The Odyssey and the Iliad (Kinsella Universe Book 7) Page 3

  “The Port Admiral wanted to ground every ship in space, very nearly. Colinda Drake introduced a poem, authored by Xerxes’ AI in the last seconds. She was hundred percent positive that an AI that had gone crazy wouldn’t write a seventeen syllable Japanese Haiku-style poem in the last seconds of its existence. And hitting the nail on the head, as much as you can do in English. That captain had accelerated when he should have decelerated. He was going too fast to stop without killing everyone on the crew anyway, plus if he’d continued Xerxes would have plowed into the New Cairo base going faster than local speed limits permitted.

  “A month after the Board of Inquiry, it was the Port Admiral who was relieved for cause, not those of us who sat on it. The Fleet Aloft CO, my CO, and a lot of other good people shielded those of us on the Board from the man’s wrath. More than fifty others, besides the Port Admiral, were relieved for cause -- they had all bowed to the admiral’s pressure to pass his brother when he wasn’t qualified. Only one of them wasn’t a dirty-foot... since then, Fleet doesn’t let dirty-feet have any say in rating Aloft officers. They aren’t even allowed to be a majority on promotion boards anymore.”

  “And I never heard of it? I’d think that would be a warning the Fleet would push!” Robin said, amazed.

  “Oh, you see it reflected in the regulations that came down right after. But they are no more eager to fess up to a major mistake than anyone else, so it was buried ‘for the good of the service.’” He shrugged.

  “Now I’m procrastinating, Lieutenant. Get to your position and start to familiarize yourself with this beast.”..

  A little later he spoke to everyone over the intercom.

  “I am Colonel of Fleet Marines Trevor Grimes, retired. For right now, you are all under my authority. I’m still a colonel in the reserves. I didn’t receive my call up, but it would have come.

  “This rock was designed as a habitat of which I was the designated manager, and now that it has gone to High Fan, I’m Master and Commander.

  “I’m not a tyrant, but you will have to adjust to the fact that I’m in charge. You can voice your opinions -- and we will devise means whereby you can do so -- but when the decision is arrived at, you will do what you are told. We are Aloft, flying in interstellar space. As Master and Commander of this vehicle, I have full summary powers -- judge, jury and if I have to, executioner. I think you are all smart enough so that I can put that whole series of portfolios out of my mind.

  “We left Grayhome system after it was attacked by the aliens. The system was destroyed prior to our departure. I’m sorry beyond words to tell you this, but I didn’t hear any survivors in the twenty or so minutes I remained in the system as it was being destroyed.

  “I was reluctant to leave for two reasons. There is always a chance, no matter how unlikely, that the cavalry could have arrived. The aliens brought just five ships to the attack, and Grayhome’s defenders killed two. As I said, there were five.

  “I also was reluctant to go to High Fan because something this size doesn’t normally have the ability to go to High Fan. I was positive it would work -- I have moved this asteroid before on low fan.

  “I went to High Fan but at once fans began to fail. It seemed shorter to me, but the ship’s log says that we were only a few seconds on High Fan. Normally, we’d have been left high and dry, still in the Grayhome system. It is one of the reasons we need urgently to return to Federation space is because we are no longer in the Grayhome system. My calculations showed that it would take twenty-six hours to travel a light year in the habitat. We moved 387 light years in four seconds -- nearly a billion times faster than predicted.

  “The good news is that I know where we are. The bad news is, like I said before, we are 387 light years from home -- about fifteen months of normal travel. The butter side is that that fifteen months assumes we are under normal High Fan. Except I don’t dare turn them on, because I have no idea what will happen.

  “So, we are going to take it slow and easy and explore parameters before committing to anything. In about a quarter hour, I’m going to gradually apply power in the low fan mode -- that will give the appearance of the 1.01 standard gravities that most of you are used to. At that acceleration the nearest star is some eighteen years away. Please be patient... it is not my intention to make you wait that long.

  “I have appointed people to represent you. In the coming days, we’ll adapt that to better suit everyone. Please, don’t rock the boat. No matter what you think, you don’t know what you’d need to know to run a habitat with fifteen thousand inhabitants. I trained for it; I even have the Federation certificate that says they believe I can do it.

  “Trust me, if someone tells you that they know better than I do how to run things, they are shining you on. They will get you killed. All I can appeal to is your intelligence and common sense. I’ve lived here for ten years; I know this habitat inside and out. Stay calm, listen to the instructions and you’ll be as safe as you can be, given the war. Think you can take over -- and in a few months -- or less -- you’ll all be dead.

  “I’m sorry if these aren’t palatable choices. The choices faced by the leaders back home weren’t palatable either. Most of them stepped up and did their level best. They didn’t die so you could go and kill yourselves. There are a number of adults aboard; I promise to consult with them before I do much more than scratch. Then, ladies and you very few gentlemen, I will command what happens next.

  “Stay calm, stay focused, and do what you’re told. Thank you, and enjoy your trip.”

  Lieutenant Barnes laughed. “Not poetry, but about as good as we could expect.”

  “Get with Commander Robinson. Find out just how many cups of coffee you can make and how many you need to make,” Trevor ordered.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” she said, turning serious. She was out of her position and down the corridor at once.

  Chapter 2 -- Lost

  Trevor leaned back at his position after Lieutenant Barnes had left. Five thousand kids; he had mentally prepared himself for that before he’d decided to volunteer. He’d prepared for that, psyched himself up for that. Now, he was responsible for three times that many. What a headache!

  He laughed at himself. When had command ever been as easy as he’d imagined as a callow youth, watching people salute his division commander? Not even the first time!

  He rubbed his temples and tried to clear his head. Time, he thought, to stop woolgathering and try to make some sense out of his rather spectacular malf. He pulled up the reports of the original accident. Goodness! Those had been the early days! There hadn’t even been a formal inquiry after the original accident, only after the second, terminal accident.

  He had some data points that the original investigators didn’t have. It was but the work of moments to determine that the turbines had indeed melted, the accident had happened at roughly the same point in the turbine’s rotation, and as close as made no never-mind to the turbine’s RPMs. If he’d added or subtracted a percent of power, would the malf have happened? He suspected not, but the thought of testing that hypothesis left him cold and shivering. Not with fifteen thousand guinea pigs!

  Then, the even colder understanding hit him: unless he was prepared to spend the better part of the next two decades going someplace, at some time or another, he was going to have to give it a try. And there was no safe place to move his passengers to.

  He buckled down and began going over the reports for a second time. This time he made a force diagram, estimating the size and direction of the vector that had been generated. He wasn’t sure why he thought of it, but he hadn’t tried to orient the habitat towards Earth. His original plan had been to stop in the middle of nowhere about ten light years out from Grayhome and do it there.

  Again, he was stunned that, so far as he could tell, the displacement of the habitat had not occurred along her intrinsic, that is, her original vector, but had been lateral, matching up with the direction of the forces that had acted on his fans.

/>   He fell asleep still in the command seat and was there the first thing the next morning when Lieutenant Barnes woke him. “Sir, I am happy to report that there is plenty of coffee, enough to serve it with half the meals available. Commander Robinson says we have two point one million ration days... enough for a hundred and forty days per head. Further, she says that many of the younger passengers don’t eat as much as the older ones, and we may have the equivalent of three million ration days.”

  “I’m going to hold an officer’s call shortly.”

  “Is that to include cadets, Colonel?”

  “By all means,” he replied.

  “There are about three hundred and fifty of us, of various classes, first to third year cadets. The fourth years were scooped up by the Fleet at once.”

  He mentally blessed her. While he could fit the four hundred or so officers onto the command deck -- it wouldn’t leave much room to breathe. On the other hand, he had an auditorium that could seat nearly ten times that many. He made the announcement and went to his quarters to clean up and get ready.

  The toughest thing was deciding what to wear. A decade as a hermit wasn’t any help. But he still fit in a Marine dress uniform and he opted for that this once. After today, he was going to wear a white shipsuit and hope that no one asked if he had any Fleet watchstanding certificates -- he didn’t. He had a bunch of civilian certificates saying he could push an unmanned rock around, and another saying he could manage a habitat and another certifying him as a laser designer. He sneered at that. Maybe he should have worked up to his “masterpiece.”

  There were a half dozen adults, ranging from himself, four shuttle pilots, half of them male. He included Commander Robinson with the other pilots, although she was going to work in the hospital at once. One of the habitat shuttle pilots had smuggled his wife out; Trevor never thought for a moment of making an issue out of it. Better yet, she had been the commissary officer of her habitat -- the person keeping track of the supplies. She’d volunteered on her own and had assisted Commander Robinson in the inventory. It was the work of a millisecond to appoint her to that position for the habitat.

  The other three shuttle pilots were ordered to the bridge, to begin working up on piloting the habitat.

  The others were tougher, in their own way. “I want you cadets to go back to your quarters, sit down and think about your future. Your schooling and training were interrupted. At the current time it isn’t likely to resume for a year plus, in the most optimistic timeframe, and never is a very real possibility.

  “That doesn’t mean you can sit on your bottoms. There are fifteen thousand young people aboard and for them, lack of schooling is not an option I’m willing to accept. Obviously, some of you are going to wind up accomplishing that. Maybe most of you. At the same time we have to keep good order and discipline and that isn’t always as easy as you might assume.

  “Sit and think about that future. We are desperately in need for leaders; we are in desperate need of educators. In fact, there pretty much isn’t an area we aren’t in desperate need of people to handle the work. We have bridge positions to fill -- sensors, communications, navigation and the other specialties. We don’t have any weapons, I might add.

  “We have engineering slots to fill. The fusion power plant is working just fine, but the fans have taken a major hit. We need to get cracking on problem resolution there, or we’re going to find ourselves very much further from home than I first thought. Think about what you want to do with your future -- and then send me a message, including your public curriculum vitae.

  “Over time, people who do well will be promoted, although not very far. Please, go back to your quarters now and spend some time in thought. Reassure the other passengers that we are dealing with our problems... we have, in fact, dealt with our most serious problem.

  “We have sufficient food to feed everyone. There is going to be a fair amount of work cultivating and harvesting it. The variety of food stuffs available will decline a bit, but not the quantity or quality.”

  “Any questions?”

  A short red-haired woman of nineteen or so stood up. “Sir, you’ve promoted Cadet Barnes. I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not comfortable with the daughter of the planetary president being the first person to benefit.”

  “Sit down, Cadet,” he ordered. “I’m going to try to forget I ever saw you. I am not comfortable going into personalities, but this once I will. I killed Lieutenant Barnes’ mother and her sisters. Her father despised me, and I can see no reason why she should feel any different.

  “But, this isn’t about how I feel or how her father felt or how she feels. In the departure from Grayhome, one cadet distinguished herself from the others by providing liaison with the others when no one else offered. One cadet was willing to face me after I threatened to space anyone who bothered me. One cadet was there every time I turned around, needing help. So I promoted her. Despite her father, despite, I’m sure some well-deserved antipathy on her part.

  “Lieutenant Barnes has, I believe, learned a greater truth. That in order to survive we will have to work together, we have to rely on each other -- and not let personal issues interfere with our duty. Never let personal issues interfere with your duty.

  “Any more questions?”

  Another young woman stood up, only instead of staying in place she marched down the front of the auditorium. She was an Earth oriental, with a long rain of black hair falling down her back.

  “I want to make sure you recognize me, Colonel,” she announced.

  Trevor quashed his first reaction -- to squash her like a bug. “Do you have a question?”

  “I’m not stupid, Colonel. You were a Fleet officer only by association -- you were a Marine. I looked up your public records, sir. I’m Gail Pak Kim; don’t forget that name. Sir, you didn’t ‘murder’ anyone. An accident resulted in a number of deaths... but I’m talking about secondary issues, Colonel. The records indicate that the accident happened here, on this habitat. A misaligned laser. Is that laser still here?”

  “Yes, but it in no longer functional.”

  “Can it be made functional?”

  Trevor looked at her cautiously. “I suppose; but I have no plans to do so.”

  “Sir, I’m a Fleet brat. My father is a habitat manager, my mother a Fleet weapons officer. Meaning no disrespect, sir, but a Marine wouldn’t know what a Fleet weapon looks like if it doesn’t have a trigger to pull.”

  “That laser killed a half dozen people.”

  “That laser had poorly designed mounts, Colonel. And it’s not people I’m planning on killing if it can be brought to readiness. And I’m hoping it can kill a lot more than six.”

  What had he said? Not to let personal issues interfere with your duty? What had he done? He’d been looking for a source of process heat; a six-gigawatt laser had seemed to be the solution. Process heat -- not a weapon. He’d let his personal issues blind him to that greater truth he’d been thinking about.

  “Cadet Kim, report to me on the bridge directly.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” she replied, standing stiffly at attention.

  He left and returned to the bridge and spent some time controlling his emotions -- and checking progress. Lieutenant Barnes saluted. “Cadet Kim is reporting, per your instructions, sir.”

  He nodded. “Bring her to me. Get some coffee brewing.”

  “It’s already finished, sir.”

  “Then why don’t I have a cuppa?”

  Lieutenant Barnes grimaced. “A moment, sir. The coffee or the weapons officer first?”

  “That you have to ask means your education was incomplete, Lieutenant. The weapons officer.”

  Cadet Kim saluted when she stood in front of him. She didn’t say a word, just stood there. Trevor unzipped his shipsuit part way and pulled a key on a chain out. He tossed it to the young woman. “I hope to God you are cleverer than I was, Lieutenant.”

  “I’m a cadet, sir.”

  “You fire that lase
r safely, even once, and you can have any job on this habitat except mine, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t give that away to my worst enemy.”

  “I’m not that, Colonel.”

  She paused. “My mother was on maternity leave; she was down on the planet, weeks away from supplying me with a very much younger baby brother. I’d been counting my stars that I wasn’t going to have to learn how to diaper. Oh, I am so lucky, Colonel! My father was there as well, trying to get a ship, any ship, after the war warning came, to take some of his people to safety. I aim to kill a lot of the bad nasties, sir, given half the chance.”

  “Do what you can, Lieutenant. You can call on anyone aboard this ship that doesn’t have previously assigned duties.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” She executed a flawless about face and left.

  “A bit starchy, sir,” Lieutenant Barnes observed. “But I like her.”

  “Consider this, Lieutenant. If that laser had been working at Grayhome, we wouldn’t have had to flee from just one attacker. I don’t know if things would have changed because of that, but they wouldn’t have been the same.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He stood, took a few steps, put two fingers under her chin and lifted her head. When he detected no resistance, he leaned down and kissed her. Her response was surprisingly aggressive. He laughed after a minute. “I keep forgetting where I am.”

  “I remember, sir.”

  “On this bridge, I am your CO -- sir, to you, in other words. I’d appreciate seeing you in my quarters this evening. Then we’ll be Robin and Trevor.”

  She nodded. “A quick Robin moment, Trevor. I’m not stupid; Dennis Barnes might have been my father, but he never defined me. I am a pragmatic realist -- I understand that I have a lot of competition. I am not, Trevor, philosophically opposed to competition. I would like to have a say in it, though. Lieutenant Kim seems like a nice young woman.”

  Trevor laughed. Over the centuries, human relationships had changed. Once upon a time there had been limits on the number and gender of spouses. Such limits had long since been dropped. Still, not many men rated harems. It happened, though.