M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (11 page)

Bridge, M'tak Ka'fek

Lt. Bear was sitting in front of the ship's main control station with his eyes closed listening to music. A pair of white headphones were held on by a flexible connecting band that ran beneath his neck—wearing them over his head pinched his ears and human earbuds wouldn't stay in. Bear had the watch and was actually monitoring the ship and surrounding space using imagery the ship projected directly into his brain. Spooky and disconcerting at first, the entire crew had gotten used to the high-tech telepathic interface during the last two months of their voyage. Also on the bridge were JT, who was doing something at the navigation console, and Joey Sanchez, one of the Marines.

“What ya listening to, LT?” Joey called from the weapon station he was manning. During the first battle back in the Sirius system, trying to run the ship's weapons made most of the crew sick and disoriented. Practice drills had taught the Earthlings to handle the battle cruiser's formidable weaponry, and the accompanying telepathic projections, without blowing chunks.

“Snow Patrol,” Bear replied, his eyes unopened.

“Let me guess, Songs for Polar Bears?”

“Wrong, Sanchez. Too much hip hop and drone crap on that album. I like their later stuff better.”

“Like?”

“A Hundred Million Suns. Has some touches of minimalism, and I'm a big Phillip Glass fan.”

“Who? What?” the confused Marine replied.

“Phillip Glass, Joey,” JT added from the Nav Console. “Kundun? Einstein on the Beach? Icarus at the Edge of Time? Don't tell me you've never heard of Glass—he's one of the most influential composers of the 20
^th
century.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Joey, you ain't got no culture.”

“He doesn't have any taste either, JT. You should hear some of the crap he listens to. Ruin your hearing, and a deaf hunter ends up as something else's dinner.”

“You officers are too highbrow for me,” Joey retorted. “I'm just a poor grunt tryin' to get back home. By the way, Lt. Taylor, sir, with us bouncing from system to system, how do we know where Earth is?”

“The ship has instruments that can compare the relative arrival times of X-ray flashes from pulsars.”

“Pulsars?”

“Massive objects scattered about the galaxy that act like God's own navigation beacons. They're thought to be rapidly rotating neutron stars that send out short pulses of radiation with a beat so steady they rival an atomic clock. With enough known sources and some math you can figure out where you are, sort of like GPS for spaceships.”

“Really? And we know where Earth is from here?”

“Yeah, we have pretty decent charts of our local neighborhood, even out this far. We know where Earth is, it's getting back there in a reasonable amount of time that's the problem.”

“Right,” Bear rumbled. “That's why we're stalking that alien probe ship. The Captain expects it to eventually lead us to a refueling station.”

“So we're gona' steal some antimatter when we find a refueling station?”

“That is not beyond the realm of possibility, Joey.”

“Aw, crap,” Bear exclaimed, opening his eyes. “The alien probe just jumped into alter-space. Better maneuver to follow it—match course and velocity vector for alter-space entry. M'tak, please wake the Captain.”

“Certainly, Lt. Bear,” the ship replied. “I have already set the parameters to follow the target vessel.”

“Great,” griped Joey, “what does this make, four alter-space transits? And each time we make a jump the Captain makes us drill our asses off.”

“That's in case something is waiting at the other end,” Bear growled, as he switched his music player to the score from Mishima. “I hope this time there is, because I could use a little action.”

Task Force Alpha, Headed Back to Earth

The Peggy Sue headed back toward the Sun with the corvettes tucked in like goslings behind a mother goose. Returning from a distance of almost 40 AU, the ships of Task Force Alpha accelerated for twenty one and a quarter hours at 20Gs, bringing their velocity relative to Earth to five percent of the speed of light. Then they stopped accelerating and coasted, across the outer reaches of the solar system headed for Sol's habitable zone and Earth. The corvettes were happy to let the larger ship's more powerful shields sweep the path in front of them clean of dust and debris—at such velocities even striking a small pebble could be disastrous.

“Tell me again why we are not accelerating to the half way point and then decelerating, Mr. Vincent?” asked one of the new crewmembers. Compared with the excitement of a space battle and the subsequent boarding operation, standing watch seemed more than a little boring.

Tedium not withstanding, watches must be stood, even Mid Watch from midnight to 0400 hours. Billy Ray was Officer of the Deck, sitting in the Captain's chair above the helm and other bridge stations. At least on this voyage there were a sufficient number of officers to stand watch without wearing them all to a frazzle.

“One of the reasons is that there's a lot of junk floating about in space. It may not seem like it, but traveling as fast as we are the ship covers a lot of territory in a short amount of time. Even dust can be dangerous, so we need to have the shields up all the time. That takes a lot of energy, as do accelerating and decelerating.”

“So how long will it take to get home?”

“We accelerated for just over 21 hours, now we coast for another 87 hours or so and then start decelerating,” Billy Ray answered. “In all it will take us about five and a half days to make port at Farside.”

“I guess that's not so long, it took the better part of a month to get out here. How fast are we going again?”

Billy Ray sighed, all this information was available from the ship's computer if you knew how to ask. They were coming to the end of the watch and the crew were undoubtedly as anxious to be relieved as he was. “We are currently traveling 15,000 km/sec, about five percent of
c
. That's another reason to not accelerate constantly the whole way—if we get going too fast, relativistic effects start to become noticeable.”

“Like what, Sir?” asked a Marine, seated at the port side weapon station.

“Like time dilation. Time for us on board slows down relative to those back home. Not that you'll notice, but we will all be a bit under eight minutes younger than those who stayed at the base when we get back.”

“Really?”

“Really. Just ol' Al Einstein's way of messing with us,” the Texan lieutenant drawled. “OK, Q&A time is over. We need a systems check before the watch ends, look alive...”

Chapter 6

Balcony Bar, Farside Atrium

Following the announcement of Task Force Alpha's victory the celebration lasted until the wee hours of the next morning, but it was nothing compared to the blowout party that erupted when the task force finally made port. Martial fervor gripped the populace. Anyone who had been on the mission was unable to buy their own drinks in any establishment on the base. Those who hadn't could not hear enough about the attack by the Navy and subsequent boarding by the Marines.

Crew from the corvettes reenacted the battle with their hands in the tradition of fighter pilots since the Great War. In the midst of them was the irrepressible Frenchy Bouchard, his hands above his head at convergent angles. 

“And then we swept in on the enemy for the kill” he told his audience of rapt listeners while sweeping one handful of extended fingers past the other accompanied by a whooshing sound. “Bam, Bam, Bam! We blew them out of the sky!”

From another table, where mostly crew from the Peggy Sue were gathered, someone called out: “So why did we have to take out three of the bogies ourselves after you made your devastating attack on the alien formation?”

“Hey, we took out our target and so did our wing man,” Frenchy protested. “But we didn't want to keep all the fun for ourselves,
tu sais?
” 

“Right, Frenchy,” another crew member scoffed, “you PT boat jockeys only took out half of the enemy as you streaked past them.”

“
Mais oui
, but we were in a hurry to blow the mother ship's head off.”

“Yeah, and left it to us to kill the rest of them and then disable the enemy ship by blowing its engines off. Now that was some real shooting!”

“Yeah, all done from the safety of your nice comfy spaceships,” added a new voice. “In the end it was the Marines that settled the matter.” This brought a chorus of agreement from a table dressed mostly in Marine green.

“Damn straight!” boomed a loud, low voice from one corner. One of the polar bears, making a rare appearance in public. It had been hinted from above that the bears should mingle with their human comrades in a show of inter-species solidarity.

The argument over who had performed the most essential part in defeating the alien invaders had been going on for hours and showed no signs of letting up. Not as long as the main bar was filled with a mixture of crew from the corvette squadron, the Peggy Sue and the Marine boarding party. Add in a mixture of civilian admirers and other base personnel and the good natured verbal abuse would probably go on all night.

Here and there among the green and blue military jumpsuits the occasional black of an officer could be seen. They had come by to congratulate their men and quietly reinforce the desire by the command staff that everyone have a good, non-violent time. Word had been passed prior to arrival at Farside that anyone engaging in a brawl would find themselves back out on patrol so fast they wouldn't know what hit them. So far the inter-service sparring had remained verbal only.

One of the officers in attendance was a tall, lean figure, casually propped against the bar with a bottle of Samuel Adams Boston Lager in one hand. Probably one of the last bottles of Sam Adams beer left in the universe. He was reconnoitering the bar much like he would have in Austin or San Antonio just a few years ago.

Walking unhurriedly across the crowded room was another tall figure in black—Lt. Melaku, exchanging a word of commendation here and accepting congratulations there. Approaching the bar, she became aware of the other officer's presence. They made an interesting couple, both of a similar height and dressed in matching jumpsuits. Trim and attractive, the main contrast between them being that her skin was the color of buffed ebony and his a pale ivory.

“Good evening, Lt. Vincent,” she began and then corrected herself when she noticed the small gold oak leaf on his collar, “I'm sorry, Lieutenant Commander Vincent. Congratulations, Sir.”

“Why thank you,” Billy Ray replied, straightening up and turning to face the female officer. He noticed that her collar insignia was now the two silver bars of a full lieutenant. “And congratulations yourself, Lieutenant Melaku.”

Though Beth had been acting squadron commander during the mission she had been a Lieutenant JG, junior grade. Her leadership during the engagement had been recognized with a promotion to Lieutenant and assignment as commander of the base's growing corvette squadron.

Similarly, Billy Ray's performance as XO—executive officer—of the Peggy Sue had earned him promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Around the base, the scuttlebutt said he would soon be getting a ship of his own to command.

“How are your crew enjoying their reception?”

“They have quite taken to it, Sir. It will be hard to get them back out on patrol when the time comes, I'm afraid.”

“Well they all deserve a bit of partyin' given what they did. Lord knows what the future might hold.”

“You sound like you are expecting more trouble, Commander.”

“One thing you can depend on, Lieutenant, is trouble—the Universe produces an endless supply of it.” Billy Ray was dropping into his friendly cowboy persona in-spite of himself, the one that used to work so well picking up women in bars back home. He looked at the officer standing next to him, for the first time evaluating her charms as a member of the opposite sex.

She was tall enough that they could look each other levelly in the eyes. Her classic Ethiopian features looked quite exotic to a man from Texas—high forehead and cheekbones, narrow aristocratic nose and dark flashing eyes. She could have easily passed for a fashion model in Paris or New York.

On a low stage in one corner of the bar the band, which had been on break, was getting ready to start back up. Playing a mixture of Stevie Ray Vaughn, George Strait and Los Lonely Boys covers, with an occasional Tejano number thrown in for good measure, the best that could be said for the music was that it was loud and enthusiastic. As the band played an intro to “Texas Flood,” Billy Ray made a decision, not realizing its significance at the time.

“Would you like to go someplace where we can hold a normal conversation?” he asked with more than a hint of his Texas accent in evidence.

“And where would that be, Commander?” Beth replied cautiously, her British accent sounding more formal to the cowboy than intended.

“I know a quiet bar just across the Atrium,” he replied earnestly, sensing hesitation in the woman's reply. “Right now it's servin' as sort of an Officer's Club—most of the higher-ups are there.”

“Higher-ups?”

“Yeah, like Col. Tropsha and her staff, and Capt. Curtis. I came here to make the rounds among the crew, but now I'm feelin' like my presence may be dampening the party mood.”

Beth surveyed the room and noticed that most of the other officers had already departed. Though there was no written directive against fraternization between officers and enlisted personnel, old traditions died hard. “Yes, I see what you mean. You say it's just across the Atrium?”

“Sure enough, down on the main level over by the waterfall,” Billy Ray said, trying to close the deal. “I'm Billy Ray, by the way.”

“Call me Beth,” she answered with a dazzling smile. Billy Ray had some notoriety as a pickup artist, a lady's man not interested in anything beyond a one night stand, but Beth had no demure reputation herself. Together they walked toward the exit, oblivious to the knowing grins among their respective crews.