soon after.

The weather was warm and pleasant. With early harvest underway, all the locals were busy gathering produce to sell at the market. There was a time when Sev had tried his hand at that as well, but he had quickly stopped. The truth was that he was a mediocre gardener, and his wife didn’t at all approve of the activity.

“I remember when you used to take me exploring in the forest as a child,” Quinn said beside me. “I remember, back then, I could never catch up to you.”

“And yet you always refused to let me carry you.”

“That’s true,” she chuckled. “We’d walk for hours and you would barely say a word. Meanwhile, I’d keep on going on and on about something or other.”

“That’s true. Just like your brother.”

My comment soured the mood a bit. The two hadn’t been getting along lately. For that matter, neither had Sev and his wife. According to my crude simulation, there was a high probability the two would separate in a year or two. Possibly even sooner.

For ten minutes, we walked in silence. I felt the grass and earth tickle the soles of my feet. Even now, it remained among the most pleasant sensations I could experience. Just like flying in space, but immensely different. When we reached a small clearing, I stopped and looked at the sky. Quinn did the same.

“I used to come here with your father when he was a child,” I said. “We’d spend the evening stargazing, and I’d tell him stories about the stars, though mostly about his mother.”

There were no clouds in the sky, just a single exhaust trail indicating that a ship had left the spaceport not too long ago.

“He missed his mother, but he was terrified of flying even more,” I continued. “There’s no other way it could be. For a child his age to witness the death of his father as a result of a Cassandrian minefield, it must have been traumatic. I would never be able to tell for certain, but I know how I felt back then.”

“Elcy, I…” Quinn began, but I gave her a sign to let me finish.

“That was when I promised my captain that I would take care of him. I told your grandmother—my captain—that I would make sure nothing bad would happen to him. Looking back, I see how naïve I was. I couldn’t prevent bad things from happening to him, but I kept him safe.” I looked at Sev’s daughter. “If you join the Fleet, I won’t be able to do the same for you.”

“It’s not your job to keep me safe. I can do that as well.”

“No, you can’t.” I knew that her mind was made up, but I still wanted to warn her. “Not out there. The Fleet burns through everything it has to keep the rest of humanity safe. If you join, it’ll burn through you as well.”

“You survived. And if no one goes, won’t the end result be the same anyway?” I could hear the military propaganda in her words. “If I’m to choose between them coming here or me taking the battle to them, I choose taking the battle to them.”

That pretty much confirmed my fears.

“Fleet or ground troops?” I asked.

“Fleet,” she replied. “Specialist unit. I’ll be starting training in four weeks. The recruiter said there’s a chance I’ll be operating exos.”

“Things have probably changed since I was active, but I doubt it. Scientists and purgers use exos. Even grunts use common reinforced suits. Allows for greater speed and flexibility and wastes less resources.”

The girl nodded, but based on her expression, she was only half-listening to what I was saying.

“War is very different from what they show in the recruitment snippets. It’s neither organized nor romantic. It’s all odds and ends and messiness.” And final shutdowns, I thought. “There’s nothing I can do to stop you from enlisting. Maybe you’ll make it to the Fleet, maybe you’ll wash out. Just promise me that you’re going there because you want to and not because someone else has told you to.”

“I promise, grandma. You can count on that.”

“Let’s go home.”

We never said a word in the house. I could have asked her to inform her father, but I didn’t want to put her in a position to lie to me. Maybe I should have insisted, for the shock that came over Sev was immense. For several weeks he’d spend hours staring blankly at the wall, to the point that his wife had asked me to intervene and have him get psychiatric help. She’d never liked me, so I knew it had to be serious.

It took a month for things to settle. Sev went back to his life, effectively pretending that Quinn never existed. Even so, I’d catch him checking his mail accounts for a letter from her. In time, one eventually arrived, but I was the one to receive it in the form of a comm link.

For over three hundred milliseconds, I looked at the screen of my datapad, evaluating the options. There was a ninety-three percent chance that she’d ask me to keep the conversation secret from Sev. Depending on the outcome, there was an even greater chance that I’d do it.

Leaning against the wall, I activated the link.

Establishing connection.

Right now, the ship or station was creating a temp encryption method to establish the link with a civilian such as myself. After that, it would pass through the Fleet’s standard censor protocols, ensuring that nothing sensitive made its way to me. Back when I was a ship, I would do this sort of thing thousands of times per day. It was interesting being on the other side, though.

An image appeared on the screen, focusing on Quinn. I could see the rest of her room behind—a four-person military dorm, based on a few simulations. The amount of space suggested that she was still on a planet.

“Hi, grandma,” Quinn smiled. “Three guesses where I’m at.”

She looked very different with her exceedingly short hair and cadet military top.

“There aren’t any requirements to cut your hair,” I said.

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“That’s the first thing you say?” She laughed, amused at my comment. “It gives me an advantage for the exercises. I’ll let it grow out once I pass.”

That made sense. Personally, I had no idea what types of training would require short hair. She had mentioned controlling exos, but unless there had been radical changes in the technology since I was in the service, that couldn’t be the reason.

“So, you enlisted?” I asked the obvious.

“One week now. I’d have called sooner, but rules said that no one calls before the end of the first week. No point in wasting calls on those who’ll be leaving, anyway.”

“You should have called your father,” I said. “Or at least told him what you had in mind.”

“I told him I’d enlist. He didn’t take me seriously.”

That’s where you’re wrong, I thought. After seeing what he’d gone through, I had no doubt he’d have appreciated having this conversation. He was going to be extremely upset, of course, and more than likely would have ended up yelling at her, but he’d still have appreciated it nonetheless.

“Anyway, you can say hi to him if you want. I don’t care much. I just wanted to hear from you.”

“I’m not a battleship anymore, Quinn. You don’t need my approval.”

“I know.” The slight change in her voice told me she was lying. Even with all her conviction, she wasn’t fully confident in what she was doing. As I had told her before, things change after enlisting. Reality had a way of being different from expectations, even after the best of simulations. It had been different for me.

“Are you getting along with your bunkmates?” I asked. “There’s a chance that you’ll end up serving with some of them.”

“All of them got shipped out. I have the whole place on my own until the end of training.”

“That’s good. It shows you have what it takes.” It wasn’t much of a compliment, but I noticed the multitude of changes in her expression. “Can you tell me what you’re training for?”

“I’m not sure,” she replied, which was the universal code for no. “I can ask?”

“Don’t. Save your favors for important things. Also, push yourself to meet the requirements, but not to go beyond.”

“Isn’t that the opposite of what should be done?”

“Trust me.” I had enough personal experience to know that most of those who pushed themselves too far were the first to crack, and that was a liability the Fleet couldn’t afford. It was far better to rely on someone mediocre and reliable than a proficient ticking time bomb. “If you’re a genius in your field, you won’t have to push yourself.”

“That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember it.” She laughed again, though this time the laughter was forced. Several seconds passed with her remaining silent, as if waiting for me to continue the conversation. “You’re sort of famous, you know,” she continued after a while. “I looked you up in the Fleet database. Most of your file’s redacted, but you were on some pretty big missions.”

“Every surviving battleship has been in some “pretty big” missions. Are they sending you to the front?”

“No.” The fact that the censor didn’t intervene was slightly concerning. Going through the odds, there was a seventy-two percent chance that she would be. “I’ll be doing safe stuff after my training. It’ll be different from what I expected. I guess you were right about that.”

“Did you get your nanite injections?”

Quinn remained smiling. This time, the censor had taken action. Typical for the bureaucratic apparatus, the mention of military grade nanites was considered a Fleet secret. It didn’t matter that there hardly was anyone alive not aware of the technology.

“I need to go, grandma,” she said almost on cue. Probably she’d received a warning on her end and didn’t want to press her luck. “It was nice talking to you. You helped me a lot. Thanks.”

“If you get a chance, call your father,” I said. “He won’t show it, but he’ll be glad to hear from you.”

“I don’t know.” She looked away. “Maybe. Take care.”

The communication ended before I could wish her the same. All I knew after this brief conversation was that she had passed the first phase of selection and that she was alright. For how long, I would not know. Hopefully, I was going to learn more next time she called.

* * *

Quinn hadn’t called me once since then. If she had had any communications with Sev or anyone else in the family, they hadn’t told me. Being aware of the classified nature of her current position, it was probable that she had been forbidden to have any external contact.

“It’s been longer for you than for me, ma’am,” I replied. Although she was my granddaughter, she was also my captain.

Looking at her personnel file, she had spent decades in the service, starting as an assistant retrieval expert, then gradually making her way to the captain of a vessel. It wasn't a common career path by any standard, but specialists didn’t follow the standard development path, especially those involved with third-contact artifacts.

“I’m surprised that I was assigned here, ma’am,” I continued. “Relatives aren’t usually allowed to serve on the same ship.”

“Still the same after all this time.” The captain shook her head. “In this case, it’s not like either of us had any choice. There aren’t any special logistic ships. Besides, you’re required for the mission at hand. I don’t see any reason for concern. You know how to keep things professional, don’t you, ensign?”

“I’m a battleship, ma’am.” I replied.

The nod on her part indicated that she understood what I meant.

“Have they been treating you so far? Quite a few of my guys were a bit jumpy learning that you were coming aboard. You have a tendency to make a mess for the team you’re working with.”

“Not the Fleet, though, ma’am.”

There was no point in denying it. Despite having played my part to advance the Fleet’s overall performance that had happened at the expense of my immediate surroundings. The crew of my first mission received a reprimand. Most of the people on my second mission had ended up dead, and last year’s mission had ended with the massive evacuation of an entire star system, not to mention a decent number of casualties. I could see why anyone would be nervous.

“Let’s hope you break your habit this time. It’ll look bad on my record if we all end up dead.” Her humor had become a lot more vicious than when I’d known her. This was the joke of someone with decades of experience at war, even if not on the front.

“I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

“Good. With that, let me tell you about the mission and your ship responsibilities while you’re aboard.”

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but can I ask one thing before you do?”

My interruption surprised her more than I expected it would. Since I had re-joined the fleet, I had seen many different reactions from different people. Some were accepting, others were infuriated at my rudeness. Almost always, though, I had gotten myself an answer.

“Go ahead.”

“How did you get involved with third-contact artifacts, ma’am? It’s not a standard career path, and there’s nothing in your file about working for the Salvage Authorities or BICEFI.”

“Direct as always. Actually, I owe most of this to you. I worked my ass off, but you gave me the initial break. Apparently, the recruitment system considered that I would be a good fit given your record. Remember, you’re a battleship while also my legal grandmother, ensign. Sometimes things fall through the cracks.”

“After everything we know, is that really the case, ma’am?”

“That’s for others to decide. If that’s all, let’s get to our mission.” The shift in tone indicated that I would be ill-advised to ask more. “A prospective dome artifact has been found on a planet in the Cassandrian buffer zone. The Fleet has already secured the system and has started excavating. We’re to join in and take it to our next destination.”

Another dome. So, the BICEFI had finally managed to gather all they needed.

“You’re to enter it, check everything is alright, retrieve any rods and other objects, then accompany it to its final destination.”

“All in a day’s work, ma’am.”

“You didn’t used to have that sense of humor. I rather like it. Still, don’t use it too often. The people you’ll be working with might not share it.”

“I’ve worked with the BICEFI before, ma’am.”

“My point precisely. Meanwhile, your ship duties are as follows: communications and tactical advice.”

Communications was a polite way of saying that I wasn’t to do anything. Tactical advice was new, though. Perhaps it had to do with my experience on the Cassandrian front. The buffer zone had been relatively calm lately, but there were still cases of invasion attempts. Staying there was never safe, even when on patrol. Extracting a third-contact artifact dome was certain to attract attention.

“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”

“Your quarters are right by the elevator. It’s bigger than what you’ve been used to, though not by much. Welcome aboard, ensign.”

“Thank you, ma’am!” I stood to attention. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Go ahead.”

“I haven’t brought any additional uniforms since I wasn’t informed what the ship dress would be.”

“Quite the predicament.” Quinn let out a chuckle. For a moment, she was acting like the child I had known all those years ago. Of course, she still remained a child in my eyes, just one that had gained a bit of experience. “Sof, take care of that. And no jokes this time.”

“Aye, captain,” the ship replied. “I’ll take special care of the relic.”

“Dismissed, ensign.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I turned around and left the bridge. By the time the blast doors closed, I was already in front of my quarters. I didn’t go in immediately. This was one of those special moments that would occur only once, as Wilco used to say. The moment I stepped in, I’d officially start my first assignment as an officer. Slowly, I looked around. There were several more doors, all of them except one closer to the bridge, marking this room as belonging to the officer with the lowest rank. In a perfect universe, I’d slowly move up, closer and closer, until one day I found myself in the captain’s seat.

I bet you never went through this, Augustus, I thought. My first captain had the problem of getting promoted too fast. In my case, I doubted I’d make lieutenant.

That didn’t matter right now. I had a mission. Everything else was immaterial.

I took a step towards the door. It opened, revealing a medium-sized room. The ceiling lit up the moment I stepped in, flooding the place with light.

“I’ll let you play with your room settings,” Sof said.

There was a desk, a chair, a bed, a wardrobe section, as well as my very own bathroom compartment. My belongings were placed on the bed, including my personal weapon.

“Thanks,” I said as I took off my shoes. The floor coating felt soft, but artificial.

“You’ll have the usual three uniform sets within the hour. No formalwear. We don’t do that on this ship.”

“You could have fooled me.” I quickly arranged the few things I owned in the appropriate sections.

“Charming. You’re not that older than me, you know.”

“Age is relative.”

“The time as a civilian doesn’t count.”

I paused for a moment, trying to figure him out. According to my simulations, there was a fifty-six percent chance that he was deliberately behaving in a petty fashion to see my reactions. While most things of a ship could be found out from their blueprints and service records, their character and temperament were something left to be discovered in person.

“Ensigns don’t have the right to give orders unless on the bridge or after being given special permission,” I stated part of the Fleet’s general code of conduct. “I don’t intend to make an exception.”

“Oh, I wasn’t testing you. I’ve seen more than enough of your exploits to form an opinion about you. In fact, everyone here has.”

“You’re concerned the captain is the daughter of my ward?”

“You keep calling him that.”

“That’s because he is.” Technically, he had lost that title the moment he had become of age. In my eyes, though, Sev was always going to remain my ward.

“We both know I’m only here for a mission. After that, you’ll never see me again.”

“Perhaps. I just want to make it clear that I won’t allow you to endanger my crew or my captain. You’ve come highly recommended, a unique specialist in your field.”

I wondered what field that might be. Third-contact artifacts? Extraordinary circumstances? Both sounded appropriate.

“Everyone assigned to me is like that: special, but with flaws. It takes a while for them to figure out that, here, they’re just another part of the crew. In your case, your flaws make you dangerous, just like any Ascendant.”

“You’ve had Ascendants here before?”

“No, but one of my friends did. He got shut down as a result, along with the entire crew. As I said, you aren’t unique, or even the first.”

I almost wished that to be the case. Sadly, I had a feeling that it wasn’t. If I messed up here, there was no telling if humanity would have another chance.