Alien Fireworks
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The crew of the Nos was exploring deep space when they stumbled upon a planet that showed signs of intelligent life. When sending down a probe to investigate, it was shot down by the locals. Grant, the stranded pilot must navigate this alien terrain while staying out of sight of the locals, hoping that the crew above would be able to save him. Meanwhile, the crew is worried that the ship will be the next target for the locals. And when communications with the homeworld are suddenly lost, they must deal with the very real possibility that their alone against the unknown forces below.
Cassandra Morphy
Cassandra Morphy is a Business Data Analyst, working with numbers by day, but words by night. She grew up escaping the world, into the other realities of books, TV shows, and movies, and now she writes about those same worlds. Her only hope in life is to reach one person with her work, the way so many others had reached her. As a TV addict and avid movie goer, her entire life is just one big research project, focused on generating innovative ideas for worlds that don’t exist anywhere other than in her sick, twisted mind.
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Alien Fireworks - Cassandra Morphy
Chapter One
The Close Call
The captain of the Nos was awakened by an alarm blaring throughout the ship. It was a standard red alert, one that didn't give any indication of what was wrong. All that it indicated was that something was wrong.
Oh, what now?
he grumbled.
He was annoyed that the alarm didn't provide more information so that he might address the issue without having to get up. It could have been something simple, like the helmsman accidentally hitting the button. Or something critical, like the proximity sensors detecting an imminent impact with an unexpected planet. As the alarm continued without any further announcement, or impacts, he figured it was more likely the former. The automated alarms were usually more helpful, though they mostly sounded when it was too late to do anything about them.
Reluctant to leave his comfortable bed, in the off chance that it was just a mistake, he rolled across it towards the opening. He didn’t have the headroom to sit up properly within the wall cavity that his bed was in. In his half-asleep state, he slipped off the edge and flopped onto the floor. Grumbling, he pushed himself up to his feet. The bridge was just around the corner from his cabin, so he didn’t have to go far.
Status report,
he ordered, without bothering to look to see if anyone was on the bridge. Someone was always on the bridge. What's going on?
Sir, we got hit by something,
the helmsman on watch said. The computer registered it as a wave, though I’m not sure what kind of wave would be able to travel through space like that. It knocked us out of FTL.
What the hell do you mean by a wave?
the captain barked.
I don’t know, sir. That was just what the readout was saying before our instruments cut out. I wasn’t able to pull any new data beyond that.
Well, bring them back online,
he yelled at the man, as he fell into his captain's chair.
He always hated having to tell his men how to do their own jobs. Most of them are well experienced at their assigned tasks. However, he didn't quite remember seeing this helmsman before. With a quick glance at the clock on his screen, he knew it was in the middle of third watch, the overnight watch. Those soldiers stuck on third watch usually had earned it at some point, and usually from continued incompetence. Nothing this helmsman was doing changed the captain’s opinion in the slightest.
Reboot the system if you have to.
Yes, sir,
the helmsman said. His voice was a mixture of annoyance and panic.
The captain glared down at the man, wondering what exactly he had to be annoyed about. He hadn't been the one to be woken up from a perfectly good dream.
The instruments should be coming back online right... now.
The captain had to hand it to the man. He timed that perfectly, cueing for the instruments the moment they came back online. However, once they had, neither had much time to congratulate each other. As the display screens flickered back to life, with readouts from each of the detection systems lining the display, it was filled with a darkness that was quite obviously not the emptiness of space. The headlights of the ship snapped on only two seconds later, falling upon the gigantic form of the asteroid. The thing was a world killer, and would barely notice their presence as it rolled into the Nos, as if the ship were nothing but an insect.
Turn the ship,
the captain screamed at the top of his lungs. He was no longer half asleep, clutching at the armrests of his chairs as if that would help move the ship out of the way. Up full power.
I'm already at up full power, captain,
the helmsman said, all sense of military bearing forgotten in the face of certain death. We don't have enough thrust. We're going to hit.
Well, hit the afterburners, then,
the captain yelled. It was the first thing that he thought of other than the silent scream that engulfed his entire mind.
The afterburners?
The helmsman looked around his control terminal for the right button.
The captain gave an annoyed huff as he jumped forward, using enough force to break free of the artificial gravity for a moment before it grabbed hold of him again. He had made the jump more times than he would have liked, always having to correct the errors of his underlings. His hands went through the overly practiced procedure to initiate the afterburners before his feet even hit the floor.
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he saw the readout for the afterburners pop up over the main sub-light controls. With the afterburners running, they wouldn’t have much control over direction. The main display showed the corresponding increase in speed, as the new source of thrust moved them away from the asteroid. Collision Alert
popped up on the display, as the ship’s sensors noticed the impending impact. The automated alert replaced the manual one, as the computers sounded the alarm throughout the ship. Had he not been on the bridge already, it would have been too late for him to have done much about it.
The captain held his breath as the proximity sensors counted down the distance to the asteroid. He feared it wouldn't be enough, but it was all they had. The only other option he could think of was venting the entire ship to get just a little more thrust, and that would defeat the purpose of saving it. The helmsman's hand was on the signal to abandon the ship. However, the captain knew that, if they impacted with the asteroid, it would be too late to save anyone. The impact would take out half the ship, and the other half would just buckle in on itself. If the ship didn't make it, no one would survive.
As the proximity sensor slowly ticked to zero, a metal scraping echoed down the hallways to them. From how the metal grated, the captain was sure that they would make it past the asteroid with little more than scraped paint and a dinged hull. He knew his ship well enough to already know they would survive the encounter. But he had to wait for the scraping to stop, for the proximity sensor to start ticking back up again, before he could give the all clear. Before he could assure his men and women that they were going to live another day.
Once the scraping stopped, he hit the shipwide button in the corner of the display. Damage report,
he called out. He knew that the damage control teams would already be at work looking for any effect that the asteroid would have had on the ship. He knew that his call was unnecessary, but it made him feel better to think that his booming voice would be enough to put them into motion. The first few reports were already ticking into the corresponding section of the display as he stood there, glaring down at the incompetent fool that almost cost all of them their lives.
What the hell was that,
the captain yelled at the helmsman. How could you not have seen that asteroid coming at us? That thing was huge. And why weren't we in FTL?
Like I said.
The helmsman’s voice quivered in fear. He kept his head low, staring into the display in front of him as he explained what happened. We were hit by some kind of wave. We were in FTL at the time, but it knocked us out when it hit us. The instruments were down when we came out, so there was no way for us to detect that asteroid.
Why didn't we detect the asteroid already, if it was in our flight path? We still would have hit it, just at FTL, which would have ended the ship a lot faster. We wouldn't have known what hit us until we were all dead. The instruments should have seen it coming.
If the instruments had detected the asteroid when the FTL path was charted, they must have calculated that the ship would have been able to deflect it with the FTL field, or skirt around it, or something. At least... at least that's what the textbooks say.
The helmsman's voice tapered off near the end, as he lost confidence in his own words.
The textbooks?
the captain asked, hesitantly. You mean... You are certified, right? That’s supposed to indicate that you’re ready to stand a watch without anyone looking over your shoulder. No one that isn’t certified should be at the helm alone. Or, was this a training session? Your instructor didn’t step out of the room or something stupid, did they? How many times have you been at the helm, soldier?
This is the fifth time, sir. I... I only got certified yesterday.
Well, congratulations. You're going to have the shortest certification in the history of the fleet.
The captain flopped back down in his chair, exhausted from the stress of the moment. He pulled up the schedule so he wouldn't need to ask the helmsman for his name. He should have known all his men from sight by now, especially after having left dry dock over eighteen months ago. But he was never good with names, especially with people that he wouldn't have interacted with on a regular basis. If the man hadn’t been on the bridge during one of his own watches, he wasn’t likely to run into him that often.
The schedule entry had a link to the man's record, to Grant's record, where the certification for helmsman was shown in blue, indicating that the certification was still probationary. He didn’t bother to look at the rest of the record, already knowing what he thought was all he needed to know. So, he missed a rather interesting little tidbit about the helmsman that may have stayed his hand. With three more clicks, the certification was completely scrubbed from his record. Grant would have to start all over again with the process, needing to take the eight-week long class from the beginning before being able to get certified again. Perhaps then he would know better than to risk the entire ship. His ship.
He clicked out of Grant’s record, back to his home display, just in time to see the last of the damage reports coming in. He gave a great sigh of relief when he saw that only one compartment had been breached during the interaction with the asteroid. This confirmed what he had known just by hearing the sounds of the asteroid scraping the hull. The compartment had already been sealed off from the rest of the ship long before the impact, so the decompression hadn’t gone any further. However, when he noticed which compartment it was, he glared back over at the idiot behind the helm.
Four more clicks brought the captain back over to the shipwide. He cleared his throat, hoping he won't sound hoarse from yelling at the young soldier, before clicking on the announcement system. This is Captain Stond. Due to the sloppiness of our helmsman…
He paused, tempted to tell everyone the man's name, but decided not to. He figured that he had done enough damage by sending him back to the beginning of his class. We have only just avoided impact with a local asteroid.
He clicked a few more buttons, double checking that his next statement was correct before continuing. The damage control team is already on site and they are repairing the minor breach in the hull. However, the damage that had been done was on the lower level of the docking bay. The helmsman will need to answer to the science faction for the loss of the mysterious fluid we collected on planet P1-028, as I assume that has been lost to space and the asteroid. I know this will be quite the blow to the scientists back home. However, we still have the alien ship from that planet. That should be enough to keep them busy for awhile and off our backs. Plus, there should be at least some residue left behind to study, especially on the alien ship. We will be hanging around this sector while we make repairs and verify that all systems are ready for FTL. I do apologize for the lost sleep—
He glared over at Grant again, wishing he could go back to sleep himself. —but the ship comes first. That is all. Captain Stond out.
A hissing sound seemed to be coming from Grant as he hunched over his station, his shoulders moving in the silent sobs that racked him. This surprised him a bit. He hadn't thought his actions too harsh, but Grant seemed to be taking it harder than he should have been. The military faction had a bit of a tough love approach to things. It pushed the strong to greatness, the weak to leave. It was what Stond was brought up in, what was expected of him. If his men didn’t fear him, it could cost them dearly at the wrong opportunity. If it came between following orders and saving their own hide, his crew would take him out without a second thought.
And, yet, everything that happens on his ship all came down to Stond’s responsibility. No matter how qualified, or unqualified, the individuals involved. Without a strong, heavy hand, his career would be over. Assuming the ship wasn’t destroyed before they made it home. In which case it was more than his career.
When your relief comes, you will need to go back to the docking bay and have one of those pilots drop a gate on that asteroid while it is still in range,
the captain said. He did the man a service by not mentioning anything about his crying. Not Cara, though. I’ve heard that she has this new AI she wants to test out. Just…one of those other guys. I can never remember their names.
Grant looked back towards him, over his shoulder. Fear was plain in his eyes, though the captain wasn’t entirely sure of the source. My relief?
Grant asked, confused.
You didn't think you would still be able to finish your watch, did you? You've lost your certification. I can't have someone that isn't certified stay at the helm.
Stond pulled the schedule back up. Once he had cleared Grant's certification, a replacement would have automatically been assigned and notified. Before he could check the name, Sora walked onto the bridge. She was Stond's favorite of the standing helmsmen, for so many reasons. Sora came up before the captain's chair, saluting him formally, before turning to Grant's whimpering form.
You are relieved,
she said, the required phrase to end a person's watch.
I-I stand r-relieved.
Grant sniffled. Without looking to Sora, he stumbled down from the helm and slogged off the bridge. The sound of his crying flared up once he was out of sight before fading off into the distance.
What is this going to do to our ETA?
Stond asked Sora, before she could sit down.
Wait one,
Sora said, as she started to tap on the screen. Knowing the woman to be quite efficient at her work, Stond waited patiently for her response. Well, if we leave within the day, and head straight home, we should still arrive by the Victory Day celebration. It will be the morning before rather than the full day you would have preferred. However...
She trailed off as she continued to fiddle with the controls.
However?
Stond prompted, already overly impatient from Grant's exploits.
However, we won't be heading straight home,
she said.
And why is that?
Because there is a system on the far edge of our sensors that we will be required to examine.
Stond pressed his forehead into his hand. The lost sleep was starting to get to him as his impatience wore thin. Didn't we pass by this system already?
They must have come through this area tons of times, especially on their way out from the homeworld. Did you check to see if it was already in the database?
Yes, sir.
Sora seemed to sense that he was close to anger, as she tried to deliver the news as gently as she could. The system was entered into the logs as soon as the instruments came back online and detected it. I'm not sure why it was never found earlier. The star was charted, but ours is the first record of an actual scan.
But we did come this way, on our way out from the homeworld, didn’t we?
Actually, no. This isn’t our usual path back home. We had arced down a different spoke of the galaxy. I had set this route up as a shortcut. We were set to head across the space between the spokes, cutting out several days of travel. You wanted to get home sooner, so I wanted to make it happen. The records show that no other ship had traveled close enough to the system to get a proper reading on it.
Is there any strategic value to the system? If it’s out of the way, then there’s no reason for us to do a tactical assessment of it, is there? Let’s just leave it for the exploratory teams. We could even blame them for not finding it sooner. Those damn scientists could take a ding on their record. Maybe it would be enough to…
Stond trailed off, as dreams of deposing the ruling faction played out across his mind. He had no delusions of his own elevation to politics, but it would be enough to elevate his standing in society to be part of the ruling class. However, he doubted that a single missed system would have been enough to tip the balance.
We're picking up at least two planets, and an ABEGSL on the edge of our scanner's radius,
Sora said. If we head home, they're just going to have us turn around and come back here. Even without the scientific assessment done already, they’re going to want us to do our own. In fact--
Yes, they’re going to want us to do their work for them,
Stond grunted. Fine. Chart the path and head out as soon as the damage control team gives the all clear.
He got up from his chair, groaning with the exertion as his exhaustion threatened to claim him again. Captain Stond had been pulling a lot of late nights in the last few missions, making sure his men and women got back safely and in one piece. As his sleep had grown scarce, his temper grew similarly short. He didn’t notice it. The crew did. Still, he yearned to get back home, not just for the celebration, but for the much-needed shore leave. This had been his twentieth deployment, and he was hoping it would be his last.
And make sure there aren't any more asteroids in our path,
he said, before leaving the bridge.
Chapter Two
Demotion
The entire time that it took for Grant to go from one end of the ship to the other, he was kicking himself for being so unlucky as to be on duty when they ran into that wave. It had been the first time he sat at the helm alone. That sort of thing had never come up in any of the training drills he had gone through. The self-deprecating questions kept swirling around in his head. Why did this have to happen on his first solo shift? Why hadn’t it happened on one of the several watches he had stood with those more experienced, while he was earning his certification? Or, better yet, while someone else had been at the helm, like that suck-up Sora.
By the time Grant made it to the aft section of the ship, he had managed to get a hold of his emotions. He always hated crying, especially in front of superior officers. And, yet, in the two years since he left basic training, he had been doing that an awful lot. It was frustrating, being on that ship, surrounded by those people every day. As if it wasn’t bad enough growing up with people just like that; military focused people, the kids of the military faction. He never wanted that life for himself, but it wasn’t like he had much of a choice in the matter. Not with his father…
This latest time was so much worse; to cry in front of the captain himself was completely humiliating. Grant knew that he just was not cut out for the military. This instance proved it more than any that had come before it. He couldn't wait to get home so that he could beg his father to let him out of his contract. Maybe then he’d have a chance to go to the academy, the school that granted entry into the science faction. Or, at the very least, maybe his father would let him switch over to the tug fleet.
Grant loved to fly, both in and out of gravity wells. It was the only thing he had found that he did well, better than most people who tried it. But, unfortunately, the larger ships were crucial to the military as they explored and secured the known universe. And, so, the smaller ships, the fighters and tugs that Grant excelled at piloting, were becoming expendable. Except, of course, at the fleet's central dry dock in low orbit around the homeworld. It was certainly not suitable for an admiral's son to be flying around tugs in the safety of their own region of space. So, of course, he already knew what the admiral would say.
Not on your life.
Grant said the words aloud, in the best impression he could do of his father. The man was twice the size of Grant, with a guttural voice that he could never properly do justice to.
What are you babbling about this time?
came a question from ahead, from the docking bay. The lilting voice sounded like she was already laughing at Grant. Everyone should be laughing at him right then, even her. Especially her. Grant knew that it was only a matter of time. Even though Cara was his only friend on that accursed ship, it wouldn’t be enough to keep her from laughing at him. Worse, it might be the one thing that finally made her realize what a waste of time being his friend was.
Nothing,
Grant said. Just wallowing in the eternal misery that is my life.
What did you do now? Drop a wrench on the LT's foot again?
Worse. So much worse.
Oh, no,
Cara said. She glided around a large crate and into view as Grant came into the docking bay. Didn't you certify for helmsman yesterday?
Yup,
Grant said. And yup.
Dang,
Cara said. To her credit, there was no humor in her voice. How bad is it?
I lost my certification and I'm to answer to the scientist faction when we get home.
Cara let out a low whistle. Dead man walking.
My father is going to kill me.
Maybe now he'll see that you're just not cut out for this. Course, now, you'll never be admitted to the academy either. Failing out of the military faction, barred from the science faction. You're just doomed all around. So, did you come back here to hide? Your usual crate is filled with samples now. We're all stocked up.
No, I'm supposed to fly a portal over to the asteroid,
Grant said. He didn’t mention that the captain didn’t say him exactly. Just one of the pilots, and not Cara. He did fall into that category, though.
He didn't take your pilot's license when he decertified you?
Cara asked. Did he even know you had your license?
Probably not,
Grant admitted. I think you’re the only pilot he knows the name of, let alone the face of.
He headed over to one of the docked tugs. There were several of them lining both sides of the upper section of the docking bay. Beneath him, in the sealed off lower section, the damage control team would be hard at work repairing the rift in the hull that he had caused. Even through the thick bulkhead, he could hear the sounds of them banging the metal back into place. He tried to ignore it, the constant reminder of his failure, as he brought up his file on the docking console. His cheeks flared when he looked at his certifications. He noticed that his helmsman certification wasn't just revoked, it was completely removed. That son of a--
That's our captain,
Cara said, interrupting him before he could earn another demerit.
Even in the aft of the ship, there were ears everywhere, many of whom would be on the captain’s side. She looked around, as if expecting to find spies at every corner. They usually only talked badly about the captain in private. Where no one could hear them. Where no one would care if they said anything at all. They both agreed, soon after they first came on board the Nos, that the captain was the perfect example of everything that was wrong with the military faction. But, surrounded as they were by that same said faction, they couldn’t very well say it openly.
So, he took away your license, then?
No, thankfully I still have that, and the three hundred logged hours. That's more than I can say about my certification. He cleared out the entire logs on that. I'm back to day one, as if I've done absolutely nothing this whole trip to advance my career. My father is going to kill me, bring me back to life, skin me alive, then kill me all over again. He's definitely not letting me out of the military now. He'll probably just say that I bring it upon myself, as usual.
Don’t you mean brought?
That would suggest that I’m done doing it. He’s long past thinking I’ll ever change.
Well, you did almost crash the ship.
That asteroid wasn't there when they plotted the course. It couldn’t have been. I didn't even touch the flight plan from the previous helmsman. All I did, besides sit there for five hours, was hit the button to sound the alarm when we were hit by the wave. That wave did everything else. It dropped us out of FTL and damaged all the sensors that would have let me adjust course in time. How would anyone have known that we’d need to dodge anything, or in what direction to go? If someone else was in that chair when it happened, they would have done the same exact thing. If his precious Sora had been there, she would have too. It's not my fault.
And, yet, standing here complaining about things that aren't your fault instead of doing your job is your fault,
Lt. Bigsby said.
He swooped around the corner. His coat, always left open and undone, swung around him in a flourish as if it were a cape, sweeping up the air behind him. It wasn’t regulation to have it open, as it would be likely to snag on some loose piece of machinery somewhere. But the LT was the kind of man that would flaunt those rules, just to look cool, and not let on that that was the reason he was doing it.
What exactly are you supposed to be doing right now, besides almost getting us all killed? I knew that it would have to be you, Grant. No one else would have put the entire ship at risk like that.
Grant, doing the smart thing and not rising to the bait, only said, I was ordered to drop a portal on the asteroid, sir.
He looked back to the controls, to the tug by his side. He was so close, so close to getting out there, into space, the one place he had always felt at home. If only he had been powering up the systems, instead of just standing there, talking to Cara.
Let someone else do that; let Cara here do that. I'm sure she will be able to land a portal without killing anyone. You, I'm not so sure about. With your track record, you'll fly into the asteroid instead of landing on it and somehow make the portal explode in the process, taking out the entire ship along with you.
But, sir, aren't portals usually stable? I've never heard of one exploding.
Well, there's a first time for everything.
Bigsby glared down at Grant.
The LT was easily a foot taller than him, and well known to not like being contradicted. Part of Grant wondered why the man hadn’t beaten him into submission for talking back to him. In such times, he was forced to wonder just how much of an influence his father’s position had over his treatment on the ship. And how much better, or worse, it would be if no one had known.
And I'm sure you'll be the one to find a way to manage it. No, there are some floors to be mopped in the mess before people start waking up for breakfast. Get to it, runt.
But the captain said not to have Cara do it,
Grant said.
Lt. Bigsby ignored Grant as he grabbed him by the back of his uniform. He dragged him out of the docking bay before Grant could say anything else. Grant shot a glance behind him, back towards Cara. His face was frozen in a desperate, but silent, cry for help. She just shrugged at him. They both knew that she couldn't do anything to help even if she tried. As he was dragged out of sight of the docking bay, Cara started powering up the tug he had been standing next to the entire time. Now, she would be the one piloting it out to the asteroid, something he very much wished he could be doing instead.
Due to their early wake up call, the mess hall was already teaming with people by the time the LT dragged the poor Grant in there. Bigsby practically threw the smaller man onto the floor in the center of the room. Silence filled the area as people noticed Grant's arrival. As he looked around at the soldiers surrounding him, it quickly became apparent that news of his latest failure had beaten him there. They all glared down at him, silently telegraphing that they knew what he had done. They knew that he had been at the helm that morning. They knew that he was the helmsman that the captain had mentioned. They knew that he was responsible for their disturbed sleep. Even those few individuals who were generally out of the loop were getting whispered mentions of those facts right there in front of him as Grant gradually got to his feet. The harsh whispers followed him as he headed to the supply closet to get the wet mop.
Over the course of the next hour, Grant tried to clean the floor of the packed mess hall, under the watchful eyes of the LT. The mess hall patrons took it upon themselves to make his job harder. After cleaning up one area, someone would end up pouring out their drinks right in that spot. They all made it their duty to make Grant go over each section multiple times before they were finally clean. Even then, he’d need to retrace his steps back to previous areas that someone else had decided to stain once he was gone. He put up with it, grinning and bearing it, knowing that it would be the least that he got from this latest event. The worse treatments, the straight up physical altercations, would come later, when people found him alone.
If it had only been the military on the ship, the crowd in the room wouldn’t have stopped them. They would have all ganged up on him then and there, beating him into a pulp. However, no one wanted one of the scientists to spot them breaking the rules. Though those few scientists had no real authority on the ship, they were bound to report any violations up the chain of command. There was a reason that the science faction was in charge. It was their duty to rein in the military wherever they could.
By the time he managed to get halfway across the room, he spotted Bigsby shaking his head in disgust before heading out of the mess hall. At first, Grant had hoped the man would have gone off to cause someone else grief. He hated the thought of wishing that on anyone. But then he remembered that he was the only one that tended to get, let alone earn, such treatment from the man.
The portal is in place,
Cara said, as she came over to him hours later. Grant hadn’t noticed her arrival until she spoke, focusing on getting the work done as completely as possible, given the interference from the rest of the crew.
The mess hall was clearing out as first watch was starting up. Normally, since he had stood a post during third watch, he would be off duty. But Grant still had a sizable portion of the floor left to clean, most of which was in areas he had already done four or five times before. He had been given a task by a superior officer, one that he had been expected to get done. Grant wasn’t going to be off duty until the floor was clean enough to eat off of.
Cara was carrying two trays, one for each of them. She sat down at a table off to the side, over in the area that he would still need to clean. Grant quickly finished cleaning the rest of the floor before coming over to sit with her. It was a lot easier once everyone was gone, leaving the two of them alone. The intoxicating smell of the food played with his mind before he managed to dig into what would be his dinner, since he had been on third watch and hadn’t been to bed yet.
Word is that we're being diverted to a nearby system to catalog it,
Cara said. She was always up on the gossip of the ship. She was fortunate enough that her association with Grant didn’t impact the popularity that her good looks usually afforded her. So, we're going to miss the Victory Day celebration.
Great, something else for people to blame me for,
Grant grunted.
Well, maybe the system will have something of value. Maybe it’s the perfect position to establish a forward base, or reveal some big mystery. We’re out here to ‘make the unknown known’ and all that. ‘Supremacy in the galaxy’. If this planet helps us do that, maybe this whole mess will be heralded as a benefit to the mission. Maybe it will even land us a bonus when we get back. People will come around then.
I think people would only come around if I managed to get myself stranded in that system, maybe sucked into the gravity well of a planet and left to die.
No, I think that would make things worse,
Cara said. We'd end up having to come and rescue you, lest we fall under the fury of the admiral. Though we might get away with leaving you stranded on an ABEGSL, at least temporarily.
Yet another way that my father is ruining my life. I can't even be abandoned by the people that want to get rid of me.
Grant, that isn't a bad thing. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Why? No one else is going to. Well, except for you, but you're an oddball.
No, I'm your friend.
Though it was obvious to Grant that she was trying to comfort him, he picked up on a slight hesitation on the word friend. As usual, he just wrote it off as her annoyance that he was her only choice for that category on that accursed ship.
Same difference.
Look, you made a mistake... or not, I wasn't sitting in that chair this morning. Neither were any of the other people on this ship. Maybe things would have turned out the same if someone else was helmsman when we got hit by... what was it again?
Grant shrugged. I don’t know. The readouts just called it a wave.
Did they say how big it was? Or how powerful? Like powerful enough to move asteroids out of their original paths? Maybe it wasn’t your fault at all. Maybe whatever caused that wave was to blame. We might have missed that asteroid entirely, not because of the FTL field, but simply because it wouldn't have been in our path had that wave not hit it. Which would mean it would have been no one's fault, right? Maybe that will come out when they do a review of the logs.
A review of the logs?
Grant asked. Seriously? Captain Impulse Control? Not a chance. If there was something in the logs to indicate your little theory, he’d probably just double down on it. He’ll try to convince the review committee that I faked the log entry. Or worse, if he knew about you being my friend, he might blame you. You’d better run while you still can.
Not on your life. I’m not about to allow him to blame you for a chance encounter.
Right. It was just the randomness of the universe.
The divinity,
Cara cooed.
Oh, not that again,
Grant blustered. There is nothing divine about the randomness of the universe, or the unknown elements that cause it.
They fell off into their usual discussion on the latest religion that had been circulating among the military. It was this idea that everything they haven't been able to explain in their travels could be associated with the archaic idea of a higher power that controlled all of the universe. The old religions had gone out of style on the homeworld, largely due to the science faction. But the exploratory missions had never found a lack of wonder amongst the stars. It was a lot easier on their military minds to attribute it to a deity than something they couldn’t understand well enough to destroy.
Chapter Three
The Arrival
Dropping out of FTL now, Captain,
Sora said. Sora had always loved exploring a new system. It had been the main reason why she had signed up to the military to begin with. If she had joined the science faction, like her mother wanted her to, she would have been stuck in a lab somewhere. She didn’t want to miss anything. That was why she had stayed on through first watch, trading with the helmsman that was originally scheduled for it. There was no way she was going to miss this. The scan of the system is complete. We found four planets, four ABEGSLs, and six large bodies. They're showing the standard orientation, though this is only a single star system. The largest of the planets is showing signs of pre-star life, but it would need to be triggered to start burning.
Ugh,
Captain Stond grunted. I hate that term. ABEGSL. Astral body with enough gravity to support life. Why not just call them habitable rocks, or habs for short?
People thought the term would be too confusing,
Sora explained. It was the same every time they came on a new system. Unfortunately, her initial reports were going straight into the record, including a recording of her calling the astral bodies out. So, she couldn’t humor him in any way, even if it was just to alleviate his annoyance. He was always so much nicer when he wasn’t annoyed. With this unexpected detour sidetracking the entire trip, he was going to be insufferable until they got to the homeworld. Habitable to whom?
she asked.
Well, how do you determine if a rock has enough gravity to support life? How do you define life?
"Multicellular lifeforms that live off other