“So how do you feel about the complete annihilation of your people?” The little blue creature’s continued bout of probing questions only seemed to irritate Hallsen, “How do you know it was complete, my people don’t go down that easy you know.” “Look I know I said you were bigger than the Al’domi but those guys have some pretty awful ways of wiping out a planet, I mean it was all over the news Jack, complete destruction of the planet's surface, nothing survived.” The expression on the creature's face was something Hallsen had learned meant concern in his time on the Pvari mining outpost. “The surface huh? Well did they get the bunkers?” The creature paused for a moment to think about what was just said, “The what now?” Hallsen grew a smug look as he downed the last of his drink “We’ll be back, just you wait.”
—
The interior of the ship seemed oddly comforting, warm lighting and a dark color scheme was an interesting departure from the normal bright lights and gray walls on older military vessels, not that Admiral Sabin Porter was complaining, in fact he thought the cozy interior of the ship would help improve morale on long voyages. As he soaked in the sight of his new home the Admiral watched as Second Lieutenant Carrie Hopper walked through the bridge bulkhead, opening with a faint hiss. “Admiral, we’ve received word that the shuttles are ready to begin docking, they’re just awaiting your go ahead.” The young woman with short, dark hair and amber eyes spoke sharp and to the point. “Thank you Lieutenant, tell them to begin docking procedures immediately, we’ve got a tight schedule to keep.” Lieutenant Hopper replied with a simple “Yes, sir” and walked back out the way she entered, the door closing behind her with a faint hiss once again before the solid clank of the latches engaging.
Docking procedures on this new line of warships was fairly streamlined as far as docking one ship to another during spaceflight was concerned, a hangar door was located near the bow of the ship just above the keel on either side. When the door opened a landing deck would be revealed and a crane would move the shuttle to its proper docking bay after landing. Hubert Reece felt an enormous sense of pride watching his designs in action, although he hadn’t developed the crane system in its entirety, just having a hand in it seemed to be enough for Hubert to consider it his own. As the massive crane moved to grab the shuttle Hubert braced for the inevitable jolt that came with any two large pieces of machinery making contact, but to his surprise it never came, the crane gracefully lifted the shuttle and carefully placed it in shuttle bay 12, the last docking bay intended for shuttles, the other 88 docking bays were designed for various other fighter and bomber type craft. Only a moment passed after the shuttle bay doors had closed before it began to fill with air again, for now the airlocks seemed to be working as intended but only time would tell if they were truly reliable.
The walk to the bridge was relatively long, roughly half a mile of walking to get from the lower deck of the hangar bay to the upper decks of the ship, the use of various corridors and stairways had been chosen for the design over elevators to simplify the design and add reliability in case of emergency. Seeing the ship’s corridors up close and at full scale was something of a surreal experience for Hubert, it was one thing to visualize things for a design and another to see it first hand on the completed product. Of course the admiral had put his own signature on almost everything you could see but that did little to change the fact that this ship was forged by Hubert and his team, and now he was on his way to become the head of another such team, although this one was supposedly more clandestine than the first.
“Excuse me, Lieutenant Hopper, before we reach the bridge, is there anything you can tell me about the admiral? I generally like to know what I’m in for when meeting new people.” Hubert’s question broke the silence that had formed over the last six minutes. “Well, as I’m sure you can see, the Admiral isn’t exactly the most orthodox of military minds, in fact I’d say he’s probably the strangest of the bunch.” The woman spoke in a relatively soft tone for someone of her position, “Just don’t go insulting him directly to his face, he really hates any form of disrespect and is liable to throw a few punches when he gets mad.”
“I appreciate the info, and I’m in a pretty good mood today so we shouldn’t have any troubles.” Hubert’s reply drew a snort from Jerry, “Hugh, you’re probably the most unintentionally disrespectful person I know, this is gonna be anything but easy for you.” “No I just disrespect you because you’re so easy to disrespect.” “And what the hell is that supposed to mean!?” Hubert chuckled at Jerry’s outburst, “It means exactly what it sounds like.”
The hiss of the bulkhead had become a seamless part of the ship’s ambiance for Admiral Porter by now as it once again opened to reveal yet another group of people wanting to meet with him, except this time the people that came through the door were some people that the Admiral wouldn’t mind spending some time talking to. “Ah, the famous Hubert Reece, glad to have you on board, your designs have fascinated me for some time now. Did you know I was one of the members on the committee that chose your design for this flagship?”, the admiral's face lit up as he spoke. “I had no idea, I thought admirals were supposed to be helping to restructure military personnel during the ship trials.” Hubert seemed shocked that the admiral had such a vested interest in his ship designs. “Normally yes, but since I’m going to be leading the flagship fleet the committee saw it fit that I be part of the team that chose our ship designs”, the admiral’s face grew a big toothy grin, “Of course, I pressured them into it a little bit.”
The admiral wore his emotions on his sleeve, something Hubert found to be a bit strange for someone of his station, but Hubert's apparent discomfort at the situation did little to sway Sabin’s mannerisms. “Out of all the designs we considered yours was by far the best to suit our needs, do you know why?” The admiral’s question was clearly meant to test Hubert to see if he really knew what he was doing or if he just got lucky. “If I had to guess I’d wager it was the heat management systems, I’ve never seen a ship that has such an efficient heat management system, not to mention it doubles as a weapon in an emergency, and with the shear heat output of the warp drive you’d need a reliable way to dispose of said heat.” The admiral, not at all surprised by Hubert’s answer replied, “Precisely, all the other designs had mediocre heat management due to them using conventional heat syncs as well as a combination of too many dedicated weapon platforms, your design struck the perfect balance of firepower and reliability, not to mention that catapulting your heat sync at the enemy is just plain hilarious.” Hubert chuckled at the admiral's response “Heh, yeah I figured the best way to get rid of heat was to just throw it at the enemy”. Just as the admiral was about to respond to Hubert’s remark a loud beeping noise echoed throughout the bridge, “Well it appears the martians need another progress update, those folks can never just have a bit of patience. It was nice meeting you Mr. Reece, I’ll have Lieutenant Hopper show you to your quarters.”
Again the door hissed as the mechanism activated. A man showed up on the large display positioned in the center of the bridge, all that could be seen was his torso upward, he was wearing a brownish red suit jacket with a black tie, immediately giving away that he was a martian politician, “Is everything running according to schedule Admiral?” Porter looked irritated by this question but remained calm, “Yes Mr. Chairman, we’re entering final system checks now and should be entering martian space in two days time.” “Good, I’ll see you then”, the chairman, a role given to the second in command of Mars, responded before suddenly cutting the link. “What a prick” Admiral Porter muttered under his breath before sitting back down in his chair “I’ll be glad not to have to deal with him anymore after the elections are done” he thought to himself. Various politicians had been campaigning for years in an effort to become the President of the new solar alliance that was about to be formed but for some reason the Martian Chairman Han Biwual did not include himself in the running, perhaps out of respect for President Huyang or maybe he just didn’t like the idea of presiding over the more rowdy members of humanity. Whatever the reason, Sabin Porter would be glad to be rid of his condescending tone once the elections were through.
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The ship passed its systems checks with flying colors and the rest of the trip to mars was relatively uneventful, Admiral Porter had a few chats with other ship captains to test out comms systems along with a few combat simulations to test the data link with the other ships in the fleet. Upon arriving to Mars the crew could see that the celebration was already well underway, fireworks could be seen exploding in the atmosphere just over the colony domes and a series of lights was set up to guide the ship to its orbital zone. Admiral Porter looked down to the display screen on his wrist which had been buzzing to notify him that it was time to enter orbit, he quickly pressed the button to shut off the notification and then a second button which opened up the ship's intercom. “Alright everyone, it’s time to enter our orbit. Once we reach orbit I and our guests will head down to the martian surface for the ceremony. While I’m gone First Lieutenant James Trale will be in command of the ship. You all know your rolls so let’s get this done.” The admiral’s matter of fact, monotone delivery was in stark contrast to his usual energetic self.
As the admiral walked through the ship's hallways the ship and its crew appeared to be operating as if they were a single organism, to an outside observer it might appear to be chaotic inside the ship but to the well trained eye everything was running as smooth as could be. This sight gave hope to Admiral Porter and helped calm his nerves, despite his confident exterior he often held doubt that humanity could really stand up to the alien threat that had nearly wiped them out all those years ago. Porter stepped into the shuttle, sat down in his seat and fastened his safety harness. The interior of the shuttle proved to be roomier than he was expecting of such a small craft.
The engines of the shuttle growled to life as the hangar doors opened, the red surface of Mars seemed much closer through the shuttle's windows than from the display on the bridge. As the shuttle took off Porter noted the sound of the engines which were loud enough to drown out any other sounds that could normally be associated with a large metal vehicle in motion. Despite this fact he found their noise rather comforting, unlike all the rattling and clanking of metal heard during the launch of the ship that was soon to be officially named USS Resurgence just a few days prior. The red planet grew ever closer and Porter felt a wave of nerves wash over him briefly before subsiding, he knew that after this ceremony his life and the lives of his crew would have to be put on the line in order to ensure humanity could live on.
Entering the atmosphere of the red planet Admiral Porter could begin to make out the shape of crowds formed under the domes scattered throughout the planet’s surface, fireworks booming over them as the shuttle entered one of the domes through a retractable roof. Touching down in the center of a large stadium the shuttle came to a rather easy halt, gravity being what it was on mars made for easy landings it seemed. Stepping out of the shuttle Porter could see what appeared to be a large portion of Martian military personnel except they weren’t wearing the standard Martian red uniforms that the planet was known for, instead they were wearing a deep blue uniform with white accents, the colors of the new union that was about to be formed. With the Martians apparently all in on the new alliance Admiral Porter began to feel at ease as he approached the stage where Martian Chairman Biwual was giving his speech.
“And with the arrival of humanity's first ever interstellar fleet we Martians shall willingly join hands with our brethren from Earth to form the United Solar Alliance, firmly placing all of humanity under one banner for the first time in history.” Chairman Biwual extended his hand towards Admiral Porter and porter reached out his own to meet the chairman’s, normally this honor would be between the leaders of the two planets but Earth’s leadership had never truly solidified after the incident so the admiral was given the role of acting as a representative of Earth given the circumstances. As the two shook hands the crowds assembled under the domes began to cheer, the massive uproar practically shaking Mars to its core, Admiral Porter thought the domes might shatter at the sheer force of the noise.
“No longer are we divided by any creed or nationality, we are all humans. We venture forth as one people, united by a desire to survive in a harsh and unforgiving galaxy, and though it may be unforgiving we choose to not be shackled by the chains it wishes to place upon us.” The chairman’s speech had reached the point where he appeared to be rambling aimlessly to Admiral Porter whose duty required him to stay for the remainder of the ceremony. By the time it was over Porter had nearly fallen asleep, the Biwual’s speech exhausting the little energy he had left. The crowd, however, was still cheering, despite the Martian propensity for efficiency, they seemingly enjoy long winded and motivational speeches.
As the crowd funneled out of the domes and into the subterranean cities, the chairman turned to Admiral Porter as he headed toward his shuttle. “Thank you for doing this, I know you’d rather attend to your duties on a ship, but it means a lot to the Martian people that Earth is as invested in this alliance as us.” The emotional attitude of Chairman Biwual’s statement seemed much too out of character to Admiral Porter, perhaps he had been wrong about Han Biwual. “Well Chairman Biwual, I’m just glad to see you have an emotional reaction to something for once.” Admiral Porter chuckled at his own joke but Biwual was having none of it. “Yes, well there is much to do, I wish you well out there, please do keep us safe will you.” The return of Chairman Biwual’s extremely blunt attitude only seemed to add to the joke for Sabin who by now was fully enveloped in a fit of hearty laughs, “HAH… very good, well in that case you have nothing to worry about, our fleet is up for any challenge that comes our way. Do your best keeping this rock running smoothly, alright?” Han Biwual gave a grunt of affirmation before turning to exit the dome.
The door to the shuttle closed behind Porter as he sat down and fastened his harness once again. Soon after the shuttle’s engines roared to life and the small craft practically leapt off the surface of Mars, headed back to the USS Resurgence. The ride back the ship was much less nerve racking for Admiral Porter who was glad to be headed back to what would be his home for the foreseeable future. The ship’s docking crane was a welcome sight for Porter, he could finally somewhat relax knowing he was returning to his normal duties.
The halls of the ship felt welcoming and Sabin knew the choice to decorate the ship interior rather than leaving it as a plain gray interior was a good one. The mechanisms of the doors hissing as they opened and closed had become a background noise that provided comfort to him as he made his way to the bridge. Upon entering, First Lieutenant Trale was the first to break the silence, “Welcome back Admiral, it’s good to see you’re still in one piece.” Admiral Porter welcomed the jovial tone, “It’s good to be back Lieutenant, have our guests been dropped off yet?” “Yes sir, and all the shuttles have already returned, we’re ready for your orders.” The daily operations of ship life soothed the admiral as he settled into his seat. “Good to hear, Johnson, get us to Ganymede, we’ve got an outpost to establish.” Navigation Officer Trent Johnson immediately began plugging away at his screen, “Sir, course set for Ganymede, ready to launch at your command.”
“Punch it.”