The Gramarye Grimoire
Christopher Stasheff's SF&F e-Magazine
Volume 1 Issue 7
Table of Contents
The Glass Marines: Epilogue
by Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Although badly outnumbered, the Glass Marines win their first battle—but over half of them
perish. Worse, the Army wants to court-martial them. But the Marine Corps protect their own,
and close ranks around the Malacans.
(16 pages, 4,680 words)
Flying Dutchmen and the Convenient Void
by Marcus Johnston
A comedy of errors as the crew of a decommissioned minesweeper-turned-garbage-scow just
trying to find some work.
(27 pages, 7,466 words)
The Glass Marines
Peter "Lou" D'Alessio
Copyright 2010
EPILOGUE: FLIGHT LINE G - JANUARY 18, 2056
The lackluster wash of teal that comprised sunrise over Hanger Four spread
through the northern sky in a manner that led you to believe God just didn't give a good
damn if another day started on this planet, which he had either forsaken or forgotten.
Marines stationed there could never really decide which—or if it really mattered, for all
that!
The hydraulics shop coming off night shift stood at the gate in a very un-Marine
like fashion. The smoking lamp had been lit and tired leathernecks gathered to mull
over the latest crisis created by the morons in Washington, and how they could manage
to screw up Marine operations on a planet so remote that God had to look it up on a star
chart to find it! Staff Sergeant Schaffer, preparing to begin the day shift, had drifted in to
the group from behind the off-duty seven-man team. As had become their ritual, day
and night merged and would separate not by the raising or lowering of what faint
illumination the orbiting celestial bodies offered, but by the Terran flight squadron
support teams merging at the flight pits to watch the change of security patrols at the
eastern perimeter. As on Earth, air stations throughout the universe are guarded by
Marines. While there was nothing new in that, the two teams approaching each other to
pass antique firearms off from night to day patrols always paused the Earthers.
These soldiers did not possess the 'smart' appearance of the Earth-born
Marines. They were baggy-panted, bandy-legged creature, their blouses tugging at
their buttons as if the entire universe was pushing down on their heads, trying to
squeeze them out their pant legs like so much toothpaste left in a deflated tube. The
Corps had never designed uniforms with them in mind. They walked like men, but ran
like apes, body weight shifting from side to side, the products of a planet with a greater
mass than earth. Of the lot of them, the tallest was a full inch shorter than the minimum
height for a Marine, and yet the smallest had a neck thicker than the Corps'
heavyweight boxing champion. Only their covers, the angular caps of the old 20th
century USMC, and the small anchor, globe and eagle on the collars of their antique
cammys offered the non-Marine military and locals at the station any clue as to their
purpose for being there. This pitiful bunch was the remnants of Gunny Christopher's
Glass Marines. Colonel Griffen had intended only to have them trained as Marines
(allegedly), but Gunny had misunderstood the order (allegedly). One hundred and
eighty-five green cards later and a couple dozen light years from South Carolina, they
became the first deep space graduating class of Parris Island—and they had made it
known very quickly, it was wise to give them a wide berth. The Army had found that out
the hard way—and scuttlebutt was that the Army had never gotten over it.
In combined exercises at Fort Grant on Salo Majoris (another solid favorite
location for space grade Marines, it wasn't the end of the galaxy…but you could see it
from there!) the Army brass had sent them out in the never-ending, pouring, salt filled
rain to wander through the valleys and ravines of the backlands until the Army found
and ambushed them. Or they drowned first! Some exercise for Marines! Walk around
blind until the enemy finds and shoots you. But by 11:30 hours, it had become clear
that the Army was just not capable of finding them. So Gunny sent out scouts to find
the Army. The scouts had come back and reported that the two Army chase platoons
had pitched tents—tents, no less!—and bivouacked for the night. The idea that the
Army had left 184 Marines and one very pissed off Gunnery Sergeant walking around
on a hostile planet—in the dark, in the rain—waiting to be ambushed really kind of
offended their sensibilities! So Gunny turned his unit around—and attacked! Not that
there had been much call for it lately, but it seemed the Marine thing to do! Gunny
Christopher was "Old Corps", a legacy that could trace his unbroken line back to the
first war to end all wars. And while his grunts were from another place, and perhaps
another time, they had turned out to be as "Old Corps" as he was.
They were well past the sentries—human, laser-guided, and electronic—before
anyone knew they were there. They had invaded the perimeter from three sides,
howling and screaming and discharging their weapons in the air like a pack of
banshees, not leaving one tent standing and beating down the lumps appearing under
the flooding canvas. The commanding officer that had issued the order that left the
Marines in the wet darkness was sought out, carried (tent and all) and, before
Christopher could stop them, quite unceremoniously dumped in a flooded gully serving
as a latrine. Then, as quickly and quietly as they had come, they disappeared.
The Army finally found them around daybreak. They had successfully invaded
the officer's club. There, based on a story their Gunny had told them, they revived
another tradition—carrier landings! Flooding the top of the bar with beer, they would
take a running start, jump up with their arms spread, and fly the length of bar like a great
open air ship landing on a carrier. Gunny neglected to tell them that this sort of
behavior was frowned upon these days. However, the average grunt butt-humping
anywhere in God's galaxy proudly asserted that even if they had known, it wouldn't have
mattered—they were real Marines!
Pending possible legal action, the unit had been dropped off on a backward little
pesthole of a planet that made the Arizona dessert look like a garden spot, for more
"exercises to develop discipline." Gunny Christopher got shipped to a Military
Investigations Board to be convicted and later tried. It was almost two weeks before
anybody realized that even pestholes had things of value to somebody. One hundred
and eighty four unsupervised Marines had been dropped right in the middle of a full
scale, genuine inter-planetary war. Of the one hundred eighty four that went in, only
seventy-three had come out. Having run low on ammunition, supplies, and personnel,
they had ignited high-energy fuel (about 890 million gallons, near as could be reckoned)
in one final stand. The blast was so intense it had been reported as a solar flare half a
galaxy away. The generated heat had fused an entire desert into a sheet of glass. The
invaders were repelled, the natives liberated, and the Army pressed for "Conduct
unbecoming Marines."
"Ga'damned shame what the Army's gonna do to them", a Lance Corporal from
Florida exhaled with the smoke from a butt. "Back at the Island, we heard one of
them even got the Medal of Honor."
"Well, son, it wasn't one Medal of Honor, it was four. One lucky winner walked
out alive." Sergeant Miller, the team leader, clarified, spitting out a large wad of chewed
tobacco and not quite missing the leg of his utility suit. "But what I'd like to know is how
a unit that earns Griffen a Presidential Reprimand can, less than a month later, get
voted four M-O-Hs by the Congress of the United States?" Miller paused, trying to wipe
the deep-staining hydraulic fluid off his hands with a solvent-soaked rag. "But you're
right, it is a shame what's gonna happen. Bad 'nuff they're giving the Corps over to the
Army."
Schaffer turned away from the group and directed himself towards G hanger.
Miller thought he heard him mumble, "It is a damned shame what's gonna happen to
those boys—but it ain't gonna happen on my shift!"
Hanger G was like any other hanger in a seemingly endless collection of hangers
in the Marine space network. The only difference between this hanger from any other in
the chain was the unusually greater mass of the planet on which it sat. The gravity left
humans huffing and puffing after even mild activity. Except for the Marines in
Christopher's unit, who had all been born on a rock like this one, few of the jarheads left
the artificial gravity of the immense poly-carbon domes that covered the hangers and
the launch pits. As approached for landings, these domes appeared on the horizon as
great golden igloos, a mile long and nearly as tall. To the Marine pilots charged with
ferrying the immense military haulers in and out of orbit, the view was the only thrill on a
planet that seemed geologically engineered for boredom. The ground crews found it
somewhat less exciting—but that went with the job.
Schaffer knew his remark had set wheels in motion. He had relied on an ages
old Marine tradition of self-reliance in impossible situations. Inside of twenty minutes,
every jarhead from three stripes down would know the bird scheduled out of hanger G
at 14:20 hours wasn't going to fly… without a word ever being spoken. Eyebrows would
rise, hands would signal, but the word would get out. It wasn't going to be one of their
spacecraft to shoot down the last functional combat unit left in the Corps—especially at
the request of the Army. So what if they were aliens! They were Marines. That was all
they needed to know. Somebody would think of something.
The yellow gear in the next runway was towing a bird to the line as the flight
crews raced towards it for last-minute pre-flights. As fuel was dumped and cries of
"Good to go! Good to go!" began echoing through the launch pits, Schaffer stepped up
his pace to a trot. His preoccupation with the immediate problem had cost him. He was
still better than a company block from G hanger, and when that bird's engine started
burnin' and turnin', if he didn't make it inside he'd have to…
"FULL BURN! H LINE. H LINE," a Georgia accent warned through
loudspeakers that shook the ground with amazing urgency.
"Ah hell! That fuggin' rebel Timmons is in the tower, and I ain't gonna make it in!"
Schaffer whined to himself. "The bastard's gonna push it just to see me grab ground in
a clean jump suit!"
"ILLUMINATED PATH, T MINUS NINE AND COUNTING. D&C, D&C!"
D&C. Duck and Cover. Across the field, bodies dropped to the deck as if
suddenly struck by the unseen hand of God. With a rumbling 'pow,' the chemical
propellants would ignite and the flight path would illuminate across the top of the dome
with a blinding ferocity, warning any incoming flights off the KU transmission to check
their flight plans or decide what kind of barbecue sauce they wanted to cover
themselves with. You could see the flash from the edge of the atmosphere straight to
the ground. And if you were on the ground, it was better to D&C than go blind!
Schaffer grabbed ground and cupped his hands along the sides of his face. He
found himself surrounded by members of his own ground support crews who had come
out to meet him. The tribe's gathering, he thought to himself. Through the loosely-laced
fingers of his right hand he found himself looking into the face of his crew chief—he
already looked pissed off. By 13:30 hours, there probably wouldn't be a tractor left in
hanger G that would make fitness-report, a virus in the computers or something. Word
was traveling fast. Hold your ground! Protect your own!
"T MINUS ONE. WE ARE LIT!"
You bet your ass we are! Schaffer thought to himself.
*
*
*
Schaffer studied the MAF for the 14:20 hours launch craft. A MAF, Maintenance
Action Form, stayed with a craft from the day it rolled off the assembly line till the day it
was listed as 'scraped' so it could be disassembled and used for parts. If a pilot
reported something as small as rust on the head of a radio knob, it was on the MAF,
followed by the action taken to correct it, and signed off and stamped by the CDI—
Collateral Duty Inspector. Schaffer knew he had a good crew. He couldn't remember
the last time a MAF indicated any problem. Things always went off without a hitch.
They had pilots, machines, fuel, and enough jarheaded techs to man two of the three
shifts… properly! And they did great work. This, too, was a tradition.
It bothered the hell out of Schaffer, as it did most of his contemporaries, that a
Marine Officer would volunteer to sit on an Investigations Board that was hell-bent on
destroying the last active, strictly combat unit in the Corps… and the Corps itself. But
The Book required a Marine officer to participate on the board. If this knucklehead
running the station was willing to fly three light-years to be that officer, general
consensus was that it was worth a few enlisted heads being put on the block to stop
him. 'Good of the Corps' and all that. Most of the Marines remaining in the Corps were
Legacies, men whose families had served over and over through centuries of conflict.
Like Christopher, most could trace their roots back beyond present day humdrums to
the glories of antiquity. There was even a rumor somebody's great-great-greatwhatever had actually been to the Shores of Tripoli. That was the scuttlebutt, but
nobody was sure just who, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion that it was just
boredom-induced BS.
Most civilians don't know that US Marine Corps is a year older than the country it
serves. On November 10, 1775 at Tun's tavern, the first Marine recruiter slicked the
first Marine into signing up. They were the President's Men—until the US of A started
running out of men qualified to be Presidents in the early part of the twenty-first
century… though it'd be a cold day in hell before it would be spoken out loud by a
Marine. And on that cold day, a Major, watching his command being thrown needlessly
into a meat grinder in a place God would have considered if the world ever needed an
enema, sent a letter to the press. It was the beginning of the end… more or less. The
Major, while publicly pissing off every politician in the US of A, had saved a long list of
Marine names slated for extinction, so there were no hard feelings for what happened
next. Congress had split the Corps away from the department of the Navy, turned off
most of the money, and started whittling their numbers down. There were now less
than 50,000 Marines in the whole universe—less than the number of Marines sent to
the Isle of Iwo Jima. The latest news from home had the Corps being turned over to the
Army. If there was any wonder at the respect the air station grunts had for Gunny
Christopher's Glass Marines, one need only look at the treatment the Army had gotten
at their hands.
Budget and politics had become the curse of the Corps. The only reason it
hadn't been put on eBay and sold was the proficiency of operation needed for space
travel, and a really sweet deal Colonel Griffen had made with an alien official involving a
truckload of butane lighters and a bunch of Marines. Marines had spent centuries
posted as guards on ships at sea—why not ships in space? The embarrassment
arising from a breach of inter-planetary contract caused by disbanding the Corps scared
the sweet b'Jesus out of the politicians. So for now, they were safe.
Schaffer looked at his watch. 13:20 hours. In moments, Marine Major Edison
and his two visiting escorts (they were Army, so nobody bothered to learn their names)
would be arriving to review the flight plan and examine the MAFs. The window for
launch angle was an hour and twenty. By 15:40 hours, the rotation of the planet past its
two small suns would make a proper trajectory impossible for at least a week. G hanger
had scoured the assigned craft since twenty past daybreak, and there wasn't a problem
to be found—not a virus in the computers, not a speck of corrosion, or a weak seal—
they were victims of their own efficiency. Schaffer stood, eyes affixed to the launch pit
monitors, waiting for the wave of a hand or the rush of an avionics team leader that
would signal a scrubbed flight. "Henry," said Schaffer to his CDI, a corporal from Iowa
who was sitting at a desk behind him, "it's all over but the shoutin'!"
Corporal Tiberius Augustus Kirk had been Henry since the day he arrived at
Parris Island. It was like anything else in the Corps; you could learn to accept it and live
with it, or die trying to hold on to a damn small piece of civilian sanity that you really
didn't need anyway. Greatly desiring to continue existing in the world owned by his Drill
Instructor, he let himself become Henry. He never quite understood why Henry, but it
didn't matter. For a guy from a small town in the middle of nowhere, hell, he'd done all
right. He'd posted a tour in space and, with a little pushing from Schaffer, he'd made
Collateral Duty Officer in less than two years. It wasn't all Schaffer though. If electricity
ran through it, by it, past it, over or under it, Henry knew the why, where, how, and when
of it! It was a knack he never knew he had until he was eight light-years away from
home. What he found most amusing about the entire situation was that the whole show
seemed to run on batteries! And it was his job to see the charger was plugged in at
night—or the show got cancelled.
"Boss," he drawled, never raising his eyes from the hometown newspaper he
was reading, "you worry t'too damn much."
*
*
*
"Excellent job, Staff Sergeant!"
Schaffer's eyes rolled slowly into the Major's as he handed him the flight orders.
"Thank you, sir," he said, nearly lifelessly. The Major seemed to be too taken
with his two visiting comrades to notice the rising depression in the room. He was
putting on quite a show for the Army aviators. After keeping the Control Bay standing at
attention for nearly twenty minutes, the Major had finally released them and returned his
attention to Schaffer. It was 13:35 hours. In his most authoritative voice, the Major
bellowed, "I guess this means we have permission to launch, Staff Sergeant."
"Ah, hell no you don't…Sir!" The calm voice wafting from the corner desk at the
monitor station startled the bay. "All due respect! You got a one-thirty-seven-stroke-sixdash-three-D showin' bad! And it's right in the middle of the TND panel! Just looky
there…"
All eyes swung towards the monitor screen. Henry was pointing to a small black
hole in a universe of red lights on a panel marked Tactical Navigation Devices. "I can't
let you boys any higher off the ground than the heels of yer boots… Sirs!"
The Major wheeled around in a full 180-degree pivot. He glared menacingly at
Henry, about to explode. "Corporal, who the hell are you to—"
"Corporal Tiberius Augustus Kirk! Collateral Duty Inspector… Sir!"
If the Major had planned to explode, Henry had just defused him. If the CDI
didn't stamp and sign off on the flight plan attesting to a craft's readiness for flight, a
three-star general couldn't order the ship up.
"…And!" Henry knew he had the upper hand and, sure as furry little critters wore
Marine uniforms, he was going to play that hand out. "…if the Major wishes to sign off
himself and launch, DESPITE a bad one-thirty-seven-stroke-six-dash-three-D," Henry
slammed a fist down on the MAF resting on the desk with enough percussive force to
cause the jarheads sitting at their stations to jump. "…I'd be the first to file charges of
protest as soon as possible. Sir!"
That one got the Major. A charge of protest from a flight grade CDI could end
your career.
"Corporal, are you threatening me?"
Henry's eyes were calm, but locked on to his superior's eyes. His hands,
however, were pulling the flight orders so tightly between them that his knuckles were
turning white. For one brief moment, every swinging Johnson in the room was certain
Henry and the Major were getting ready to spontaneously combust. In a flash, Henry
broke off visual contact and slammed the flight plans down with alarming force. "Sir,
there's only one bottom line, and only one of two things can go on it—my signature or
your butt! You wanna borrow my pen? Sir!"
Things were not looking good for the Major, especially with the Army standing
right over his shoulder! He was starting to break out in a cold sweat. The CDI had him.
A new line of attack was called for. "Corporal, I would suggest you investigate the
situ—"
Henry cut him off again. "Do ya know what CDI means, Sir? Corporal… Don't…
Investigate… Sir!" Henry turned to Schaffer, who had chosen the moment to grin like
an idiot. "Staff Sergeant, I'd suggest you get the Avionics team out there pronto! By
15:40 hours, if the problem ain't corrected, this flight is scrubbed!"
For the next hour and twenty, the Avionics crew assaulted every navigational
device in hangar G, in the craft, and on the station, top to bottom. By 14:00 hours they
had broken the station record—nine and a half miles of wiring had been checked for
operational correctness in less than forty-five minutes. A crew cannibalized the two
below-deck crafts for parts that might be needed (which wasn't exactly regulation, but
was known to happen from time to time when the supply of replacement parts would run
out). A newly arrived Private Montez even tried looking up what a one-thirty-sevenstroke-six-dash-three-D actually was in a tech manual. A Corporal Weinstadt, in his
second tour of duty, quickly informed her to forget the textbook stuff and just start
looking! She'd know what a one-thirty-seven-stroke-six-dash-three-D was when she
saw it… 'cause it looked just like a snipe!' The Control Bay consumed three pots of
coffee, re-downloaded fourteen new navigational diagnostic programs through the
craft's computers, and even found time to christen the two Army officers Captain Crash
and Lieutenant Burn. The Major spent a good forty-five minutes extolling his exploits in
the Army-Navy game of 2214… and Henry? Henry sat at his desk, not investigating,
calmly reading his hometown newspaper, and at precisely 15:40 hours, CDI Tiberius
Augustus "Henry" Kirk, USMC, entered unfit for flight into the station logbook, stamped
it, and signed off on it. It was over.
*
*
*
They stood at attention and saluted the exiting officers. Major Edison had pulled
Schaffer to the side and read him a small riot act about Readiness Reports and Fitness
Reports and Report Reports being on his desk by 09:00. It was the type of reading out
that the jarheads on the flight line referred to as an old-fashioned down-home butt
puckerer.
The whole of Control Bay G watched the trio walk the length of the hangar and
out into the dome, then disappear into an Officer's Club. Save that their heads were all
turned in the direction of the exit, they were all still at attention. Except for Henry. He
had sat down almost immediately and started re-reading his newspaper. There was a
macabre silence hanging over the bay that spread throughout the hangar and through
the dome as team after team suddenly realized something had ended the battle. The
brass was grounded for at least a week. It seemed as if the entire dome had stopped
breathing and was holding it's breath to see who had actually won! Then, as if a strong
wind had blown through the dome, a rustle that turned into a rush that turned into a roar
blew across the pits, swirled through the dome, and exploded into an insane victory yell.
Teams from the launch pits charged the Control Bay as if it was an enemy bunker.
Asses and elbows jarred each other as a human swarm cluster-fucked its way around
Schaffer, expecting explanation. But the man just stood there with a slightly dazed
expression, unable to speak. And again, the stillness of death filled the room. And
slowly, starting as a mumble and graduating to a stutter, Schaffer turned and faced the
newspaper at the desk behind him.
"H'Henry," the voice said carefully, "w'whatcha do to the Major's aircraft?"
"Didn't do nothin'," came an animated but strangely calm voice from behind the
newspaper, "and wouldn't do nothin'! Bad juju, bossman. They put you in the brig and
loose the key for doin' stuff like that!"
Schaffer wobbled, then slid down in his seat and just stared at Henry. Somehow
that little weasel had engineered the whole campaign—and wasn't going to say anything
about it! It became the universal thought of the Control Bay as a bizarre un-Marine-like
silence filtered in again. They had made mission—but nobody knew how—so they sat,
and they stared at Henry, who sat, eyes affixed to his paper… until 15:39 hours, when
the paper lowered and Henry's eyes fell again on the Control monitor. The Bay began
to rumble with a warning of a launch in the next Bay.
"FULL BURN… F LINE… D&C… ILLUMINATED PATH… T MINUS NINE AND
COUNTING", rumbled the voice warning of pre-launch procedures.
G hangar began to tremble from the F line path illumination. Sure, you couldn't
leave the planet's atmosphere for a week, but weather ships went up every day at 15:40
hours and orbited the planet, no matter what. From the corner of his eye, Schaffer
caught a red flickering in a black hole in Henry's monitor board. And as the ship jumped
from its pad with a great 'pow', Schaffer, noticed a pin-point red light flickering in the
black hole that had caused the scuttling of the Major's craft. The flicker blossomed into
the same bright red dot as its brothers. The fault hadn't been in the Major's craft—it
was in Henry's monitor!
"Just like ole' faithful." Henry was grinning a devilish grin. "H-line rumbles it out,
and F-line rumbles it back in. And I can't find me a single one-thirty-seven-stroke-sixdash-three-D resistor on the whole damned planet to fix the problem! Didn't I tell you,
you worry too much?"
Schaffer, for the first time that day, selfishly delighted in a sigh of relief. Henry
had come through in a quiet, unobtrusive way, and bought another week. He took a hell
of a chance, never blinked, never sweated, and all Schaffer could think was, Don't ever
play poker with this guy!
*
*
*
At 22:00 hours, the Major sat alone in his office. The Beaufort Air Station in
South Carolina seemed even farther away than it actually was. He was trying hard to
remember flying in a craft slower than the speed of light. He was sailing away to a time
when one of his mother's relatives from a long time past, a naval mid-shipman, went
with Presley O'Bannon to the shores of Tripoli in a craft made of wood and canvas and
rope. The graveness of the situation was weighing heavily on him, and the fantasy was
a welcome, if short, relief. He would have happily stayed at those shores, but a
scratchy voice needling through the intercom alerted him to an incoming call from
Washington, and brought him home.
"…Yeah, Griff? Colonel Griffen? With flying colors, just like you said they would!
Yes, Sir. Some silly-shit burned out bulb! Oh, they're mad as hell. They'll keep me
here on the ground for weeks. Now! What do you want me to do next with those Glass
Marines of yours?"
FLYING DUTCHMEN AND THE CONVENIENT VOID
by
Marcus Johnston
Copyright © 1996, 2011
"OW!!!" Todd screamed as the large glowing knobby thing shot a spark of electricity
into his right leg once again. Within the tight quarters of the shuttle (more like a flying tin car,
with about as much space), all the equipment was jammed up against the two seats, holding
the pilot and one very annoyed passenger.
He leaned up and yelled to the driver, "What the hell is that thing?!" The smelly man
barely noticed him, bopping along in his own seat, his headset pouring that damn vita-rey
music—a combination of heavy metal, techno beats, and animal noises thrown in for effect.
"Wat?" the pilot bellowed back.
Captain Wilshire reached up and pulled the headphones off the scummy shuttle pilot
and shrieked in his ear. "What... is... that... OW!" The torture device struck again. "That
thing... What is it?!"
"Wilt U laten me vlieg!" he shook off the captain and grabbed his earphones back.
Todd wasn't going to be ignored. He tapped his shoulder and pointed to the knobby
device. "That thing... turn it off!"
"Ik moet vlieg de boot, mijnheer!"
"Spreecht Engels, you stupid Dutchman!"
"Ik spreek alleen maar Oranje."
Wilshire accepted the pain of another shock as he let go of the pilot's shoulder and
settled back into his seat. The driver shifted back in his chair and flooded his head with the
concrete jungle music. Todd just sighed as he tried to relax in his pain therapy room. Damn
shuttle. The ship he just bought couldn't be bothered to stop at New Pretoria Station, so he
had to go in this death trap to catch up as it moved in orbit around Deseret. The captain
looked out a miniature window in the back. Yep, there it was. They said on a clear day, you
could actually see the planet. Todd seriously doubted that; the gray layer of space trash
surrounding the place would make it nigh impossible.
He shifted his view back up front, to the slightly larger window, hoping to see a
glimpse of his ship. Yet he saw nothing; just more empty stars. Wilshire had been waiting
his entire life for this moment. Years working for the Crown Company, working through the
ranks of the Intergalactic Merchant Marine Union, it all came down to this; commanding his
own ship on his own terms. He was desperate to get out of corporate life, so finally he
saved enough capital, got the investors, and now, he had his own company.
Deseret/Meergeld Enterprises, of which he was the CEO, was starting with just one ship. An
old auxiliary minesweeper; perfect for clearing holes in the space trash layers that covered
every inhabited world. Not glamorous work, but incredibly profitable. A couple runs, and
maybe, he'd make enough to keep his dream alive.
"Wat is ut naam de Uw vliegboof?" the pilot called back, just as the shuttle picked up a
sudden rattling.
"The name of the ship? It's the... OW! ...the Arge O'Darcy."
"Arge O'Darcy? Hmmm... hier het is!"
Todd strained forward to get a better look. As they began to close on the ship, he
could see that it appeared to be running backwards; braking. When they moved even
closer, its new skipper could see that she was not much to look at. A big dome in front (the
disruption pulse transmitter) connected to a large metal cylinder with three rows of lights
running around the thing. At the other end of the cylinder was a long three-poled lattice
tower (much like a large antique radio tower) with slender tanks attached to it. There was a
tube inside of the three poles, leading to the engine cake at the end with three exhaust
funnels, appearing to burn at standard thrust. On the engine cake, there were three fins,
each with the number "13" printed in dark black lettering. Not a very lucky ship, he
guessed.
The shuttle came in even closer to the cylinder; the main cabin. As they moved to
the bottom part of it, the docking ring, he got a better look at his ship. On the cylinder, there
was lettering. In prominent letters, it spelled "Arge O'Darcy" across the length of it, with
"New Pretoria Station, Deseret" written slightly smaller under that. Dwarfing all that was a
faded lettering, LMA-13, which apparently had never quite been removed from its days in
the service of the Confederation.
The floating tin can came closer to the flying garbage heap. As the shuttle glided in,
Wilshire looked out the window to make sure he'd know when to brace himself; Todd
guessed too late.
WHAM! The front of the shuttle hit the ring, jolting him into the pilot's seat. The next
second, the knobby thing fired a full jolt, jumping him up, hitting the ceiling, and finally falling
back in his chair.
The pilot, unaffected (or just couldn't hear it over his latest recording), began to flip
switches on his control, and the front of the craft opened up into the airlock. Wilshire grabbed
his forehead and tried to contain the headache in his brain. The Dutchman just got up slowly,
tilted his seat down, and motioned for Todd get up. Reluctantly at first, he slowly climbed
over the pilot's seat and took his first steps on the Arge O'Darcy.
The pilot said something (almost all that creole Dutch was gibberish to Todd) and
waved him goodbye. He tried to wave back, but his head pounded the second he released
the pressure on it. As the shuttle conductor got back inside his craft, Todd managed to hit the
exterior air lock control and shut the door.
Instantly, the interior door opened and a man stood there, waiting for him. He
appeared to be middle-aged, with slicked-back hair and a handlebar mustache. "Ah," he
spoke with a thick French accent. "You most be Cap-i-tain Vilshire. We have been
eggspecting vous."
Still doubled over in pain, "And you are..."
"Pardon. Let me entroduce meself. I am Commander Louis Beauregard, first mate
aboard the Arrge O'Darcy."
The captain attempted to stand up and walk out the airlock. He managed to do it, but
there was a lot pain involved, mostly in his head. "Yes, I... I remember your name. Mr.
Beauregard, do you... do you have an analgesic, per chance?"
"Anallgheshic, monsieur?"
"I've got a headache, commander. I hit my bloody head on the ceiling. You got
something for the pain?"
"Nott on moi, cap-i-tain. Perhaps on the breedge..."
"Fine, take me there."
As the interior door closed behind him, Todd noticed they were walking down a wide
corridor, with a pillar in the middle of the ship. Must be the lift, he thought; any convenience
would be helpful right now. "I don't know if O'Reilly fixed it yet. A lot of... stuff got shifted
during ze accident."
"What accident?"
"I better have Khalil eggsplain it to you," Beauregard said as he hit the call button.
Nothing happened at first; the light didn't turn on, but then, the lift doors opened without even
a ping.
Hands appeared and pried open the two sliding mechanisms. The man who stood
before Wilshire looked like he could audition for Father Christmas. "Damn ye, I told you! No
lift till I fix out the flaky bits!"
The Frenchman coughed. "O'Reilly, this is Cap-i-tain Vilshire, the new 'skipper.'"
Kris Kringle didn't even blink. "Captain Wilshire! Glad to have you aboard!" He held
out his hand, noticed it was full of grease, and retracted it. "Don't worry, I'm the guy who
keeps this ol' baby together. They call me many things, but the name's Andreas Yagashima
O'Reilly."
Todd would have laughed, but the pain was killing him. Clearing his throat, he
managed, "So, you have a rank, sailor?"
"Lieutenant Commander, according to union rules. But I don't even get out my
diamond anymore. Hell, captain, I don't care what I get paid, s'long as I get to fix 'em."
The rank of lieutenant commander was mostly an honorific title; given to lieutenants
who weren't given a promotion but stuck around anyway. Obviously, Wilshire thought, he
was a veteran, but this guy appeared to have been here since time began. "Do you fix
them, commander?" he said, rubbing his temple and hoping the pain would begin to go
away. "Can we get to the bridge?"
"Sure thing, sir. Hop on in!" O'Reilly waved them in while he put a device in one of
the side panels, twisting it around. Wilshire and Beauregard looked at each other for a
second, then at the engineer, and then cautiously walked in together.
With a flick of his arm, the commander pulled out his instrument and slammed the
panels back into place with his elbow. Then, gently, he touched the button for the bridge.
The calm whirr of the lift reassured them as they ascended. "All nine levels of my baby is a
beaut, if you don't mind me saying so. This thrust gravity crate makes me glad I got off
spinships."
"Really? What spinship were you on?" the captain asked.
"The TCS Cawnpore... Port Arthur-class battlecruiser. Beautiful ship, but I couldn't
ever get used to the rotating section during station keeping." Andreas beamed brightly.
"And if you know the navy, sir, you know that's a lot."
"Not much action since the Great War, eh?"
"After the first two hundred years, they get a bit rusty, sir. Space pirates and traffic
control just don't cut it for real action."
There was a quiet beep and a feminine voice chirped, "Bridge Level." As the doors
opened, all eyes on the bridge looked up, surprised that the elevator was working. They
became even more surprised when a stranger walked onto the deck, wearing the three silver
diamonds of captain rank on his shoulder.
Beauregard went on to announce, "Messieurs et dames, I present our new 'skipper,'
Cap-i-tain Vilshire."
Todd stepped forward, feeling like the New Colossus, except more comfortably
dressed. "I..."
"BRIDGE LEVEL! BRIDGE LEVEL! BRIDGE LEVEL!"
His speech was cut short by the loud voice behind him. Everyone turned to see
O'Reilly look at the panel, but the voice just kept repeating at high volume. He whacked
once, and then once more, but it didn't seem to do any good. Andreas pressed a button and
moaned. "I'll see what I can do," he replied, as the doors closed behind him.
Wilshire forgot what he was going to say now; probably wasn't that important.
"Where is Khalil?"
An Arabic-looking man stepped forward, with incredibly short hair and a spanking
clean uniform; the man looked Confed Navy all the way, probably some academy reject.
"Here I am, sir. Lieutenant Irad Khalil, SIR!"
"Lieutenant, why did we not dock at New Pretoria?"
"SIR! The fault was not with navigation, SIR!"
"Which is your department?"
"Sir, I am the chief navigator, sir."
All this formality was amplifying his headache. "You don't have to yell, Mr. Khalil.
Just tell me what happened."
"Sir, there was something wrong with the propellant. My calculations were correct..."
"Yes, but your ego's off," a female voice from behind Todd interrupted. Walking into
the bridge was a rather scraggly girl with rumpled, stringy hair, wearing beads around her
baggy uniform. She looked at him and just sighed, like she was disappointed. "You're the
new captain?"
"Yes," he replied, rubbing his temple again. "And you are?"
"Lieutenant Katerina Tretyakov." She proceeded to bend her head and massage her
neck. "The problem was with the mercury tanks. They got stuck for a couple of minutes
until the injectors unblocked themselves."
"So that's your area?"
"No, captain. Operations." Katerina rolled her head until she pulled it up straight.
"That's what the ship told me."
"The ship told you?" Irad raised his eyebrows.
"That's right, the ship told me." The chief operations officer turned back to the
captain. "Darcy's old, but she moves and breathes like any other creature. She wants to
rest."
"And you can feel that?"
Tretyakov looked quizzically at him. "Can't you?"
Todd wasn't really believing he heard that. "That's fine, lieutenant. Thank you."
Katerina just played with her hair and disappeared down another corridor. The
captain just shook his head and moved over to the captain's chair. It was set in the center
with control panels encircling it on three sides; backup controls for everything in the ship. In
theory, one person could fly her; however, it was doubtful the designer considered how
crowded it made the console. As Wilshire sat down, Irad came over. "Sir! Should we dock
at New Pretoria, sir?"
The more he talked with the navigator, the more his head pounded. "What's the
point, lieutenant? We've got fuel, supplies, and no one else to pick up!" He calmed himself
down. "Are we in optimal jump position?"
"No, sir. We have to make two more orbits before we've reached naught speed."
"Naught speed? You mean, till we've slowed down?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well. I'll call my business manager and see what our destination is.
Meanwhile, lieutenant, you have the bridge. Commander, show me to my office."
"Oui, cap-i-tain." Beauregard led the way as they left the command area and went
down the right. The Arge O'Darcy was a cylinder ship, so the corridors curved around the
central lift. Literally right around the corner was a door that said "Captain's Office." A little
too convenient, Todd thought, but he wasn't going to complain.
As they went in, the room seemed pretty spartan; desk, three chairs, a couch,
computer access, and a picture hanging on the wall. The last item was what attracted
Wilshire's attention, so he walked over to it. It was one of those flat holograms, the kind that
went out of style twenty years ago. It was an image of a beautiful woman with long brown
hair, in some lengthy formal dress, smiling as she leaned against a gazebo pillar. Truly,
after being in space for so long, it was a sight that brought tears to his eyes. "Who... who is
this?"
"I'm afraid I do not know. The first civilian cap-i-tain brought her en boarde. No one
knows who she es."
"She's beautiful," somehow escaped his lips.
"I'd like to believe that she ees the Darcy of our ship." Louis smiled. "Now there ees
a face that could truly launch a thou-sand ships."
Wilshire shrugged off his wonder; after all, it was just a picture, and he had business
to do. "All right, let's find out we're going." The captain crossed over to the desk and
activated the computer. After hitting a few keys, he said to the computer, "Access local net,
Provo, 1352-A. Enable."
There was no monitor for the computer, but quickly, a flat holoproj came out of the
desk, emulating a screen. While his executive officer sat down, it went through a series of
calculations, adjusted for lag (they were in orbit, after all), and made a connection. The
blank screen adjusted to show a man's face, rushing to get over there. Todd didn't
recognize him. "I'm trying to reach Andrea Renalde. Who are you?"
The man seemed rather squeamish and sad. "My name's Bob. I am... was Ms.
Renalde's secretary."
"Was?"
"Yes, sir. Ms. Renalde suffered the most horrible accident today."
Todd caught his breath. "Will she be all right?"
"I'm afraid not, sir. She was killed."
"Killed? How?"
"She was hit by a falling... satellite. I don't know how it happened! How could
something like that get through without being purified?!"
"A falling satellite? Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir. Hit her, WHAM! Right on her head." The tears rolled down Bob's face.
His tears turned into a full crying fit. "She was just walking down the street..."
There was only so much Todd could take of this. "Listen… I know this is a difficult
time for you, but DME must go on. My ship needs to know where to go. Where's our job
at?"
"I couldn't tell you, sir. She had all her records with her when she..." Bob went into
another sobbing rampage.
"Was there a backup? Something you could check?"
"Not that I know of, sir. She is... was…" The secretary cried out a rainstorm.
"Thank you." Todd waved his hand over a sensor and cut the connection. His head
found his hands. "Oh, Lord. What are we going to do now? Where are we going to get
some money?"
"Cap-i-tain, if I may be so bold, I know a job for us."
Wilshire lifted his head and looked over at his exec. "Yes?"
"I heer that Nieuwe Johannesburg desperately needs minesweeper work. Their trash
lay-ers are incredibly bad. I've herred that ze local gouvernment ees paying good money."
"Inside the Orange Free State?" To Todd, Beauregard might as well have told him
that there was opportunities in cleaning toilets.
"There ees money there, sir."
"How much?"
"I've herred about two to three million gil-ders a week."
"How much is that in Confed currency?"
"About four to five hundred thousand credits."
Todd didn't have to think about it for long. He'd gladly clean toilets for that much; did
they need his tongue for the job, or could he use a brush instead? With that much money, in
a month or two he could be financially soluble. So, the next thing he did was call the bridge.
"Lieutenant?"
"Yes, SIR!"
"Mr. Khalil, at your convenience, aim for the catapult points. Make your destination
Transvaal."
"Inside the Orange Free State?!" The navigator was as shocked as Todd had been.
"You heard me, lieutenant. If you need me, I'll be in my quarters."
*
*
*
Todd awoke to find that he was floating above his bed. This is not the kind of thing
one likes waking up to; it's like a bad hangover. Outside, the window glowed with light,
probably from the sun they just landed near. The catapult points were around the stars; it
had taken three days to get from Deseret to its own sun. The stars were the only place ships
could get enough energy to create the artificial gravitational whirlpools to fling themselves
between systems. It was also the only place that had enough energy to catch them and slow
them down. Instantaneous travel with only a few days time distortion; in this case, they lost
eight.
Suddenly, the ship shuddered violently, gravity restored, and Todd fell to the floor.
He didn't have time to scream before he slammed into the bed, bounced off, and ground his
back into the metallic surface. His entire body was in agony. However, before he had a
chance to enjoy his newfound pain, the intercom chirped. "Captain, sir!"
"WHAT?!" Wilshire screamed back, feeling each rivet in the floor.
"Sir, we have entered the Transvaal system."
"I can guess that, lieutenant!" He tried to stand, but he soon thought better of it.
"Wilshire out."
After a sonic shower and some painkillers, he somehow managed to make it to the
Observation Level to eat breakfast. That floor was in the middle of the cylinder, and a lot of
the twenty-person crew was filing into it.
The captain ordered something from the food distributor, got something completely
different, and decided to take it. In the dining area there were tables all around, with
windows in the sides showing a beautiful star-filled view. The crew were jabbering in
English and... that Dutch Creole, Oranje. Engineer O'Reilly was sitting down, so Todd
joined him, hoping to get some answers.
"Hey, sir, glad of you to join me."
"Good morning, commander. Answer me something."
"Such as?"
"Do we have..." Todd whispered it as if it were a dirty word, "Oran-gees on this
ship?"
"Yes, sir," O'Reilly replied matter-of-factly. "Most certainly."
Wilshire looked totally shocked. "My God, how many?"
"Oh, well... There's my chief petty, Johanna... Pieter, Diedre, Darren, and Gunther.
That's five."
"My God. Do you know what the union would do to us if they thought we hired Orangees?"
"Sir, the Oranje people are some of the best workers we've got on this ship.
Besides, they're not even foreign. They've lived in the Terran Confederation all their lives."
"You mean they're from Deseret?"
"Large Oranje community there, ever since the Confed took it back after the Battle of
Odervaande at the end of the Great War."
"Oh." The captain felt the ripe idiot. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry, sir, common misunderstanding."
The rest of the meal was spent in silence, mostly because Todd didn't feel like
embarrassing himself with more questions. After he finished, the captain got up and went to
the lift. Off to the sides, he could see the ladders, which worked as a backup to the lifts, got
you between decks without having to wait. As he waited for the slow system, Todd
contemplated taking it, but luckily he spared himself the hard work by the door opening.
A couple seconds wait and soon he was at the bridge. "Lieutenant..." he stopped
himself, when he saw that it was Katerina on the seat instead of Irad. "...Tretyakov, where is
Khalil? I heard him on the intercom. It was only a few minutes ago."
She lazily turned her attention to him. "Oh, Irad likes to be up front for the jump
sequence and rotation, but he runs off after that." Katerina twirled her hair, looking off into
space; the forward window above her head made that easy. "Is there anything you wanted,
captain?"
"Anything happen?"
Still dazey, she flipped a switch on the console. "Uh, yes. Just this."
On the speakers, there came a very authoritative computer voice at booming
volume. "Welkomen de Oranje Freistaat. Uw vliegboot identificatie moet be overstapje
nu."
Todd just looked at her. "Well? What does it say?"
She sighed and turned her head to the right, looking at a Chinese girl operating
another console. "Li Mei? Any idea?"
Li Mei had the one diagonal stripe of a Crew Member Recruit; entry level position in
the union. "I think it's a standard greeting. They want us to identify ourselves."
"Speak Oranje, recruit?" Todd asked.
"Barely, captain. I had three years in high school. I can remember a sentence or two
if I try. But words? They come easier."
Katerina shrugged. Todd just stared at her; who did she think she was?! He was
surprised she had gotten this far in the merchant marine with that kind of attitude. "All right,
lieutenant, transmitter on." She turned to the control panels, lazily flipped some switches,
and pointed back at him. He took the cue. "To whoever it concerns, we are the light
minesweeper auxiliary craft, Arge O'Darcy, registration out of New Pretoria Station,
Deseret. Request docking at..." Wilshire didn't know the name. "...uh, an orbital station for
refueling and supplies. Over."
There seemed to be an uncomfortable silence until a much kinder male voice came
over the speaker. "Arge O'Darcy? Our records read that as Confed Navy. Please clarify."
The captain coughed in shock. "Your records are in error. This ship has been
civilian for fifty years."
A certain amount of lag always happens when communicating between the sun and
the third planet. "Our apologies, captain. No one said our files were accurate... it's not the
first time. Destination?"
"Nieuwe Johannesburg."
Another long silence, and then the voice came back. "Popular planet. You are
permitted to land at Adeleplaste, a station in polar orbit. Docking Ring Three."
"Thank you." Todd whipped his hand across his throat and Katerina cut the
connection. "Popular planet?"
*
*
*
Three days later, when they came up to the Adeleplaste, they quickly learned why.
The place was packed. Despite the fact that there was two Freistaat fleets in orbit, most of
the ships there were minesweepers. From the start, it didn't look good for them.
The old O'Darcy finally slowed down for docking. After going backwards for three
days, they would finally stop, the thrust gravity would kick off and go zero-gee. This time,
Wilshire wanted to be strapped in on the bridge.
"Naught speed... now," Khalil announced from the navigator's chair.
"Very well." Todd began the litany; he had done it a hundred times on previous
ships. "Cut engines, and bring thrusters on, starboard."
As the ship turned around for docking, the large holoproj on the bridge showed the
space station. As two minesweepers broke away, one of them fired into the leader's
engines. While the damaged ion drive was slowly rupturing, the follower kicked into full
thrust and broke out of orbit. The other ship had to do some pretty desperate self-saving; a
chain reaction could vaporize a ship real quick.
"Oh, no!" Tretyakov exclaimed from her operations station.
"It's a dam-med shooteng war!" Beauregard said behind the captain.
"That's it." Todd started flipping switches. "Lieutenant, hit the brakes! Hold
position!"
While the Darcy came to a halt, a voice came in over all frequencies. "Black Karl,
niets te naar halt nu!"
Whatever the warning was for, the ship didn't pay it any attention. In the outer gravity
well of the planet, two cruisers with their rotating sections in stationkeeping turned
themselves in the direction of the Black Karl, their menacing guns pointing right her. "Black
Karl, niets te naar halt nu ou we moet moevan!"
Again, nothing changed the fleeing ship's mind. Then they saw flashes coming from
the cruisers. Within a few seconds, nuclear shells impacted the minesweeper. Little flashes
of light pelted the craft until they hit the engines. The entire sky suddenly burst as the ion
drive field failed, allowing the explosive to partially vaporize the ship, ripping the Black Karl
into the space trash it was designed to sweep. The universe never really needed more.
They docked quickly after that, wanting to avoid any other attacks. It's hard to crawl
around in zero-gee, so getting everything together was difficult, especially when the crew
was anxious for shore leave. Todd managed to propel himself to the ladders, which were a
little packed with everyone on them. Luckily, being captain has its privileges... such as no
one could leave the ship before he did. They quickly made a hole for him.
After waiting for the customs man, who gave them a quick look over, took their word,
and let them go, they all went through the ring and set foot on the station. As they ha seen
outside, the place was packed. Confed and Oranje alike, it seemed like one giant sailor's
convention; they had to have come from around the entire galaxy. Todd, after wandering
around the station to get its bearings, decided to get a drink. Like the station itself, the bar
was just as packed. Sure, the captain was eager to get underway again, but it took time to
get resupplied, and nothing in the universe would speed those station jockeys up.
Wilshire sat next to another officer, wearing the two diamonds of a commander, and
got to talking. "Yeah, it seems every minesweeper in the galaxy is after this lot."
"Anyone taken it yet?" he asked, hoping to know if this fool's errand was for
something.
"How should I know? Until we can figure out how to send a radio transmission
between two stars without it taking several years, then all we got left are the mail ships."
"But there's a delay, isn't there?"
"With anything, sure. However, the one that came in today actually raised the
bounty to four million gilders per week."
"However, if it's a ten-and-a-half-day jump… and it takes three days back and forth
from the catapult points..."
"Yeah, yeah. I know what you're saying, captain. But hell, even if it is seventeen
days late, I didn't come here all the way from Nouveau Acadia just to stop now!"
An announcement came over the PA. "Captain Wilshire de Arge O' Darcy,
alstublieft ga naar wit traanmiter."
"What does that mean?" he asked his drinking pal.
"It means you have a call at the white courtesy box." He pointed to a place across
the room. "Right over there."
"Thanks. Excuse me," he said as he headed over. Waving his hand over the sensor,
Todd asked, "Yes?"
"Cap-i-tain?" Beauregard's disembodied voice came.
"Yes, commander, what is it?"
"Ve are readdy to depart whenever vous desire."
He checked his chronometer. Todd had only left the ship a few hours ago. The dock
workers at any port were notoriously slow; Oranje or otherwise. "How'd you arrange that?"
"Well, sir, I... was abble to recrewt some..."
"You bribed them, didn't you?"
"Eh... yes, sir."
Todd smiled. On a corporate ship, a man could get fired for less. Thank God for
small enterprise. "Good work, commander. Send out a general call for the crew. We leave
within the hour."
"Oui, cap-i-tain."
*
*
*
It always amazed him how fast a crew could get drunk; even after only half a day of
shore leave. As he stood (well, there's no such thing as standing in zero-gravity) in the
gateway to the docking ring, his crew were literally flipping around towards him. He had to
catch one of them before he tumbled past the entrance. The Hispanic man he caught (a
petty officer with two downward chevrons) was completely sloshed. "Are you alright, petty?"
"Yess, sir. Luis the indes..." he coughed up some phlegm, "...truckab... what was I
saying?"
"Never mind. What is your duty, Luis?"
"Chief catering officer, sir."
Nothing vital, thank God. He'd hate to drive out of space dock with this guy at the
helm. "Get to your secure seat, petty."
"Yes, sir," he replied barely before Todd threw him through the entrance. Luis was
laughing all the way as he floated into the Darcy.
"Look, ma, no hands... ha, ha..." CLANG! After a pause, a weaker voice replied,
"I'm all right. Really!"
After counting all twenty aboard, Todd quickly boarded, closed the airlock, and made
his way to the bridge. The entire officer manifest, with their chiefs, were there as well.
Although, the captain admitted to himself, Khalil was looking worse for wear. "Can you fly
this bucket, lieutenant?"
"What?" Irad turned his head, wincing in pain as he looked at Wilshire.
"You don't look too good. Maybe you should let your chief..."
"No, sir. It was my mistake to get in a contest with a bunch of Germans from..."
"No, that should be bund of Germans," Katerina politely corrected.
"You got into a drinking game?" O'Reilly yelled out from behind him. "Ha! Be glad
they weren't Irish!"
"Silence!" Todd cried out. "All right, lieutenant, we'll do it your way. Tretyakov? Tell
the station we're ready to leave."
Her stringy hair floated into her face as she batted it away. "Yes, sir."
"Commander O'Reilly, are those docking clamps ready to detach?"
The old engineer patted the switch near him. "Ready as always to get out into the big
black." He looked down at it as it started flashing. "Oops."
"Oops?"
Katerina swung around. "Captain, Adeleplaste has cleared the Darcy for launch."
Andreas looked sheepish. "Docking clamps released."
Todd just rolled his eyes. "Lieutenant Khalil, use thrusters to move us away from the
station." A slight rattle followed as Irad hit the appropriate buttons. With the flip of a switch,
the captain clicked on the holoproj, showing the Freistaat fleet, some other merchant ships,
and stars. A little readout in the corner showed the distance from the station. Once they
had reached the safety margin, he said. "All right, hit the engines."
The entire ship rattled something fierce as the ion drive desperately tried to gain one
gee acceleration. Khalil was losing his self-control, his head bobbing up and down, as he
tried to contain his lunch. As the queasiness increased, he could fight it no longer and
vomited (in slow motion) over his console and onto the windows in front of him. While the
thrust gravity stabilized, the bile began to slide down onto the floor.
Clicking off his seat belts, the captain was pretty disgusted. "Lieutenant, you are
dismissed from the bridge. Go... clean yourself up."
"But sir..."
"Do it!" Todd looked around for the assistant navigator, finally seeing her appear
from the corridor. "Chief... uh..."
"Danielle Freeman, sir."
"Whatever. Take his place and set course for the catapult points."
"Aye," she replied as Khalil fumbled out of his chair and stumbled over to the lift.
Irad tried to apologize as he walked past the captain. "Sir, I..."
"Just go, lieutenant!" he shot back.
He looked like a shamed puppy. "Yes, sir."
*
*
*
As the Darcy made its way to the Transvaal sun, it was thrusting along right behind
another ship, a Dutch minesweeper. They were pretty sure it was heading to Nieuwe
Johannesburg too, but there was little they could do about it. Days in transit usually go
pretty swift; the ones at work or port seem to drag on forever. So, before they knew it, the
crew was called to secure stations. Todd made his way to the bridge.
Khalil was feeling a lot better today. Katerina was working on a crossword, Andreas
was cleaning his nails, and Louis was sitting behind the captain, looking stoic and probably
bored. Hitting the catapult points, despite the wonder of space exploration and it being basis
for the two governments, was a rather routine thing for merchant mariners like them.
Suppressing a yawn, Wilshire leaned over toward Tretyakov. "Well, lieutenant? Will
the other ship disrupt our jump?"
"No," she said, barely looking up from the crossword.
He raised his eyebrows at that. "You wouldn't mind elaborating?"
"Sir!" Irad jumped in. "The drain on the gravity field on the points should be gone by
the time we hit them, sir."
The captain shifted his glare to the Arab. "Are we going fast enough, then?"
It almost looked like he'd pout. "Sir, my calculations are correct..."
"I'm sure they are, lieutenant. Just checking."
"Two minutes to catapult point," O'Reilly muttered behind them.
Katerina dropped her crossword as she looked at the holoproj. "Captain! Another
ship leaving point!"
All eyes turned to the holoproj. They could clearly see a Freistaat destroyer barrel
out from the catapult point. The Dutch minesweeper in front of them was doomed, being too
close to jumping themselves. They could see the ship try to kick their engines hard to push
away from the point, but the destroyer came too fast, ripping through its lattice tower and
severing its engines. As the wrecked ship's cylinder spiraled off, the destroyer continued to
charge through… right at the Arge O'Darcy.
"Mon Dieu!" Beauregard let escape his lips.
The captain looked around him for answers. "Can we activate our defensive guns?"
"No way!" O'Reilly yelled back. "All crew is at secure stations. It would take five
minutes to get to them. Besides, they're not even charged."
"What would defensive guns do against that anyway?!" Khalil yelled at the engineer.
"Shut up!" Todd yelled back. "We need answers, damn it!"
Katerina was shaking her head, as if trying to vibrate the solution out of her head.
"Fire the pulse disrupter!"
"Are ye nuts?" O'Reilly replied.
"It'll knock the ship away and get us through the catapult point."
"Do it!" the captain ordered.
Louis turned to his own station controls and began flipping switches. "Seconndarie
reactor now charging pulse disrupter."
Wilshire turned to face him. "How long does it take?"
The commander looked scared. "Half a minute... give or take."
"One minute to catapult point," O'Reilly called out.
"Half a minute to collision," Tretyakov called back.
Khalil began muttering a litany. "Oh Lord, no, dear God, please, no..."
"I hope the engines give soon..." Todd muttered himself, watching the destroyer get
closer and closer.
"That beaut will rip us apart," Andreas added, not helping the general atmosphere.
"Ten seconds to collision."
A light appeared on the operations panel. Katerina practically squealed, "Disrupter
ready, sir!"
"FIRE!"
The shock of the pulse shoved everyone back into their seat. Just as the destroyer
was about to slam into the Arge O'Darcy, it was knocked back by the energy wave, kicking it
away like a metal toy in a bully's hand. The rusting minesweeper was barely able to slide
past it. "Thirty seconds to catapult point," the engineer called out.
"Sir," Irad pointed out, "the pulse slowed us down a bit. We might not make optimum
speed for jump, sir."
"FIX IT!"
The lieutenant shook his head in worry. "Hold on, everyone," he cried, and then hit
the thrust. The weight of two or three extra gees slammed into the crew, permanently
indenting the seat cushions. "Two seconds off, one second off... MATCH! Killing engines!"
The engines died right they as hit the giant orbiting doughnut of the catapult point. In an
instant, the ship flew into the gravity whirlpool and disappeared.
*
*
*
When your body is thrown at close to the speed of light, your nervous system shuts
down and glands pump painkillers into your blood stream. This is its way of saying, "Thanks
for the trip, but now you're going to die." The only thing that saves the human body from
becoming flat as a pancake is that the entire process takes less than a second, therefore not
letting inertia take effect. Throwing a ship via a gravity well and catching it by the same
method is a process that is almost instantaneous—but only to the crew involved. The only
side effect is that the jump leaves you blacked out for almost a minute, while your rocket
shoots out of the point like a bullet, travelling at the same speed you entered it.
So, just as the crew made it out of hell, they were feeling a bit nauseated. The loss of
gravity never helped things either. "Lieutenant Khalil?" Wilshire croaked.
"Yes, sir. Activating thrusters. Rotating ship to braking position, sir." The Darcy
managed to flip itself so that it was pointed away from the planet they were going to. The
engines kicked back on, starting their slow braking as they made their way to Nieuwe
Johannesburg.
The lurch caused by the restoration of gravity is a not a pleasant sensation. After
being shifted from four gees to zero-gee, then back to one gee, the entire crew was pretty
sick. Once Todd was pretty sure everything was calm again, he managed to unbuckle his
safety harness. "I think that was the worst jump I've ever endured."
"I'll agree with that," Tretyakov chimed in.
O'Reilly piped up. "I don't know, sir, there was this time in the TCS Devereaux..."
The captain whipped his head around and gave him a harsh stare. "...but as you say,
captain, the worst," O'Reilly added quickly.
"Let's no do dat again," Beauregard moaned.
"Commander, you have the bridge. I'm going to my quarters to sleep this off.
O'Reilly, I want your team to check that nothing got damaged. Tretyakov, call the planet
and tell them that we're on our way. Otherwise, no one wake me unless the entire Dutch
fleet is after us. Clear?"
*
*
*
When they ran into trouble again, it wasn't the entire Dutch fleet, but one really
annoyed minesweeper. "Kaptain?" a heavily-Germanic accent came over the speaker, while
Todd was looking out the windows of the observation level lounge.
"Yes?"
"Mijnherr, I think you should come to the bridge. We have a... problem."
Wilshire just sighed; this ship was a floating problem. After almost getting killed
outside the spaceport, at the catapult point, and now right outside their destination planet,
what couldn't go wrong? He quickly made his way to the lift.
When he got out, the captain was staring at the huge 3-D holoproj yelling at him in
Oranje. "Halt Uw vliegboot ou we wilt los! U wilt niet meenemen mijn geld!"
"What is that Dutchman yelling about?"
"Herr, he is..."
Todd cut her off, noticing that he was the only officer on the bridge. The female
chief petty officer was sitting in the captain's chair. "Uh, Johanna, right?"
"Ja, kaptain."
"Man the ops station while I try to talk sense to their captain."
The navigator, a little runt of a man, turned toward the captain. "The minesweeper is
in front of us, about ten minutes. They have their secondary guns charged."
"What is with this guy? Chief, transmitter on."
"Go."
"To unknown ship, this is the Arge O'Darcy, a civilian light minesweeper auxiliary.
What do you want?"
The disembodied head seemed to turn more indignant at the sight of him. "Halt Uw
vliegboot nu, kaptain!"
"Geez, he is ugly," Katerina said as she walked onto the bridge.
"Quiet!" Wilshire shot back. He squinted his eyes tighter, as if trying to read
something indecipherable. Damn it, he thought, I wish I had taken more than a semester of
Oranje at the academy! "Captain, I don't understand what you're saying..."
Johanna tried to help. "He says—"
"Quiet, chief! Let's see..."
"May I have my seat back, chief?" Tretyakov asked Johanna, taking the operations
seat back from her; the chief went and sat in the back.
"Halt Uw vliegboot nu!"
"Stop... your ship... soon?" Todd roughly translated. "Let's see... waarom me... halt
mijn vliegboot?"
"U wilt niet meenemen mijn geld! Halt nu ou ik wilt los!"
"Maybe he's wants to play chess." O'Reilly appeared, standing behind the captain.
Wilshire ignored him. "Your money? What about your... damn, uh... wat rond Uw
geld?"
"Ik is mijn contract, mijn geld! U wilt niet meenemen ik! Ik wilt los..."
"Captain, maybe he's saying..." Katerina muttered, but Todd wasn't paying any
attention.
"Contract? Fire on me? Wait a minute... wacht even, U hebben een naaister."
Johanna put her hand over her mouth as she tried to stop herself from laughing. The
captain was butchering the language, telling the other ship that he had a bakery. The other
captain was simply more pissed off. "Ik hebben een naaister? Wat?! Wenst U hebben
een garantie?"
"A deal? That's what I said! Uh... ja, kaptain... kunnen we hou van ieder..."
"WAT?!"
"Oh, God, that's not it..."
"Try telling him how beautiful he looks." Andreas laughed.
"Will you knock it off!" The captain turned back to the holoproj. "Spijt... ik betekent
kunnen we..."
"Wat U moet?! Speekt ou I wilt los!"
"What are you saying?!" Todd shouted back in frustration.
Johanna could contain herself no longer. "Damn it, sir! He's saying to tell him what
you want or he'll fire!!!"
"How would you know?!"
"The girl's right, captain," the disembodied head said to them in perfect English.
"What's your deal?"
A silence fell over the bridge. Todd's jaw just dropped. "You... speak English?"
"I found it wise to make people think you know less than they think. Now, captain,
what's your deal?"
The captain shook himself make to make sure he was hearing him right. "Uh... well,
we can share the contract, can't we?"
"WHY?! I've got you dead to rights!"
"Can you actually shoot us down?" Sense began to reign within Todd's mind. "I
doubt it; your beams aren't that powerful. And what about the other ships at Transvaal?
How many can you hold off? Face it, if you don't grab the contract now, there's an entire
fleet bearing down on you. Might as well grab it together, rather than plink at each other with
nukes."
"What's to stop them from cashing in too?"
"A legal contract and that Freistaat light cruiser parked in orbit. If we both get in, they
won't be able to kick us out."
The Oranje captain just rolled his eyes and sighed. "You're probably right. Okay, I'll
transmit to the planet. You do the same. We'll share equally, deal? They can't take us
both out together. Right?"
"Right. Arge O' Darcy out." The captain flipped the switch and looked at the chief,
his face more than annoyed. "Why didn't you tell me you spoke Oranje, Johanna?"
"I didn't tell you? /?! You bastard!" Johanna slapped his face, then stormed off the
bridge in disgust.
Todd just sat there, holding his aching chin, completely lost. "What did I say?"
"Captain, she is an Oran-gee."
When the truth hit him, Wilshire looked like he'd been visited by a sledgehammer.
Completely dumbfounded, he managed to mutter, "Um, I... damn it, is there any other way I
can screw up on this trip?"
"There's always hope," Katerina muttered, playing with her controls.
"All right, lieutenant, contact the planet. Tell them we'll be in orbit in... um,
navigator?"
The runt looked over his console. "About two hours, sir."
"Uh, yeah. Send it."
"Sure." Katerina waved absently, clicking a few switches and speaking into a
smaller transmitter.
The captain just held his head in his hands and groaned. "How am I going to make any
money off this garbage scow?"
"Well, sir, technically, we're a garbage plow..."
"SHUT UP!"
THE END