Sergeant Wilkes slid a thick manila folder across the table to Chao. His craggy face was set in a frown as his gravelly voice resonated in the small interview room. “Thanks for coming, Mizz Me Chu. We needed you to see this.”
“Oh, no. We had to take sponge baths in close proximity to each other, I think we can be on a first-name basis, eh, Master Sergeant? Please, call me Chao.”
“Emile,” he responded, with a rare smile.
She smiled back, but that smile faded as she opened the folder and began examining the pages within. Each was a review of a particular human pilot, showing their simulated win-to-loss ratio over time during training. There was a distressing lack of ‘win’ and far too much ‘loss’. “This…this is not good. I understand the concern, but I’m not a pilot. I don’t know how to fix this.”
“But you know orbital mechanics,” replied Wilkes. “Kifa is doing what she can to train ‘em, but we need to set up…well, you know how the military has lots of schools, right? Each one teaching how to do a specific thing. Demolitions, flight, marksmanship…”
“Not to mention how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane that’s not on fire,” added Chao. “Luca told me all about that one.”
He nodded. “Exactly. So, we need to set up a Space School. I’ve been talkin’ about this to General De Vries, we want you to help set up the curriculum and perform the initial teaching. With Kifa and Tofa’s input, of course.”
“Um…okay. That’s a big assignment. Where would this school be located?”
Wilkes looked away, and she knew the answer was not going to be good. “Vandenberg. Out next to Lompoc, in California.”
Chao sighed. “Aaand I just told my new boyfriend to go to school in Annapolis…on the other side of the damned continent.” She looked up at Wilkes. “Never tried a long-distance relationship myself. How about you?”
“Did it only once. It takes some effort, from both parties. Fortunately, we both persevered.” He held up his left hand, showing the ring on the appropriate finger. Then he made a bit of an abortive motion with that hand, as if he was going to reach across the table and take her hand with it. “But I got a good feeling about you two. You’re peas in a pod. You’ll make it work.”
She took a chance…Wilkes was older, but he was certainly quite capable of breaking her over his knee…and reached out to grasp his outstretched hand. “We need this, right?”
He gripped her hand in return, but with a gentle and wiry strength. “Yes, Chao. We do.”
“Then I guess I’m heading to Vandenberg, eh Emile?”
__________
Admiral Tsuneo stood once more on the (lower) admiral’s bridge of the Nimitz’s island. The fact that he wasn’t at the top of the island was always a surprise for guests, but he made it clear to them that the upper decks of the island were for business only. They had work to do, whereas he merely needed a place to stand and behold. On this particular day, he did not have his morning coffee. He needed no caffeine to stay awake during this dawn. Instead, he gripped a pair of binoculars, looking out at the giant metallic cylinder which floated quite a sensible distance away from his ship. The carrier had almost finished its dual role; first, it had to use the energy from its mighty nuclear reactors to split seawater into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. The resulting purified liquified gases were then sent into the beast now floating that sensible distance away. It was a more complicated process than one might imagine; after all, there was a lot of salt to remove from the water before it was allowed anywhere near critical plumbing either on board his ship or the rocket. Fortunately, his ship was already well-equipped for desalinization.
But in the end, they’d figured out all of the complications in such a technique. Now his beloved carrier was acting in its second drole, namely as a floating Mission Control for this particular launch. They’d even pitched a giant tent on his now (sadly) un-used flight deck to house the newcomers and their collection of computers.
A voice with a distinct Texan drawl crackled out from the loudspeakers on that tent, breaking the wonderful silence of the morning.
“Ballast tanks now filling. All other systems are still reading as nominal.”
In the distance, the huge horizontal cylinder riding the waves began to up-end, revealing the up-side of the pointed cone of the rocket. As the rear assembly’s ballast tanks continued to fill, the giant rocket settled deeper into the ocean until just the pointed tip was visible.
“Ballast tanks are now full. Dreadnaught One flight controllers, listen up. The final poll is now underway. Give me a go no-go for launch. Booster.”
“Go.”
“Retro.”
“Go.”
“FIDO.”
“We’re Go, Flight.”
“Guidance.”
“Guidance is a go, Flight.”
The admiral listened to the growing list of positives with an ever-widening, almost feral grin. His inner ten-year-old, the one who loved setting off fireworks on the Fourth of July, was about to see the mother of all fireworks…one way or the other. The best part was, nobody was on board. Even if this whole exercise turned into a giant mountain of shrapnel and flame and wasted taxpayer dollars, nobody would be hurt.
He dropped his binoculars as the final count started. He wanted to see this launch with his own eyes, just to be able to tell his grandchildren that he’d seen it.
“We are at a go for launch. T-Minus sixty seconds. The rocket now has control. A few bumps, and we’re hauling the mail.”
Tsuneo took in a deep breath, then realized he had a saluting onlooker.
“Ensign Kemp. You are as punctual as always. Are there any messages for me?”
“No sir. I’m just here to, well, watch.”
“As you should be.” He winked at the unsure ensign. “You know what this means, right?”
Kemp saluted yet again. “No, sir!”
The admiral returned the salute with a grin. “This means you need to go and find a good person and you both make a nice home for lots of kids. Make them yourselves, or heck, adopt them for all I care. You need to tell them all that you saw this.”
“Sir…”
“Shh. It’s okay. Just watch.”
“Ignition sequence start. T-minus Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five, main engine start…”
The very ocean itself swelled around the rocket, something that Tsuneo had never, ever seen in his many years at sea. This was the very waters of the earth obeying the impetus of humanity, and the narrow cone floating out in the sea began to rise.
“…ignition!”
That swell became an actual hill of water as the giant rocket rose up out of the water with an air of inevitability, throwing off its liquid shackles as the giant plume of flame at its base became visible. The pair of them saw it well before the sound reached them, a gigantic thump which punched them both in the chest, followed by a distant crackle of flame which accompanied the massive rocket’s ascent into the atmosphere and beyond.
“Woah!” Ensign Kemp’s reaction was utterly unforced as he watched the gigantic beast recede into the ether above.
Admiral Tsuneo laughed. “You want to know the best part, Ensign? We get to be here multiple times. Next time, you bring me some coffee and we’ll stream it live together. We can put it on the Tik-Toks and the what-nots. We might even make some money off of it. I have a couple of charities in mind to send the proceeds to.”
“Of course, sir.” Tsuneo didn’t miss the slight bit of regret in the Ensign’s voice.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he added. “Whatever we make, I’ll match it as a bonus for you. Just put it into a fund for your house, eh?”
__________
The trip to repair the Rithro’s tanks had been more intended as a crowd-pleaser, something to appease the masses. But now the ship was going to test its newly-repaired fusion drive by heading out to the jump point to Barnard’s Star and actually go fucking interstellar, so that they could send an alert into the Coalition network. This was not something to be done by fresh-faced people known to millions; for this trip, humanity had to send utter professionals.
Luca Martinez was completely on board with that line of thinking. He had a lot more on his mind right now, what with navigating the bureaucracy which would allow him to transfer from his current Army position into a very-much Naval position so that he could attend what was, by all accounts, the utter stone-cold bastard of all military schools. He was going to be a Nuke. Maybe. If he passed.
He shoved the latter thought out of his mind and focused on the sheet of symbols before him. “Okay. This symbol means that you’re less than two bulkheads away from Death Pressure. This symbol means that you’re only one bulkhead away from Death Pressure. The Coalition people impressed on us that this is the main one to pay attention to. This symbol means that the pipe contains liquid sodium, so you probably don’t want to go cutting into that one…”
His two compatriots chuckled at his mild joke. To be honest, it was hard to intimidate Martinez but the pair across the table from him was pretty much guaranteed to intimidate anyone. First up, you had Clark Thomas, a very polite Canadian astronaut who’d logged more time in space than Martinez wanted to imagine. Next to him was a thick-necked Russian cosmonaut by the name of Khomkolov. The latter had the weird, ageless face of someone who’d gone through the tanks up in Iceland. Apparently Khomkolov was some kind of rock-star from the Soviet era of space.
“How does ship move?” asked the latter, in heavily accented English. “Any problems when underway?”
Martinez reached over to bring close to hand a printout which showed the side and top-down layout of the Rithro’s decks. “Nope. When the fusion drive is on, it feels just like you’re here on Earth. Think of it as if you’re on a skyscraper and you’ll be good. Most likely they’ll stash you on the wardroom deck, here. That’s where they put us. Oh, wait. They might re-vamp their cabins on this level to give you the extra room. Either way, space will be at a premium.”
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The Russian let out a hearty laugh. “We are used to that, eh Clark?”
The Canadian smiled. “That we are. Um, they didn’t show it during the livestream but do they have, er, facilities? Having even artificial gravity makes such things easier, but it would be nice to know in advance.”
The corporal’s forehead wrinkled in confusion, and then the penny dropped. “Oh, you mean the shitter! Yeah, that was fine. It’s located here, on this deck. All five of us used it, it…er, reconfigures for everyone’s body-type. It worked just like a toilet here on Earth. Even had a bidet function, which I have to admit was pretty nice.”
Khomkolov leaned back with a exhalation of pure relief. “Thank Fucking God. Have pissed and shit into bags far too much in my life.”
“Me too,” said Clark.
Martinez laughed. “Oh boy, you two haven’t lived until you had to go monkey-style in the woods.”
“Monkey-style?” asked Khomkolov.
The corporal hung his arms above him, in an imitation of an ape’s threat display. “Drop yer drawers, grab onto a tree branch like so, and then squat and do yer business.”
Clark winced. “Oooh. Yeah, that wins in terms of non-civilized behavior.”
“The worst part? During most missions we had to pack it out with us.”
Khomkolov gave a belly-laugh. “Whereas we mostly dumped it overboard.” He reached across and shook Martinez’s hand with the appropriate gravity while still smiling. “I agree with Canadian comrade, you win this round.”
The rest of the information-download went well, at least as far as Martinez was concerned. Khomkolov left first, and just as the corporal started to relax a bit Clark turned back to regard him with kind yet merciless eyes.
“What’s on your mind?” asked the astronaut.
Martinez sat up. “Sorry?”
Clark re-seated himself and smiled. “You did well in preparing us, but it’s clear you have something else going on.”
The corporal laced his fingers together. “And here I thought I was hiding it well.” He looked off to one side. “I’m transferring to the Navy. They just approved the paperwork.”
“Hmmm, I see.” Clark smiled. “Let me guess. Annapolis?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, so there’s only one school there which would get a smart guy like you worried. Nukes?”
Martinez looked up in surprise. “Smart? Me? Oh. Yeah, it’s Nuke School.”
Clark waved a hand. “Yeah. Look, both Khomhy and I saw it within a minute of your presentation. You got the skills, you got the focus, you got the drive. You just need to become a little more certain of yourself. Don’t let the data intimidate you, eh?”
__________
The relatively tiny capsule of the Dragon spacecraft let out a few flares from its maneuvering thrusters as it began to approach the giant, evil-looking front half of humanity’s very first fighting spacecraft. It had, after long debate, been anointed with the simple name of Dreadnaught.
In the end, that name had stuck above all else. Especially when the meaning behind the original warship’s naming filtered down to everyone on Earth.
Fear Nothing.
It seemed a fitting appellation.
The Dreadnaught’s airlock sat outlined in the main screen of the capsule’s control feed. The commander of this particular mission, one Stephen Zehr, watched the screen with a critical eye. He could take control if he needed to, but right now the on-board systems seemed to be behaving well. The airlock door approached closer, and closer…and then, with a very soft clank, the spacecraft came to a halt.
“We are at hard capture,” said Zehr. “Right, everyone unstrap.”
The Dragon was now carrying far more people than its NASA-rated four crewmembers. Fortunately, there was a lot of room below the four ‘standard’ crash couches to carry a lot more people. Those below unstrapped themselves out of the ‘new’ seats with various grumblings of relief.
Zehr floated himself towards the airlock. “Okay, I’m first in. Everyone keeps their pressure suits sealed until we verify that the life-system aboard is functional, all right?”
After getting a chorus of assents, he turned to open the hatch.
He floated into what might be considered an excess of space; only the Skylab astronauts would have said it was too constricting. He floated himself over to a nearby console and tapped a few controls. Zehr grinned upon seeing green indications light up on that screen.
“We’re pressurizing, people,” he said into his helmet. “Still, keep your helmets on until I tell you. But you can all come through.”
A gaggle…well, if eight more people could be called a gaggle, came through the airlock. To their credit, they fanned out to their assigned stations without any fanfare. Quiet murmurings came through the comms, indicating that everything was functioning as intended.
Zehr checked his screen, checking on one particular package of great importance in a similar orbit. “All right. We have a lock on the propulsion module. We’re on battery power for right now until we get linked up, so let’s do that as soon as we can, agreed?”
As they all made their assents, he checked his watch. “Also, we have about twelve hours until the next crewed Dragon arrives.”
__________
Tepora blew out a breath as she looked over the scene. She stood next to Matt at a point overlooking the Norfolk shipyards, which were in the midst of building the next Sea Dragon. On the other side of her, looking out over the proceedings with his usual phlegmatic calm, stood Chaz. The trio wore obnoxiously yellow high-viz vests and hard hats; Tepora found the latter oddly constricting even though they weren’t that heavy.
“I don’t need to be here,” she said, for what felt like the tenth time.
“You said you wanted to see everything,” Matt responded with that calm which she somehow found infuriating. “I promised that you’d be fully on the inside and I meant that. Everything, tooth to tail. Most of the folks I work with in this particular area are smart, but they’ve been trained to crack problems a certain way. You haven’t. You’re self-taught.”
She had to admit, watching the activity below was impressive. But his words didn’t calm her. “Outside the box thinking? Is that why y’all hired me in the first place?”
“Why not? I was the one to suggest it. You’re smart, you might pick up on something that we’ve missed. We think we’ve broken the back of Struck’s conspiracy, but there could be splinter cells out there which we know nothing about. Fuck, maybe there’s a whole other group out there who wants to derail this whole thing too, and we won’t know about it until it all kicks off.”
Tepora glanced over at Chaz. “Should we be talking about this here?”
Chaz chuckled. “I help build supercarriers, lady. I have a security clearance that would make most generals green with envy.”
She growled. “But I know nothing about shipbuilding! Rocketbuilding! Whatever. I’m a data person.”
Matt indicated the vast drydock. “Exactly my point. Physically? We got this place nailed down tighter than a penitent monk’s behind. But where are the cracks? Let’s say somebody plonked an obscene amount of money down in front of you and told you to break this place. Where would you start?”
She took in a deep breath. “Okay.” Tepora steepled her hands under her nose as she tried to examine everything with fresh eyes. Break this down, just like any other ‘assigned’ problem. “Welds. Like I said, not an expert, but if you replaced one of the welders with a stooge, they could mess up a couple of the welds and make this big thing go boom.”
Chaz just smiled. “Remember, we build supercarriers in here. We had pretty good security in here in the first place. ID badges, fingerprint scans. Plus we do x-ray scans of each weld after it’s finished just to make sure it’s good.”
Tepora shrugged. “Better than nothing, but I’m not a huge fan of fingerprint scanners. Way too easy to spoof.”
“We also have guards to check the ID picture with who’s wearing it,” replied Chaz.
“That’s better.” She looked over at Matt. “How big of a pain would it be to start using DNA scanning?”
Matt winced. “Not my area of expertise, sorry. But it would have to be painless and quick. I don’t know how many people would be willing to get a jab in the finger every morning.”
“I can guarantee the unions would push back,” added Chaz.
Tepora looked around her. “Okay, let’s assume for the moment that the personnel are okay. You double-check the welds anyway, which is good.” Hmm, what around here was susceptible to data intrusion?
The two men waited patiently while she thought through things. Then she looked up, at the cranes swinging their various huge and vaguely threatening articles overhead. She pointed. “What about those?”
Chaz looked up and behind him in confusion. “Them? They’re controlled by an operator. Not automated.”
“Yeah, but are they completely under human control? I mean, purely mechanical linkages?”
Matt and Chaz looked at each other. “Hydraulics, I presume?” asked Matt.
Chaz nodded.
“Fuck.” Tepora rolled her eyes before fixing Matt with her best glare. “You’re supposed to be in the loop on these things. I’m just a yokel here, but from what I know hydraulic actuators require motors. Specialized motors. You’ve heard about Stuxnet, right? About how whoever-it-was-but-totally-not-the-USA fucked over the Iranian nuclear program by screwing up the specialized motors for their centrifuges?”
Matt’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…”
“Could be. I mean, if they’re dumb motors that just run when you give ‘em AC then it’s not a big deal. But if they have internal chips to control their speed, then those could be suspect.”
Chaz looked up at the possible multi-ton disaster overhead. “I mean, they do have internal bits that keep ‘em in check. But we’ve been running those cranes for a long time. From what I remember, the hydraulic motors don’t have any sort of data input. You couldn’t corrupt them.”
Matt also looked overhead. “But you do need to replace those motors from time to time, right? What if someone corrupted the controller chips on those new motors?”
Chaz planted his hands on the railing and dropped his head. “All right. As of right now, you two get access to everything. You get the full bill of materials, where we source things, and where those sources source things. I need to know if my drydock is safe.”
Tepora felt a little flare of…wait, what was this feeling…was it validation? Yes, validation in her chest. “We’ll do that.”
Chaz raised his head with a weary set to his brow. “There’s a catch. We need to know now. We’re all in for a long night.”
Matt just nodded, but Tepora felt the need to protest. “Really?”
Chaz responded with a half-smile. “Don’t worry. Thanks to the unions, we have some really good coffee.”
__________
Clark Thomas had figured they’d be relegated to the wardroom during acceleration, but to his surprise the crew had reconfigured the Rithro’s bridge to include a couple of human-compatible seats.
“Beats a Soyuz, eh, Clark?” asked Khomkolov, with a big grin. He was next to Clark in the radial layout of the bridge’s couches.
“You said it.” Clark had been hurled into orbit in a Soyuz, once, and the experience had been like being stuffed into a broom closet along with ten months of supplies just before being fired into space.
“This is merely for safety,” said Captain Sadaf. “Once the engines reach full power, we’ll be free to move about.”
“Of course,” replied Clark. He couldn’t help but notice that he and Khomkolov had been very politely but also very thoroughly searched for any audio or visual recording devices. He guessed that the aliens didn’t care about what he witnessed; they were probably figuring on fallible organic memories to keep the humans from seeing ‘too much’.
The joke was on them. He’d been chosen not only for his considerable talents as an astronaut, but also because he possessed an almost perfect recall. Still, he’d try to keep his spy-work to a necessary minimum.
“All right, engines are primed,” said Grakosh. “All diagnostics look nominal. Captain, we are at a go to proceed to a cruise-level burn.”
“Hit it,” she replied.
The ship itself was not a quiet place; there was always the whirr of fans, the clinks and ticks of plumbing going through temperature changes, and the soft beeps and boops of the various control consoles letting their beholders know what the ship was doing. But now a new sound emerged. It began more as a vibration, felt rather than heard, then rapidly grew in volume until it became a dull background rumble.
Clark felt himself pressed back into his couch, rapidly regaining the weight he’d missed since boarding the Rithro’s landing boat back on Earth.
It was much less ‘dramatic’ than a similar launch with chemical rockets. He felt the slightest vibration, but there was no sense that the entire vehicle was about to shake itself apart as in a ‘normal’ chemical rocket. Clark knew that, far below, those on the night-side of Earth would be able to see with the naked eye the blue plume of the Rithro’s fusion drive in their night sky.
The acceleration proceeded with very little fanfare, until Grakosh spoke. “We are now at cruise speed. Drives register as nominal. Looks like the replacement parts worked.”
Various clicks sounded out through the bridge as the crew unstrapped. Clark and Khomkolov followed suit, then stepped down onto the deck. He could still feel the faint vibration through his shoes.
Dhuz Ta’Shakka walked up to the pair of humans with a wide, sharp-toothed grin. “Now we’re moving!”
Clark bounced on his feet, trying to gauge the felt gravity. It was a little less than he was used to. “Point nine gees?”
Khomkolov performed a similar tiny-dance. “Mmmm. Somewhere in there. Maybe nine point five at most.”
“If the translators are working, it’s around [point-nine-two] gees of acceleration.” Dhuz replied. “Now, shall we take a proper tour of the ship?”
“Sounds like a good thing,” said Khomkolov. “Plus, we need to discuss the procedure when we reach the jump point near Uranus.”
“Ah, yes,” replied Dhuz. “By our current understanding of human neural tissue, it’s not significantly different than ours. You should be able to withstand the jump no problem. Call it a [99.9999%] chance.”
Clark cleared his throat. “Is there a way to add a few more nines to that probability?”
“Of course!” she replied with far too much cheer. “There are a few more tests we can perform on-board. It would require a bit of your neural tissue, which will be a bit of an…er, invasive procedure. But not painful. The only question we’ll need to resolve is the question of how long you’d suffer from jump fugue.”
“Er, yes.” Clark felt a bit apprehensive about that last part. His big worry was that the aliens had under-sold the effects of jump fugue. He put on a brave smile. “Anyways, before that, let’s do that tour!”